The Fun of Cooking: A Story for Girls and Boys

2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.

Cut the oranges in halves; take out the pulp with a spoon, and put it in a bowl. Scrape out the inside, leaving nice, clean shells, and then scallop or point the edges with the scissors. Peel the bananas, cut them in long, narrow strips, and these into small bits, and mix lightly with the orange, and add the sugar; heap in the baskets and set away to grow cold.

"If we happened to have any pineapple or white grapes in the house, I should put some of those in too; but these will be delicious just as they are. Now anything more?"

"Something to drink with the lunch. I think pink lemonade would be nice."

"Perfectly lovely!" laughed Mother Blair. "We will get a can of raspberries out of the fruit closet, and make something for them that will be ever so good. This is the rule:"

PICNIC LEMONADE

8 lemons.

12 glasses of water.

3 cups of sugar.

1 cup of raspberry juice.

Roll the lemons till they are soft; cut them and squeeze the juice out. Put the sugar in a little pan with a glass of water, and boil it two minutes; add this to the lemon and raspberry juice, and strain it; add the rest of the water; serve with broken ice in a glass pitcher.

"Be sure and boil the sugar and water together, Mildred, whenever you make any kind of drink like lemonade; it is so much better than if you put in plain sugar. When it is all done, if it is not quite sweet enough, you can add a little powdered sugar without hurting it."

"Mother, we forgot the surprise! You remember, 'every luncheon must have a surprise,' you said; see, here it is in the book."

"Dear me, so I did! What shall it be, Mildred? I can't seem to think of another thing for that picnic."

"Neither can I."

"Stuffed dates!" exclaimed Mother Blair, presently. "I knew there must be something, and those will be exactly right."

STUFFED DATES

Wash the dates and wipe them dry. Open one side and take out the stone; in its place press in half a pecan or other nut; close the edges, and roll each date in powdered sugar.

"I do hope there will be some of those over for us," said Mildred, as she put her book away. "Those children are going to have a wonderful lunch!"

Brownie could not imagine what her birthday surprise was to be. She could not help guessing, but she never once was "warm." When Saturday came, and the boys and girls arrived in their every-day clothes and even kept on their wraps in the parlor, she did not know what to think; and there was actually no lunch for them in the dining-room! She began to look very sober.

But when everybody had come, Mother Blair said: "Won't you go upstairs?" and Mildred and Jack ushered them up to the attic.

It was such a lovely surprise! The big green carpets were spread down on the bare floor, and all around were set little green trees in pots. The canary was hung up out of sight, and he was singing as hard as he could. It was not a bit too cold, for the door had been kept open all day and the sun was shining in at the window.

And just then appeared Mother Blair, and Norah, and Jack, and Mildred, all carrying baskets, which they put down on the floor. Then the picnic began!

There was first the cloth to spread down on the grass, and paper plates and napkins to be passed around. The veal loaf was found, a platter of it tied up in a large napkin, and hot sandwiches between hot plates, tied up in another napkin, and marmalade sandwiches folded in paraffin paper by themselves. Last of all were the orange baskets, each one twisted up in a paper napkin with a funny little frill on top made of the ends of the napkin; and the dates were in little square paper boxes, one box for each child.

As they began to eat, Jack came up with a big, big pitcher of beautiful pink lemonade, and little glasses to drink it out of. Oh, such a picnic as it was! Such a perfectly lovely picnic! Out-of-door picnics were nothing to it And when they had eaten up every crumb and drank up every drop, they played games until the attic grew dark; and then they all went home, and the birthday was over.

CHAPTER V

SUNDAY NIGHT SUPPER

One Sunday afternoon just as the clock struck three, the Blairs' telephone rang; and after she had answered it, Mother Blair called Mildred, who sat reading by the window.

"My dear," she said, "do you remember hearing Father speak of his old friends the Wentworths, whom he used to know so well years ago? Well, they have come east, and are in town for a day or two, and they want to come out and see us this very afternoon. Now I should love to ask them to stay to supper, but if I do, I shall have to stay with them and visit and can't help you at all; and Norah is out. Do you suppose you three children could get the supper and serve it all by yourselves?"

