If you were eating plum tart or cherry pudding, how should you manage
with the stones? (Let children try to answer.) When a little bird eats a
cherry, he drops the stone on the ground; the bird has no spoon and fork
to eat with, so that is the best thing he can do.
One day a boy, named Kenneth, was invited out to dinner, and one of the
dishes was cherry tart. There was a custard pudding as well, but Kenneth
thought he would like cherry tart better, and he did not remember that
the stones might be a difficulty until he began to eat it. He felt sure
that it was not right to drop them out of his mouth on to the plate, and
he could not think what else to do. He looked round the table, but no
one else was taking cherry tart, or he might have noticed what another
person did. At last he determined that he would keep all the cherry
stones in his cheek until dinner was over, and put them out afterwards,
when no one was looking. But presently some one told a funny little
story, and, as Kenneth could not help laughing with the rest, out came
the cherry stones, to his great dismay.
The best way is to separate the stone from the cherry on your plate with
the spoon and fork, but if you cannot manage this, take the stone from
your mouth with the spoon, and put it gently on the edge of the plate.
Everybody has to learn these things, and as no one had happened to tell
Kenneth, of course he did not know.