CHAPTER XV
THANKSGIVING DAY SUPPER
"Mother Blair, did you ever think that Thanksgiving Day has one great defect?"
"Why, no, Mildred, I don't believe I ever did," smiled her mother. "Do tell me what it is."
"Well, we have to have dinner in the afternoon so the littlest cousins can go home early, and so Norah can get away in time for her regular party – she always goes to one, you know, that evening; and that leaves us with nothing to do for hours before bedtime. I don't know why it is, but that time always drags."
"That is a real defect, Mildred, and I'm glad you told me, because we don't want any part of Thanksgiving Day to drag. It ought to be lovely till the very end. What can you think of that we can do to make it so?"
"I think if all the cousins would stay on instead of going home at dark, and if we arranged something interesting, like a little play or charades, first, and then, when we got hungry, about eight o'clock, we had a hot supper, that would be just perfect."
"Of course! That's a bright idea, Mildred. All the cousins are old enough now to spend the evening, and we can have a lovely time together. You arrange the play, and I'll get up the supper for you."
"No, indeed, Mother Blair! We three juniors will get it – that's part of the fun. And don't you think it would be nice to have it in here on the big library table? We could bring the things in on trays and then just help ourselves."
"That's another bright idea! Of course it would be delightful to have it in here. Then afterwards we could have a wood fire in the grate and sit around it to tell stories, and have games, and charades, and sing some songs together, and be just as thankful as possible. What shall we have for supper? I fancy we shall not want anything very heavy after our dinner."
"No, of course not; but it can be something awfully good. Cold turkey to begin with, and something hot to go with it, and – and what else, Mother Blair?"
"Oh, cranberry jelly, and perhaps a salad, and then something sweet to finish with. Do you think that would do?"
"Yes, and some kind of a hot drink, I suppose; coffee for Father and Uncle and Aunt Mary and you, and cocoa for the rest of us; only I'm so tired of cocoa, I don't believe I could drink a drop."
"We certainly have had it pretty often for lunch lately; I've noticed it myself and meant to speak to Norah about it. I think I can find something else for all of us which you will like better – something especially meant for Thanksgiving."
"What the Pilgrim Fathers had for their Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose," laughed Mildred. "I'm sure it will be good, too, and we'll love it."
School closed the day before Thanksgiving, and that afternoon Mildred and Brownie began to be thankful, because there would be no more lessons till Monday. They put their books away, planned the funny little play they were going to have the next evening, and got together everything they would need for that; then they said it was time to think about the supper in the library.
"We will wait till Norah has gone out and the kitchen is all in order," said Mildred. "Then we can get out the things we want to carry into the other room, and put them on two trays; Jack and Cousin Fred can carry them when we are ready. Plates, and knives, and forks, and glasses, and napkins; and the platter of turkey – "
"And salt," said Brownie, "and bread, and butter."
"Yes; and cranberry jelly. Then we will make the hot things and bring them in afterward."
"What shall we make to-day, Mildred?"
"I wonder if Norah has made the cranberry jelly for dinner yet; if she hasn't, you and I might make that now, and divide it and put part away for the supper. And we can make the dessert, or whatever Mother thinks we had better have. The salad we shall have to make to-morrow."
Norah was that very minute preparing to make the cranberry jelly, but she said she was in a hurry, and the girls could make it if they would promise not to get in her way. They got the receipt from their mother, and began in a corner as far off from Norah as they could get.
CRANBERRY JELLY
1 quart of cranberries. Pick them over and wash them, then chop them a little.
1½ cups of cold water.
2 cups of sugar.
Boil five minutes; rub while hot through a sieve, and pour into a pretty mold.
This rule, of course, had to be doubled for two molds. They found it was not very easy to get the cranberries through the sieve; by talking turns, however, they were slowly squeezing them through when Norah came to their aid and gave them the wooden potato-masher to use instead of the spoon they were working with. The molds were set away to get hard, and then they asked their mother for something else to do.
"I've been thinking," she said, "that we ought to have for supper something the men would like very much; they will have had turkey once already, and perhaps they will be tired of it. Would you like scalloped oysters?"
"Mother, we'd perfectly love them!" exclaimed Mildred. "But do you think we could make them? I always thought they were very hard to make."
"My dear, they are the easiest thing in the world. To save time, you may copy the rule now, and then to-morrow, when everybody is here, I will not have to stop visiting and explain it."
SCALLOPED OYSTERS
1 quart of oysters.
2 packages of crackers, or as many loose ones – about half a pound. Roll fine.
