Chapter 3

Little tables had been set on the lawn with a bouquet of old-fashioned marigolds in the center of each one, and a toy orange balloon tied to the back of each chair by a long string. Here were served jellied orange soup in cups, and saltines.

The girls received orange-colored favor ribbons to pin next to their red ones, and the guest of honor received another prize packet, this time tied with orange tulle.

From there they all jumped again into the waiting cars and were transported to the home of a third girl for the third course.

This time it was served in the dining-room, which was decorated with yellow snapdragons. A basket of them filled the center of the table, and at each place was a scalloped shell containing deviled crab meat garnished with lemon quarters and accompanied by tartar sauce. Cubes of hot yellow cornbread were delicious with the crab.

Again the passing of the yellow ribbons to the girls and the presenting of the yellow-tied package to the guest of honor were the signals for leaving to go to the next house.

The automobiles quickly took them there, where the main course of the dinner was to be eaten. Maidenhair ferns were lovely in a green bowl on the table, and tiny wood ferns were scattered over the white tablecloth.

The menu consisted of broiled chicken, fresh green peas, small boiled potatoes with parsley, and rye rolls.

By this time the girls were getting interested in their rainbow of ribbons, to which the green was now added, and the guest of honor received her fourth package, green-tied.

Motoring to the salad course, the group found the dining-room lighted by blue candles, though the guests were begged not to feel blue. Ragged robins were arranged as a centerpiece, and fluttering blue tissue butterflies marked the places.

The salad was prunes stuffed with peanuts in hearts of lettuce, served with French dressing and Dutch cheese balls.

By the time the sixth stop was reached the sun had set and the moon was coming up, so that the girls sat on the veranda in the moon-light and sipped grape-juice ice to the music of romantic ditties. Lavender streamers were added next to the blue ones, and their badges were complete.

As they finally drove up to the last house, they were greeted by a rainbow of tulle which arched the entrance to the porch.

With their fluttering rainbow ribbon badges and the armful of rainbow packages belonging to the guest of honor, they felt very much at home with the rainbow, and the guest of honor was not even surprised to be asked to seek the pot of gold at the foot.

In the yellow pottery jar which she discovered were as many gold nuggets as there were girls, and each nugget was a little gilt-paper-wrapped joke for the trip.

The real, sure-enough farewell gifts to keep were in the packages progressively received, and there was a jolly time opening them under the rainbow.

BIRTHDAYS AND OTHER ANNIVERSARIES

Birthdays you particularly wish to celebrate happily and successfully. There's your mother's birthday or your brother's or your little son's or daughter's birthday or the birthday of the popular president of your special club.

Then there are the various wedding anniversaries that call for suitable recognition, especially the five, ten, and twenty-five year ones.

Besides these there are countless other events that you want to commemorate pleasantly in some way afterward. These various occasions offer fascinating possibilities for the most delightful of social affairs.

A BACHELOR SUPPER

"_When I was a bachelor I lived by myself And all the bread and cheese I got, I put upon the shelf; The rats and the mice, they made such a strife I was forced to go to London to buy me a wife. The streets were so broad and the lanes were so narrow I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow_."

This old Mother Goose rhyme was the keynote of a bachelor supper which one girl gave for her brother and a few of his friends on his birthday.

The centerpiece on the table was an arrangement of bachelors' buttons and at every place was a tiny toy wheelbarrow filled with candies, a wee dressed-up dolly dame perched atop of each load.

The rhyme also furnished the reason for the first course, which was most suitably bread and cheese, only the bread was in the form of buttered rounds of toast and the cheese was a delicious Welsh rarebit, accompanied by coffee or gingerale.

Ice-cream in cantaloupes with a chocolate mouse nibbling at the rind followed, to be eaten with those most delicious of all cookies--home-made "hermits."

MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY TEA

A pleasant way for a daughter to entertain for her mother is to give a little informal afternoon tea, asking the mother's friends and their daughters and thus making it a kind of mother and daughter affair.

