When you have had some good games of play after school, and have finished whatever errands you may have to run, or have done the chores about the barn or the garden or the house, you will begin to feel as if there were something missing somewhere. It won’t take you very long to discover where that missing feeling is; and when you hear a call from the house, or a ring of the bell in the hall, you come running in for supper. If you have worked well in school and played hard and done your chores well, you will have a splendid appetite. In fact, you will think there is no other meal in the day that tastes quite so good.

Is your evening meal supper or dinner? If you have had a hot dinner at noon, you probably do not want anything more than a good supper. But if you had only luncheon, then you are ready to eat something hot and hearty about six o’clock.

What are some of the things that you like for dinner? Meat and eggs and bread and butter and jam and rice and potatoes and onions and celery and cookies and apples and oranges and oh, so many, many other things! Mother Nature has given us all these good things, that we may have not only enough to eat but plenty of different kinds. We soon grow tired of one kind, and that is how she tells us that we need many kinds.

When I was little, oranges were not so common as they are now; and I never but once had as many as I wanted. That once, my father told me to eat all I liked, and I did; but for weeks afterwards I didn’t want even to see an orange! Did you ever feel that way too, though perhaps not about oranges? Nature sometimes has to teach us not to eat too much of one kind at a time.

Some people like one thing, and some another. Do all of you like onions? I think not; but those who do, like them very much. The same thing is true of tomatoes and sweet potatoes and red raspberries and oysters and many other things. But there are some things that almost everybody likes; and our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers ate them. One of them is called the “staff of life” because we lean, or depend, on it so much; we have it for breakfast, dinner, and supper. That is bread, of course. Meat and eggs and milk and butter, too, are among the foods that we all like.

These might be called our “main foods,” and we should eat one or two or even three of them at each meal. Meat and milk and eggs and butter, animals give us. But these are not enough; we need besides some of the foods that plants give us, because, as I have told you, we need different kinds of food at one time to keep the body fires going briskly.

What are some of the foods that plants give us? Bread is made from a plant-from wheat. Oatmeal comes from the oat plant; and hominy, from corn. Some of our plant foods, such as potatoes, turnips, onions, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and radishes, grow under ground. Some, such as peas and beans, grow on vines. Then there are lettuce and cabbage and celery. And there are fruits-cherries, apples, peaches, plums, pears, melons, tomatoes, berries.

Nature has given us all these foods, and many more; and she wants us to use them all. She wants us to use, every day and every meal, some foods that come from plants and some that come from animals.

A good dinner would be a slice of roast beef or mutton, a potato, a helping of some sort of vegetable like peas or beans or onions or tomatoes or celery; and a dish of milk pudding or apple dumpling, or stewed fruit with bread and butter, or pie that has only an upper crust or its under crust very well baked. When you are eating bread, remember that the crusts are the very best part, because they are well cooked and really taste the best. They are good for your teeth, too.

Perhaps, while I am talking about a good meal, I ought to talk a little about the way to eat and how to make mealtime pleasant.

Of course, to make our food soft, we must take little bites, eat slowly, and chew each mouthful a long time. Be sure to remember this. So many of the children I know eat so fast that you’d think they had to catch a train! Did you ever see anyone try to talk and chew at the same time or forget to shut his mouth while he was chewing? Wasn’t it a very awkward, disagreeable sight? Think a moment, if you are tempted to talk with your mouth full, or put your knife into your mouth, or make a noise while you are eating, that these things are not pleasant for your neighbors.

Do you tell funny stories at the table and talk about happy tramps you have taken or games you have played, or about your pets or your books? If you do, your food will do you more good, and you will be helping the other people at the table, too. Mealtimes should be the happiest times in the day.