Western liberal. (Lordsburg, N.M.) 1887-1919, 1917-12-21

fringed. It then ~resembled the old-fashioned
motto candies. That the motto or couplet might not
be lacking, the following lines we're written and
inserted
Those Jel girls may be tart and sweet,
But I've heard that they lack spice.
If of me you'll deign to eat
l am sure yOull vote me nice"
Grandma made a wonderful fruit cake-the
kind that lasts a year, and improves with age.
This was surrounded with white parchment paper,
and covered with a white paper dolly, and fancy
edges. This was laid carefully over the waxed
paper, which covered the frOstlng, studded thickly
with whole hickory and butternut meats. The
whole was packed into a round box, made by
Myrtles skillful fingers. To make it she cut two
disks of cardboard Of the required size, and two
long strips of the same cardboard, one 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 mistletoe.
Lastly. she tied two bright scarlet ribbons about
the box, one each way. She made plump bows,
and, gathering the ends of the ribbons, sewed tiny
sleigh bells on them, so that the box. when moved,
gave forth a sweet musical sound.
Myrtle surveyed the box with satisfaction, her
head on one side.
"You ought to please" she said. "You appeal
to the eye, the ear, and the palate"
The box certainly did present an imposing ap-
pearance. On the inside of the cover appeared
the lines:
"Of course this cake was made by mother;
She says If it don't suit, she'll make you another"
A great generous ball Of cottage cheese was
wrapped In paper and packed In a square box,
with plenty Of tissue paper in the corners. Ac-
companying 1t was the legend:
ere Ecou Ind knOvn of tha chpaga pollpd tpottopp ,
He'd have traded for that, instead of the ~pottage."
There were two generous loaves of bread, one Of
salt rising" the other yeast raised. On a card
were the lines:
Grandma says, when you were a boy,
And eating salt rising you never could stop;
But in case you tire of the old-fashlOned 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:
1--WE wonder If, when you eat, you'll mutter:
Aha That tastes like Old Home butterr"
The mince pie was concocted with immense care,
from the careful choosing and mixing Of the in
gradients, to the construction of the f%aultless, faky
crust, just touched with the faintest hint of golden
brown. This was carefully packed between two
wooden plates, tied firmly together. On the top
plate was written:
when is it true that a mans a mince pie2
Cannot you take the hint?
Why, a mans a Mint Spy of course, you know,
When he acts as a spy in the mint"
The duck was, of course, the chef d'oeuvre of
the whole undertaking.. When 1t was ready, lying
on its back, with its fat legs composed at its plump
sides, it surely did look appetizlng. The poet
Lariat," as Tim called her, wrote the following:
mot n porcine sucking, but a nice fat duckling
You draw for your Christmas dinner.
You ne'er saw a duck
That was iicer to pluck;
We hope you will vote him q winner"
Some beautiful red Brother Jonathan apples
were tucked In the corners, and a glass of elder
berry jelly. These were g~randma's contribution,
and she wrote, in a 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-
member? l wouldn't let them cut 1t down when
they cut the others. The elderberry Jelly was
made from the elderberrles that grow on the
bushes by the old swimming hole.
MOTHER"
When everything was finished and the box
about ready to 90, there still remained two things
to be done. One was 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 a relative, and had
been sent away, and its existence forgotten. Myr-
tie had been named for her aunt, and she looked
very much as the latter had done at her age. Aunt
Myrtle had died ut eighteen, so Myrtle never saw
her. The other thing to be inclOsed was 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 was almost startling.
When grandma looked at the two pictures to-
gether she shook her head:
ID l really look rs old at thAt?' she sighed.
Il hate to send that to Johnny. I'm afraid 1t will