Send out the invitations on your calling card, writing your mother's name at the top. If your mother likes surprises, arrange the party to be one if possible, but if she is like most mothers she will prefer to know what's going on and so be prepared.

The rooms should be decorated with flowers of the season. The country girl will find it easy in spring, summer, or fall.

During the afternoon a little program of previously arranged "mother" songs, lullabies and readings by some of the guests may agreeably interrupt the chat.

Tea, sandwiches and little cakes may be served in the dining-room from a festive birthday table. The centerpiece may be a bowl of pink roses--to match in number the years of the guest of honor. Candles from under rose-colored paper or silk shades may light the room, and if desired each guest may be presented with a miniature band-box covered with rose-sprigged paper or chintz--filled with wee pink and white candies.

A PUSSY CAT PARTY

When Billy's mother decided to give him a birthday party, she pounced upon the pussy cat plan, partly because pussy-willows are still flourishing in April, but mostly because she knew that kittens and cats are favorites with nine and ten year olds.

The invitations were folded kitty-cornered and inside of each appeared a fat fuzzy little gray puss taken from a real pussy-willow branch. "Puss" had pen and ink ears, whiskers and tail, and likewise a tiny red-painted fence post upon which to sit.

The first game was a good romp at "Puss-in-the-Corner." That was followed by the foolish but funny "Poor Pussy."

While the children were still in a circle for that, Billy's mother explained a new game. It was called "Kitty Kitty" and was carried out on the lines of "Spin the Platter." In every child's ear Billy whispered the name of some sort of cat, as for instance, tiger, "yaller," green-eyes, double-toes, maltese, Angora, black and white, gray.

He then occupied the center of the circle and spun a tin pieplate. As he did so he called out one of the names he had assigned and counted rapidly out loud up to ten. Thus, "Green-eyes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

The child who had been given the name "green-eyes" was supposed to jump up and snatch the pie tin before Billy had finished counting to ten. If "green-eyes" failed, then he had to take Billy's place. Billy, too, of course, had a pussy cat label.

Another circle game that was fun was called "Pussy's Prowlings." It was on the order of stage-coach. Billy's mother told the story of a kitty's wanderings and before she started to tell it, she whispered to each child the name of something which was to appear in the story. For instance, she gave out "haymow," "milk dish," "mouse hole," "catnip."

Every time she mentioned any such name in the process of telling the story, the child who had it was expected to rise from his chair, turn around three times and sit down again. When the words "pussy's prowlings" were mentioned, all the players jumped up and exchanged seats. The story teller also tried to get a seat, and if she succeeded the child who was finally left without one had to continue the story.

PUSSY'S PROWLINGS

Once there was a PUSSYCAT named BLINKY who said to herself one day, "I'm tired of MILK to drink and I'm oh, so hungry for MOUSE. I must go on a MOUSE hunt."

So BLINKY stole out of the red BRICK HOUSE where she lived very happily with the JONES FAMILY. She pattered down the back DOORSTEPS where her MILK SAUCER was set and she scampered along the winding PATH to the BARN.

(That's the way PUSSY'S PROWLINGS began.)

Up the LADDER to the HAYMOW she crept and through the heaps of sweet clover HAY to a HOLE IN THE WALL. There BLINKY knew lived a MOUSE. So she crouched close to the MOUSE HOLE, as still as still could be and watched, and she watched and she watched and she watched.

But that MOUSE must have been away from home or else very busy down in its HOLE, for it never once stuck its little NOSE out. And when BLINKY had watched there in the HAYMOW for three long, long hours, she was so hungry that she couldn't watch for that MOUSE a single minute more.

She thought of the MILK SAUCER by the back DOORSTEPS and she said to herself, "If I can't have MOUSE, MILK won't taste so bad after all."

So BLINKY made her way back through the heaps of HAY and scrambled down the LADDER to the HAYMOW and ran along the winding PATH to the back DOORSTEPS. And there, sure enough, was a SAUCER full of MILK all ready for her to drink. So BLINKY lapped it up very hungrily and was perfectly happy!

(And that's the way PUSSY'S PROWLINGS ended.)

