WHEN MOTHER BLAIR WAS SICK
One day Mother Blair woke up with a very sore throat, and the doctor
said, when he had looked at it, that she must stay in bed for a day or
two, and that Brownie had better go visiting.
"But where can I go, school and all?" the little girl asked Mildred very
soberly after the doctor had gone. "If I lose my goggerfy lessons now I
won't be the top of the class, and I thought I was sure to be; and when
I'm the very top of all, you know Father gives me a dollar."
"Perhaps Miss Betty would like to have you visit her," Mildred said;
"wouldn't that be fun? You could come in every single day and see how
things are going with us, and we could wave at you out of the
window--Mother could, I mean,--and it would be just lovely. I'll run
over and ask her if you may come."
Miss Betty said she would be perfectly delighted to have a visit from
Brownie, and Mother Blair said in a very croaky voice that it was a
bright idea. So that very morning Brownie packed a bag and Jack carried
it over for her, and she went visiting.
Mildred found she could be excused from school for a day or two, so she
became nurse; and Norah said she guessed she could run the house alone
after all the years she'd been learning how; so everything was just as
smooth as could be.
When her mother's room was made all tidy and she had settled down to
take a nap, Mildred ran across to Miss Betty's house to ask her what to
give her mother to eat.
"The doctor said soft things, because her poor throat is so sore. What
do you think I'd better give her for lunch, Miss Betty?"
"Invalids have to have nourishing things, Mildred, strong soups and eggs
and cereals with cream, and custards. Suppose you plan to have a cream
soup for to-day and start a meat soup for to-morrow; it takes two days
to make that kind, you know. And--let me see--with cream soup you might
have an egg, I think, and perhaps junket; that is the very softest thing
in the world. Then by night perhaps she can have cream toast; that is
perfectly delicious; if my throat feels sore toward night, Mildred, will
you please make enough for two? I just love it."
Mildred laughed and promised that she would.
"And soft boiled custard in a pretty glass cup; and tea, I suppose. By
to-morrow she will be so much better that I think she can have ever so
many other things. Shall I write out the receipts for you now? Here is a
good one for the soup."
CREAM SOUP
(This makes one cupful.)
2/3 cup milk.
1/2 tablespoonful butter.
1/2 tablespoonful flour.
1/4 teaspoonful salt.
1 shake pepper.
1 tiny slice of onion.
1/4 cup of any hot cooked vegetable; measure after thoroughly
mashing it
Scald the milk with the onion in it; then take out the onion and
slowly mix the milk and vegetable. Melt the butter, rub the flour
into it and stir till it is smooth; then pour gradually on the hot
milk; add the seasoning, bring it to the point where it almost
boils, strain it and put it into a hot cup.
"This is one of the rules you have to learn by heart, Mildred. It is
very easy, you see, almost like a very thin white sauce with vegetable
in it. You can use mashed potato, or peas, or corn or celery or carrots,
or whatever you happen to have in the house to make it with, and if you
multiply it four times you will have enough for a dinner soup."
"Multiply two-thirds by four--" Mildred began.
"Never mind now, my dear! It makes my head go round to hear you. Copy
this instead:"
CHICKEN BROTH
3-1/2 pounds of chicken.
3 pints cold water.
2 tablespoonfuls rice.
1-1/2 teaspoonfuls salt.
1 shake of pepper.
Have the chicken cleaned and cut up at the market. Take off the
skin and fat and wipe each piece with a wet cloth. Put it into a
kettle with the cold water and let it slowly get hot until it
almost boils. (You can tell by looking at the edge of the kettle;
when tiny bubbles begin to form it is nearly boiling.) Then skim
it carefully; let it cook slowly till the meat is very tender; try
it with a fork. Add the salt and pepper when it is about half
done. Strain it, and set it away to grow perfectly cold; then
there will be a layer of fat on top; take this off, add the rice
and put it back on the stove and gently cook it till the rice is
done. Or, if you have any cooked rice, add a tablespoonful to the
soup while it is very hot. Serve in a heated cup.
"Then Mildred, you see you will have all the chicken meat left; you can
take out a bit of the best white meat and put it away for creamed
chicken for your mother's lunch the next day, and have the rest on toast
for the family dinner. Norah can make a little cream gravy to take the
place of the broth you have poured off, and it will be ever so nice."
