“If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a bad sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of Providence.”
The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently appropriated with great refinement of manner,—taking it between her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out and perished in the attempt.
The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had commonly selected.
“A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the—under limb?”
The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something had happened, a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively fellows come to high words.
“Young folks will be young folks,” said Deacon Soper. “No harm done. Least said soonest mended.”
“Have some of these shell-oysters?” said the Colonel to Mrs. Trecothick.
A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied that the Colonel knew what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without a qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even for the greater rarity. But the word “shell-oysters” had been overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards their newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen.
Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign to Mrs. Peckham.
“Lorindy,” he whispered, “shell-oysters”