The Art of Entertaining Part 25

He has come at your request. He has entered your house as an altar of safety, an ark of refuge. He has laid his armour down. Your kind welcome has unlocked his reserve. He has spoken freely, and felt that he was in the presence of friends. If in this careless hour you have discovered his weak spot, be careful how you attack it. The intimate unreserve of a guest should be respected.

And upon the guest an equal, nay, a superior conscientiousness should rest, as to any revelation of the secrets he may have found out while he was a visitor. No person should go from house to house bearing tales. We do not go to our friend's house to find the skeleton in the closet. No criticisms of the weaknesses or eccentricities of any member of the family should ever be heard from the lips of a guest.

"Whose bread I have eaten, he is henceforth my brother," is another Arab proverb.

Speak well always of your entertainers, but speak little of their domestic arrangements. Do not violate the sanct.i.ty of the fireside, or wrong the shelter of the roof-tree which has lent you its protection for even a night.

The decorations for a country ballroom, in a rural neighbourhood, have called forth many an unknown genius in that art which has become the well-known profession of interior decoration. The favourite place in Lenox, and at many a summer resort, has been the large floor of a new barn. Before the equine tenants begin to champ their oats, the youths and maids a.s.sume the right to trip the light fantastic toe on the well-laid hard floor. The ornamentations at such a ball at Lenox were candles put in pine shields, with tin holders, and decorations of corn and wheat sheaves, tied with scarlet ribbons, surrounding pumpkins which were laid in improvised brackets, hastily cut out of pine, with hatchets, by the young men. Magnificent autumn leaves were arranged with ferns as garlands, and many were the devices for putting candles and kerosene lamps behind these so as to give almost the effect of stained gla.s.s, without causing a general conflagration.

The effect of a pumpkin surrounded by autumn leaves recalls the Gardens of the Hesperides. No apple like those golden apples which we call pumpkins was ever seen there. To be sure they are rather large to throw to a G.o.ddess, and might bowl her down, but they look very handsome when tranquilly reposing.

A sort of Druidical procession might be improvised to help along this ball, and the hostess would amuse her company for a week with the preparations.

First, get a negro fiddler to head it, dressed like Browning's Pied Piper in gay colours, and playing his fiddle. Then have a procession of children, dressed in gay costumes; following them, "two milk-white oxen garlanded" with wreaths of flowers and ribbons, driven by a boy in Swiss costume; then a goat-cart with the baby driving two goats, also garlanded; next a lovely Alderney cow, also decorated, accompanied by a milkmaid, carrying a milking-stool; then another long line of children, followed by the youths and maids, bearing the decorations for the ballroom. Let all these parade the village street and wind up at the ballroom, where the cow can be milked, and a surprise of ice cream and cake given to the children. This is a Sunday-school picnic and a ball decoration, all in one, and the country lady who can give it will have earned the grat.i.tude of neighbours and friends. It has been done.

In the spring the decorations of a ballroom might be early wild flowers and the delicate ground-pine, far more beautiful than smilax, and also ferns, the treasures of the nearest wood.

Wild flowers, ferns, and gra.s.ses, the ground-pine, the checkerberry, and the partridge berry make the most exquisite garlands, and it is only of late--when a few great geniuses have discovered that the field daisy is the prettiest of flowers, that the best beauty is that which is at our hands wherever we are, that the greatest rarity is the gra.s.s in the meadow--that we have reached the true meaning of interior decoration.

Helen Hunt, in one of her prettiest papers, describes the beauty of kinnikinick, a lovely vine which grows all over Colorado. Although we have not that, we can even in winter find the hemlock boughs, the mistletoe, the holly, for our decorations. Of course, hot-house flowers and smilax, if they can be obtained, are very beautiful and desirable, but they are not within the reach of every purse, or of every country house.

Sheaves of wheat, tied with fine ribbons and placed at intervals around a room, can be made to have the beauty of an armorial bearing.

These, alternating with banners and hemlock boughs, are very effective. All these forms which Nature gives us have suggested the Corinthian capital, the Ionic pillar, the most graceful of Greek carvings. The acanthus leaf was the inspiration of the architect who built the Acropolis.

Vine leaves, especially after they begin to turn, are capable of infinite suggestion, and we all remember the recent worship of the sunflower. Hop vines and clematis, especially after the last has gone to seed, remain long as ornaments.

