Part 18 (1/2)
”Oh, no, indeed! n.o.body does that way any more. Ask Norah if she has any paraffin left over.”
But no, she had used every bit she had to cover her grape jelly; so Brownie had to go to the drug-store and get ten cents' worth. It came in a large cake, so clear and white it looked good enough to eat, but it wasn't, as the little girl found out by tasting. It was just like candles, and only mice like to eat candles. Norah said she would show the girls how to cover jams and jellies and spiced things, and everything you put in jelly-gla.s.ses.
”You take this little saucepan that I keep on purpose for paraffin,” she said, ”and put the whole cake in it after you cut it in two, and melt it; only be careful and don't let it splash on my clean stove and make it greasy. And while it is melting you can wipe off the jam gla.s.ses with a warm, wet dish-cloth and make them all clean and dry.”
While Brownie was was.h.i.+ng off the gla.s.ses Mildred cut some little slips of paper and printed on these the names for the different things they had made; PEACH on some, and SPICED GRAPES on others, and GRAPE JAM or APPLE JELLY on the rest. Then she got the pot of paste from the library; by this time the paraffin was melted and all ready to use. Norah showed them how to pour a little on top of each gla.s.s, right on the jam, and then tip the gla.s.ses a little so it would run up the sides toward the top. In a moment it hardened, and was ready for the tin covers to go on so the mice could not get at it, and then they pasted the labels on, and it was done.
Norah helped carry the trays to the preserve closet and put them away in rows, being very careful not to tip them and slide the paraffin up the sides of the gla.s.ses. Then they stood and looked at them, and, oh, how proud the girls felt!
”I'll make some more to-morrow,” said Mildred, ”and some more after that, and some more after that, and some more after _that_!”
CHAPTER XI
A HALLOWE'EN SUPPER
”Hallowe'en next week. Wish we could do something nice,” Jack said to Mildred as they put away their books one night at bedtime.
”So do I. I'm tired of school already, and here it is only October! Of course, I don't mean that I'm dreadfully tired of it, you know, only just a little bit tired. I think, if we could have something very nice indeed to do, I could get on till the Christmas vacation--or at least till Thanksgiving without making any great fuss.”
Jack laughed. He knew that Mildred, like himself, was always ready to have a good time.
”Let's have a Hallowe'en party,” he suggested. ”Not a sheet and pillow-case party, either; we've had those till I can't even think of one without wanting to scream.”
”And not one where you bob for apples and walk around the house backward. I've done both those till I never want to do them again. I mean some new kind of a party.”
But they could not think of anything new that seemed exactly what they wanted; so the next day they went in to see Miss Betty after school and asked her about it.
”Why, a chafing-dish party, of course,” she said. ”That's exactly the thing to have. You make a lot of indigestible things to eat and then you go to sleep and dream of ghosts and goblins, and hear s.h.i.+very noises and groans and such things--just what you want, on Hallowe'en! I can think of a lot of awfully good things to have, things warranted to give you nightmares.”
Jack said that suited him exactly, but Mildred was not so sure.
”Don't you think we might have two or three different kinds of things,”
she suggested doubtfully. ”Some of them, for the boys, might be pretty bad; and some others for the girls a lot better. _I_ don't want to dream of ghosts!”
Miss Betty was willing to do this, but Jack objected. ”Be a sport, Mildred!” he said. ”Remember it's Hallowe'en.”
”Well, we'll see,” she said at last. ”Perhaps I'll eat a few dreadful things just to see what will happen. Now what can we have? I can't use a chafing dish at all.”
”Jack can,” Miss Betty said, laughing. Jack's cooking never ceased to be a joke.
”I? I never cooked in one in my life, except cheese dreams, at the Dwights',” Jack a.s.sured her.
”A chafing dish and a frying-pan are just the same sort of thing, and you know you learned all about frying-pans in the summer, so now, of course, you must show what you can do. I'll give you the receipts and tell you just how to make the things, but you must use a chafing-dish; if you won't--then, of course, I won't be able to help with the party at all.”
So Jack reluctantly promised to do his part. ”Probably I'll spoil things and make a mess,” he grumbled.
But Miss Betty refused to let him off. ”Of course you can cook in a chafing dish,” she a.s.sured him. ”All men can, especially those who can do camp cooking, and you know you're an expert there, Jack! Now let's see what we can have.”
”Do let's have oysters for one thing; they are just in season now,”
begged Mildred.