A CANDY PULL.
Of all things in the world, what should grandmamma propose but my
sending for Miss Muffet! Great-aunt Jessamine had gone away long before.
"I believe it was to-day that the girls meant to have the candy pull at
Jeanie's, wasn't it?" grandmamma asked.
"Yes, darling grandmamma," I said, "they may have it; but I am not going
to desert you."
"Thee is very kind, dearie," replied grandmamma; "but I need only quiet,
and Hetty will come out of her attack just as well without thee as with
thee. I particularly wish that thee would go. How is thee to have the
fair unless thee has the candy pull? The time is passing, too. It will
soon be school and lessons again."
So, at grandmamma's urging, I went for Miss Muffet. The little woman
came without much delay, and took hold, as she expressed it, looking
after both our invalids; and in the meantime telling me how to broil a
steak for my grandmamma's and our own dinner, and how to fry potatoes so
that they should not be soaked with grease.
A girl I know gained a set of Dickens' works by broiling a steak so as
to please her father, who was a fastidious gentleman, and said he
wanted it neither overdone nor underdone, but just right.
For broiling you need a thick steak, a clear fire, and a clean gridiron.
Never try to broil meat over a blaze. You must have a bed of coals, with
a steady heat. The steak must not be salted until you have turned each
side to the fire; and it must be turned a good many times and cooked
evenly. It will take from five to seven minutes to broil it properly,
and it will then have all the juices in, and be fit for a king.
I don't know that kings have any better food than other gentlemen, but
one always supposes that they will have the very best.
A steak may be cooked very appetizingly in the frying pan; but the pan
must be very hot, and have no grease in it. Enough of that will ooze
from the fat of the steak to keep it from sticking fast. A good steak
cooked in a cold frying-pan and simmering in grease is an abomination.
So declares Miss Muffet, and all epicures with her.
To fry potatoes or croquettes or any other thing well, one must have
plenty of lard or butter or beef drippings, as she prefers, and let it
boil. It should bubble up in the saucepan, and there should be enough of
it to cover the wire basket in which the delicately sliced potatoes are
laid--a few at time--to cook. They will not absorb fat, because the
heat, when the first touch of it is given, will form a tight skin over
them, and the grease cannot pierce this. They will be daintily brown,
firm and dry.
But this isn't telling of our candy pull.
We had set our hearts on having fun and doing good--killing two birds
with one stone, as Al Fay said. But I do not approve of that proverb,
for certainly no _girl_ ever wishes to kill a bird; no more does a
decent boy think of such a thing.
We resolved to have a fair and to sell candy at it, making every bit
ourselves.
Therefore we had sent out some invitations to girls not of the club, and
to some of the nicest boys. They were as follows:
The Clover Leaf Club of Bloomdale requests the pleasure of your
company at the house of Miss Jeanie Cartwright, on Friday evening,
September 8, at eight o'clock. Candy pull.
MILLY VAN DOREN,
_President._
LOIS PARTRIDGE,
_Secretary._
I had my doubts all day as to whether it would be right for me to go;
but about four o'clock Aunt Hetty, looking as well as ever, came out of
her room in a stiffly starched gingham gown, and proceeded to cook for
herself a rasher of bacon and some eggs. Grandmamma was up and reading
one of her favorite books; and Miss Muffett, who had stepped over to her
house to attend to her sister and the parrot, came back declaring her
intention to stay all night.
"So, my darling child, you may go, and welcome."
Away went my doubts and fears, and I tripped merrily down the street to
Jeanie's, feeling the happier for a letter from mother, which I found at
the post office.
Our candy was to be sold for a cent a stick, but the sticks were not
scanty little snips by any means. Mrs. Cartwright made us a present of
the molasses, Lois brought the sugar from home, Al Fay brought the
saleratus, Patty remembered about the vinegar, and Marjorie produced the
butter.
These were the ingredients: a half-gallon of New Orleans molasses, a cup
of vinegar, a piece of butter as large as two eggs, a good teaspoonful
of saleratus dissolved in hot water.
We melted the sugar in the vinegar, stirred it into the molasses, and
let it come to the boil, stirring steadily. The boys took turns at this
work.
When the syrup began to thicken we dropped in the saleratus, which makes
it clear; then flouring our hands, each took a position, and pulled it
till it was white.
The longer we pulled, the whiter it grew. We ate some of it, but we
girls were quite firm in saving half for our sale.
Then we made maple-sugar caramels. Have you ever tried them? They are
splendid. You must have maple sugar to begin with; real sugar from the
trees in Vermont if you can get it. You will need a deep saucepan. Then
into a quart of fresh sweet milk break two pounds of sugar. Set it over
the fire. As the sugar melts, it will expand. Boil, boil, boil, stir,
stir, stir. Never mind if your face grows hot. One cannot make candy
sitting in a rocking-chair with a fan. One doesn't calculate to, as
Great-aunt Jessamine always says.
The way to test it when you _think_ it is done is to drop a portion in
cold water. If brittle enough to break, it is done. Pour into square
buttered pans, and mark off while soft into little squares with a knife.
Some people like cream candy. It is made in this way: three large
cupfuls of loaf-sugar, six tablespoonfuls of water. Boil, without
stirring, in a bright tin pan until it will crisp in water like molasses
candy. Flavor it with essence of lemon or vanilla; just before it is
done, add one teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Powder your hands with
flour, and pull it until it is perfectly white.
_Plain Caramels_.--One pound of brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of
chocolate, one pint of cream, one teaspoonful of butter, two
tablespoonfuls of molasses. Boil for thirty minutes, stirring all the
time; test by dropping into cold water. Flavor with vanilla, and mark
off as you do the maple caramels.
Home-made candy is sure to be of good materials, and will seldom be
harmful unless the eater takes a great quantity. Then the pleasure of
making it counts for something.
Our little fair was held the day after the candy pull, and the boys put
up a tent for us in Colonel Fay's grounds. Admission to the tent was
five cents. We sold candy, cake, ice-cream, and--home-made bread, and
our gains were nineteen dollars and ten cents. There were an apron
table, and a table where we sold pin-cushions and pen-wipers; but our
real profits came from the bread, which the girls' fathers were so proud
of that they bought it at a dollar a loaf. With the money which came
from the fair, we sent two little girls, Dot and Dimpsie, our poorest
children in Bloomdale, where most people were quite comfortably off, to
the seaside for three whole weeks.
I do not know what we would have done in Bloomdale if Dot and Dimpsie
had not had a father who would rather go off fishing, or lounge in the
sun telling stories, than support his family. Everybody disapproved of
Jack Roper, but everybody liked his patient little wife and his two dear
little girls, and we all helped them on.
There was no excuse for Jack. He was a tall, strong man, a good hunter,
fisher and climber, a sailor whenever he could get the chance to go off
on a cruise; but he would not work steadily. He did not drink, or swear,
or abuse his wife; but he did not support her, and if people called him
Shiftless Jack, he only laughed.
As he was the only person in Bloomdale who behaved in this way, we did
what mother calls condoning his offences--we called on him for odd jobs
of repairing and for errands and extra work, such as lighting fires and
carrying coals in winter, shoveling snow and breaking paths, weeding
gardens in summer, and gathering apples in the fall. We girls determined
to take care of Dot and Dimpsie, and help Mrs. Roper along.
They were two dear little things, and Mrs. Roper was very glad of our
assistance.
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