Here is to be your station at dinner. Other cloths there are, spread about, but Hen recommends his mother’s. There will be a family feeling, and less chance of neglect.
Drag slower and slower the minutes. Hen goes foraging, and returns gleefully with a cooky apiece. The delicious smell of sliced tongue and ham and boiling coffee permeates the air.
“Henry, if you and John don’t keep out from under foot, I’ll take you right straight home!” threatens Mrs. Schmidt, exasperated.
Other women, too, lower at you.
“Yes, boys,” chimes in the superintendent; “run away and play, and don’t bother the people getting dinner. When we’re ready we’ll call you.”
But, oh, dear, supposing something should be all eaten up before you got there!
At last, at the very last—as the French emphatically express it, à la fin des fins—your rebuffs are over. You are actually bidden to advance. ’Tis barely the wink of an eyelash, but ’tis enough; and before a word is spoken you are there, the two of you, sitting elbow to elbow, on your calves, against the cloth: greedy-eyed, watery-mouthed, faint-stomached.
From right and left come trooping young and old, none of them, save one or two couples from the Bible-class, trooping from very far. They settle like pigeons fluttering down to corn. About each cloth a circle is formed. Nobody is homeless. And isn’t it time to start in? Alas! not yet.
From his place (“Mr. Jones, do sit down! You look tired to death. Sit right here!” has been the imploration, and he has yielded) the superintendent bobs up and loudly claps his hands, and says: “Sh!”
“Sh!” assist sundry whispers, as warning to you and your mates.