The next game was called "Hunt the Mouse." Billy had hidden a chocolate mouse somewhere in the room and the children were asked to be kitties and try to find it. Whenever anyone came very near the hiding place, Billy miaowed loudly, or if everyone was very far from it, Billy would mew only faintly. The "kitty" who found the mouse kept it for a reward.

In another room the children had a chance to hunt for those mittens which the "naughty kittens" once lost. Many tiny red paper mittens were scattered throughout the room and were much more easily found than the mouse.

The supper table delighted the children. In the center of it sat a big stuffed toy cat surrounded by chocolate mice, and at each child's place a tiny white plush cat with the child's name on a paper tied to the neck had been placed. Such toys can usually be bought in five and ten cent stores.

Pussy-willow sprays laid flat on the tablecloth decorated the table gracefully. The napkins were the paper ones which feature black cats at Hallowe'en.

Little ramekins of creamed chicken pleased the children. With the chicken, Billy's mother served "kitty-cornered" sandwiches of brown bread filled with cream cheese and chopped nuts. There was hot cocoa too, and for the last course individual molds of chocolate blanc mange with whipped cream and a candied cherry on top. Needless to say there was a birthday cake which was brought in ablaze with candles and set before Billy to cut.

Each guest received a souvenir chocolate mouse and was ready to declare upon departure at six that the pussy cat party had been, oh, so jolly!

A GIRL'S BIRTHDAY LUNCHEON

Once a mother gave a little birthday luncheon for her daughter who was a freshman in high school. It pleased the fourteen-year-old and her friends because of the novelty in decorations and menu.

The class colors were green and white, so that scheme was used throughout. In the center of the table was a green bowl with a few paper narcissi arranged in a flower holder, Japanese fashion.

Around each plate was a wreath of smilax--any small green vine would do perfectly well--and above each plate a tiny green candle burning in a wee holder. The place-cards were tied to the handles of the holders.

Glass dishes of lime drops and wintergreen candies added to the general green and white effect.

The menu consisted of fruit cocktail with a sprig of mint atop of each portion, followed by a second course of chicken à la King generously sprinkled with capers, and accompanied by hot rolls and olives. Then came hot chocolate with a marshmallow floating in each cup and milestone salad, which consisted of oblongs of cream cheese into which numerals cut out of green peppers were pressed. The milestones stood erect on fresh lettuce leaves and were served with French dressing.

After that a birthday cake was borne in ablaze with fourteen green tapers and set before the little hostess to cut. Great was the fun when the fortune favors, baked in the cake, were found by the guests.

Pistachio ice-cream accompanied the cake, but vanilla ice-cream or a green gelatine dessert would be equally fitting.

The favors were little green vanity bags made from ribbon by the fourteen-year-old's mother.

THE WOODEN WEDDING

An informal evening party is perhaps the jolliest way to celebrate the fifth wedding anniversary.

After everybody has arrived, try a wooden smile contest. There will be any number of humorous attempts, but few will be wooden. The contestant who smiles most woodenly may receive as a prize a gaily painted wooden jumping jack or any other wooden toy.

The next amusement can be a progressive one, consisting of putting together at tables wooden puzzles of all sorts, including jig-saw puzzles.

Puzzles make good prizes for this contest. One of the carefully packed wooden boxes of candy is another possibility.

Another occupation that is appropriate and fun-making is a pea and tooth-pick contest. Wooden tooth-picks and dried peas soaked up are provided. Each person is then assigned to construct one member of a tooth-pick wedding party properly. The tooth-pick persons when finished should form in a parade down the center of the library table.

A light buffet supper or simply ice-cream and coffee may be served in the dining-room. Decorate the table with a central wooden bowl containing some simple flowers such as daisies, honeysuckles, snapdragons, nasturtiums, or whatever flowers are in season.

There may be wooden candlesticks with candles to match the color scheme and small wooden plates and bowls for candies and nuts.

Serve the ice-cream on wooden plates covered with lace paper doilies, and give as favors tiny wooden household articles such as dolls' rolling-pins, clothespins, barrels, washtubs, spinning wheels, and the like.