Salt, pepper, and butter.
1 small cup of milk.
Drain the oysters and examine each one carefully to see that it is free from shell; strain and measure the juice; add to it an equal quantity of milk. Butter a deep baking-dish and put in a layer of crumbs, and cover these with a layer of oysters; sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with butter; put on another layer of crumbs, then one of oysters, season, and so on till the dish is full, with a layer of crumbs on top; cover with small bits of butter; pour on the oyster juice and milk, and bake about half an hour, or till brown. Serve at once – it must not stand.
"Sometimes, instead of baking these in one large dish, I fill little brown baking-dishes in just the same way; only, of course, I do not bake these so long – only ten or fifteen minutes. And sometimes for a lunch party, I get from the fish-market very large oyster, or clam, or scallop shells, and fill those instead of the little dishes, and they are very pretty."
"Mother Blair, those would be sweet – simply sweet! I think I'll give a luncheon and have them."
"Do, Mildred, and I'll help," said Brownie, unselfishly.
"Or you can have a luncheon and I'll help!" Mildred replied. "And now what else can we do to-day, Mother? Make some sort of dessert?"
"Yes, I think so; try this; it's simple and very nice."
CHOCOLATE CREAM
1 pint of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
2 squares of unsweetened chocolate.
1 tablespoonful of cornstarch.
1 pinch of salt.
½ teaspoonful of vanilla.
½ pint of thick, sweet cream. (Or this may be omitted.)
Put the milk in a saucepan after taking out a small half-cupful and mixing it with the cornstarch; put in the sugar and salt. Scrape the chocolate (the squares are those marked on the large cake) and put this in next. When it steams and the chocolate is melted and looks brown and smooth, stir up the cornstarch and put it in, stirring till smooth. Cool, add the vanilla, and pour into glasses. Just before serving put a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each glass.
"I do love that," said Brownie, as she wrote down the last word. "When I eat it, I always think I'm eating melted chocolate creams."
"So do I!" laughed Mildred. "Perhaps Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary won't eat their creams to-morrow night, and then you and I can have them for lunch the next day, Brownie."
"They'll surely eat them!" sighed Brownie. "They're too good to leave."
When these were made and safely put away, all but the creamy tops, which were to go on just before supper the next day, Jack came strolling in.
"Smells awfully good!" he said. "Turkey, and onions, and mince-pies, and spicy things. Got any cooking for a boy to do – proper cooking, I mean?"
"I've just thought of something," his mother said quickly, "and I need you to do it right away. The girls are getting up a supper for Thanksgiving night, and they really ought to have some cake to eat with the dessert they have just been making."
"Cake!" ejaculated Jack. "I draw the line at cake, Mother Blair; making cake is not a man's job."
"Not cake, Jack, – only something to go in cake. I want you to crack some nuts and pick them out for the girls. Here is what they are going to make now."
NUT CAKES
2 eggs.
1 cup of light brown sugar.
1 cup of nut meats, chopped fine.
2 tablespoonfuls of sifted flour.
¼ teaspoonful of salt.
Beat the eggs without separating them, and stir in the sugar, flour, and salt. Add the nuts last, and spread the whole in a thin layer on a well-greased tin; bake ten minutes, or till the top is brown. Cut into squares and take quickly from the tin; lay on a platter till cold.
Jack thought he could crack and even pick out nuts without injuring his dignity, so he went to work on a panful of pecans, and, by the time Mildred and Brownie were ready to chop them, they were all ready and waiting. Before long the little cakes were in the oven and out again, crisp and hot; almost too good to be saved, the girls thought, and so did Jack. But they knew there would not be time to-morrow to make any others, so they had to keep these, and when they were cold, shut them up in the cake-box.
"Now I think you have cooked enough for to-day," said their mother, after she had tasted one small crumb of their cakes and pronounced them perfect.
"But, Mother, what about the salad?" asked Brownie.
"Oh, do you really think we need salad with all these good things?"
"Honestly, I don't think we need it at all," said Mildred; "but I do think it would be nice to have it, because it's a party."
"Very well! But what can we have? Lettuce, and tomatoes, and other fresh vegetables are really out of season, or, at any rate, we cannot get them in this town; and yet we ought to have a green salad, because, of course, nobody could possibly eat chicken or lobster salad after a Thanksgiving dinner."
"I could!" called Jack, from the next room; but nobody paid any attention.
"Well, here is an idea – string-bean salad. That is very easy to make, and very good, too, and we can make it out of canned beans and nobody will know it. I will tell you how to make it now, because I'll be so busy to-morrow, and then, in the afternoon, you can get it ready quickly."
