The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1917-12-21

fringed. 1t then resembled the old fashioned
motto candies That the motto or couplet might not
be lacking, the following lines written and
inserted:
"Those Jell girls may be tart and sweet.
But I've heard that they lack spice
If of me you'll degn to eat
am you'll vote me nice.'
Grandma made wonderful fruit cake-the
kind that lasts a year, and improves with age.
This surrounded with white parchment paper,
and covered with a white paper dolly, and fancy
edges. This laid carefully over the waxed
paper, which covered the frosting studded thickly
with whole hickory and butternut meats. The
whole packed Into round box, made by
Myrtle's skillful fingers. To make 1t she cut two
disks of cardboard of the required sze and two
long strips of the same cardboard the height OF
the cake, the other narrower, for the cover. She
bound the edges together with gummed tape, and
covered their junction with narrow strips of gold
paper Then she neatly covered top and sides
with Christmas paper all holly and mstletoe
Lastly, she tied two bright scarlet ribbons about
the box, each way She made plump bows,
and gathering the ends of the ribbons sewed tiny
sleigh bells on them, that the box. when moved,
gave forth Il sweet musical sound.
Myrtle surveyed the box with satisfaction her
head side
you ought to please she said. "You appeal
to the eye the ear and the palate"
The box certainly did present an imposing np-
pearance. On the inside of the cover appeared
the lines:
"Of course this cake made by mother;
She says If it don't suit she'll make you another"
great generous ball of cottage cheese
wrapped in paper and packed in a square box
with plenty Of tissue paper in the corners. Ac-
companyng 1t the legend:
"If Esau had known of the cheese called cottage
He'd have traded for that, instead of the pottage.
There were two generous loaves of bread, one Of
were the lines:
,"Grandma says, when you boy,
And eating salt rising you never could stop;
But In case you tire of the old-fashioned kind,
Here's another loaf raised with the hop"
Packed about the loaves, and neatly wrapped,
each by itself, In parchment paper, were a dozen
little individual butter pats, nodded In the form OF
a rose. Myrtle wrote:
"We wonder if, when you eat, you'll mutter:
Aha That tastes like Old Home butter!"
The mince pie was concocted with Immense care,
from the careful choosing and mixing of the In
2redents to the construction of the fautless faky
crust just touched with the faintest hint of golden
brown. This carefully packed between two
wooden plates, tied firmly together. On the top
plate written:
when is it that mans mince pie7
Cannot you take the hint?
Why, mans Mint Spy Of course, you know,
When he acts spy in the mint"
The duck was, of course, the chef d'oeuvre of
the whole undertaking. When 1t was ready, lying
Its back, with It's fat legs composed at its plump
sides, 1t surely did look appetzing The "Poet
Lariat" as Tim called her, wrote the following:
mot porcine sucking, but a nice fat duckling
You draw for your Christmas dinner.
You ne'er duck
That nicer to pluck;
We hope you will vote him a winner"
Some beautiful red Brother Jonathan apples
were tucked in the corners, and glass of elder
berry jelly. These were grandma's contribution,
and she wrote, in somewhat trembling hand, the
following note:
Dear Johnny:
"These apples came off from the tree where you
fell and broke your leg that time. Do you re-
member7 l wouldn't let them cut It down when
they cut the others. The elderberry Jelly was
made from the elderberries that grow the
bushes by the old swimming hole
MOTHER"
When everything finished and the box
about ready to go, there still remained two things
to be done. One to put in the old-fashioned
daguerreotype of grandma, with Aunt Myrtle
(taken at sixteen) standing on one side of her.
and Uncle John on the other. This had been
taken many years before, for relative and had
been sent away, and its existence forgotten. Myr-
tie had been named for her aunt, and she looked
very much the latter had done at her age. Aunt
Myrtle had died at eighteen, SO Myrtle never saw
her. The other thing to be inclosed the anna
teur photograph of grandma and the present
Myrtle. She had posed in imitation of the pose
in the early picture, with her arm around grand
mas neck. The resemblance between her picture
and that Of Aunt Myrtle almost startling.
When grandma looked at the two pictures to-
gether she shook her head:
do really look as old at that 2" she sighed
II hate to send that to Johnny I'm afraid 1t will