THE TIN WEDDING

The tenth wedding anniversary has many possibilities for fun. An informal social evening or a dinner followed by some jolly stunts are in order.

In any case, arrange for the dining table a centerpiece of a shiny tin funnel filled with bright garden or wild flowers surrounded by a frill of lace paper to represent an old-fashioned, formal bouquet. Use tin candlesticks with bayberry candles for illumination and scatter tiny new patty pans with crinkly edges over the table to hold candies and nuts.

The salad may be served on shiny tin plates covered with lace paper doilies, the ice-cream in individual patty pans, and the coffee or punch in tin cups.

At each place put a tiny funnel bouquet, a miniature of the central one or else some tiny tin toy.

Tin whistles for everybody would promote the hilarity.

The old-fashioned game of "Spin the Platter" would be good to start the entertainment of the evening. Then may come a "tin" minute paper and pencil contest to see who can write the most words beginning or ending with TIN in the allotted ten minutes.

Ten "reel" years of married life may next be shown. This feature is simply a series of movie-like pantomimes showing humorous events, real or imaginary, in the life of the host and hostess--given, of course, by their friends.

A tin band concert will also provide a good time. Those who are in the band perform on instruments contrived from kitchen utensils or the tin noise-making novelties which can be obtained in the shops.

A MOCK WEDDING

A mock wedding is a funny way to celebrate one of the numerous early wedding anniversaries, especially if a group of young married women friends want to join in a surprise.

The bride may be invited to a chum's house and presently the procession may appear before her.

The bride should have a cheesecloth or mosquito netting veil with dried orange peel to hold the folds in place, and she should carry a bouquet of white chicken feathers tied with white tape--the shower part can be little bows of rags.

The bridesmaids might all wear the cheapest of farmers' hats, with huge bunches of goldenrod or asters on them or else such things as little kitchen utensils sewed on the front in place of flowers. Bouquets of burdock tied with colored cretonne would be attractive for them, or possibly as a substitute for the conventional shepherds' crooks they could carry umbrellas with big bows on the handles. A third suggestion for the bridesmaids is that they carry grape baskets filled with none too choice outdoor flowers and weeds.

There should be a flower girl, of course, who can wear an abbreviated costume. Her hair should be in ringlets with a big ribbon tied around her head, and she may carry a market basket filled with scraps of paper, or flowers if you prefer, to scatter in front of the bride.

The ring bearer may carry a curtain ring on a sofa cushion.

At the ceremony, of course, you must omit all the really solemn parts, but you may let someone make up some questions for the minister to use. For instance, he may say to the mock bridegroom, "Do you promise to obey this woman?" Instead of saying, "I will" and "I do," they may say, "I wilt" and "I doth."

For a wedding breakfast, you might serve creamed codfish in heavy crockery, and follow it with helpings of cream of wheat either cold or hot, which can be served to resemble ice cream in little paper cases. There should be a wedding cake which may be only ginger-bread, and some kind of grotesque motto may be inscribed in the frosting.

A SILVER WEDDING SHOWER

A little group, girlhood friends of more than twenty-five years standing, recently planned a pleasant shower for a popular friend, the president, as it happened, of their fortnightly sewing club, on her silver wedding anniversary.

None of the ladies was rich and the gifts were planned to cost not over fifty cents each. Many of them were less than that.

Silver fittings for a work basket were chosen and included a silver needle case, a silver thimble case, a silver hem gauge, a unique tatting shuttle, a little silver ripping knife, a cunning strawberry emery with a silver hull and a wee wax cherry with a silver stem.

The gifts were wrapped in white tissue paper, tied with silver cord with a tiny shining bell inserted in the center of each knot. They were presented in a lovely sweet grass sewing basket, which in turn was wrapped and tied with silver ribbon.

This was not given, however, till the close of the afternoon's sewing, which had gone on as usual, though there was an atmosphere of ill-concealed expectation.

