the corn-crib, they scampered. Chatterer knew just where to get inside, and in a few minutes they were stuffing themselves with yellow corn. When they had eaten all that they could hold, they stuffed their cheeks full and started back the way they had come. Tommy went straight to his own part of the Green Forest, and there he hid his treasure, some in a hollow stump, and some under a little pile of leaves between the roots of a tree. All the time he watched sharply to make sure that no one saw him. While looking for new hiding-places, his nose told him to dig. There, buried under the leaves, he found nuts hidden by the one who had lived there before him. There must be a lot more hidden there, and it would be great fun hunting for them. Doubtless he would find as many as if he had hidden them himself, for he had seen that Chatterer did n't know where he had put a tenth part of the things he had hidden. He just trusted to his nose to help him get them again.

He found a splendid nest made of leaves and strips of inner bark in the hollow stub of a big branch of a chestnut-tree, and he made up his mind that there was where he would sleep. Then he ran over to see Chatterer again. He found him scolding at a cat who watched him with yellow, unblinking eyes. He would run down the trunk of the tree almost to the ground, and there scold and call names as fast as his tongue could go. Then he would run back up to the lowest branch and scold from there. The next time he would go a little farther down. Finally he leaped to the ground, and raced across to another tree. The cat sprang, but was just too late. Chatterer jeered at her. Then he began the same thing over again, and kept at it until finally the cat gave up and left in disgust. It had been exciting, but Tommy shivered at the thought of what might have happened.

"Ever try that with a fox?" asked Chatterer. "No," replied Tommy.

"I have!" boasted Chatterer. "But I 've seen squirrels caught doing it," he added. "Still, I suppose one may as well be caught by a fox as by a hawk."

"Did you see that weasel this morning?" asked Tommy.

Chatterer actually shivered as he replied: "Yes, I saw him after you. It's a wonder he did n't get you. You 're lucky! I was lucky myself this morning, for a mink went right past where I was hiding. Life is nothing but one jump after another these days. It seems as if, when one has worked as hard as I did last fall to store up

enough food to keep me all winter, I ought to be allowed to enjoy it in comfort. Those who sleep all winter, like Johnny Chuck, have a mighty easy time of it. They don't know when they are well off. Still, I'd hate to miss all the excitement and fun of life. I would rather jump for my life twenty times a day as I have to, and know that I'm alive, than to be alive and not know it. See that dog down there? I hate dogs! I'm going to tell him so."

Off raced Chatterer to bark and scold at a little black-and-white dog which paid no attention to him at all. The shadows were creeping through the trees, and Tommy began to think of his nest. He looked once more at Chatterer, who was racing along the top of the old wall scolding at the dog. Suddenly what seemed like merely a darker shadow swept over Chatterer, and, when it had passed, he had vanished. For once, that fatal once, he had been careless. Hooty the Owl had caught him. Tommy shivered. He was frightened and cold. He would get to his nest as quickly as he could. He leaped down to a great gray stone, and-behold, he was n't a squirrel at all! He was just a boy sitting on a big stone, with a heap of Christmas greens at his feet.

He shivered, for he was cold. Then he jumped up and stamped his feet and threshed his arms. A million diamond points glittered in the white meadows where the snow crystals splintered the sunbeams. From the Old Orchard sounded the sharp scolding chirr and cough of Chatterer the Red Squirrel.

Tommy listened and slowly a smile widened. "Hooty did n't get you, after all!" he muttered. Then in a minute he added: "I 'm glad of it. And you have n't anything more to fear from me. You won't believe it, but you have n't. You may be mischievous, but I guess you have troubles enough without my adding to them. Oh, but I'm glad I'm not a squirrel! Being a boy 's good enough for me, 'specially 'long 'bout Christmas time. I bet Sis will be tickled with these greens. But it 's queer what happens when I sit down on this old rock!"

He frowned at it as if he could n't understand it at all. Then he gathered up his load of greens, and, with the merriest of whistles, trudged homeward. And to this day Chatterer the Red Squirrel cannot understand how it came about that from that Christmas he and Tommy became fast friends. But they did.

Perhaps the wishing-stone could tell if it would.

CANDY FOR THE FAIR

HE 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 does n'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.

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 eggbeaters. 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 all ready.

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

I pound of Jordan almonds. White of one egg.

1⁄2 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, put 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 table-spoonfuls of ground coffee. I 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.

lined with paraffin paper, tied each one up with narrow ribbons, labeled them with the name, and then put them aside. Meanwhile the girls in the kitchen made

FONDANT

I cup of granulated sugar.

1⁄2 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 sec 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

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. 1/4 cup of water.

White of I egg.

I 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

21⁄2 cups of brown sugar.

1⁄2 cup of cream.

Butter the size of an egg.
1⁄2 cup of chopped walnuts.
1⁄2 cup of chopped almonds.
I 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 nice 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.

I cup of boiling water.
I cup of chopped nuts.

I 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