"Why, of course, Mother Blair," said Mildred, reproachfully. "Of course we can! You don't know how many things your children can do when they try! Now what shall we have? It ought to be something very good, because they have never been here before."

"We were going to have canned salmon," said her mother, thoughtfully; "we might scallop that, and have potatoes with it, and perhaps muffins or biscuits."

"Oh, have muffins, Mother! I have seen Norah make them lots of times, and I'm sure I could, too, if you give me the receipt."

"Well, you may try," said her mother, "but I think you had better have some toast ready, too, in case they do not come out right. And what else can we have? Preserves, I suppose; but, Mildred, all the nice preserves are gone, because it is so late in the spring. But we might have little baked custards."

"Yes, in the cunning little brown baking dishes; those will be lovely! And I'll make some little cakes to eat with them; Norah said there were just cookies for supper."

"But do you really think you can do all that? Don't you think the cookies will do?"

"No, indeed," said Mildred, "not for extra nice company! But little cakes are no trouble to make. And isn't it fun to have company come when you don't expect it? It's so much nicer than to specially invite them!"

Mother Blair laughed. "I hope you will always think so," she said. And Mildred ran away to call Brownie to get her apron and come to the kitchen.

"We will lay the table first, even though it is so early," said their mother. "Brownie, bring me the pile of the best doilies in the sideboard drawer."

"The Wheelers always use a regular big cloth for supper," Brownie said, as she came over with them to the table.

"Many people do, but I think the table looks prettier at breakfast and luncheon and supper with the doilies. And then, too, if anybody happens to spill anything – "

"Jack spilled gravy yesterday, awfully," said Brownie, soberly.

"Well, you see Norah had to wash only one little doily because of that; if we had had on a table-cloth, all of it would have had to go into the wash. But if we had no doilies, I should use a lunch cloth that would just cover the top of the table, and that would be pretty, too. Put one doily for each person, Brownie, and a large one in the middle for the fern dish, and little ones for the tumblers. Now for the silver."

Mildred came with knives, forks, and spoons.

"No knives, because there is no meat," said her mother; "but if we were going to use them, which side would you put them on?"

"Left," said Brownie, guessing.

"Not unless you were left-handed," smiled her mother. "The rule is: put on the right side what you will use with the right hand, and on the left what you will use with the left hand. That is, if there are no knives, all the silver goes on the right, and the fork or spoon you are to use first goes the farthest away from the plate, the next one next to that, and so on; if you remember that, you will never be puzzled as to which fork to use. Now the teaspoons – put those on the right, too; and the dessert spoon or fork may go at the top, across the plate if you like, though I prefer it on the dessert plate itself. Put the napkin at the left, always; and the tumbler goes at the top to the right, and the bread-and-butter plate and knife at the top too, toward the left. There! Doesn't that look pretty?"

Mildred had been getting out the best cups and saucers and arranging a small round tray in front of her mother's place with cream and sugar and the tray bowl, and a place left for the tea-pot; the cups she put at the right, arranging them in twos – two cups on two saucers.

"Mildred, after you pass the salmon, you may put the dish right in front of Father; and the potatoes may go on the table too, as Norah isn't here, though I like best to have them passed from the sideboard. The muffins may stand at the side of the table, half-way down. Now let us carry out all the dishes and begin to cook."

So Mildred took a pile of plates to heat, and Brownie carried a dish for the potatoes, and Mother Blair brought the little custard cups; they arranged these on the kitchen table where they would not be in the way, and then Mother Blair told Mildred to see that the fire was all right. "Always remember to look at that first," she said. "It needs shaking down a little, and to have more coal on; and pull out the dampers so the oven will heat."

Mildred hunted for the dampers, but could not find any. "I don't believe there are any on this stove," she said, just as Jack came in to see what was going on.