Aunt Judys Tales | Page 6

little ones obeyed, and breathed out a groan that seemed to come from the very depths of their hearts; but somehow or other, as the story proceeded, the faces looked rather less amused, and rather more anxious, than at first.
What could the little ones be thinking about to make them grave?
It was evidently quite a relief when Aunt Judy went on:-
"You will be very much surprised, I dare say," said she, "to hear of the next misery I am going to tell you about. It may be called the DINNER misery, and the little Victims underwent it every day."
"Did they give them nasty things to eat, Aunt Judy?" murmured No. 8, very anxiously.
"More likely not half enough," suggested No. 5.
"But you promised not to make the story TOO sad, remember!" observed No. 6.
"I did," replied Aunt Judy, "and the DINNER misery did not consist in nasty food, or there not being enough. They had plenty to eat, I assure you, and everything was good. But--"
Aunt Judy stopped short, and glanced at each of the little ones in succession.
"Make haste, Aunt Judy!" cried No. 8. "But what?"
"BUT," resumed Aunt Judy, in her most impressive tone, "they had to wait between the courses."
Again Aunt Judy paused, and there was a looking hither and thither among the little ones, and a shuffling about on the small Derby chairs, while one or two pairs of eyes were suddenly turned to the fire, as if watching it relieved a certain degree of embarrassment which their owners began to experience.
"It is not every little boy or girl," was Aunt Judy's next remark, "who knows what the courses of a dinner are."
"I don't," interposed No. 8, in a distressed voice, as if he had been deeply injured.
"Oh, you think not? Well, not by name, perhaps," answered Aunt Judy. "But I will explain. The courses of a dinner are the different sorts of food, which follow each other one after the other, till dinner is what people call 'over.' Thus, supposing a dinner was to begin with pea-soup, as you have sometimes seen it do, you would expect when it was taken away to see some meat put upon the table, should you not?"
The little ones nodded assent.
"And after the meat was gone, you would expect pie or pudding, eh?"
They nodded assent again, and with a smile.
"And if after the pudding was carried away, you saw some cheese and celery arrive, it would not startle you very much, would it?"
The little ones did nothing but laugh.
"Very well," pursued Aunt Judy, "such a dinner as we have been talking about consists of four courses. The soup course, the meat course, the pudding course, and the cheese course. And it was while one course was being carried out, and another fetched in, that the little Victims had to wait; and that was the DINNER misery I spoke about, and a very grievous affair it was. Sometimes they had actually to wait several minutes, with nothing to do but to fidget on their chairs, lean backwards till they toppled over, or forward till some accident occurred at the table. And then, poor little things, if they ventured to get out their knuckle-bones for a game, or took to a little boxing amusement among themselves, or to throwing the salt in each other's mugs, or pelting each other with bits of bread, or anything nice and entertaining, down came those merciless keepers on their innocent mirth, and the old stupid order went round for sitting upright and quiet. Nothing that I can say about it would be half as expressive as what the little Victims used to say themselves. They said that it was 'SO VERY HARD.'
"Now, then, a good groan for the DINNER misery," exclaimed Aunt Judy in conclusion.
The order was obeyed, but somewhat reluctantly, and then Aunt Judy proceeded with her tale.
"On one occasion of the DINNER misery," resumed she, "there happened to be a stranger lady present, who seemed to be very much shocked by what the Victims had to undergo, and to pity them very much; so she said she would set them a nice little puzzle to amuse them till the second course arrived. But now, what do you think the puzzle was? It was a question, and this was it. 'Which is the harder thing to bear--to have to wait for your dinner, or to have no dinner to wait for?'
"I do not think the little Victims would have quite known what the stranger lady meant, if she had not explained herself; for you see THEY had never gone without dinner in their lives, so they had not an idea what sort of a feeling it was to have NO DINNER TO WAIT FOR. But she went on to tell them what it was like as