"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 seaweed over 'em, and I don' know's I could hev said they was oysters; but then, if the square question hed been put to me, 'Mr. Carr, be them oysters or not?' I s'pose I should hev 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 didn'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 didn't s'pose you had any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim. But there, now--I don' s'pose I ought to have said that; that wasn't very polite; but what I meant was--I didn't s'pose you had any that was _real_ good--though I don' know but that I've said about the same thing, now. Well, anyway, these be splendid; they're full as good as those cohogs we had t'other night." "Quahaugs!" said Susan. "The idea of comparing these oysters with quahaugs!" "Well, well! that's so!" said the father. "I didn't say right, did I, when I said that? Of course, they ain't no comparison--that is--_no_ comparison--why, of course, they _is_ a comparison between everything, but then, cohogs don' 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.