STRING-BEAN SALAD
1 pint of string beans, cooked and cold.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
A little lettuce, if you have it.
French dressing.
Drain the beans well and sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper. If they are canned, let them lie on a platter for at least an hour. Arrange them on a few white lettuce leaves on plates, or omit the lettuce and use a few yellow celery leaves; put two strips of hard-boiled egg on the plate, one on each side of the beans, and, just before serving, pour a little French dressing over all. This salad must be very cold.
"Now, certainly, that is all," said Mother Blair, as they wrote this down, "and I'm sure nobody will go home hungry after such a supper as that!"
"And what hot drink are you going to have, Mother?"
"Oh, I almost forgot that. I planned something which is especially Thanksgivingy, too. It is really and truly what the Pilgrim Fathers are supposed to have made for Thanksgiving Day out of wild grapes; but I am sure they had no lemons or spices, so it could not have been quite as good as this. We will have this with the turkey and oysters for the supper, and no coffee or cocoa."
MULLED GRAPE-JUICE
1 quart of bottled grape-juice.
1 pint of water.
1 cup of sugar.
2 lemons.
2 sticks of cinnamon.
1 dozen cloves.
Put the spices in a piece of thin cloth and tie this up like a bag; put it in a saucepan with the grape-juice, sugar, and water, and let it slowly heat till it steams; stir well and let it stand on the back of the fire for ten minutes. Add the juice of the lemons and the thin yellow rind of one (you can peel this off in a strip and drop it in); bring it all to the boiling-point, take out the lemon-peel, taste it, and, if not sweet enough, add more sugar. Serve very hot.
The next evening, just as it grew dark, Mildred and Jack hung a sheet before the double doors of the library, and they, with some of the cousins, gave a funny shadow-play, "Young Lochinvar," with a rocking-horse for the "steed," and a clothes-basket for a boat, and their father read the poem as they acted it. When everybody had stopped laughing at it, the junior Blairs brought in the supper (the oysters had been quietly cooking while they played), and arranged it on the library table. Everything was hot and delicious, or cold and delicious, and the mulled grape-juice was almost the best of all. After everything had been eaten up, they all gathered around the fire and told stories. At last, when the visitors had gone and bedtime had come for the Blairs, Mildred said impressively:
"Now that was what I call a Thanksgiving Day without a flaw!"
CHAPTER XVI
CANDY FOR THE FAIR
The Alcott School, which Mildred and Brownie attended, was going to give a Christmas fair. That is, they were going to have a big, beautiful fair to which everybody in town was to go and buy their Christmas presents, and afterward the money was to be given to the children's ward in the new hospital. Mildred and Brownie were on the candy committee, and, of course, they were much excited. They had to have so much candy for a whole town of people that they did not know where it was to come from.
"We could go around and ask for contributions," said Mildred to her mother; "but the trouble is that everybody in the school is doing that very thing, asking and asking and asking!"
"You might make a good deal of candy yourselves, and perhaps other people who would not care to buy quantities to give you, would make some too. Home-made candy always sells well."
"Miss Betty makes the loveliest pinoche!" said Brownie, thoughtfully.
"So she does. Suppose we ask her about planning to make candy at home."
Miss Betty had just come in from a meeting of her own committee on the fair, and was as interested as could be in the candy table.
"I'll tell you what to do," she said. "Get as many people as you can to give you just a little money, fifty cents, or even twenty-five, in place of giving you any candy – they will be glad to do that, you see, because it would save them ever so much which they can spend on the fair in other ways. Then we will buy sugar, and nuts, and such things with the money, and get all the girls on your committee to help on the candy-making, either in their own homes – "
"Oh, at our house, Miss Betty," begged Brownie; "that will be a party!"
"Very well, if your mother doesn't mind," laughed Miss Betty. "Then, when we see how much we can make in two afternoons, we will beg enough for the rest that we need. And I'll help you. I make awfully good candy!"
When the girls told their mother the plan, she said, "That's a bright idea!" and told the girls to ask the eight others on the committee to go to work at once and get the money for materials.
The next days were busy ones, and when, three days before the fair, the committee met, they were astonished to see how much money they had collected, enough to buy all the materials and have a good sum over. The girls all promised to help make the candy, and said they would surely be at the Blairs' for two whole afternoons, from two o'clock till dark, beginning the next day.