Simple refreshments were brought in and served in buffet style. Home-made ice-cream was passed in little ice cups which had as decorations around the rim a circlet of glittering silvery tinsel. "Silver Cake" and bonbons in silver wrappings accompanied the ice cream.

Last of all, the "shower" was borne in on a silver tray and set before the surprised guest of honor. A little rhyme explained this turn of events to the delightfully mystified recipient:

_Because of many a happy hour With you, well spent, we give this shower, Just to remember in a way With love, your silver wedding day_.

As an amusing little contest each lady was asked to write down ten things she had learned in the last twenty-five years. The replies made good reading and furnished plenty of conversation till home-going time.

A CAPE COD LUNCHEON

In remembrance of a happy two weeks spent in a little bungalow on Cape Cod, one of the girls of the "bunch" gave a quaint luncheon for the others during the year following.

The invitations bore a tiny spray of bayberry sketched in one corner and read like this:

_May the bayberry dip and the odor of pine At this little reunion luncheon of mine, Bring back all our fun in the house by the sea, Where we were as jolly as jolly could be_.

On the luncheon table homespun runners were used, crossed in the center where a brown wicker basket filled with the gray green of bayberry branches, brightened by the orange of bittersweet, stood on a mat of fragrant pine.

Green bayberry dips in the simplest of low tin candlesticks lighted the table and at each cover the place-card was a little outline map of Cape Cod with the situation of the summer camp conspicuously marked.

The menu consisted of clam cocktails, codfish cakes and tiny pots of baked beans, hot steamed brown bread cut in small round slices, blueberry tarts, and coffee.

The favors were wee bayberry "waxes" for the sewing basket, each with a bit of a bayberry twig peeping from its top.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SHOWERS

"How shall I announce my engagement?" The engaged girl we have always with us, and the next step after the engagement is the announcement of it. Most girls like to have some kind of little social function to break the news to their special circle of friends. Usually a mother or a sister or a chum does the entertaining, though a girl herself may perfectly well plan and carry out such a party.

There are several sorts of affairs which may serve as a setting for an announcement. A favorite kind is a luncheon for a group of girl friends. Even less work is an afternoon tea and to that a girl's men friends may be asked also, though it's really easier to have girls only. Another kind of announcement party is the evening affair to which both men and girl friends are invited and at which the announcement should be "sprung" as a total surprise as in all other announcement affairs.

After the engagement is known, immediately the friends of the bride-to-be begin to think of showers for her. One friend or a group of friends or her club may be hostesses and give such an affair.

There are different ways of planning them. For instance, they may be appropriate to the month, like a Christmas Tree Shower in December or an Indian Summer Shower in November or a Rainy Day Shower in April. Or they may take as keynotes the engaged girl's special likes, as in the case of an apple shower, a kitty shower or an old rose shower. And then again, they may be just plain, ordinary, handkerchief showers, or linen showers, or kitchen showers, with an original touch somewhere.

"A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME" LUNCHEON

At a recent engagement luncheon the announcement was made in a unique way.

A large wooden embroidery hoop was hung from the ceiling over the table and in the ring perched a gaily painted wooden parrot, the kind that rocks back and forth when touched.

From the parrot streamers of colored baby ribbon led to the different places, and tied to the ends of the ribbons were tiny notes in envelopes. These on being opened showed the names of the engaged couple and a short rhyme reading thus:

_A little bird told me A very nice thing, That Randolph gave Sally A diamond ring_.

The refreshments followed somewhat the parrot color scheme, with halves of grapefruit garnished with cherries, chicken à la King, pimento, walnut and cream cheese salad, orange ice, and little cakes with colored frosting.

Small celluloid parrots perched on the rims of the glasses were appropriate souvenirs.

A HAPPINESS TEA

_Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full o' rye, Four and twenty bluebirds Baked in a pie;

When the pie was opened The birds began to sing, About a certain couple here Who have some news to spring_.

Thus did one girl announce her engagement in the month of May. She had asked twenty-four of her best friends to come to a bluebird tea one Saturday afternoon, and nobody suspected her secret, although they did remember that the bluebird stands for happiness.