The Village Convict | Page 6

them in? They won't be afraid of me, will they?"
He stepped to the door and brought in a peck basket full of large, black,
twisted shells, and with a heavy clasp-knife proceeded to open one, and
took out a great oyster, which he held up on the point of the blade.
"Try it," he said; and then Aunt Lyddy, after she had swallowed it,
laughed to think what a tableau they had made,--a man who had been in
the State prison standing over her with a great knife! And then she
laughed again.
"What are you laughing at?" he said.
"It popped into my head, supposing Susan should have looked in at the
south window and Joshua in at the door, when you was feeding out that
oyster to me, what they would have thought!"
Eph laughed too; and, surely enough, just then a stout, light-haired,
rather plain-looking young woman came up to the south window and
leaned in. She had on a sun-bonnet, which had not prevented her from
securing a few choice freckles. She had been working with a trowel in
her flower-garden.
"What's the matter?" she said, nodding easily to Eph. "What do you two
always find to laugh about?"
"Ephraim was feeding me with spoon-meat," said Aunt Lyddy, pointing
to the basket, which looked like a basket of anthracite coal.
"It looks like spoon-meat!" said Susan, and then she laughed too. "I 'll
roast some of them for supper," she added,--"a new way that I know."
Eph was not invited to stay to supper, but he stayed, none the less: that
was always understood.

"Well, well, well!" said Joshua, coming to the door-step, and washing
his hands and arms just outside, in a tin basin. "I thought I see you set
down a parcel of oysters--but there was sea-weed over 'em, and I don'
know's I could have said they was oysters; but then, if the square
question had been put to me, 'Mr. Carr, be them oysters or be they not?'
I s'pose I should have said they was; still, if they 'd asked me how I
knew--"
"Come, come, father!" said Aunt Lyddy, "do give poor Ephraim a little
peace. Why don't you just say you thought they were oysters, and done
with it?"
"Say I thought they was?" he replied, innocently. "I knew well enough
they was--that is--knew? No, I did n't know, but--"
Aunt Lyddy, with an air of mock resignation, gave up, while Joshua
endeavored to fix, to a hair, the exact extent of his knowledge.
Eph smiled; but he remembered what would have made him pardon, a
thousand times over, the old man's garrulousness. He remembered who
alone had never failed, once a year, to visit a certain prisoner, at the
cost of a long and tiresome journey, and who had written to that
homesick prisoner kind and cheering letters, and had sent him baskets
of simple dainties for holidays.
Susan bustled about, and made a fire of crackling sticks, and began to
roast the oysters in a way that made a most savory smell. She set the
table, and then sat down at the melodeon, while she was waiting, and
sang a hymn; for she was of a musical turn, and was one of the choir.
Then she jumped up and took out the steaming oysters, and they all sat
down.
"Well, well, well!" said her father; "these be good! I did n't s'pose you
hed any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim. But there, now--I
don't s'pose I ought to have said that; that was n't very polite; but what I
meant was, I did n't s'pose you hed any that was real good--though I
don' know but I 've said about the same thing, now. Well, any way,
these be splendid; they 're full as good as those co-hogs we had t'other

night."
"Quahaugs!" said Susan. "The idea of comparing these oysters with
quahaugs!"
"Well, well! that's so!" said her father. "I did n't say right, did I, when I
said that! Of course, there ain't no comparison--that is--no comparison?
Why, of course, they is a comparison between everything,--but then,
cohogs don't really compare with oysters! That's true!"
And then he paused to eat a few.
He was silent so long at this occupation that they all laughed.
"Well, well!" he said, laying down his fork, and smiling innocently;
"what be you all laughin' at? Not but what I allers like to hev folks
laugh--but then, I did n't see nothin' to laugh at. Still, perhaps they was
suthin' to laugh at that I didn't see; sometimes one man 'll be lookin'
down into his plate, all taken up with his victuals, and others, that's
lookin' around the room, may see the kittens frolickin', or some such