Holiday Stories for Young People Part 5

Here is another receipt, which Jeanie copied out of her mother's book:

"Six eggs beaten separately, a cup of milk, a teaspoonful of corn-starch mixed smoothly in a little of the milk, a tablespoonful of melted b.u.t.ter, a dash of pepper, and a sprinkle of salt. Beat well together, the yolks of the eggs only being used in this mixture. When thoroughly beaten add the foaming whites and set in a very quick oven."

It will rise up as light as a golden puff ball, but it must not be used in a family who have a habit of coming late to breakfast, because, if allowed to stand, this particular omelette grows presently as flat as a flounder.

After breakfast came the task of washing the dishes. Is there anything which girls detest as they do this everyday work? Every day? Three times a day, at least, it must be done in most houses, and somebody must do it.

Veva said: "I'd like to throw the dishes away after every meal. If a fairy would offer _me_ three wishes the first one I'd make would be never to touch a dishcloth again so long as I lived."

"Oh, Veva!" exclaimed Marjorie. "Think of the lovely china the Enderbys have, and the gla.s.s which came to Mrs. Curtis from her great-grandmother. Would you like a piece of that to be broken if it were yours?"

"No-o-o!" acknowledged Veva. "But our dishes are not so sacred, and our Bridgets break them regularly. We are always having to buy new ones as it is. Mamma groans, and sister Constance sighs, and Aunt Ernie scolds, but the dishes go."

"Mother thinks that the old-fashioned gentlewomen, who used to wash the breakfast things themselves, were very sensible and womanly."

Eva shrugged her plump shoulders, but took a towel to wipe the silver. I had gathered up the dishes, and taken my own way of going about this piece of work.

First I took a pan of hot water in which I had dissolved a bit of soap, and I attacked the disagreeable things--the saucepans and broilers and pots and pans. They are very useful, but they are not ornamental. All nice housekeepers are very particular to cleanse them thoroughly, removing every speck of grease from both the outside and the inside, and drying them until they shine.

It isn't worth while to ruin your hands or make them coa.r.s.e and rough when washing pots and pans. I use a mop, and do not put my hands into the hot, greasy water. Mother says one may do housework and look like a lady if she has common sense.

I finished the pots and pans and set my cups and saucers in a row, my plates sc.r.a.ped and piled together, my silver in the large china bowl, and my gla.s.ses were all ready for the next step. I had two pans, one half-filled with soapy, the other with clear water, and having given my dainty dishes a bath in the first I treated them to a dip in the second, afterward letting them drain for a moment on the tray at my right hand. Veva and Marjorie wiped the silver and gla.s.s with the soft linen towels which are kept for these only; next I took my plates, then the platters, and finally the knives. Just as we finished the last dish I heard grandmother's tap, tap on the floor over my head.

There's an art in everything, even in washing dishes. I fancy one might grow fond of it, if only one took an interest in always doing it well.

Perhaps it is because my parents are Friends, and I have been taught that it is foolish to be flurried and fl.u.s.tered and to hurry over any work, but I do think that one gets along much faster when one does not make too much haste.

I do hope I may always act just as mother does, she is so sweet and peaceful, never cross, never worried. Now, dear grandmamma is much more easily vexed. But then she is older and she has the Van Doren headaches.

Tap, tap came the call of the ebony stick. I ran up to grandmamma's room.

CHAPTER VI.

A CANDY PULL.

Of all things in the world, what should grandmamma propose but my sending for Miss m.u.f.fet! Great-aunt Jessamine had gone away long before.

"I believe it was to-day that the girls meant to have the candy pull at Jeanie's, wasn't it?" grandmamma asked.

"Yes, darling grandmamma," I said, "they may have it; but I am not going to desert you."

"Thee is very kind, dearie," replied grandmamma; "but I need only quiet, and Hetty will come out of her attack just as well without thee as with thee. I particularly wish that thee would go. How is thee to have the fair unless thee has the candy pull? The time is pa.s.sing, too. It will soon be school and lessons again."

So, at grandmamma's urging, I went for Miss m.u.f.fet. The little woman came without much delay, and took hold, as she expressed it, looking after both our invalids; and in the meantime telling me how to broil a steak for my grandmamma's and our own dinner, and how to fry potatoes so that they should not be soaked with grease.

A girl I know gained a set of d.i.c.kens' works by broiling a steak so as to please her father, who was a fastidious gentleman, and said he wanted it neither overdone nor underdone, but just right.

For broiling you need a thick steak, a clear fire, and a clean gridiron.

