"Even Jack," called her brother from the dining-room. "I heard that, Brownie Blair, and I'll tell you this: I can cook just as well as any one in this family, if I do say it."
"Prove it, then," laughed his mother, "I got the lunch alone to-day because you were all away; but suppose, instead of having regular dinners while Norah is gone, we have hot suppers, and you three get them without me. Do you think you could manage it? And I will get lunch and breakfast."
"Oh, no, Mother Blair. We will all get breakfast together, and wash the dishes and make the beds before we go to school; we can get up earlier. And every single day we will get supper all alone and you can go out calling or walking or whatever you like."
"Perhaps you'll let me help once in a while," suggested their mother meekly.
"Not once. Of course if you want to make one thing for supper to surprise us some time and have plenty of time to do it while you are getting lunch, we might let you do that. A cake, I mean, or gingerbread, just to help out at night; none of us can make many kinds of cake."
"Well, I think most girls know how to make too many kinds of cake and very few kinds of more sensible things, soups and vegetables and so on; and of the two I believe the regular every-day dishes are the more important. You see, you can learn to make cake at any time."
"I think this is a rattling good time for Mildred to learn," declared Jack. "Chocolate layer cake and cocoanut cake and fruit cake are great, and she'll never learn younger, Mother."
"Well, she may make a great big cake for you on Saturday for Sunday night supper, if she wants to; but if she does, I shall expect you to do your share of the cooking every day."
"Emergency cooking is all right; men ought to know how to do that," Jack replied stoutly. "I'm perfectly willing to cook bacon for breakfast, or scramble eggs, or cook fish for supper, or make a stew; anything I cooked in camp I can do with one hand tied behind my back!"
"This is your chance then, to show what you learned last summer. Perhaps if you do splendidly well Father Blair will want to take you again," said his mother. "Now hurry back to school and I will do these dishes and plan the supper and get it all ready for you—on paper,—and then if you want me to, I'll disappear and you may cook it all alone."