"So it will; Father just loves that kind of chicken. Now the junket,
Miss Betty."
JUNKET CUSTARD
3/4 cup milk.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
1/4 junket tablet (buy at the grocery in a little package).
1 teaspoonful cold water.
1/4 teaspoonful vanilla.
Small pinch of salt.
Heat the milk till it is just as warm as the tip of your finger;
add the sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir the junket tablet in the
cold water till it melts, and add this. Pour it all very quickly
into small molds or glasses and set in a cold place at once. When
ready to serve, turn out of the mold, or serve in the glass with a
little sugar and cream. If you wish to make this in a hurry, use
half a tablet of the junket instead of a quarter.
"You can change the flavoring of this, Mildred, when you get tired of
vanilla. Try almond sometimes; or, melt half a chocolate square and mix
with the hot milk; or put in the vanilla and serve scraped maple sugar
with it, with thick cream; they are all good. Now for the egg; can you
poach that, do you think?"
"I suppose I can, really, Miss Betty, because I've seen Norah poach eggs
about a hundred times; but I think I'd like a rule for my book."
"Good idea. Here is one, then:"
POACHED EGGS
Put the frying pan on the fire half full of hot water; add half a
teaspoonful of salt. Butter the inside of a tin muffin ring and
put this in the pan. Break a fresh egg carefully into a saucer and
slip it into the ring; the water should cover the egg. Put a cover
on the pan and set it on the back of the stove and let it stand
till the white of the egg is like firm jelly.
While it is cooking make a slice of nice toast; cut it into a
circle, butter it and lay it on a hot plate. When the egg is done
take a cake turner, butter its edge and slip it under the muffin
ring and egg together and hold it over the pan till the water
drips away; then take off the ring, slip the egg carefully on the
round of toast, add just a sprinkle of salt and one of pepper, and
a bit of parsley. Cover the plate till you serve it, to keep it
hot.
"Now, Mildred, I think you had better run home and get out the things
for your tray, and I'll come over just before lunch and help you lay it
prettily, if you want me to. See if you can find a pretty, thin cup for
the soup, and a plate that looks well with it, and something perfectly
_dear_ for the junket. And a little napkin, not a large one. I'll bring
a flower; you know you always have to have a flower for a sick-tray."
"You do?" Mildred's eyes were round. "What for, Miss Betty? You don't
eat a flower!" she giggled.
"No, but you can't eat so well without it, if you are sick. Just wait
till you are, and you'll see."
So Mildred went home and got out all the things she could think of for
her mother's lunch and laid them on one end of the kitchen table. Then
she tip-toed into the sick room, gave her mother her medicine and a cool
drink of water, and turned her pillow over. After that she went out to
begin the lunch.
She found Norah had plenty of junket tablets, so first of all she
followed the rule for that. It was very easy indeed, and in just a
moment she poured half the junket into a little glass for her mother,
and the other half into an egg cup-mold for Jack's lunch. She put both
of these right on ice so they would be firm, and used half the tablet
instead of a quarter as her rule suggested, to be perfectly certain the
junket would be firm enough by noon.
"You must be sure not to let them stand one minute, Miss Mildred," said
Norah as she watched her. "If you do, they'll never set at all."
"Why not, Norah? Couldn't I just set the dish on the table for two
minutes before I put it away?"
Norah assured her that it was quite impossible. "Junket isn't like
gelatine; it won't wait," she said. So Mildred hurried just as fast as
she could.
Next she made the soup; she found a cup of spinach in the refrigerator,
and used that exactly as the receipt said, and the soup was a lovely
pale green color. She put this where it would keep hot, and then boiled
the water to poach the egg.
Before this bubbled Miss Betty came in with a pink geranium in her hand,
and two green leaves. These she put in a very slender clear glass vase
she found in the sitting-room, just large enough for them. Then she
began to help Mildred with the tray.
