Part 13 (1/2)
”Oh, Miss Betty give me one more, please!” begged Brownie. ”I love special ones, just for me.”
”Very well; here is one of the cunningest ones you ever saw.”
BOX SHORTCAKES
Get from the baker's some small, oblong sponge-cakes; with a sharp knife mark all around the top edge, and then take out the middle part, leaving small, empty boxes. Fill these heaping full of sliced berries, or, if you can get them, small field berries, and cover the tops with powdered sugar; pa.s.s a pitcher of cream.
”Of course you can make little cakes at home for these instead of buying them at the baker's, but really, for this particular receipt, the bought ones are better. Hark! Isn't that your mother calling?”
It was, so they called Jack, who was reading ”Kim” in the library, and all went home.
CHAPTER VIII
IN CAMP
”I've a nice long vacation ahead of me,” announced Father Blair at breakfast one hot summer morning, ”and I've set my heart on going to Maine on a camping trip. I don't want any guide to take care of me, yet I do need some one who will help me cook. I had thought of asking you to go, Jack, but as 'boys don't cook'--of course--”
”Oh, but they do camp cooking!” Jack exclaimed enthusiastically; ”all sorts of things--bacon, and fried eggs, and corn-bread--”
”But, you see, you can't make any of those, and my digestion being delicate, I don't feel that I can be experimented upon,” said his father, with a twinkle in his eye. ”Now if only you had taken lessons all these months as the girls have, I might consider taking you.”
”I'll learn right off, honestly I will! I'll begin this very day. And I can make cheese dreams, and--and boil eggs, now.”
”How long do you boil them, Jack?”
”Till they're done!” said Jack, triumphantly.
Father Blair went off laughing, and said he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stand his son's cooking.
Jack spent a nervous day. Would his father really take him to Maine, to the camp in the woods he had always heard about, where his father and his men friends went nearly every year? Or would he be left at home merely because he did not know how to cook? At last he consulted his mother.
”I think Father will surely take you,” she said comfortingly; ”and he is just pretending about the cooking; he can do all kinds of camp cookery beautifully, and up there he will teach you himself how to make things.”
So, sure enough, in just a week, Jack and his father were off for the woods of Maine, to a lake where the fis.h.i.+ng was wonderful. They had a little log-cabin to sleep in, with a lean-to for their stores and cooking things, and there was a circle of stones, all blackened from other fires, where they could cook out of doors. The trees ran right down to the water's edge, and it was so still, and cool, and lovely that, if they had not been so hungry they could have sat and looked out at the lake for hours. As it was, as soon as they were settled and the guide had paddled off, they decided to have supper at once.
The first thing was to make a fire, and Jack brought an armful of twigs and began to lay them in the stone fireplace.
”No, that's not the way,” said his father. ”There are several kinds of camp-fires, and the one we want to-night is the quick one. You must get two green sticks, about three feet long, with crotches at the top, and stick them well into the ground so they will cross at the top; then you can fill the kettle with water and hang it up, two feet from the fire, and under it you arrange loosely some very dry small twigs; have some larger ones at hand to put on as they burn up; that makes a hot, quick fire; some campers call it a 'wigwam' fire, because they build it up in that pointed shape. To-night, however, the first thing to do is to start the coffee; this is the way to make it:”
CAMP COFFEE
1 pint of cold water.
3 heaping tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.
As soon as the water bubbles, and before it really boils, take the kettle off and let it stand for ten minutes where it is hot. Pour a tablespoonful of cold water down the spout to settle it.
While the coffee was making, they cut a large slice of ham from the whole one they had brought with them, and after the frying-pan was heated on the coals, they put this in it to cook. Then Jack got out four eggs to have them ready, while Father Blair gave him this simple rule:
HAM AND EGGS