xclamation.
"Oh, shucks!" he said, then he laughed with the others. None of them
looked surprised. They all laughed, though somewhat ruefully.

"Anna came this forenoon and asked me what she should do," Mrs.
Carroll said, in her soft tone of childlike glee, as if she really
enjoyed the situation. "Poor Anna looked annoyed. This country air
makes Anna hungry. Now, as for me, I am not hungry at all. If I can
have fruit and salad I am quite satisfied. It is so fortunate that we
have those raspberries and those early pears. Those little pears are
quite delicious, and they are nourishing, I am sure. And then it is
providential that we have lettuce in our own garden. And the grocer
did not object in the least to letting last week's bill run and
letting us have olive-oil and vinegar. I have plenty, so I can regard
it all quite cheerfully; but Anna, poor darling, is hungry like a
pussy-cat for real, solid meat. Well, Anna comes, face so long"--Mrs.
Carroll drew down her lovely face, to a chorus of admiring laughter,
Anna Carroll herself joining. Mrs. Carroll continued. "Yes, so long,"
and made her face long again by way of encore. "And I said, 'Why,
Anna, honey, what is the matter?' 'Amy,' said she, 'this is serious,
very serious. Why, neither the butcher nor the egg-man will trust us.
We have only money enough to part pay one of them, just to keep them
going,' says she, 'and what shall I do, Amy?' 'It's either to go
without meat or eggs,' says I. 'Yes, Amy, honey,' says she. 'And you
can't pay them each a little?' says I, 'for I am real wise about that
way of doing, you know.'" Mrs. Carroll said the last with the air of
a precocious child; she looked askance for admiration as she said it,
and laughed herself with the others. "'No,' says poor Anna--'no, Amy,
there is not enough money for two littles, only enough for one
little. What shall we do, Amy?' 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had chops for
lunch.' 'Those aren't paid for, and that is the reason we can't have
beef for dinner,' says Anna. 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had those chops,
didn't we? And the butcher can't alter that, anyway; and we are all
nourished by those chops, and dear Arthur has had his good luncheon
in the City, and there is soup-stock in the house, and things to make
one of those delicious raspberry-puddings, and we cannot starve, we
poor but honest Carrolls, on those things; and eggs are cheaper, are
they not, honey, dear?' 'Yes,' says Anna, with that sort of groan she