As for the refreshments to be served,--the oyster stew, the ice cream, the good home-made cake, coffee, and tea are within the reach of every country housekeeper, and are in their way unrivalled. Of course, if she wishes she can add chicken salad, boned turkey, _pate de foie gras_, and punch, hot or cold.

If it is in winter, the coachmen outside must not be forgotten. Some hot coffee and oysters should be sent to these patient sufferers, for our coachmen are not dressed as are the Russians, in fur from head to foot. If possible, there should be a good fire in the kitchen, to which these attendants on our pleasure could be admitted to thaw out.

A PICNIC.

"Come hither, come hither, the broom was in blossom all over yon rise, There went a wild murmur of brown bees about it with songs from the wood.

We shall never be younger, O Love! let us forth to the world 'neath our eyes-- Ay! the world is made young, e'en as we, and right fair is her youth, and right good."

Appet.i.tes flourish in the free air of hills and meadows, and after drinking in the ozone of the sea, one feels like drinking something else. There is a very good story of a reverend bishop who with a friend went a-fishing, like Peter, and being very thirsty essayed to draw the cork of a claret bottle. In his zeal he struck his bottle against a stone, and the claret oozed out to refresh the thirsty earth, instead of that precious porcelain of human clay of which the bishop was made. His remark to his friend was, "James, you are a layman, why don't you say something?"

Now to avoid having our layman or our reverend wish to say something, let us try to suggest what they should eat and what they should drink.

There are many kinds of picnics,--fashionable ones at Newport and other watering-places, where the French waiters of the period are told to get up a repast as if at the Casino; there are clam-bakes which are ideal, and there are picnics at Lenox and at Sharon, where the hotel keeper will help to fill the baskets.

But the real picnic, which calls for talent and executive ability, should emanate from some country house, where two or three other country houses co-operate and help. Then what jolly drives in the brakes, what queer old family horses and antediluvian wagons, what n.o.ble dog-carts, and what prim pony phaetons can join in the procession. The day should be fine, and the place selected a hillside with trees, commanding a fine view. This is at least desirable. The necessity for a short walk, a short scramble after leaving the horses, should not be disregarded.

The night before the picnic, which presumably starts early, the lady of the house should see to it that a boiled ham of perfect flavour is in readiness, and she may flank it with a boiled tongue, four roasted chickens, a game pie, and any amount of stale bread to cut into sandwiches.

Now a sandwich can be at once the best and the worst thing in the world, but to make it the best the bread should be cut very thin, the b.u.t.ter, which must be as fresh as a cowslip, should be spread with deft fingers, then a slice of ham as thin as a wafer with not too much fat must be laid between, with a _soupcon_ of mustard. The prepared ham which comes in cans is excellent for making sandwiches. Cheese sandwiches, subst.i.tuting a thin slice of American fresh cheese for the ham, are delicious, and some rollicking good-livers toast the cheese.

Tongue, cold beef, and even cold sausages make excellent varieties of sandwich. To prevent their becoming the "sand which is under your feet" cover them over night with a damp napkin.

Chicken can be eaten for itself alone, but it should be cut into very convenient fragments, judiciously salted and wrapped in a very white napkin.

The game or veal pie must be in a strong earthen dish, and having been baked the day before, its pieces will have amalgamated with the crust, and it will cut into easily handled slices.

All must be packed in luncheon baskets with little twisted cornucopias holding pepper and salt, hard-boiled eggs, the patty by itself, croquettes, if they happen to be made, cold fried oysters, excellent if in batter and well-drained after cooking; no article must be allowed to touch another.

If cake and pastry be taken, each should have a separate basket. Fruit also should be carefully packed by itself, for if food gets mixed and mussy, even a mountain appet.i.te will shun it.

A bottle of olives is a welcome addition, and pickles and other relishes may be included. Sardines are also in order.

Now what to drink? Cold tea and iced coffee prepared the night before, the cream and sugar put in just before starting, should always be provided. They are capital things to climb on, to knit up the "ravelled sleeve of care," and if somewhat exciting to the nerves, will be found the best thirst-quenchers.

These beverages should be carefully bottled and firmly corked,--and don't forget the corkscrew. Plenty of tin cups, or those strong gla.s.s beer-mugs which you can throw across the room without breaking, should also be taken.

Claret is the favourite wine for picnics, as being light and refreshing. Ginger ale is excellent and cheap and compact.

"Champagne," says Walter Besant in his novel "By Celia's Arbour" is a wine as Catholic as the Athanasian Creed, because it goes well with chicken and with the more elaborate _pate de foie gras_.