Never try to broil meat over a blaze. You must have a bed of coals, with a steady heat. The steak must not be salted until you have turned each side to the fire; and it must be turned a good many times and cooked evenly. It will take from five to seven minutes to broil it properly, and it will then have all the juices in, and be fit for a king.

I don't know that kings have any better food than other gentlemen, but one always supposes that they will have the very best.

A steak may be cooked very appetizingly in the frying pan; but the pan must be very hot, and have no grease in it. Enough of that will ooze from the fat of the steak to keep it from sticking fast. A good steak cooked in a cold frying-pan and simmering in grease is an abomination.

So declares Miss m.u.f.fet, and all epicures with her.

To fry potatoes or croquettes or any other thing well, one must have plenty of lard or b.u.t.ter or beef drippings, as she prefers, and let it boil. It should bubble up in the saucepan, and there should be enough of it to cover the wire basket in which the delicately sliced potatoes are laid--a few at time--to cook. They will not absorb fat, because the heat, when the first touch of it is given, will form a tight skin over them, and the grease cannot pierce this. They will be daintily brown, firm and dry.

But this isn't telling of our candy pull.

We had set our hearts on having fun and doing good--killing two birds with one stone, as Al Fay said. But I do not approve of that proverb, for certainly no _girl_ ever wishes to kill a bird; no more does a decent boy think of such a thing.

We resolved to have a fair and to sell candy at it, making every bit ourselves.

Therefore we had sent out some invitations to girls not of the club, and to some of the nicest boys. They were as follows:

The Clover Leaf Club of Bloomdale requests the pleasure of your company at the house of Miss Jeanie Cartwright, on Friday evening, September 8, at eight o'clock. Candy pull.

MILLY VAN DOREN, _President._

LOIS PARTRIDGE, _Secretary._

I had my doubts all day as to whether it would be right for me to go; but about four o'clock Aunt Hetty, looking as well as ever, came out of her room in a stiffly starched gingham gown, and proceeded to cook for herself a rasher of bacon and some eggs. Grandmamma was up and reading one of her favorite books; and Miss m.u.f.fett, who had stepped over to her house to attend to her sister and the parrot, came back declaring her intention to stay all night.

"So, my darling child, you may go, and welcome."

Away went my doubts and fears, and I tripped merrily down the street to Jeanie's, feeling the happier for a letter from mother, which I found at the post office.

Our candy was to be sold for a cent a stick, but the sticks were not scanty little snips by any means. Mrs. Cartwright made us a present of the mola.s.ses, Lois brought the sugar from home, Al Fay brought the saleratus, Patty remembered about the vinegar, and Marjorie produced the b.u.t.ter.

These were the ingredients: a half-gallon of New Orleans mola.s.ses, a cup of vinegar, a piece of b.u.t.ter as large as two eggs, a good teaspoonful of saleratus dissolved in hot water.

We melted the sugar in the vinegar, stirred it into the mola.s.ses, and let it come to the boil, stirring steadily. The boys took turns at this work.

When the syrup began to thicken we dropped in the saleratus, which makes it clear; then flouring our hands, each took a position, and pulled it till it was white.

The longer we pulled, the whiter it grew. We ate some of it, but we girls were quite firm in saving half for our sale.

Then we made maple-sugar caramels. Have you ever tried them? They are splendid. You must have maple sugar to begin with; real sugar from the trees in Vermont if you can get it. You will need a deep saucepan. Then into a quart of fresh sweet milk break two pounds of sugar. Set it over the fire. As the sugar melts, it will expand. Boil, boil, boil, stir, stir, stir. Never mind if your face grows hot. One cannot make candy sitting in a rocking-chair with a fan. One doesn't calculate to, as Great-aunt Jessamine always says.

The way to test it when you _think_ it is done is to drop a portion in cold water. If brittle enough to break, it is done. Pour into square b.u.t.tered pans, and mark off while soft into little squares with a knife.

Some people like cream candy. It is made in this way: three large cupfuls of loaf-sugar, six tablespoonfuls of water. Boil, without stirring, in a bright tin pan until it will crisp in water like mola.s.ses candy. Flavor it with essence of lemon or vanilla; just before it is done, add one teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Powder your hands with flour, and pull it until it is perfectly white.

_Plain Caramels_.--One pound of brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of chocolate, one pint of cream, one teaspoonful of b.u.t.ter, two tablespoonfuls of mola.s.ses. Boil for thirty minutes, stirring all the time; test by dropping into cold water. Flavor with vanilla, and mark off as you do the maple caramels.