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

Forbcar to scoif at woes You cannot feel,
Nor mock the misery Of a stinted meal.

|
The dietary tables at the chateau, conspicu-
Gus alike for the paucity and simplicity of the
articles registered therein, are easily recalled
to mind. The fare they exhibited was GER
tainly coarse-though, by euphemism, il
might have been termed merely piain-and
spare withal. The breakfast would consist Of
milk and water-the first aqueous enough
without dilution, being the produce of certain
| ill-favored, and, as we afterwards tasted theil
flesh, we may add ill-favored kline, whose
impoverished lacteals could furnish out Of
their sorry fodder no better supplies. It was
London sky-blue; in short, but not of the
Alderney dairy, which was made to serve oui
turn at Yverdun. This milk, at seven in
summer, and at half-past seven in winter
was transferred boiling, and as yet unadulte-
rated, into earthenware mixers, which had
been previously half-flled with hot water
from a neighboring kettle. In this half-and-
half state il was baled out for the assembled
school into series of pewter platters, ranged
along the sides of three bare deal boards,
some thirty feet long by two wide, and mount
ed oil tressels, which served us for tables.
The ministering damsels were two great Ger
man fraus, rejoicing severally in the pleasing
names of Gretchen and Bessie, When Frau
Gretchen, standing behind each boy, had
dropt her allowance of milk over his right
shoulle during which process there was
generally a mighty clatter for full measure
and fair play-the other Frau was slicing of
her slices of bread from brown loaf yard
long, which she carried under her arm, and
slashed clean through with wonderful preci-
sion and address. 1t was now for all those
who had saved pocket-money for menus-pldisirS
to produce their cornets of cinnamon or sugar,
sprinkling little into the milk, and then fall
to slipping and munching with increased zest
and satisfaction. So dry and chaffy was our
main de menage that none ventured to soak it
entire, or at once, but would cut it into Jius-
trums and retain liquid enough to wash down
the boluses separately. In few minutes
every plate was completely cleaned out and
polished and the cats, that generally entered
the room as we left it, seldom found drop
with which they might moisten their tongues,
or remove from cheeks and whiskers the red
stains of murdered mice OIL which they had
been breaking their fast in the great tower.
So much for the earliest meal of the day,
which was to carry us through five hours, If
not of laborious mental study, at least of the
incarceration of our bodies in class, which was
eouaIly irksome to them as if our minds had
been hard at work. These five hours termi-
mated, states were once more insalivated and
put by clean, and the hungry garrison began
to look forward to the pleasures of the noon
day repast The same bell that had been
calling so often to class would now give pre-
monitory notice of dinner but in greatly
changed tone. In place of the shrill snap
pish key in which it had all the morning
ierked ont each short unwelcome summons
from lesson TO lesson, as if fearful of ringing
one note beyond the prescribed minute, it
now would take time, vibrate far and wide in
its cage, give full scope to its tongue, and
appear from the loud increased swell OF its
nrolonged oye=, to announce the message OF
good cheer like herald conscious and proud
of his commission. Ding-dong come alongl
Dinners dishing -ding-dongl Da capo and
encore ! Then, starting up from every school
room form throughout the chateau, the noisy
boys rushed pell-mell, opened all the doors,
and, like emergent bees in quest of honey
began coursing up and down right busily be-
tween the salie-a-mdnge, and the Kitchen
snufing the various aromas as they escaped
from the latter into the passage, and interrlng
from the amount of exhaled fragrance the ac-
tual progress of the preparations for eating
Occasionally some ''sly Toni would peer
into the kitchen, while the Fraus were TOT
busy to notice him, and watch the great cal
dron that had been MIXED dry of its stores il
the morning, now discharging its aqueous
contents of much -attenuated JouiHon-th'
surface covered with Jumps of swimming
bpe6d, thiclxened throughout with hydrat
81 potatoes, and colored with coarse insipi'
carrots, which certainly gave it savory ap
pearance. 1t was not good broth-far fror