Put the sugar in the milk; beat the eggs light, and add those, with salt and vanilla. Pour into the cups, sprinkle with nutmeg, and arrange the cups in a shallow pan. Bake half an hour, or till, when you put the blade of a knife in one, it comes out clean.
It took just a few moments to make these, and then came the next rule:
1/2 cup of butter. 1 cup of sugar. 1 cup of milk. 1 egg. 2 cups of flour. 2 rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 1/2 cup of currants. 1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Wash the currants and rub them dry in a towel. Put the flour in a bowl; take out a large tablespoonful and mix with the currants, and then mix the baking-powder with the rest of it. Rub the butter to a cream, add the sugar, then the milk, then the egg, beaten without separating, then the flour mixed with the baking-powder, then the flavoring, and, last, the currants. Grease some small tins, fill them half full, and bake in an oven not too hot.
"You must always mix some flour with raisins or currants to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake; but do not add any to the rule--just take a little out from what you are going to use in the cake. Now, Jack, please get me two cans of salmon from the pantry and open them; and we will need butter and milk from the refrigerator, too. It's fine to have a 'handy man' around to help us cook! Now, Mildred, double this rule, because there will be so many at supper."
1 good-sized can of salmon, or one pint of any cooked fish. 1 cup of white sauce. 1 cup of cracker crumbs.
Butter a baking dish, put in a layer of fish, then one of crumbs; sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and dot the crumbs with butter; then put on a layer of white sauce. Repeat till the dish is full, with the crumbs on top; dot with butter and brown well in the oven; it will take about twenty minutes.
[Illustration: Brownie rolled the crackers]
Brownie rolled the crackers for this, while Mildred made the white sauce by the rule she said was so easy it was exactly like learning a b c.
"That is so queer," laughed her mother, "because cooks call it just that--the a b c of cooking! It is the rule you use more often than any other."
1 rounded tablespoonful of butter. 1 rounded tablespoonful of flour. 1 cup of milk. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 2 shakes of pepper.