"Yes, sir, I think so," mumbled Arthur, who found it hard to live up to his standard of manliness, as he felt the quick clasp of his mother's hand and saw the look in her eyes.

For a moment the three stood there, a little world in themselves.

Then Mrs. Hamilton stretched out a welcoming hand to Ruth.

"You belong too, little daughter," she said lovingly. "We're going to have good times together, we four. You shall see."

CHAPTER VII

CAPS AND Ap.r.o.nS

"Now, young ladies, please come to order," said Dorothy, rapping on the table with a wooden spoon, which seemed the most appropriate symbol of office for the president of a cooking club.

It was a day in late November, and the afternoon sun streaming in at the windows of the Ellsworth kitchen smiled broadly at the sight of six cooks in caps and ap.r.o.ns. This was the first working meeting of the club, and as the girls had thought it better to make six the membership, Katharine French and Alice Stevens had been invited to join.

"Usually," continued Dorothy, in an official manner which she flattered herself was in close imitation of the president of the Glenloch Fortnightly Club, "Usually we shall choose our dishes beforehand and bring the materials for making them. As this is the first meeting, Mrs. Ellsworth is going to let us use her materials, and she thinks that we'd better get up a simple supper for our first attempt. I thought that popovers, scalloped oysters, baked apples, cake, chocolate and some simple dessert would be nice, and after this you can make things as elaborate as you like."

Dorothy looked so dignified and important as she finished her little speech that irrepressible Charlotte longed to tickle her or rumple her hair, two things that the neat Dorothy loathed. As she couldn't she only said meekly, "Please, ma'am, are we to choose which we'd rather cook? If we are, I prefer the apples."

"So do I," laughed Katharine; "you're not any lazier than I am, Charlotte."

"We'll have to write the names of things on slips of paper and draw for them," said Dorothy, "and no matter what you get you must do the best you can with it."

"My, but you are stern, Dolly," said Betty admiringly. "I should probably have let them spend the next half hour wrangling about what they'll do."

Charlotte, who had been made secretary, wrote the names of the various dishes on slips of paper and put them in the hat which Betty brought her. Then with a low bow she presented the hat to Dorothy, who drew the slip on which was written "scalloped oysters."

"How n.o.ble of you, Dolly, to draw the one we should all have hated,"

cried Ruth. "Oh, I'm not sure but this is just as bad," she added, as the slip marked "dessert" fell to her lot. Betty found herself staring at the word "popovers," while Katharine and Alice drew cake and chocolate respectively.

"Girls, I don't need to tell you that 'the lame and the lazy are always provided for,'" cried Charlotte, as she triumphantly flourished the "baked apple" slip. "I will prepare my portion of the feast and then read a while."

"Oh, I forgot to say," said Betty, "that mother suggested that the one who baked the apples might even up things by building the fire. She said one of the first duties of a cook was to know how to manage the stove."

"I wouldn't have believed it of you, Betty," groaned Charlotte, as she made up a face. "I don't know anything about building a fire.

How under the sun shall I begin?"

"Read this and grow wise," answered Betty, thrusting an open cookbook under Charlotte's nose. "That tells you just how to do it."

Each of the other girls having brought a cookbook buried herself in it for the time being, while Charlotte, left to her own resources, proceeded to build the fire. First she read with great care the directions in the cookbook, and then looked rather helplessly at the stove.

"This is the front draught, of course," she murmured, "but where's the oven draught? Betty, do tell me where the oven draught is on this stove."

Betty flew over from the further side of the big kitchen, and pointed out the oven draught. Then she absorbed herself again in her book so completely that Charlotte hadn't the courage to ask for further instructions. She noticed a damper in the stovepipe, and wanted to ask about that, but pride forbade. "I'll do this alone or perish in the attempt," she said to herself with n.o.ble courage, and proceeding on the principle that she ought to change the existing condition of everything, she turned the one in the stovepipe and speedily forgot all about it. Then she put in a layer of twisted papers, laid the kindlings artistically, with air-s.p.a.ces between the sticks, and before putting on the covers stood off to admire her work.