Jack went down-town and bought everything on the list Miss Betty gave him. White sugar and brown, flavoring, chocolate and nuts, citron and little rose-leaves, pink and green coloring, paraffin paper, and all kinds of boxes, little and big, covered with holly paper, or plain red paper, or just white paper. When he got home; he cracked nuts and picked them out beautifully, nearly all in perfect halves. Miss Betty said he was a regular trump.
The next day, the Blairs had an early lunch, and then Norah put the dining-room and kitchen in order, and got out saucepans, spoons, and egg-beaters. Mildred and Brownie laid lunch-cloths over two small tables in the dining-room, and found scissors and anything else they could think of that would be needed. On the dining-room table, across one end, Jack laid a white marble table-top from an old-fashioned table in the attic, and this they washed off and made very clean. Mother Blair said she was sure some kinds of candy were made on marble, and she meant to be prepared.
When the girls had come and their hands and aprons were ready, Miss Betty said she would take four or five girls into the kitchen to start the candy, and the rest could blanch almonds and get them ready to salt; and when the candy was ready for the finishing touches, she would bring it in and show them what to do with it. So she went off with Mildred and three other girls, and Mother Blair and Brownie went to work with the rest on the almonds. They wanted to have quantities of these because they always sold so well at fairs. This was the rule she used:
SALTED ALMONDS
1 pound of Jordan almonds.
White of one egg.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
Put a cupful of shelled almonds into a saucepan of boiling water, enough to well cover them. Put on a cover and let them stand two minutes; take out one and see if the skin slips off easily in your hand; if not, pour off the water, pour on more that is boiling, and let them stand again. When they are ready, dip out a few at a time and keep the rest under water; slip off the skins and put them in bowls till all are done. Beat the white of the egg till half light, mix with the nuts, and spread them on shallow tins; sprinkle with salt and put them in the oven; stir them every few minutes till they become an even, light brown; then take them out.
Instead of having one pound of almonds, they had ten pounds, so the girls had plenty to do to keep them busy till the candy came in. Meanwhile, Miss Betty was showing them how to make:
COFFEE CANDY
3 tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.
1 small cup of boiling water.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup of chopped nuts.
Boil the coffee in the water for two minutes; then strain through a very fine sieve. Measure one-half a cupful and mix with the sugar; boil without stirring, till it spins a thread when you hold up a little on a spoon. Then stand the saucepan in another, half full of very cold water, and beat rapidly till it becomes a cream; stir in the nuts, pour into a shallow pan and cool, cut in squares.
Miss Betty had to show the girls how to see candy "spin a thread," because those words, she said, came in so often in all rules for candy. She just lifted a little up on the spoon and tipped it; at first the candy just dropped off, but as it grew thick it fell more slowly, and at last a tiny thread floated off in the air as the syrup dropped.
Of course, they made a great deal of this candy, as it was easy. And when it was cool, they took the pans to the girls in the dining-room. Two of them left the almonds, and cut it up and packed it carefully in boxes which they lined with paraffin paper, tied each one up with narrow ribbon, labeled them with the name, and then put them aside. Meanwhile the girls in the kitchen made:
FONDANT
1 cup of granulated sugar.
½ cup of milk.
Put this on the stove to heat, and stir till the sugar is dissolved, but, until then, do not let it boil. When there is no sugar left on the edges or bottom of the saucepan, let it boil without stirring; have ready a cup of cold water, and after three minutes drop in a little bit and see if you can make it into a ball in your fingers; if not, boil again till you can. Shake the saucepan occasionally so the sugar will not burn. When you can make a firm but not a hard ball, take it off, and set it in a pan of cold water till it is cool enough to put your finger in without burning. Then stir and beat, and, when it begins to get hard, knead it with your hands. Add flavoring while still rather soft.
"This," Miss Betty said to the girls, "is the one thing, above all others, that you must learn to make, because it is the beginning of all sorts of cream candies. In part of it we can put almond flavoring and make it into balls and put a half-almond on top; or use vanilla flavoring, and bits of citron on top. Or we can add chopped nuts to it, or roll pieces of Brazil nuts in, and so on. And of course some of it we will color green, to put green pistachio-nuts on, and pink, to put bits of rose-leaves on. And we can take it while it is still pretty soft, and make little balls of it and dip each one in melted chocolate with the tip of a fork, and make lovely chocolate creams."
