The child gazes at the dishes there present, and is somewhat attracted toward one or more of them; but his brain thrusts upon him images of other viands, and memories of triumph in securing some vaguely remembered delicacy. He wavers in his mind, and wiggles his knife uncertainly. "I guess—I'll have"—Mamma is all attention. "Have some of this nice potato!" she urges. He had inclined toward the potato previously, but rebels at its being urged upon him. Also the cooing adjective affronts him. He has heard things called nice before, usually when he did not want them.
"No, I don't want any potato," he says. "I want—I'll have some sweet potato!"
Unhappily there is no sweet potato, and the good mamma smilingly excuses the lack. "We will have some to-morrow," she promises; and, to distract him from thought of the impossible, "Won't you have a chop?"
"No—yes—I'll have one chop. On this plate, not on that plate. I won't have it on that plate!"
"But this plate is warm, dear."
"I want it on my own plate!"
"Very well. Will you have some gravy?"
"Yes, I guess so. Not on the potato! Don't put it on the potato! I won't eat it if you put it on the potato!"
In time he eats, though not with eagerness. In his young mind is a vague sense of annoyance and discomfort, as if he were in some way defrauded of his dinner. The present dinner, rather gloomily going down, is contrasted with other possible dinners, not now to be attained. What he has suffers by comparison with all the things he has not, and a dim memory of previous disappointments oppresses him.
"He never did eat well," says his mother. "We have hard work to find what he will eat." There may be some digestive disturbance, but there is a quite needless psychological disturbance added. Choice is a wearing thing, even to the trained scanner of menus.