The children are eating for their very lives.

If you stay out there another minute, you must take the consequence." "Alas, that I should have so much stomach, and so little to put into it! My dear, put a little bit under a basin, if any of them has no appetite.
I wanted just to think a little." "Charles, they have all got tremendous appetites.

It is the way the wind is.

You may think by-and-by, but if you want to eat, you must do it now, or never." "'Never' never suits me in that matter," the brave lieutenant answered.
"Matilda, put Geraldine to warm the pewter plate for me.

Geraldine darling, you can do it with your mouth full." The commander of the coast-guard turned abruptly from his long indignant stride, and entered the cottage provided for him, and which he had peopled so speedily.
Small as it was, it looked beautifully clean and neat, and everybody used to wonder how Mrs.Carroway kept it so.