Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-09-10

as we have said, from the great stop-cock o.
the caldron, steaming and sputtering, into
eight enormous tureens. The shreds of beef
together with whatever solids remained be.
hind after the fluid had been drawn of, were
next fshed up from the abyss with long
ladies, and pumped into the decanted liquor.
The young grdsironome who might have be-
held these proceedings would wait till the lid
was taken off the saWkraat; and then, the
odor becoming overpoweringly appetizing, he
would run, as by irresistible instinct, into the
dining room, where most of the boys We're al
ready assembled, each with ration of brown
bread in his hand, and ready for the Fraus,
who were speedily about to enter. The din
ner was noisy and ungenteel in the extreme
how could it be otherwise centre q6ame ma
point d'oreitles. Hardly was the German grace
concluded, and the covers removed, when
that bone of contention, the marrow bone,
was caught up by some big boy near the top
of the table, and became the signal for a gene
raj row. All in his neighborhood would call
out second, third, fourth, fifth, &C., for said
bone and thus 1t would travel from plate to
plate, yielding its contents freely to the two
or three first applicants, but wholly made
quate-unless it could have resolved itself al
together into marrow-to meet all the de-
mands made upon its stores. Then arose an
cry words of contention, which waxed cold,
every candidate being equally vociferous in
maintaining the priority of his particular
claim. Earnest appeals in German, French,
Spanish, English, &C., were banded from one
to the other in consequence, as to who had
really said apreS toi first At last the 'dry
bone" was found undeserving of further con-
tention; and, ceasing to drop any more fat
ness upon any boys bread, the competition
for it was drop too. When now we had half
filed our stomachs with soup which few
physicians would have withheld from their
fever patients on the score of its strength we
threw in a sufioiency of bread and sdW-krdm
to absorb it; and, after the post-prandial Ger
man grace had been pronounced, the boys
left the table, generally with a saved crust in
their pockets, to repair to the garden and
flch--if it was flching an alliacous dessert
from the BEDS which they washed in the clear
stream, and added, without fear of indigestion,
to the meal just concluded within the chateau.
Most of us thove upon this Spartan diet; but
some delicate boys, unendowed with the os-
trich power of assimilation usual at that period
for boys, like ostriches, can digest almost
anything-became deranged in their ehylo-
poetics, and continued to feel its ill effects in
mesenterc and other chronic ailments for
years afterwards. An hour was given for
stomachs to do their work, before we reassem-
bled to ours in the classroom. At half-past
four precisely, goute was served out, which
consisted of whacking slice of bread, and
either a repetition of the mornings milk and
water, or cafe du ldit, (without sugar "bien
entendu,'') or twenty-five walnuts, or a cou.
pie of ounces of strong-tasted gruyere, or a
plateful of schnits Cuttings of dried apples,
pears and plums.) We might choose any one
of these several dainties we liked, but not
more. Some dangerous characters-not to
imitated-would occasionally, while young
Frau Schmidt stood doing out the supplies
from her supboard among the assembled
throng, make the disingenuous attempt to
obtain cheese with one hand and schn't= with
the other. But the artifce, we are happy to
say, seldom succeeded; for that vigilant lady,
quick-eyed and active, and who, of all things,
hated to be imposed upon, would turn round
upon the false claimant, and bid him hold up
both his hands at once-which he, ambi-
dexter as he was, burst not do, and thus he
was exposed to the laughter and jeers of the
rest. At nine, the bell sounded a feeble call
to soi-disant supper but few of us cared for
a basin of tisane under the name oflentil soup
or a pappy potatoe, salted in the boiling e
and soon after we all repaired to our bed
a noise for short time, then
undressed, and were speedily asleep under our
Duets, and as sound, if not as musical, as
tops.
Our common fare, as the reader has now
seen, was sorry enough; but We had our car
nival and gala days as well as our lent. Va
ter Pestalozzi's birthday, in summer, and the
first day of the new year, were the most con
spicuous. On each of these occasions we en-
joyed whole weeks holiday; and as these
were also the periods for slaughtefing the
pigs, we 1eu ltWlce u year lor u Wnole Weeh'i
upon black puddings and pork discretion,
qualified with sauce of beetroot and vinegar,
and washed down with fluid really like
small-beer.
CLASS.
The school-rooms, which lay Immediately
under the dormitories on the ground-foor,
consisted of q number of detached chambers,
each of which issued upon a corridor. They
were airy-th,r re was plenty of air Yvesdun
land lofty as became so venerable a building;
but they were unswept, unscrubbed, peeled
of their paint, and, owing to the little light
that could find its way through two very
small windows punched out of the fortress
walls presented, save at midday, or as the
declining sun illumined dmomentarily the dark
recess, rs comfortless a set of interiors as
you could well see. 1t required, indeed, all
the elasticity of youth to bear many hours
daily incarceration in such black-holes, with
out participating in the pervading gloom
Such dismal domicies were only fit resorts for,
the myoptic bat, who would occasionally visit
them from the old tower; for the twilight
horde of cokroaches, which swarmed along
the floor, or the eight-eyed spiders who colo