"That is so queer," laughed her mother, "because cooks call it just that--the a b c of cooking! It is the rule you use more often than any other."

WHITE SAUCE

1 rounded tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter.

1 rounded tablespoonful of flour.

1 cup of milk.

1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

2 shakes of pepper.

Melt the b.u.t.ter; when it bubbles, put in the flour, stirring it well; when this is smooth, slowly add the milk, salt, and pepper; stir and cook till very smooth; you can make it like thin cream by cooking only one minute, or like thick cream by cooking it two minutes.

"Sometimes you want it thicker than others," said her mother, "so I just put that in to explain. To-day make it like thin cream. Now, Mildred, you can put it all together while Jack brings in the cold boiled potatoes and Brownie cuts them up."

CREAMED POTATOES

Cut eight large boiled potatoes into bits the size of the end of your thumb. Put them in a saucepan and cover them with milk; stand them on the back of the stove where they will cook slowly; watch them so they will not burn. In another saucepan make white sauce as before. When the potatoes have drunk up all the milk and are rather dry, drop them in the sauce; do not stir them; sprinkle with pepper.

"Now for the m.u.f.fins, for it is after five o'clock. Brownie, you find the m.u.f.fin pans and make them very hot. Do you know how to grease them?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Brownie, proudly. "This is the way." She got a clean bit of paper, warmed the pans, and dropped a bit of b.u.t.ter in each, and then with the paper rubbed it all around.

m.u.f.fINS

2 cups of flour.

1 cup of milk.

1 rounded tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter.

2 eggs, beaten separately.

1 teaspoonful of baking-powder.

1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

1 teaspoonful of sugar.

Beat the egg yolks first; then add the milk; melt the b.u.t.ter and put that in, then the flour, well mixed with the baking-powder, then the salt and sugar. Last, add the stiff whites of the eggs.

Fill the pans half full.

"Some things, like cake, cannot bear to have the oven door opened while they are baking," said Mother Blair; "but salmon does not mind if you open quickly; so, Mildred, put these in as fast as you can; they will take about twenty minutes to bake. I do believe that is all we have to make except the tea, and that takes only a moment when everything else is ready. I will give you the receipt for it now, and after everybody is here and you have said 'How do you do?' to them, you can slip out and make this, and while it stands you can put the other things on the table. But perhaps you had better make some coffee too; the men may like it."

TEA

Fill the kettle with fresh, cold water and let it boil up hard.

Scald out an earthen tea-kettle, and put in two rounded teaspoonfuls of tea for six people, or more, if you want it quite strong. Pour on six cups of boiling water and let the pot stand where it is warm for just two minutes. Scald out the pot you are going to send to the table, and strain the tea into that. Have a jug of hot water ready to send in with it.

COFFEE

1 rounded tablespoonful of ground coffee for each person; and 1 extra tablespoonful.

1/2 cup of cold water.

1 egg sh.e.l.l, washed and broken, with a little bit of the white.

Mix these in a bowl. Then put in a very clean pot and add

1 cup of boiling water for each person and 1 cup more.

Let it boil up hard just once; stir it, pour in 1 tablespoonful of cold water; let it stand three minutes, strain and put in a hot pot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She looked Carefully in the Oven Through a Tiny Crack]

Just before the door-bell rang, Mildred went to the refrigerator to look at her custards and found them nice and cold. Then she looked carefully in the oven through a tiny crack, and found the m.u.f.fins were done and the salmon beautifully brown; so she took up the potatoes, and put them in the covered dish on the back of the stove where they would keep hot, and asked Brownie to lay the hot plates around the table, one for each person. Then she went into the parlor and said "How do you do?" to the guests, and after a moment slipped out again, and put everything on the sideboard, made the tea, filled the gla.s.ses, and put b.u.t.ter on the bread-and-b.u.t.ter plates. Then Brownie asked everybody to come to supper.

