The fun of cooking

* * Yes, indeed ! ' * said Mildred, running to get a pencil. Then Miss Betty gave her these : STRAWBERRY CAKE 1 small cup of sugar. % cup of butter. 1 cup of cold water. 2 cups of flour. 3 rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Put the baking-powder in the flour and mix well. Rub the butter and sugar to a cream. Beat the egg without separating, and add this; add a little water, then a little of the flour, and so on till all is in. Bake in two shallow tins. When done, and just before serving, put a layer of crushed, sweetened berries between the two layers and cover the top with whipped cream dotted with whole berries. Or cover with powdered sugar and whole berries and pass plain cream. *'This rule makes perfectly delicious raspberry or peach shortcake, too. Try it as soon as raspberries come, Mildred, for you will love it. Now just one more rule, and this is especially for Brownie. * * STRAWBERRY RUSSE Get a dozen ladyfingers, split them in halves, and cut each one in two. Arrange these around the edge of small glasses ; flll the centers with berries cut in halves and sweetened, and cover with whipped cream; put one berry on top of each. '*0h, 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; pass 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 I Isn't that your mother calling?" It was, so they called Jack, who was reading *'Kim" in the library, and all went home. CHAPTER Vni "I'VE a nice long vacation ahead of me," announced Father Blair at breakfast one hot summer morning, **and I Ve set my heart an 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 — ' ' *'0h, but they do camp cooking I *' 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 '11 learn right off, honestly I will ! I 'U 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. ' '