The tribune. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1875-05-12
Knew They We're Oysters.

A man named Horter lived out in
Colorado q few years ago, says Max
Adeler, but as his health was bad he was
ordered to spend year or two at the
seashore. He was born in the far West,
and had never seen an oyster in tsshell.
He bought cottage down at Atlantic
City, and went there to live early last
spring. A few days after his arrival he
saw man going by with cart-load of
oysters, which Horter mistook for stones.
Stones are mighty scarce at Atlantic,
and as Horter wanted some to make bor-
ders for his fower-beds, he asked the
man what he would take for his load. 1t
struck Horter that the price was high,
but he bought the lot, and had them
dumped down by his gate. The next
day he stuck eight hundred of them in
the sand in his garden, around the beds,
and when the job was done, he thought
it looked uncommonly handsome.
A week afterward there were three or
four warm days, and Horter remarked
that the sea-breeze smelled very strong;
and he told Mrs. Hort or that he thought
there must be dead whale lying some
Ahere down on the beach. The next
day the smell became more offensive,
and Mrs. Horter said that it was an out
rage that the authorities didn't clean up
the streets and remove the garbage that
poisoned the air. On the following day
the weather was extremely hot, and the
stencil became perfectly terrific. Mr..
Horter said there must be a dead rat
somewhere in the weather-boarding, and
he got the carpenter to come and remove
some of it. But he found nothing; and
upon going away he remarked to Hor-
ter that that saucrkraut they were cook
ing for dinner was the deadliest sauer-
kraut for smell that he ever encoun-
tered.
The stencil grew stronger all that
night, and on the next morning COM
mittee of neighbors waited upon Mr..
Horter to say that if he would kill that
skunk he would confer personal favor
upon them, and upon the people of the
county generally; for they could smell
him twelve miles up country. Then
Horter told them how perplexed he was
about the matter, and said he would
only be too glad to have the cause of
the trouble detected. So the committee
made tour Of inspection. holding
their noses. When they got into the
garden they perceived the oysters all
gaping wide open and evolving an awful
smell absolutely in fumes. One of the
committeemen. I ycssping the fact that
Hofter planted r&ese oysters, imagined
that he was crazy, Ind suddenly climbed
over the fence and want home. The
others remained and asked Horter what
on earth he meant by laying those
oysters around in the sun in that man.
ner.
"Oysters !" said Horter. "Oysters
yoL don't mean to say those are oysters
Grashus Well, we'll! that beats all
1 was wondering what made all those
stones split even down the middle. I
couldn't account for it. And so those
are oysters9 Why, I thought oysters
always came in cans2"
That afternoon he buried the shell
fish deep in the sand and the smell
ceased. Then he sold out his cottage
and moved to Long Branch. He told
Brown, his next-door neighbor, that he
knew they were oysters all the time
and he did it for joke; but he moved
because the people seemed to see too
awful much fun in it.