Take two cups of prepared flour and mix with water (or use half water and half condensed milk) until it makes a batter like thick cream. Have ready a hot, greased frying-pan; pour in the batter from a small pitcher.
"Sometimes I have these instead of bread to eat with meat, and then we have gravy on them. Then sometimes we have maple-syrup, and call them dessert."
"Syrup for me!" said Jack, struggling to turn his fish-cakes without breaking them. "But I didn't know you were so much of a cook, Father."
"Jack, while we are eating, I'll tell you a true story, one of the dark secrets of my eventful life; that will explain to you why I believe a man should know how to cook."
So when the pancakes were finished and Jack had time to listen, his father told him the story of how, when they were first married, the Blairs had taken a trip across the prairie, and had camped a long way from a town; how Mother Blair had been taken ill and could not do the cooking, and poor Father Blair had to do everything for her and himself too, and did not know how to cook an egg, or make a cup of tea, or a bit of toast; and what a time it was! "I tell you, Jack, after that was over, I went to work and learned how to do a few things; and now, as you say," he added complacently, "I'm quite a cook. And the sooner you learn to cook, the better, for some day you'll need to know how; all men do."
"S'pose so," Jack murmured thoughtfully.
The Next Day was Perfect for Fishing
The next day was perfect for trout-fishing, so they started early with some lunch, and went back into the deep woods where there was a brown stream all full of little rocks and hollows, and there Jack took his first lesson in fly-fishing, and at night he was the proudest of boys when they looked at their basket of speckled beauties, four of which he had caught. It was great fun to cook them too, when they got back to camp.