"What?"
"Is the oyster a wild animal or a tame one? Maybe you don't think he's an animal at all, only just an insect; but my opinion is that he's an animal, and what I'd like to know is whether he's wild or tame."
"He isn't savage, anyway," remarked Little Peter demurely.
"I'm not talkin' about whether he's savage or not, but whether he's wild or tame. That's been a-botherin' me a good bit, and I just can't find any answer. Whoa! Whoa there, Jesh! What's the matter with ye? If ye want to start on, I'm your man." These last remarks were directed at the mule, which had begun to display some of the qualities of the famous character for whom he had been named; but his owner's words served to calm him, and Jeshurun soon stood in such an abject attitude that, to one who was not familiar with his ways, wickedness and kicking would never have been suspected of him.
"Maybe the oyster's a bird more than he is an insect," said Little Peter. "When his shell is spread out it looks something like wings."
"No, he isn't a bird, he's a animal," said Ted, "and what I want to know is whether he's a tame or a wild one."
"What do you want to know for?"
"Why, the way of it is this: Some time ago I planted an oyster-bed off the mouth of the river, and the first thing I knew my neighbors was a-helpin' themselves to it. When I said I didn't like that very much, and those oysters was mine, all the men did was to laugh. Yes, sir, jest laughed," repeated Ted, as if he felt aggrieved at the levity of his neighbors. "Then, they went on to tell me that I couldn't plant oysters, same as I did 'taties and things in my garden. Oysters was wild things and belonged to anybody that found them, jest the same as turtles and clams and wild geese did. I've been a-puzzlin' my head a good deal over it, and I can't make it out. I planted them oysters for Sallie,—she's my wife, ye know,—and as long as she had all she wanted of 'em, I didn't care how much the neighbors helped themselves; but when it comes to sayin' that them oysters I planted don't belong to me, but any one can go and take all he wants, jest as if they was clams, or gooseberries, or—or—or—saltwater, I don't know what to do about it. What do you think, Little Peter?" he added anxiously.
"I don't know; I never thought of it before."
Absurd as the question appears to us, it was far from being so to the people of Old Monmouth in the times of which we are writing. So warm had the discussion become that it was soon after carried into the courts, and in 1808 a case was tried before the supreme court, but no definite decision was gained. In 1821 another famous trial was held, and finally in 1858 the supreme court decided that oysters were both tame and wild. Where they had grown naturally and without being planted, they were to be considered as wild and the property of any one who chose to take them; but where they had been planted, and there was no natural growth, the oysters were "tame" and the property of the one who had made the bed. Even after that decision there was trouble for a long time in Old Monmouth over the question, although to-day it is generally accepted that a man may own oysters as he does other animals.