“Oh, yes. We found plenty of tiny animals and specks of vegetables that eased our hunger and helped us to grow. After swimming freely for a few days our shells began to form and we found ourselves unable to swim long distances. They soon weighted us down and we began to sink. I heard a mother oyster pitifully calling, ‘Baby, baby, come to mamma.’ I wondered if it were my mamma, but I could not get to her. I came along by a piece of tile. Being tired and worn out, as that was the first clean thing I had seen I clutched to it, thinking that after I had rested a few moments I could go on. But I found that I could not loosen myself. Looking around, I could see tile after tile looking like they had just been scrubbed. Just like my piece, every one was soon thickly covered with ‘spat,’ as the oystermen called us. As fretting has no part in an oyster’s life we contented ourselves thinking that we might in some way again get loose.
“‘Perhaps,’ said one, ‘some of those big things we saw may come along and brush some of us off.’ ‘Perhaps,’ said another, ‘the owner may take up his tile and clean it off for other use some day; it certainly is of no use with us crowding on it.’ So we lived in hope.”
“How large were you?” asked Willis.
“I can not tell how fast I grew.”
Book again made himself useful. “Men who have watched and measured their growth claim that at two weeks of age a young oyster is as large as a pinhead; at that of three months as large as a pea. Its shell grows about an inch in diameter each year for the first three years. After that its size does not increase so fast.”
Mrs. Oyster again resumed her story. “At last one day they said that we would soon be large enough for ‘seed.’ A few days later we found ourselves broken off from our clutching places and shut up in some dark place. The next thing we knew we were being lowered on a sandy bottom not so deep down as our old home. Now, when we catch and grow on something we like a vertical position. At first our two valves are alike, but in time the left one becomes more convex. If the shell of one of us becomes so heavy that it breaks off, the convex side, in dropping, goes to the bottom. When they planted us the men were kind enough to lay us in that position.
“When I was about a year old I began to spawn. It is needless to say that I lived over again the sad experiences of my poor mother. Some of the spat attached themselves to my shell and I gladly adopted them. For a while we were very happy. Then one day, those great iron tongs again disturbed us. The ‘seed’ were broken off and I was replaced childless. Next time I spawned I understood what it all meant. I begged my second set of adopted children if one of them ever had a chance to do so to send me a message. I lived with the great hope that I might be allowed to remain there until I had heard from some of them.”
“Did you ever hear from any of them?”
“From only two of my great family, but other oyster mothers have not had even that much good luck. One day a diving bird came along hunting me. He said that another bird with great strong wings had a message for me from one of my children.
“How excited I became! One of my stolen children had been seen at the New York harbor.