“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 thing. 'T ain't the fust time I 've known all hands to laugh all to once-t, when I didn't see nothin'.”
Susan helped him again, and secured another brief respite.
“Ephraim,” said he, after a while, “you ain't skilled to cook oysters like this, I don't believe. You ought to git married! I was sayin' to Susan t'other day—well, now, mother, hev I said anything out o' the way? Well, I don't s'pose 't was just my place to have said anything about gitt'n' married, to Ephraim, seein's—”
“Come, come, father,” said Aunt Lyddy, “that'll do, now. You must let Ephraim alone, and not joke him about such things.”
Meanwhile Susan had hastily gone into the pantry to look for a pie, which she seemed unable at once to find.
“Pie got adrift?” called out Joshua. “Seems to me you don't hook on to it very quick. Now that looks good,” he added, when she came out.