So it is after we are seated. Certain actions are natural, as determined by the fact that while there is plenty of food, there is never on the table at one time enough of any one thing. (A few more dishes and platters would apparently remedy this.) Further, we haven’t time to wait. So we begin on what happens to be in front of us, cereal first at one end of the table, fruit first in the middle (if there is any!), eggs and bacon further along; thus by degrees we work through the bill of fare. And this is not improper.
But when the fellows take to laying in supplies of whatever is within reach, and surrounding themselves with plates heaped with the substance of future courses, it is first unfair and next demoralizing. If one man hogs the available supply for merely later use, he teaches his neighbor to do the same in self-defense. And so you can watch the proof of the old copy-book motto concerning evil communications.
A word concerning reaching at table, for your guidance, my dear mother, when next you find yourself at a table d’hote. I calculate that for this method of helping one’s self there is a wrong way and a right. Imagine yourself beside a busy person beyond whom lies the wished-for dish. If you reach with the arm nearest the dish, your arm goes across your neighbor’s plate, a fact which my neighbors have frequently proved to me. But if you reach with the arm furthest from the dish you will not cross his plate, your body swinging your arm in over the table. I come to this interesting social discovery rather late in life, on account of the excellent table service to which you have accustomed me.
There goes the warning bugle. If I am not safely tucked up in my little bed at taps, the sergeant will say “Tut! Tut!” So good night.
Dick.
Mrs. Godwin to Her Son Richard, in a Letter
Dated September 14, 1916
Your telegram, my dear, dear Dick, I have just replied to, and will now add such facts as I know concerning Vera’s going to Plattsburg. What I can tell you comes through her sister Frances, with whom I have always been more intimate than Vera, even when you two were engaged. And Frances has come several times to the house, now that you are gone. I asked her to.
If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy, think what it was to Vera’s. I don’t know anyone prouder than she. And to publish the fact that you two had changed your minds—! She wanted to go away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she didn’t feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly, who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg. Dolly’s husband is now on the border, and Dolly could stand the separation no longer. She was going to Texas, and one of the cousins must come to Plattsburg and take charge of her house. The children wouldn’t be a burden, because there was the very capable nurse who had taken care of them since they were born. And old Colonel Marsh wouldn’t be a bother, having a certain routine which got him through his days very well. Of course it would be very dull with all the officers away from the post, and those at the instruction camp constantly busy. But one of the sisters must come and relieve her, or Dolly would go mad. She is all bound up in that husband of hers.