The dumb, or silent, supper (which goes back to Midsummer Eve customs in seventeenth-century England) must be prepared late at night, entirely in the dark; the several girls who participate must not speak a word during the whole affair. Everything must be done backward: the place settings at the table are backward, the chairs placed back to the table, the food served walking backward from the kitchen. When everything has been completed in utter silence and darkness, the girls each sit, back to the table, and wait patiently in dead silence for the stroke of midnight and their guests. As the town clock booms out the witching hour, the girls, staring fixedly into the black room, will see their future husbands either walking toward them or suddenly standing before them.
"When I was a girl, one night six of the girls I run with thought we would have a silent supper and see who would come and sit by us. Our house had one of those wide halls that went right through the house, and we girls thought we would set the table in that big hall and leave both doors open so our beaux could come in at either door. We did everything backward in the dark and did not say a word. We then set down at the table backwards to wait for our future husbands. When all at once a big storm came up and just as the clock was about to strike twelve there was a loud crash of lightning that just made the whole house tremble, and at the same time the cat and dog out in the yard had a fight and the dog ran the cat through the hall right over us. We did not know at that moment it was the dog and cat fighting. We thought it was the devil after us. Maybe you think we were not a bunch of frightened girls. We never did see our future husbands that night. We were too scared."
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