| 6 | large, tart apples. |
| 1 | cup of sugar. |
| ½ | cup water. |
| ¼ | teaspoonful cinnamon. |
Wipe the apples, cut in quarters, peel and core them. Cut up small and put in a saucepan with the water; cook gently till they are soft, and then add the sugar. When they are transparent and rather smooth they are done; take them up, and either serve as they are, or if you wish, put them through the colander. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
While Mildred was making this, Brownie laid the table, just as she had learned weeks before; then she got out her receipt-book and made the cocoa by that, while Jack made the corn bread by his own camp rule, reciting it aloud as he mixed the different things and shook down the fire and saw that his oven was hot.
"You learn a lot of things camping, Mildred," he said when he finished and cleared up his mixing bowl and other things and wiped off the table. "I never had any idea how careful you had to be to keep things ship shape till I lived with Father up in the woods. He made me clean up after every single thing I made, and wouldn't let me leave a thing around. I thought it was just sort of fussing at first, but after a while I found out it saved time. There weren't half as many dishes to do after a meal, if you cleaned up as you went along, and when you were in an awful hurry to fish or something it helped a lot."
"I know; Mother always tells Brownie and me to do that way. One day we were cooking and I wanted the egg beater; Brownie had used it and left it in the dish pan to soak, so I had to stop and wash it. Then after I used it I put it back in the pan, and Norah needed it and she had to wash it; and that was the way it went all the time till we learned that we must wash up every pot and pan and dish and spoon just the very minute we were through with them. It seems a lot of bother at first but you don't mind after a little. And then, Jack, while we have to wash the dishes at night it will save time to do them as we go along now."
When the toast was made and buttered, Mildred kept it hot while she quickly creamed the dried beef. The cocoa was all ready and so was the brown corn bread, and exactly at half past six o'clock supper was all ready to go right on the table, and everything was as nice as possible. "But then," said Father Blair complacently, "what else can you expect? This corn bread, Jack, tastes to me like that of the good old times."
"And this beef, Mildred, is exactly right, and so is the cocoa."
And so were the apple-sauce and cake, when they came on the table. The cake, especially, seemed particularly good, though it was only the same kind Mildred had often made herself,—the one in her own cook book under the title "Christmas Cake."
"I do think nice cake is just as good as can be," said Mildred, taking a second piece. "I believe I'll learn to make several kinds right away while Norah is gone."
"That's the kind of talk I like to hear," said Jack appreciatively.