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"How could anybody help likin' Bayport?" Which Treats of Quahaugs in General Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's "stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him.
As, the sweet tones floated down the cliff Jim turned lazily to smile up at the speaker, and, raising his heavy basket of quahaugs, came leisurely up the steep sand-path, which seemed to shrink from his weight at every step: "Wal', Sairy, I wa'n't a-thinkin' much o' the water: I was a-thinkin' o' thee, an' o' what fayther said a little spell ago." "What was that, Jim?"
'Spesh'ly 's she ain't very rugged, an' sickly gals had oughter hev rich husbands." "But, father, Sairy an' me loves o' 'nother." "Oh, wal, then it's tew late ter say nothin'," said the old man with a mingled sigh and smile as, raising his basket of quahaugs to his shoulder, he walked off, pressing his bare feet into the yielding sand with the firm but clumsy tread of vigorous old age.
They tell me groceries and such like is goin' way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh," with a chuckle, "speakin' of quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your husband a quahaug, Mrs. Knowles?
Thought you was down to South Orham, takin' out seasick parties for the Ocean House, same kind of a job I used to have in Wellmouth." "I am," replied Captain Stitt. "That is, I was. Just now I've run over here to see about contractin' for a supply of clams and quahaugs for our boarders. You never see such a gang to eat as them summer folks, in your life.
"We call them quahaugs," he answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was evident, at the same time, that the question of a name did not strike him as of any vital consequence. Venus mercenaria or Cyprina islandica, the savoriness of the chowder was not likely to be seriously affected.
His next move was to rise and turn toward the door. I watched him, wondering what was going to happen next. He had a habit of jumping from one subject to another which was bewildering. "What's that fellow doing off there?" he asked, suddenly. I looked where he was pointing. "That is Zeb Kendrick," I answered. "He's raking for quahaugs." "Raking for what hogs?" "Quahaugs.
"He's not much worse than I used to be," she said. "I used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose I and Mr. Heathcroft were exaggerated types of a certain kind of English. We were English quahaugs, weren't we?" Hephzy nodded. "We're all quahaugs," she declared. "Most of us, anyhow.
Old Ezra Cahoon, of Harniss, was out in his dory stealin' quahaugs from Seth Andrews's bed over nigh the Wapatomac shore. Ezra stayed long enough to get one good glimpse of us as we bust through the fog; then he cut his rodin' and laid to his oars, bound for home and mother. We could hear him screech for half an hour after he left us.
There were errands to look after, and usually a pig, and sometimes two, that accumulated adipose on purslane and lamb's-quarters, with surplus clams for dessert, also quahaugs to preserve the poetic unities.
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