# Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 60

THERE was a long silence, then Alice said:
"I wish I knew what ails you children. I wish I knew why you won't eat your meals like other children." To this Robert growled:
"I'll tell you. It's because we never have anything fit to eat."
"Yes," contributed Sara, "it's because we never have anything to eat except horrid soup an' meat an' vegetables."
"I hate meat!" Robert now grumbled.
"An' I hate vegetables, every kind!" said Sara.
"You don't hate rice!" Robert told her belligerently.
"Rice ain't vegetables," was Sara's contribution to botany.
From sheer weariness Alice had let this go on. Now she gave out:
"Suppose you make out a list of the things you like to eat."
Just as she said this Tom passed the door, crying out, "When I was young, eating was considered a privilege, not a duty!"
"He had got things to eat he liked, most likely," said Sara, wagging her head sadly.
Spirit again returned to Alice. She now asserted:
"I am not telling you children to make out lists of what you want to eat just to indulge you, but I should like to know what you would like. You have what every one else has."
"Oh, no, we don't!" said Robert. "Over to Jimmy ​Allen's I saw them have spare ribs and cabbage, and a stuffed calf's heart."
It was at this psychological point that their grand-mother entered the room.
"What's all this how-de-do?" she inquired. "First, I meet Tom storming down the street like a tornado. Next I come in and see all of you acting as though you were lamenting the fall of Ilium. What ails you all?"
Their explanations were various.
"Pa got mad," was Sara's simple version.
"It's that I have to eat bum grub while Jamie swipes the nuts and raisins," Robert contributed, more fully.
"Well, it's a thing I have noticed," said their grand-mother, "that none of your children eat enough to keep a grasshopper alive, unless you force it down with a force pump. What ails children nowadays, I don't know. When I was little we ate what was set before us and were glad to do it; and nowadays it is, 'I don't like this' and 'I don't want that,' and you newfangled parents stand it."
"I'd like to know what you'd do," Alice inquired bitterly.
"Not what you're doing," her mother-in-law responded briskly, "not be lying down and making a doormat of myself, anyway. I tell you, Alice, there have always been two kinds of children in the world—and heaven knows which is the worse—the kind that will eat everything and the kind that won't eat anything. And the kind that eat everything, will eat; you can't stop them eating and they are never satisfied, though they ought to be. The kind that won't eat anything, nothing will make them eat—not in our day. But in the good old days both kinds ate a good plate of victuals set before them, and they ate it up and they ate it quick! And then both kinds went and hooked cookies out of the ​cookie jar in between meals—for there never was a child born that wouldn't eat between meals if it could."
Alice thought of her problem during the entire afternoon. She might have saved her thought to some other purpose, because Tom returned early that evening with a solution.
"I know what we are going to do," he said. "I am tired of a nightmare three times a day. There are going to be No More Meals!"
This did not appeal to Alice's practical sense.
"What are you going to do?" she inquired.
"You and I are going to a restaurant," replied Tom; "these are all the meals that are going to be."
"You're going to let them starve?" Alice inquired.
"Leave them without food for a day or two," Tom pronounced, "and they'll come around all right. They'll see how foolish they have been, and then they'll all eat their meals in peace and quietness, and eat what is put before them. Of course I don't mean to deprive the children of all means of access to food. Three times a day bread and milk or breakfast food or something like that can be laid out on the table. If they want to eat that, let them. If not, let them let it alone. As for me, I am through! What I like is peace."
"I think," responded Alice, "that it's a ridiculous idea."
This response of hers was ill-timed. It led to conflict, and with Tom's voicing an unaltered resolve that the children were going to behave.
Meantime the idea of no more meals had seized on Sara's imagination. Leaning over the fence she told all who chose to listen what was going to happen. She told the Williamses next door. She told Gladys Grayson. She made a visit to Mrs. Painters to tell the news. ​It was no wonder that her grandmother heard of it and hastened to her son's house.
"Of all things, Alice Marcey!" said she, as she plumped down in her chair. "Don't tell me it was your idea. I know men! What do you want your children to be? Scavengers!"
Up to this time, Alice had had no faith in Tom's scheme. Now she suddenly came to its defense.
"I think the children will love it."
"Love it! Of course they'll love it. Such a charming scheme! They'll be eating all over the place—ash-barrels, probably,—the neighbors', of course. Well, no one ever said of me that I let a child go hungry. Poor little things! They can come over to my house and get a square meal whenever they want. Why you, a sensible woman, are taken in by a lot of empty words from an angry man is a thing I cannot see. Let men talk; then do as you please!"
Having given the sum of old-fashioned wisdom in the treatment of husbands, Mrs. Marcey took her departure, her parasol at a militant angle above her head, holding her skirts an inch higher than necessity indicated.
Laurie later appeared before Alice, stern and accusing.
"Tell me once for all, Mis' Marcey. Is it true what I've been hearin' from the neighbors, that meals is goin' to stop in this house and the childer is goin' to have nothin' to eat?"
"Certainly not," responded Alice with dignity; "they are going to have cereal and bread and milk set before them three times a day. Their father seems to think they will eat better if we leave them like that for a little while."
"And yerself what is you going to do?" inquired Laurie with sarcasm.
​"I suppose we'll go to a restaurant," Alice weakly admitted.
"Oho!" responded Laurie, who Tom had always maintained was indulged and petted too much, "Oho! You be goin' out and stuffin' yourselves with everything good in the land while the childer starves to home! Oho!"
"If you have anything further to say," said Alice with dignity, "you can make your remarks to Mr. Marcey. I think I hear him coming now."
And upon the appearance of Tom, Alice remarked: "Have you still made up your mind to make yourself a Laughing-Stock?" To which Tom Marcey answered:
"This house is going to be Put to Rights!"