so 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



February, 1919 



them again until they are dry enough to 

 hang on the line, and good Sally never 

 smashes buttons nor presses creases into the 

 cloth, and yet she can whirl those clothes 

 much drier than a wringer makes them. 



Helen also likes to push Sukey around, 

 altho Sukey is hot-tempered and has to be 

 handled with care. She and Sukey togetlier 

 can iron one of her best gingham dresses 

 until it looks like new. 



Now don 't you honestly think the fairies 

 in Helen 's home are just as nice as the story 

 book fairies? The queen of these fairies is 

 called Electricity. 



But altho the fairies help so much with 

 the hardest part of the housework there are 

 many things they cannot do. They cannot 

 make bread and cake and pies and get din- 

 ners and suppers and breakfasts, and that is 

 very important work, for people must eat 

 to live. You know small girls always like 

 to do just what they see their mothers do, 

 and so Helen very much wished to try to 

 cook- When she was a tiny girl she used to 

 make cakes of cornmeal and water, and 

 then, when she had gone off to play with 

 her dolls and forgotten them, her mother 

 sent them to the chickens or pig. 



But a young lady of eleven is too old for 

 play-cooking so her mother let her try some 

 real baking that the family could eat. One 

 of the first things she made was cornbread 

 or johnnycake. Her mother gave her the 

 recipe and worked at something else in the 

 kitchen, so she could watch the mixing, but 

 she did not touch it at all. Helen did every- 

 thing from beating the egg thru measuring 

 out the sour milk, the cornmeal, flour, soda, 

 salt, and shortening. And what do you 

 think her father said when he tasted that 

 jchnnyeake ? He said, "It is very strange 

 Helen can make a better johnnycake than 

 ycu can, mother, when you made up the reci- 

 pe. ' ' My, but that made Helen 's eyes 

 sjjarkle and her cheeks grow red. 



I think the next thing she made was a 

 pumpkin pie^ — the filling, not the crust. You 

 see her mother was too busy to teach her 

 cooking in the order that a cooking-school 

 teacher would, so Helen made things just as 

 they were needed for the family. Now 

 Helen has an older brother that is just the 

 worst tease you ever saw. He always makes 

 believe he does not think Helen can do 

 things well, and he never thinks of giving 

 her a compliment. You know brothers are 

 sometimes like that. But let me tell you 

 how he gave her a compliment for her pie 

 without meaning to. He ate every crumb 

 of a large piece every time she made a pie, 

 so she knew he liked it, even if he did not 

 say so in words. 



Well, Helen went right on learning to 

 cook nice things for the family until she 

 knew how to scramble eggs, make tea and 

 coffee, bake, fry and oven-fry potatoes, make 

 graham mufiins and baking-powder biscuits, 

 piecrust, boiled salad dressing and fruit 

 salad, tomatoes on toast, chocolate pudding 

 and buckwheat griddle cakes. She has cook- 



ed a meal all alone several times and served 

 it on the table. Her dad is so proud of her 

 griddlecakes that one Sunday evening he 

 invited in several of the neighbors to eat 

 buckwheat cakes which she had mixed and 

 baked all alone, and she often makes them 

 for breakfast- 

 When she learns to cook something new 

 she copies the recipe down in a nice little 

 blank book, so pretty soon she will have a 

 cook book all her own. 



One day when Helen 's mother had been 

 baking some bread her father held up a 

 slice and said, ' ' Helen, if you will bake a 

 loaf of bread as good as that I will give you 

 a War Savings Stamp for your book. ' ' Your 

 mother can tell you that a good loaf of 

 bread is one of the hardest things for a 

 cook to make; that is, it takes more care 

 and skill than most fancy desserts. But 

 Helen started right out after that War 

 Savings stamp, armed with her mother's 

 bread recipe, cut in two, to make it easier 

 for small girls to handle. I shall have to 

 admit that a fairy helped her, not one of 

 queen Electricity 's fairies, but just a plain 

 fairy, called Lizzie. You see Helen 's mother 

 had been helped the past five years by two 

 Hungarian Lizzies, one after the other, just 

 she often said she had never had a tin Lizzie 

 yet. But when her last Hungarian Lizzie 

 had gone she decided to name the bread- 

 making fairy ' ' Lizzie. ' ' You see that is 

 a very good name for her, for she is made 

 of tin and has to be cranked just like the 

 tin Lizzies that are made in Detroit. But it 

 is very easy to crank that kind of a tin 

 Lizzie, and she is so helpful in making 

 bread. Helen first measured the flour which 

 the recipe called for and sifted it and the 

 salt into the Lizzie and covered it and put 

 it into a warm place. Then she took the 

 rest of the flour and mixed it with potato 

 water and yeast and sugar and beat it well 

 and put that in a warm place too. You see 

 bread in the m.aking is just like a new baby 

 sister in one respect: — it must be kept 

 cuddled up in a warm place. This work she 

 did just before supper time, about 5:30. At 

 bedtime (she had to stay up a little later 

 that evening, but you see there was no 

 school) she turned the sponge into the Liz- 

 zie, added the rest of the warm water, and 

 turned the crank about three minutes. By 

 that time it was a dough, smooth and easy 

 to handle. Now Helen's mother thinks 

 white bread is finer and lighter, if the dough 

 is taken out and kneaded by hand a few 

 minutes, so Helen turned hers out on the 

 kitchen cabinet, on which some flour had 

 been sifted so the dough would not stick, 

 and kneaded it carefully about two minutes 

 longer. The kitchen had to be warm or the 

 bread would have been chilled, and then it 

 would have been sullen and refused to rise- 

 When the dough was smooth and elastic it 

 was put back into the Lizzie, carefully cov- 

 ered and cuddled under a clean old blanket, 

 kept for that purpose, and put in a small 

 room over the furnace. In making bread by 

 (Continued on page 118.) 



