Just before closing your cottage for the season, send out invitations to friends, asking them to spend an evening with you at your home. The invitations may be written upon scarlet maple leaves. When the evening for entertaining arrives the cottage should reflect the glory of the woods. Boughs and branches of silver and sugar maples decorate the hall, "den," dining room and kitchen, and berries, vines and burrs fill jars, vases and cornucopias of birch bark. In the rough stone fire-places, log fires burn. The guests go to the kitchen to make maple sugar creams, and while the candy is hardening, games are played and stories told. Each guest, blindfolded, must draw the outline of a maple leaf. Next, leaf shaped cards are distributed with the names of different trees written upon them, acrostically arranged. A nut race closes the games, and the prizes are then awarded. Then the company may gather around the fire. Bundles of lichen covered twigs, of pine cones and of twisted tree roots are selected according to individual fancy and put on the fire, each person telling a story, original or otherwise, until his bundle is burned away; the changing shapes in the fire suggesting many quaint fancies.
For table decorations have a garland of leaves encircle the polished top just outside the plates. A large wreath and a low bowl of nut burrs and sprays of bright leaves and berries make a gorgeous centerpiece. Have smaller wreaths around the bonbon and nut dishes, and mats of leaves laid under the plates and dishes and used for doilies under the finger bowls. A birch bark cornucopia of maple sugar candy and a droll little nut Indian clad in a scarlet blanket by each plate make pretty souvenirs of the feast. Leaves can be pasted on the candle shades which are made of stiff-buff paper:
| Roasted Quail on Toast, |
| Strawed Potatoes, |
| Salad Sandwiches, Maple Layer Cake, |
| Waffles, |
| Nuts, Coffee. |
When the Frost is on the Pumpkin.
The hostess who wants to provide a simple, and at the same time a novel entertainment for her friends should call to her aid the glossy, orange coated pumpkins. With pumpkins for the motif, so to speak, an evening full of fun may be enjoyed. Decorate square white cards with a huge pumpkin; one who cannot draw can cut a very presentable looking pumpkin from orange paper and paste it on the cards. Then write on each: The Mighty Mammoth Pumpkin will be on exhibition at Mrs. Blanks, from 7 to 11 p. m., next Thursday night. You are cordially invited to come and guess its weight. Get the largest pumpkin you can find and a goodly collection of shapely, medium-sized ones. Make a record of the weight, the length, and the girth of the big pumpkin, then carefully cut open lengthwise and scoop out, and if trouble is no object count the seeds. Fill the pumpkin with sawdust and bury in it the souvenirs, simple little trifles, orange hued penwipers, needlebooks, pincushions, etc. Wrap them up in paper and bury them deep. Set the pumpkin on a mat of leaves on a small table and label "Hands Off." Each guest is given a card with a pencil attached to record his guesses. Little leather covered inkstands, the exact counterpart of tiny pumpkins, and pumpkin paper weights equally as natural in appearance are appropriate for the head prizes, while pumpkin emery bags and pumpkin-shaped blotters will please the winners of the boobies. The rest of the evening may be spent in carving Jack o' Lanterns from, small pumpkins. The guests may be required to write a recipe for pumpkin pie which will bring forth some wonderful flights of fancy. Decorate the rooms with pumpkin vases filled with chrysanthemums and have a bowl of orange fruit cup set inside of a large pumpkin for the guests' refreshment during the evening. In setting the table have a pumpkin vase of ferns and yellow and white chrysanthemums for the centerpiece. The supper is served from pumpkin dishes. Select round, deep pumpkins with a stem, choosing those of a pretty color and shape. Saw off the tops even, so they may be put back on the pumpkins as lids, scoop out and line with parchment paper. As this supper is very informal, sandwiches with various fillings, a rich chicken salad made with walnut meats and chopped celery, cheese and bread sticks and coffee may form the substantial part. Stuffed figs and dates, bonbons and macaroons are served for the sweet course and an orange ice or snow pudding in little pumpkin paper cases.
A Dickens' Supper.
A happy selection of time for a Dickens party is the Christmas season, which is so peculiarly connected with so many of Dickens' writings.
Have the rooms brilliantly lighted, and the bright berries of the Christmas holly against a background of the "ivy green" which Dickens loved. The hostess might dress in a handsome costume of the time of Edith Dombey.
The guests can each represent some character of Dickens.
Betsy Trotwood, tall and rigid in stiff gown and tight cap.