She looked around for sympathy, but the girls were ail absorbed in their books, and no one gave her a glanee. Then with the sigh of unappreciated genius, she covered the stove, and touched a match to the papers through the front grate.

The kitchen was very still except for the crackle of the fire.

The sunshine came like a shower of gold through the west window, glorifying everything it touched. Charlotte, feeling extremely capable, began with great energy to add an extra polish to the apples which she was to bake.

Suddenly Dorothy raised her head and sniffed the air. "I smell smoke. Oh, Charlotte, look at your stove," she cried.

Even as she spoke the smoke poured out around the covers in great volume. Clouds of smoke forced their way through hitherto unsuspected cracks.

"Open the windows," gasped Betty, whom the stinging wood smoke almost blinded.

"Perhaps I turned the dampers wrong," cried Charlotte, making a dash for the stove, and turning the oven draught. The result was disastrous, for the smoke rolled out with still greater violence, only to be met and beaten back into the room by the air from the windows. Charlotte turned the oven draught again, and then stood helpless.

Suddenly Betty bethought herself of what her mother had told her.

"There's a damper in the stovepipe," she choked, covering her streaming eyes with one hand, and waving the other wildly in the air. "Did you touch that?"

"Yes," gasped Charlotte.

"Well, turn it the way it isn't, quick," and while Charlotte reached for the damper, Betty groped her way to the sink to soothe her afflicted eyes with cold water.

Coughing, and with smarting eyes, the girls stood around, while as if by magic the clouds of smoke diminished to tiny streams and then died away altogether.

"How beautifully simple," said Charlotte grimly. "That makes me feel small."

"It wasn't your fault," said Betty. "Mother told me to be sure to remember that that damper in the pipe wasn't to be changed, and of course I had to forget."

Charlotte lifted the cover, and surveyed the fire with a critical though somewhat humbled air. Then after letting it burn up a little she put in a goodly supply of coal and went back to her apples.

"The cake and the apples must go in as soon as the oven is hot,"

said Dorothy, emerging from her cook-book. "That will leave the oven free for my oysters and Betty's popovers."

Ruth gave a squeal of delight. "I've found a recipe for a pudding that sounds perfectly fascinating, and the cooking can be done on the top of the stove, which is an advantage."

"I can't decide between a chocolate cream cake and a cake with caramel filling," wailed Katharine, who loved rich, mushy, sweet things.

"Goodness, child," said Dorothy, with that superior air which she so often affected, "don't try anything so hard the first time.

Find something simple."

"Crushed again," muttered Katharine, only loud enough for Ruth to hear. "Dolly loves to manage everything. You mustn't even breathe hard, girls, for ten minutes, and don't walk so heavily," she said as she carried her cake pan across the kitchen and deposited it in the oven. "This cake is going to be simply dandy, and my heart will be broken if it falls."

"Better not leave the oven door open so long then," said Betty, who having nothing to do for the moment was interesting herself in her neighbor's affairs.

Katharine, who had been absorbed in gazing proudly at her creation, started guiltily, and the oven door slipping from her fingers shut itself with a crash that filled her with horror.

"Do you suppose that old door's spoiled it?" she said in a despairing voice. "I don't see how it can fall, though, till it has begun to rise," she added hopefully to Betty as she went back to the table to clear away her cooking dishes.

"Just give a look at my apples when you're looking at your cake, will you, Kit?" asked Charlotte, who had produced a small book from some mysterious hiding-place, and was slipping off into a comer with it.

"That isn't fair," called Dorothy sharply, but Charlotte pretended not to hear, and Dorothy with a shrug of the shoulders gave her up as a hopeless case. Dorothy and Charlotte were apt to turn their sharp edges toward each other, though either would have defended the other had an outsider interfered.

"Dear me, things look too good to be true," said Ruth a little later as Katharine took her cake, golden-brown and deliciously light, from the oven. "It seems as though some one would have to make a failure of something."