When they had all sat down, Mildred pa.s.sed the dish of salmon, offering it on the left side, of course, just as Norah always did; then she put the dish down before her father and pa.s.sed the potatoes and m.u.f.fins in the same way, while Mother Blair poured the tea and handed it around without rising from her seat. And then everybody began to eat, and say, "Oh, how good this salmon is!" and "Did you ever taste such m.u.f.fins?"

and "Did you really, really make all these good things yourselves, children? We don't see how you ever did it!" And they ate at two helpings of everything, and Father Blair ate three. And when it was time to take the dishes off, there was not a speck of salmon left, nor a spoonful of potato, nor even a single m.u.f.fin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jack served the custards]

Then Brownie quietly took the crumbs off as she had seen Norah do, brushing them onto a plate with a folded napkin; and as she was doing this, Jack slipped out to the refrigerator and got the custards, all as cold as ice and brown on top, looking as pretty as could be in their cunning cups; each cup was set on a dessert plate and a spoon laid by its side, and the fresh cakes were pa.s.sed with them.

Soon after supper the company went home, and then Mildred said: "I feel exactly like a toy balloon--so light inside! Wasn't that a good supper?

And didn't they like the things we had! And isn't it fun to have company! When I am grown up and have a house of my own, I shall have company every day in the week."

"I shall make a point of coming every other day at least," said Father Blair. "I'm so proud of my family to-night! Those Wentworths may be staying at the very best hotel in town, but I know they don't have such suppers there."

"Don't you wish you could cook, Jack?" inquired his mother, with a twinkle in her eye. And then everybody laughed, and said: "Dear me, what good times we Blairs do have together!"

CHAPTER VI

MILDRED'S SCHOOL PARTY

One day early in June, Mildred ran up to her mother's room as soon as she came home from school. She tossed her hat on the bed, and dropped her books in an arm-chair. "Oh, Mother!" she exclaimed, out of breath, "do you suppose I could have twenty girls here some afternoon for a little bit of a party! I do so want to ask them right away, before exams begin. They are my twenty most particular friends, and some of them are going away just as school closes, so, you see, I have to hurry."

"Of course you may have them," said Mother Blair. "But only _twenty_ particular friends, Mildred? What about the rest of the cla.s.s?"

Mildred laughed. "Well, I mean these are the girls I happen to know best of all, and I want to have a kind of farewell before summer really comes. What sort of a party shall we have, Mother? I mean, what shall we have to eat?"

"I should think strawberry ice-cream would be just the thing, with some cake to go with it, and something cold to drink; is that about what you had thought of?"

"Just exactly, Mother. But do you think we can make enough ice-cream here at home for twenty people? Wouldn't it be better to buy it?"

"Oh, I am sure we can easily make it, and home-made ice-cream is so good--better, I think, than we could buy. We can borrow Miss Betty's freezer, which holds two quarts, and as ours holds three, that will be plenty. We count that a quart will serve about seven,--more cooking arithmetic, Mildred! If one quart will be enough for seven people, how many quarts will be needed for twenty?"

"The answer is that five quarts will be just about right," laughed Mildred. "Perhaps some of them will want two helpings. But, Mother, if we have the party on Sat.u.r.day, Norah will be very busy, and who will make the cream?"

"We will all make it together, and Jack may pack the freezers and turn them for us. And Norah may make the cake for you on Friday, so that will be out of the way."

So, early on Sat.u.r.day morning, Mildred and Brownie began to hull strawberries for the party and put them away in bowls on the ice. Then they made the table all ready on the porch, putting a pretty little cloth on it, and arranging plates and napkins; gla.s.ses, for what Brownie called the "nice-cold drinks," were set out too, and little dishes of the candy which Father Blair had brought home and called his contribution to the party; and in the middle of the table they put a bowl of lovely red roses.

After an early luncheon, everybody went at once to the kitchen. The berries were put on the large table, and the cream and milk brought from the refrigerator. The two freezers stood ready in the laundry with a big pail for the broken ice, a heavy bag, a wooden mallet, and a large bag of coa.r.s.e salt.