"First you cover it with a clean napkin or tray cloth; that's a nice
napkin, Norah, thank you. Then you put on a glass of cold water, only
half full so it will not spill. Then the plate for the soup cup; and the
soup spoon at the side, with the fork for the egg, and the little folded
napkin and a cunning little salt and pepper. Next you get the egg and
toast ready, put them on a hot plate--_hot_, Mildred, not just a little
warm,--and cover it up with a hot cereal dish turned over it, unless you
happen to have a covered china dish that comes on purpose. Stand this at
the back of the tray. Get the little junket ready, too, and put the
glass on a small plate; but you need not put this on the tray. Let your
mother eat the hot things first, and take off the dishes and put the
dessert on the tray all by itself. You can get it while she is eating,
you know. Then, last of all, you put on the vase of flowers.
There--doesn't that look sweet?"
Mildred said it certainly did; then she began to poach the egg, and Miss
Betty went into Mother Blair's room and put an extra pillow behind her
shoulders and a scarf over her and opened the blinds. She drew a little
table close beside the bed and laid a fresh white cover over it, and
when the door opened and Mildred came in carefully carrying the white
tray with the good things to eat on it and the pretty geraniums, her
mother was delighted.
"Oh, how good it looks," she exclaimed. "Mildred, did you really make
that soup? And poach that beautiful egg? And actually make that junket?
Well, I never did see anything so perfectly lovely. I'm proud to have
such a daughter!" Then she ate everything, and declared her throat was
almost well already.
In spite of that, however, the doctor made Mrs. Blair stay in bed
several days, so that Mildred learned to make quite a number of new
dishes for sick people. For one breakfast she gave her cereal with cream
and bits of dates; for one luncheon she had the chicken broth, and for
one supper cream toast and baked custard; she had goldenrod eggs, too,
when her mother's throat was better, and baked apple. All of these
things she wrote down in her book so she would not forget how to make
any of them.
CEREAL WITH DATES
1 heaping tablespoonful oatmeal.
1 cup of water.
1/4 teaspoonful of salt.
Mix, put in a double boiler and cook for one hour. Five minutes
before taking this off the fire stir in
4 dates, washed and cut into small pieces.
Serve with cream.
CREAM TOAST
2 slices of nice brown, dry toast.
3/4 cup of cream.
1/2 teaspoonful butter.
1/2 teaspoonful flour.
1/4 teaspoonful salt.
Rub the melted butter and flour; heat the cream till it scalds, or
almost boils; mix together and pour slowly over one slice of the
toast in a deep dish; then put on the second slice and pour the
rest of the cream over that. Serve very hot.
GOLDENROD EGGS
1/2 tablespoonful butter.
3/4 tablespoonful flour.
1/4 teaspoonful salt.
1/2 cup hot milk.
Rub the butter and flour, and add the milk and salt. Have ready
1 hard boiled egg. (Boil ten minutes.)
1 slice of toast.
Cut the egg in half, take off the white part and chop it; stir
this into the white sauce. Cut the crust off the toast and pour
over; then quickly rub the egg yolk through the sieve and sprinkle
over all. Keep the sauce and toast hot in the oven until you put
on the yolk; serve very hot in a covered dish.
BAKED APPLE
Peel and core a large sour apple. Put in a deep-earthen dish, fill
the center with sugar, and just cover the bottom of the dish with
water. Bake in a hot oven till soft, basting every five minutes
with the syrup in the bottom of the dish. (That is, with a spoon
pour the juice over the apple.) Serve hot or cold, with cream.
Mildred could already make baked custard, so she did not need a new rule
for that. But soft-boiled custard she had to learn.
SOFT CUSTARD
1 cup of rich milk.
2 eggs.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
1/2 teaspoonful vanilla.
Put the milk on the fire to heat; beat the yolks of the eggs, add
the sugar and beat again; stir this into the hot milk, add the
salt and stir till the whole grows thick like cream. Then take it
off at once; be careful not to let it boil at all or it will be
spoiled. Let it get very cold; put it in a glass, beat half of the
white of one egg and add this just before serving. Or, whip one
spoonful of thick cream and put this on top of the custard.
After Mildred had learned to make all these good things, she used to
search her cook book for receipts for other things, and as her mother
got better she made something new every day. By the time Mother Blair
was perfectly well and strong again, she felt she had grown to be a real
sick-cook. And the best thing of all was that the doctor said the reason
her mother got well so fast was that she had had such nourishing and
delicious things to eat!