And you know how
displeased he would be to find the children awake and watching him.
Why, he very likely would go away without leaving a single present.
To be sure, says GRANDFATHER. No, it wouldn't do at all. And,
besides, think how tired you'd be for tomorrow. And then you'd be
sorry with all the goings-on. By dinner time, you'd probably be
falling asleep, and we'd have to eat all the goose and the pudding
without you.
We wouldn't want to miss that, says GERTRUDE, shaking her head
decisively. I saw the pudding out in the store closet, and I tell
you, it smelt good.
I bet you tasted it, exclaims WALTER.
Indeed I did not, answers GERTRUDE in a hurt tone; not even the
eentiest teentiest bit of it.
What time will the dinner begin, grandfather? asks WALTER.
About twelve o'clock noon, I expect, GRANDFATHER answers.
And I suppose, says WALTER in a sorrowful voice, that the pudding
will be the last thing of all.
Yes, I suppose so, GRANDFATHER admits.
It will be an awfully long time to wait, says WALTER. And then when
mother begins to help it, Gertrude and I will have to wait and wait
while all the rest of you are helped. It's pretty tiresome waiting
sometimes.
But have you forgotten, Walter? GRANDMOTHER says, reminding him, You
won't have to wait as long as that tomorrow. For tomorrow is
Christmas, and don't you remember, that one of the ways in which
Christmas is different from all the other days in the year, is the way
in which the food is helped out at the Christmas dinner? On other days
the oldest people are helped first, and the youngest ones have to
wait: but at Christmas dinner, the first one to be helped to each
thing is the very youngest one of all, and then comes the next
youngest, and so on all the way round, and the oldest one has to wait
till the very last.
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