112 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
The Girl Scout will find the answers one at a time, 
if she does her own work. And if you do your own work 
you will at once call for a fireless cooker. The name 
sounds impossible, for you have always cooked with a 
stove, and, of course, a fire. How can you cook without 
a fire ? 
The women of Norway taught us how. When they 
went out to work in the fields or on the farm they took 
the hot kettle of soup off the stove and hid it away 
in a hay box. The hay kept the heat in the kettle instead 
of letting it escape; so the soup kept on cooking, and 
when the women came home from their work in the 
fields there it was, all steaming hot and ready for dinner. 
Everyone has noticed how some things carry or con- 
duct heat and other things don’t. That’s why we use a 
“holder,” when handling a hot dish or stove lifter or 
tea-pot. The “holder” does not carry the heat to the 
hand; it keeps it away. So the hay packed around the 
hot kettle kept the heat in the kettle, refusing to “con- 
duct” it away. Therefore the soup went on cooking. 
Your English cousins use a “cosy” to cover the hot 
tea-pot or coffee pot. This “cosy” is made of quilted 
cotton; and looks like the quilted hood that your great- 
grandmother used to have. This keeps the heat in the 
tea or coffee, so that you can have a second cup for the 
asking. 
America was slow to learn from her thrifty cousins, 
but at last she adopted the fireless cooker; and this is 
what it does : 
The fireless cooker, a case packed with some material 
which refuses to conduct heat, is used to continue the 
cooking of foods after they have been made hot on 
the stove. When securely covered in the cooker they 
will go on cooking for several hours because the heat is 
retained by the protecting case. A Girl Scout may buy 
