"Just about. Try Vinegar Candy this time. If you leave half of it unstirred and stir the other half it will be as good as two kinds, you know."
So the Ethels went off into a pantry back of the kitchen, where Mrs. Morton had had a small gas stove installed so that the children might cook to their hearts' content without interfering with the occupants of the kitchen.
"There's nothing that upsets people who are trying to make a house run smoothly and to do its work promptly and well as to have children come into the kitchen and use the stove when it is needed for other purposes, and get in the way and leave their cooking apparatus around and their pots and pans uncleaned," declared Mrs. Morton.
So the Ethels and Helen, and Roger, too, for he was a capital cook and was in great demand whenever the boys went on camping trips, all contributed from their allowances to buy a simple equipment for this tiny kitchen which they called their own. Mrs. Morton paid for the stove, but the saucepans and baking tins, the flour and sugar and eggs, the flavoring extracts and the seasonings were all supplied by the children, and it was understood that when a cooking fit seized them they must think out beforehand what they were going to want and provide themselves with it and not call on the cook or Mary to help them out of an emergency caused by their own thoughtlessness. Mrs. Morton was sure that her reputation as a sensible mother who did not let the children over-run the kitchen at times when they were decidedly in the way was one of the chief reasons why her servants stayed with her so long.
So now Ethel Brown said to Ethel Blue, "Have we got all the materials we need for Vinegar Candy?" and Ethel Blue seized the cook book and read the receipt.
"Mix together three cupfuls of sugar, half a cupful of vinegar, half a cupful of water. When it comes to a boil stir in one teaspoonful of soda."
"We've got sugar and soda and water," announced Ethel Brown after investigating the shelves of the tiny storeroom, "but there isn't any vinegar. I do hate to go out in this rain," for the dark sky was making good its threat.
"I'll get it for you. Give me your jug," said Roger, swinging into his raincoat. "I'll be back in half a jiff," and he dashed off into the downpour, shaking his head like a Newfoundland dog, and spattering the drops as he ran.
He was back before the Ethels had their pans buttered and the water and sugar measured, so briskly had he galloped. It was only a few minutes more before the candy stiffened when a little was dropped into a cup of cold water.
"Now we'll pour half of it into one of the pans," directed Ethel Brown, "and then we'll get Roger to beat the other half so it will be creamy."