===From one boy's perspective===
* From a boy's perspective, not much happened in a Breaking of Bread service. Since nobody was in charge and there was no program, there were long silences. Mrs. Thompson would say the saints were musing. If so, their musings were interrupted every time the Spirit led some of the men to pray or call for a hymn. None of the women were Spirit-led; they had to maintain silence. Whether I knew a rule of silence for women was in place, or not, I cannot say. It would not have mattered; if Aunt Ottie, whom Eddie and I loved to sit with, had stood up to pray she'd have disturbed my musings. When growing up, I never heard a woman preach or pray in public, or "give out" a hymn. [To "give out" a hymn is Brethren jargon, like "taking the funeral," which means to officiate at a funeral.] Much later, it occurred to me that women had gotten even with their male overseers by writing some of the finest hymns in the Brethren hymnbooks.
When I was a boy sitting with my grandparents at the Breaking of Bread meeting, my own immature musings were centered in earthly things: Aunt Ottie's fox fur piece, the aroma of fresh bread and, when the wooden lids on the two chalices were lifted, the sweet smell of wine, a dollar bill folded into a small square that Aunt Ottie let me or Eddie drop into the velvet bag as it passed from hand to hand, and, above all, Mr. MacPherson's prayers.