"Mother," said Jack, one evening, "I'd like to take my lunch to school for the next few weeks; all the fellows are going to, so we can have more time for class elections and so on. Do you suppose Norah could put up one for me every morning?"
"Why not let Mildred put it up? Her school is so near that she does not have to start till long after you do; and then, Jack, you could easily pay her for her trouble by helping her with her Latin; you know she is bothered with that just now."
Mildred was overjoyed at the suggestion of the bargain. "Oh, Jack! I'll do you up the most beautiful luncheons in the world if you will only help me with that horrid Cæsar. I'm just as stupid as I can be about it. What do you like best to eat in all the world?"
Jack said he wasn't very particular as long as he had plenty of pie and cake and pickles and pudding and ice-cream; Mildred laughed, and said she guessed she could manage to think up a few other things beside.
So the very next morning she put up the first luncheon. But, alas, Norah had no cold meat to slice—only bits of beefsteak left from dinner; and not a single piece of cake. All she could find for lunch was some plain bread and butter, which she cut rather thick, a hard-boiled egg, and an apple. "Pretty poor," she sighed, as she saw him trudge off with the box under his arm.
That afternoon, when she came home from school, she went to Mother Blair for help. "I must give him nice luncheons," she explained. "Now what can I have for to-morrow? I can't think of anything at all, except bread and cake, and stupid things like those."
"Oh, there are lots and lots of things," said her mother. "Putting up lunches is just fun! I only wish you would do up some for me, too! And first, dear, you had better see that there is plenty of bread, because it takes a good deal for sandwiches, and it must not be too fresh to slice nicely, nor too stale; day-old bread is best. And if you can find some brown bread as well as white, that will be ever so nice. You will want cake, too, and fruit; you might ask Norah what she has on hand."
In a moment, Mildred came back with the news that, as there was to be fish for dinner, there would be no left-over meat at all in the morning; the bits of steak were still there. "But imagine beefsteak sandwiches!" said she, scornfully. And though there was no cake now, Norah was going to make some.
"I think we had better learn first how to make all kinds of sandwiches, because that will help you more than anything else in putting up lunches," her mother said, getting out her cook-book. "You will need some paraffin paper for them, too, and paper napkins; suppose you look on the top shelf of the kitchen closet and see if we had any left over from summer picnics."
By the time Mildred had found these, as well as a box to pack the lunch in, these receipts were all ready for her to copy in her own book: