|YOUNG children who have to wait till older people have eaten all there
is in the house, should not open the dining-room door during the meal
and ask the host if he is going to eat all day. It makes the company
feel ill at ease, and lays up wrath in the parents' heart.
Children should not appear displeased with the regular courses at
dinner, and then fill up on pie. Eat the less expensive food first, and
then organize a picnic in the preserves afterward.
Do not close out the last of your soup by taking the plate in your mouth
and pouring the liquid down your childish neck. You might spill it on
your bosom, and it enlarges and distorts the mouth unnecessarily.
When asked what part of the fowl you prefer, do not say you will take
the part that goes over the fence last. This remark is very humorous,
but the rising generation ought to originate some new table jokes that
will be worthy of the age in which we live.
Children should early learn the use of the fork, and how to handle it.
This knowledge can be acquired by allowing them to pry up the carpet
tacks with this instrument, and other little exercises, such as the
parent mind may suggest.
The child should be taught at once not to wave his bread around over the
table, while in conversation, or to fill his mouth full of potatoes, and
then converse in a rich tone of voice with some one out in the yard.
He might get his dinner down his trochea and cause his parents great
anxiety.
In picking up a plate or saucer filled with soup or with moist food, the
child should be taught not to parboil his thumb in the contents of the
dish, and to avoid swallowing soup bones or other indigestible debris.
Toothpicks are generally the last course, and children should not be
permitted to pick their teeth and kick the table through the other
exercises. While grace is being said at table, children should know that
it is a breach of good breeding to smouge fruit cake just because their
parents' heads are bowed down, and their attention for the moment turned
in another direction. Children ought not to be permitted to find fault
with the dinner, or fool with the cat while they are eating. Boys
should, before going to the table, empty all the frogs and grasshoppers
out of their pockets, or those insects might crawl out during the
festivities, and jump into the gravy.
If a fly wades into your jelly up to his gambrels, do not mash him with
your spoon before all the guests, as death is at all times depressing
to those who are at dinner, and retards digestion. Take the fly out
carefully, with what naturally adheres to his person, and wipe him on
the table cloth. It will demonstrate your perfect command of yourself,
and afford much amusement for the company. Do not stand up in your chair
and try to spear a roll with your fork. It is not good manners to do so,
and you might slip and bust your crust, by so doing. Say "thank you,"
and "much obliged," and "beg pardon," wherever you can work in
these remarks, as it throws people off their guard, and gives you an
opportunity to get in your work on the pastry and other bric-a-brac near
you at the time.