Rural School Leaflet 731 



into buttered baking dish and bake slowly for 3 hours. If butter is used 

 baking may be completed in 2 or 2^ hours. An hour after the baking 

 begins a cupful of seeded raisins sprinkled with fioiu- may be stirred in. 



Johnny-cake 

 I cup sour milk i\ cups white flour 



1 level teaspoon soda 3 level teaspoons baking 



2 eggs powder 



\ cup shortening, melted \ cup Indian meal 



\ cup sugar \ teaspoon salt 



Mix soda and sour milk. Add beaten eggs, shortening, sugar, white 

 flour mixed with baking powder, Indian meal, and salt. Pour into shallow 

 buttered pan and bake 20 to 30 minutes. 



HENRY D. THOREAU 



How many boys and girls have ever heard of Henry D. Thoreau? Ask 

 your teacher to read what is said of this great naturalist in the Teachers' 

 Leaflet for September. Have some one in your class read the following 

 extract from Thoreau's Journal: 



" Jan. 3. Monday. It is pleasant when one can relieve the grossness of 

 the kitchen and the table by the simple beauty of his repast, so that there 

 may be anything in it to attract the eye of the artist even. I have been 

 popping com to-night, which is only a more rapid blossoming of the seed 

 under a greater than July heat. The popped corn is a perfect winter 

 flower, hinting of anemones. For this little grace man has, mixed in with 

 the vulgamess of his repast, he may well thank his stars. The law by 

 which flowers unfold their petals seems only to have operated more sud- 

 denly under the intense heat. It looks like a sympathy in this seed of 

 the corn with its sisters of the vegetable kingdom, as if by preference it 

 assumed the flower form rather than the crystalline. Here has bloomed 

 for my repast such a delicate blossom as will soon spring by the wall- 

 sides. And this is as it should be. Why should not Nature revel some- 

 times, and genially relax and make herself familiar at my board ? I would 

 have my house a bower fit to entertain her. It is a feast of such innocence 

 as might have snowed down. By my warm hearth sprang these cerealious 

 blossoms; here was the bank where they grew. 



" Methinks some such visible token of approval would always accom- 

 pany the simple and healthy repast. There would be such a smiling and 

 blessing upon it. Our appetite should always be so related to our taste, 

 and the board we spread for its gratification be an epitome of the universal 

 table which Nature sets by hill and stream for her dumb pensioners." 



