There was great bustle behind a huge screen in
another part of the room, and at half-past five this was taken
away, and the Christmas dinner-table stood revealed. What a
wonderful sight it was to the poor little Ruggles children, who
ate their sometimes scanty meals on the kitchen table! It blazed
with tall colored candles, it gleamed with glass and silver, it
blushed with flowers, it groaned with good things to eat; so it
was not strange that the Ruggleses, forgetting that their mother
was a McGrill, shrieked in admiration of the fairy spectacle.
But Larry's behavior was the most disgraceful, for he stood not
upon the order of his going, but went at once for a high chair
that pointed unmistakably to him, climbed up like a squirrel,
gave a comprehensive look at the turkey, clapped his hands in
ecstacy, rested his fat arms on the table, and cried, with joy,
"I beat the hull lot o' yer!" Carol laughed until she cried,
giving orders, meanwhile, "Uncle Jack, please sit at the head,
Sarah Maud at the foot, and that will leave four on each side;
Mama is going to help Elfrida, so that the children need not look
after each other, but just have a good time.
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