"I think it did; it felt hard."
"If you do puff out any part of your pattern you have to tool over the design again, because the outline will have lost its sharpness."
"The mat I saw was colored."
"That"s easy. There are colors that come especially for using on leather. You float them on when the leather is wet and you can get beautiful effects."
"You ought not to cut out your leather corners until they are dry, I suppose?"
"They ought to be thoroughly dry. If you want a lining for a purse or a cardcase you can paste in either silk or a thin leather. It"s pretty to make an openwork design and let the lining show through."
"How about sewing purses? It must be hard work."
"Helen does mine on the machine. She says it isn"t much trouble if she goes slowly and takes a few st.i.tches back at the ends so they won"t come apart. But I"m going to show you how to make a little three cornered purse that doesn"t need any sewing--only two glove snappers."
So simple was this pattern that each of them had finished one by the time that Grandmother Emerson"s car came to take them all over to luncheon at her house.
CHAPTER XX
THE ETHELS COOK TO KEEP
ANOTHER week rolled on and still no reply came to the cable that the Club had sent to Mademoiselle Millerand.
"Either she hasn"t received it," said Ethel Blue, who felt a personal interest because it had been signed by her as Secretary of the club, "or Mr. Schuler is dead and she doesn"t want to tell us."
"It"s pretty sure to be one or the other," said Ethel Brown. "I suppose we might as well forget that we tried to do anything about it."
"Have you heard Roger or Helen say anything about Fraulein lately?"
"Helen said she looked awfully sad and that she was wearing black.
Evidently she has no hope."
"Poor Fraulein!"
"What are we going to do this week?"
"I"ve planned the cunningest little travelling bag for a doll. It"s a straight strip of leather, tooled in a pretty pattern. It"s doubled in halves and there is a three-cornered piece let in at the ends to give a bit more room."
"How do you fasten it?"
"Like a Boston bag, with a strap that goes over the top."
"You could run a cord in and out parallel with the top and pull it up."
"I believe I"ll make two and try both ways."
"You could make the same pattern only a little larger for a wrist bag for an older child."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bag for a doll, a child or a grown-up]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"And larger still for a shopping bag for a grown person."
"That"s as useful a pattern as Helen"s and Margaret"s wrapper pattern!
Do you realize that this is the week that we ought to cook?"
"Is it? We"ll have to hurry fearfully! Are you perfectly sure the things will keep?"
"I"ve talked it over several times with Miss Dawson, the domestic science teacher. She has given me some splendid receipts and some information about packing. She says there won"t be any doubt of their travelling all right."
"We"ll have to cook every afternoon, then. We"d better go over the receipts and see if we have all the materials we need."
"We know about the cookies and the fruit cake and the fudge. We"ve made all those such a short time ago that we know we have those materials.
Here are ginger snaps," she went on, examining her cook book. "We haven"t enough mola.s.ses I"m sure, and I"m doubtful about the ginger."
"Let me see."
Ethel Blue read over the receipt.
"1 pt. mola.s.ses--dark 1 cup b.u.t.ter 1 tablespoon ginger 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon
"About 2 quarts flour, or enough more to make a thick dough.
"Sift flour, soda, and spices together. Melt the b.u.t.ter, put the mola.s.ses in a big bowl, add the b.u.t.ter, then the flour gradually, using a knife to cut it in. When stiff enough to roll, roll out portions quite thin on a floured board, cut out with a cookie cutter or with the cover of a baking powder can. Place them on greased tins, leaving a little s.p.a.ce between each cookie. Bake in a hot oven about five minutes."
"Miss Dawson says we must let the cookies get perfectly cold before we pack them. Then we must wrap them in paraffin paper and pack them tightly into a box."
"They ought to be so tight that they won"t rattle round and break."
"If we could get enough tin boxes it would be great."
"Let"s ask Grandmother Emerson and Aunt Louise and all Mother"s friends to save their biscuit boxes for us."
"We ought to have thought of asking them before. And we must go out foraging for baking powder tins to steam the little fruit puddings and the small loaves of Boston brown bread in."
"What a jolly idea!"
"Miss Dawson says that when they are cold we can slip them out of their tins and brush the bread and pudding and cake over with pure alcohol.
That will kill the mould germs and it will all be evaporated by the time they are opened."
"If there is paraffin paper around them, too, and they are slipped back into their little round tins it seems to me they ought to be as cosy and good as possible."
"I"m awfully taken with the individual puddings. We can make them all different sizes according to the size of the tins we get hold of.