Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-12-05
TODAY'S EVENING STORY
GINGER COOKIES
COPYRIGHT BY w. WERNER

heard that you made the best gin
ger cookies ever known, and Beth
and I have an inordinate banker
ing for them. We've tried half a
dozen times to make them and
failed. Nobody seemed able to help
us, and so L kidnapped you"
do you want me to make you a
batch?" Adelia said.
"No. All we want is for you to
show US how"
81 couldn't show anybody how to
make ginger cookies Adelia re-
piled earnestly. I'D forget how
myself if 1 did. All can do is to
go ahead and bake you up a batch.
I'd love to do that. May I?'
"Of course, you may.' Beth cried.
She ran to the kitchen and began to
collect spices, eggs, sugar, flour and
a multiplicity of shining utensils.
Adelia shook her head when she
saw the array. 'Bless you, my child.
I don't need all those things just to
make a batch Of ginger cookies"
she said. Give me a pan of bread
flour and I'll go right ahead"
First, she made a nest in the
flour, and then into this nest she
poured molasses, broke an egg,
dropped shortening. She worked
rapidly, without fear of failure. Sud
denly she began to laugh. "I always
think of Aunt Hannah Seamore,
she said. Every time she put
pan of cookies in the oven she
would say, The Lord go with you.
But her cookies wasn't as good as
you'd expect"
Adelia'S cooIxies wero much hattpr
than anybody would have reason to
expect considering the extremely
haphazard way in which she made
them. The Oliver girls munched
delightedly. They made Adelia stay
to dinner; in fact they kept her
nearly all of the remainder of the
day. She went home much cheered
and refreshed.
That day came Mrs. Archibold.
Mrs. Archibold was a great lady,
one who naturally did not come
within the scope of such humble. be.
ings as Adelia Summer. She STEP
ped from a limousine. assembled the
stairs that led to Adelia's rooms,
and entered the small sitting room
with a whirr of mink.
Yesterday" she began in her fas-
cinating way, 81 ate one of your
ginger cookies. May Oliver gave it
to me. The Woman's club is going
to hold a cake sale Saturday morn"
ing at Winnings store. Would you
make a batch. of cookies for the
sale, Mrs. Summer? l am sure
there are dozens of people who scorn
chocolate layer cake that would
simply fall for your cookies"
Adelia's ginger cookies went on
sale Saturday morning at 10 o'clock.
An hour later Mrs. Archibold tele-
phoned her that they were all gone.
The aristocratic pink, white and
brown cakes Of superior mold had
been passed by while people fairly
scrambled for Adelia's ginger cook
les.
Adelia had not been so happy in
years. But she was still happier
when two or three representative
women of the town came begging
her ginger cooky recipe. 1t was
then that Adelia found she had no
recipe; she had merely learned to
make the cookies from her mothers
directions, and her mother had
doubtless learned to make them in
the same way, from her mother.
When she began, "Make a hole in
painful of -four" Mrs. Marsh and
Mrs. Scott gazed at each other help
! lessly.
AS a consequence, nobody ever
learned to make ginger cookies the
way Adelia, herself, made them. She
had monopoly, and she was kept
busy. Every week somebody want
ed some of the famous cookies. She
could have made a good living from
them, but since she did not need
the living she was kept busy.
III time, she became almost IA
nous in that locality through the
power OF her ginger cookies alone.
They had pay competitors. At sight