Some men prefer sherry with their lunch, some take beer. If you have room and a plentiful cellar, take all these things. But tea and coffee and ginger ale will do for any one, anywhere.

It has been suggested by those who have suffered losses from mischievous friends, that a composite basket containing everything should be put in each carriage, but this is refining the matter.

Arrived at the picnic-ground, the whole force should be employed by the hostess as an amiable body of waiters. The ladies should set the tables, and the men bring water from the spring. The less ceremony the better.

Things have not been served in order, they never are at a picnic, and the cunning hostess now produces some claret cup. She has made it herself since they reached the top of the mountain. Two bottles of claret to one of soda water, two lemons, a gla.s.s of sherry, a cuc.u.mber sliced in to give it the most perfect flavour, plenty of sugar and ice; and where had she hidden that immense pitcher, a regular brown toby, in which she has brewed it?

"I know," said an _enfant terrible_; "I saw her hiding it under the back seat."

There it is, filled with claret cup, the most refreshing drink for a warm afternoon. Various young persons of opposite s.e.xes, who have been looking at each other more than at the game pie, now prepare to disappear in the neighbouring paths, under a pretence but feebly made of plucking blackberries,--artless dissemblers!

Mamma shouts, "Mary, Caroline, Jane, Tom, Harry, be back before five, for we must start for home." May she get them, even at half-past six.

From a group of peasants over a bunch of sticks in the Black Forest, to a queen who delighted to picnic in Fontainebleau, these _al fresco_ entertainments are ever delicious. We cannot put our ears too close to the confessional of Nature. She has always a new secret to tell us, and from the most artificial society to that which is primitive and rustic, they always carry the same charm. It is the Antaeus trying to get back to Mother Earth, who strengthens him.

In packing a lunch for a fisherman, or a hunter, the hostess often has to explain that brevity is the soul of wit. She must often compress a few eatables into the side pocket, and the bottle of claret into the fishing-basket. If not, she can palm off on the man one of those tin cases which poor little boys carry to school, which look like books and have suggestive t.i.tles, such as "Essays of Bacon," "Crabbe's Tales," or "News from Turkey," on the back. If the fisherman will take one of these his sandwiches will arrive in better order.

The Western hunter takes a few beans and some slices of pork, some say in his hat, when he goes off on the warpath. The modern hunter or fisher, if he drive to the meet or the burn, can be trusted with an orthodox lunch-basket, which should hold cold tea, cold game-pie, a few olives, and a bit of cheese, and a large reserve of sandwiches.

When we grow more celestial, when we achieve the physical theory of another life, we may know how to concentrate good eating in a more portable form than that of the sandwich, but we do not know it yet.

Take an egg sandwich,--hard-boiled eggs chopped, and laid between the bread and b.u.t.ter. Can anything be more like the sonnet?--complete in only fourteen lines, and yet perfection! Only indefinite chicken, wheaten flour, the milk of the cow, all that goes to make up our daily food in one little compact rectangle! Egg sandwich! It is immense in its concentration.

Some people like to take salads and apple pies to picnics. There are great moral objections to thus exposing these two delicacies to the rough experiences of a picnic. A salad, however well dressed, is an oily and slippery enjoyment. Like all great joys, it is apt to escape us, especially in a lunch basket. Apple pie, most delicate of pasties, will exude, and you are apt to find the crust on the top of the basket, and the apple in the bottom of the carriage.

If you will take salad, and will not be taught by experience, make a perfect _jardiniere_ of all the cold vegetables, green peas, beans, and cauliflower, green peppers, cuc.u.mbers, and cold potatoes, and take this mixture dry to the picnic. Have your mayonnaise in a bottle, and dress the salad with it after sitting down, on a very slippery, ferny rock, at the table. Truth compels the historian to observe, that this is delicious with the ham, and you will not mind in the least, until the next day, the large grease-spot on the side breadth of your gown.

As for the apple pie, that is taken at the risk of the owner. It had better be left at home for tea.

Of course, _pate de foie gras_, sandwiches, boned turkey, jellied tongue, the various cold birds, as partridges, quails, pheasant, and chicken, and raw oysters, can be taken to a very elaborate picnic near a large town. Salmon dressed with green sauce, lobster salad, every kind of salad, is in order if you can only get it there, and "_caviare_ to the general." Cold terrapin is not to be despised; eaten on a bit of bread it is an excellent dainty, and so is the cold fried oyster.