EXAMINATION DAY

"Children," said Mother Blair on New Year's day, "when you have all finished whatever you are doing and have a whole hour to spare, I want you to bring your receipt books into the sitting-room. I'm going to have an examination."

Jack gave a loud groan.

"That's no fair, Mother. No exams in vacation!"

"Yes, it is fair, perfectly fair to have this examination in vacation time, because you never have a moment while school is going on to give me for it; now is my only chance. But it won't be a very long or severe one. I fancy I can find out all _you_ know about cooking in a very short time, Jack!"

Jack laughed and went upstairs for his book, and presently they all gathered in the sitting-room by the fire. The three children sat in a row on the great big sofa with the pillows tucked behind them, and Mother Blair sat in front, exactly like a teacher. She had three pads and pencils ready, and three packages well wrapped up, in her lap.

"It was just a year ago to-day that we got those books," said Brownie.

"Mine has heaps of rules in it, too."

"So has mine," said Mildred, turning the leaves. "I did not know I had so many. And what fun we had making some of the things! Do you remember your cheese dreams at the House-in-the-Woods party, Jack? And the Hallowe'en things in the chafing-dish? And the attic picnic, Brownie?

I'm sorry we can't have all those parties over again, Mother."

"We'll have plenty more, dear, and better ones, too. But how many receipts have you, Jack?"

Jack proudly displayed his camping receipts and a few others, princ.i.p.ally chafing-dish rules. "Lots!" he said.

"Not half enough. You've done only pretty well, Jack; but a beginning is something, after all. But now, children, the examination is going to begin. Here is a written question for each of you, and you are to write the answer down on this pad."

"Dreadful," murmured Mildred, accepting her slip of paper and pad with a long sigh. This is what she read:

"What would you have for luncheon, if you found in the refrigerator some eggs, a little celery, cold boiled potatoes, a bottle of milk and b.u.t.ter; and beside had in the house cookies and a basket of very poor pears? Look up the rule for each dish in your receipt book."

"That's easy," said Mildred, happily, going to work at once.

Brownie's slip said:

"If you were ordering breakfast to-morrow morning, what would be the nicest things you could think of? And could you make them all?"

And when Jack opened his folded paper he read:

"Plan a Sunday night supper with nothing but what you can make yourself."

"Ask me a hard one," Jack said, waving his paper around his head.

Mother Blair took a book and began to read to herself while the pencils scratched away on the pads and the receipt books were consulted over and over. It was only a few moments before, "Done!" said Mildred, and "Done!" said Brownie. Jack was a trifle slower, and they had to wait for him to finish. It was not so easy an examination as he had thought at first.

"Read the question first and then the answer; you begin, Mildred," said Mother Blair. So Mildred read her question, and then taking her pad read what she had put down:

"For luncheon I would have first, cream of celery soup, made by the rule I copied under cream soups; I learned how to make those when Mother was sick. After that I would have creamed eggs on toast. (You know I can make those, Mother; I made them just last week.) And with them I'd have hashed brown potatoes; that rule I know by heart. And then for dessert I'd stew those poor pears, like apple sauce, you know, only I wouldn't cut them up but keep them in halves the way Norah does; and I'd have the cookies with them."

"Good, Mildred--splendid! I did not know you could manage so well Now let's see what Brownie would have for breakfast."

"Cereal first; see the rule of cereal with dates,--only I'd leave out the dates this time--and then I'd have m.u.f.fins; of course, I can make those. And coffee, and poached eggs. Do you think that is a good breakfast, Mother?"

"Delicious, dear. I only wish it were breakfast time now. And how did you get along, Jack?"

"You gave me the hardest of all," Jack grumbled. "But I did it, all the same. I'd have cheese dreams, and corned beef hash first; then I'd have pigs in blankets on toast; and camp coffee; and then corn cakes and syrup to finish off with."

Jack smiled complacently. "That's what I call a good, substantial meal."

Mildred was screaming with laughter as he finished.

"Cheese dreams and pigs in blankets, and corned beef hash, Mother Blair!

For Sunday night supper!"

"You'd have regular Hallowe'en nightmares after that meal, Jack!" said his mother, laughing too. "However, as you know how to make all those, we will let you have them--on paper. Only when you get a supper for this family you need not have quite so many things, especially if we have company; they might not appreciate them. Now are you ready for the next question?"

The examination proved such fun that they kept it up all the morning.

They told how to lay a table for breakfast, luncheon and dinner; how to arrange a sick-room tray; what to give a little child who came in to a meal; how to make fudge, and sandwiches, and tea and salads and cake; how to put up jelly, and how to cook eggs in different ways; some of these things Brownie and Jack did not know, but most of them they wrote down on their papers very well indeed. And they planned all sorts of meals, and that was the most fun of all, family dinners, and company luncheons, and picnic suppers, and party meals for Thanksgiving and Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday and other times. It really was not so much of an examination as it was a game.

Finally Mother Blair said they had done enough. "You know so much more than I thought you did that I'm satisfied," she said. "Really and truly, children, I'm proud of you! You all get a hundred in your examination, and you each have earned a prize beside for standing at the top of your three cla.s.ses."

Then she opened the packages she had had in her lap all this time and brought out three books.

"Before I distribute the prizes I must make a speech," she said. "That's the way it's always done at school, you know.

"Children: You have done so well in your cooking lessons that I am going to give each of you a real cook book, for you know now how to use one. There are many other dishes beside those you have learned already that I am sure you will want to know how to make, too. All you have to do is to turn to any rule here and follow it carefully, exactly as you do in the books you have made yourselves. Mildred, here is your book-- I present it with pride! It's a regular grown-up cook book, only it's a very easy one. And, Brownie, yours is a little girl's cook book; you will love it, and I present it with pride, too, my dear child! And Jack--"

"I do hope mine has plenty of cake in it, Mother, and lovely desserts all made with gelatine, and fancy salads with fixings on them; you know those are the things I really like to make," said Jack demurely.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," laughed his mother, "but yours is a regular boy's cook book, all about--"

"Camping!" interrupted Jack, as he saw its t.i.tle. "Well, now, that's about the right kind of a book for me, after all. Say, Mother Blair, I think your prizes are great."

"So do I," murmured Mildred, who was deep in a rule for a perfectly delicious dessert with whipped cream and nuts in it.

But Brownie did not say a word. She was reading the story in her book about how some children learned to cook.

[Ill.u.s.tration]