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 nice 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 afterward 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 nice. 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 Mil

dred. "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 has n'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 recipe from their mother, and began in a corner as far off from Norah as they could get.

CRANBERRY JELLY

I quart of cranberries. Pick them over and wash them, then chop them a little.

11⁄2 cups of cold water.

2 cups of sugar.

Boil five minutes; rub while hot through a sieve, and rour 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 taking 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

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 fishmarket 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

Put the milk in a saucepan after taking out a small half-cupful and mixing it with the corn-starch; 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 corn-starch 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 tomorrow 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 nice 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 very nicely and pick them out for the girls. Here is what they are going to make now."

salt.

NUT CAKES

2 eggs.

I cup of light brown sugar.

I cup of nut meats, chopped fine.

2 table-spoonfuls of sifted flour.

1/4 teaspoonful of salt.

Beat the eggs without separating them, and stir in the sugar, flour, and Add the nuts last, and spread the whole in a thin layer on a wellgreased 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

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.

"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

I quart of bottled grape-juice.

I pint of water.

I cup of sugar.

2 lemons.

2 sticks of cinnamon.

I 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 cook

ing while they played), and arranged it nicely on the library table. It was a sort of picnic. Everything was hot and delicious, or cold and delicious, just as it ought to have been, and the mulled grape-juice was almost the best of all. After everything had been eaten up, the dishes were taken out into the kitchen, and 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!"