"Oh, Miss Betty, let me make those!" begged Mildred; and "Oh, Miss Betty, let me make pistachio creams!"; and "Oh, please, dear Miss Betty, let me make the nut creams!" begged the girls. Miss Betty laughed, and shook her head at them all. "The dining-room girls will finish these, all but the chocolate creams – those we will make to-morrow." So she took all the pans of fondant into the dining-room, and Mother Blair showed the girls there how to turn this plain white candy into colored bonbons, working on the marble slab; they were lovely when they were finished, and packed in boxes like the rest. Meanwhile, Miss Betty said they would make:
CHOCOLATE COCOANUT CAKES
1 cup of sugar.
¼ cup of water.
White of 1 egg.
1 cup of grated cocoanut from a package.
2 squares of chocolate, melted.
Let the sugar and water boil till it spins a thread. Beat the egg white stiff, and very slowly pour in the syrup while beating all the time; add the cocoanut, and then the melted chocolate. Drop on sheets of buttered paper in spoonfuls.
"If you want to have these like little biscuits, do not put in the chocolate; just put them on the paper after spreading it in shallow tins, and bake them till they are brown on top. I think it would be nice to make some of each."
When these were done and carried into the dining-room, Miss Betty said: "And now I will show you how I make my very own pinoche. When I have to earn my living, I shall do it by making this candy, and I'm sure in a very short time I'll be a millionaire." The girls laughed, and said they wanted to learn to get rich too.
PINOCHE
2½ cups of brown sugar.
½ cup of cream.
Butter the size of an egg.
½ cup of chopped walnuts.
½ cup of chopped almonds.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Boil the sugar, cream, and butter together twenty minutes; add the nuts and vanilla, and beat well; when smooth and creamy, pour into buttered tins; when cool, cut in squares.
"It's just as well we have so many to work," said Mildred. "It takes lots of strength to beat this candy."
"Yes, we need Jack's strong arm," said Miss Betty, smiling. "To-morrow, we must get him to help. Now here is another kind of nut candy that is very good indeed, and when you are all done with that pinoche, we will make this next."
NUT CREAMS
3 cups of light brown sugar.
Whites of 2 eggs.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup of chopped nuts.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Boil the sugar and water, stirring and beating till the sugar is all dissolved; then let it boil without stirring till it spins a thread. Remove from the fire and let it stand on the table for just a moment, to be sure it has stopped boiling; then pour it over the stiff whites of the eggs, beating with a wire beater all the time; put in the vanilla while you are beating. When it is creamy and getting stiff, add the nuts, stir well, and spread on buttered paper. If you prefer, do not use vanilla, but almond flavoring, and add almonds instead of other nuts.
"Now, girls, just one more kind and that will be enough, I am sure. To-morrow we will change work, and I will teach all this to the other girls while you make salted almonds and tie boxes; I'm sure we shall sell all we can make."
"This candy will be worth a dollar a pound!" said Mildred.
"At least that," said Miss Betty, laughing; "only we won't ask quite that much, I think. Now this is the last receipt."
CHOCOLATE SQUARES
1 cup of sugar.
¼ cake of chocolate.
½ cup of molasses.
½ cup of milk.
½ cup of butter.
Mix this all together and boil it twenty minutes; cool it a very little and add 1 teaspoonful of vanilla. Pour in pans, and, when cool, mark off in squares.
It was dark when all this candy was done and in the boxes. The girls were tired, but delighted with their work, and the next day they came, eager to finish it. Those who worked in the kitchen made the same things as the other girls had made before, and, when everybody was done, it was astonishing how many, many boxes they had.
They had already decided not to have any two-pound or five-pound boxes, but to make only pound and half-pound ones, as these would sell better. They tied up the boxes which were covered with holly paper with red ribbons, and the red boxes with holly ribbons, and the plain white boxes with red, with a bit of holly tied in each bow. When Norah saw them all, she said they were "stylish." Certainly they were pretty, and the candy was delicious, and fresh as well, and all the committee and Mother Blair and Miss Betty were just as proud as proud could be.
When the fair was over, the ladies who were in charge of it sent a special little note to the candy committee telling them how well they had done.
"Next time we will make ever so many more kinds of candy," said Mildred, as they talked it all over. "I never knew there were so many. I used to think all you could make at home were molasses candy and peanut brittle, and everybody can make those, so they are not much fun."
"When the children get into their ward, we will make some candy for them," said Brownie. "I think the children with broken legs, and bad knees, and the not-very-sick children would like some, especially if we put it in white boxes and tie them up with big bows of ribbon."
"Of course they would," said Mildred. "It would be just lovely and would help them to get well ever so much quicker, I know. That's what Mother would call a particularly bright idea, Brownie Blair!"