food was handed back to them from the table--so we are
told. This seems closely akin to throwing food to an animal, and must
have been among people of very low station and social manners.

In other houses they stood at a side-table; and, trencher in hand, ran
over to the great table to be helped to more food when their first
supply was eaten.

The chief thought on the behavior of children at the table, which must
be inferred from all the accounts we have of those times is that they
were to eat in silence, as fast as possible (regardless of indigestion),
and leave the table as speedily as might be. In a little book called _A
Pretty Little Pocket Book_, printed in America about the time of the
Revolution, I found a list of rules for the behavior of children at the
table at that date. They were ordered never to seat themselves at the
table until after the blessing had been asked, and their parents told
them to be seated. They were never to ask for anything on the table;
never to speak unless spoken to; always to break the bread, not to bite
into a whole slice; never to take salt except with a clean knife; not to
throw bones under the table. One rule read: "Hold not thy knife upright,
but sloping; lay it down at right hand of the plate, with end of blade
on the plate." Another, "Look not earnestly at any other person that is
eating." When children had eaten all that had been given them, if they
were "moderately satisfied," they were told to leave at once the table
and room.

When the table-board described herein was set with snowy linen cloth and
napkins, and ample fare, it had some compensations for what modern
luxuries it lacked, some qualifications for inducing contentment
superior even to our beautiful table-settings. There was nothing
perishable in its entire furnishing: no frail and costly china or glass,
whose injury and destruction by clumsy or heedless servants would make
the heart of the housekeeper ache, and her anger nourish the germs of
ptomaines within her. There was little of intrinsic value to watch and
guard and worry about. There was little to make extra and difficult
work,--no glass to wash with anxious care, no elaborate silver to
clean,--only a few pieces of pewter to polish occasionally. It was all
so easy and so simple when compared with the complex and varied
paraphernalia and accompaniments of serving of meals to-day, that it was
like Arcadian simplicity.

In Virginia the table furnishings were