THE STATE FAIR CAKE

“What are you doing with all that torn-up paper, Peace?” asked Allee, finding her sister busy stripping old papers into tiny shreds up in the barn loft, after she had searched all over the place for her.

“I want to make a map like Hope’s class had to,” answered Peace, pouring an apronful of scraps into a bucket of scalding water. “I asked her how she did it, and she said they drew the maps first, and then mixed up a lot of blotters in boiling water. I hunted all over the place for blotters, and couldn’t find but four, so I’m trying these newspapers. They make an awful looking mess, but I guess they will work. You can tear paper if you want to.”

Allee took the hint, and accepting the magazine Peace offered her, she fell to pulling it to pieces, adding her mite to the mixture in the pail. “How many must you have?” she ventured to ask, after an hour at this monotonous occupation.

“I guess this will be enough,” answered the older girl, critically examining the nasty mess, and stirring it so energetically that a goodly portion of it flew out of the bucket into her lap.

“Have you drawn a map?” Allee inquired, looking around the dingy loft in quest of such an article.

“No o, I can’t seem to get a good one. The first time I tried, it looked like an elephant with two trunks, and the second time the Mississippi River came out of the middle of Florida. In this last picture, the land is so fat there isn’t any room for the ocean. But I found two old g’ographies in that heap of trash, and Gail said I could have them. So I’ve pulled out all the maps of the United States that I could find, and now I’m ready to cut them out. Then we’ll paste them onto that board and stick the paper mush on top.”

“Why do you want so many all alike?” asked the inquisitive little sister, watching the shining scissors snip in and out around capes and peninsulas with painstaking care. “I should think you would make a c’lection of different maps like Hope has in her book.”

Peace paused to consider the suggestion, and then answered, “Well, that’s something I hadn’t thought about. It would be better to have them all different, wouldn’t it? I’ll just hunt up some others that aren’t alike. This United States one is too small, then; but maybe we can use it for something else. I’ll finish cutting it out anyway, though we’ll want the biggest we can get for our paper mush.”

She finished snipping it out as carefully as she could in view of the many ragged coasts of our country, and laid it aside, while she chose another larger one to be honored with the “paper mush” covering. It took a long time to complete all the maps selected Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia but at last they were finished; and Allee, the patient, joined in the sigh of satisfaction which escaped Peace’s lips as she dropped the scissors from her cramped, tired hands.

“Now we’ll stick on the mush. Hold this map, Allee, so’s it won’t wiggle.” She daubed on a great handful of the dirty gray pulp and tried to smooth it over the colored map surface, but evidently the paper had not soaked long enough, for it still held its own shape, and refused utterly to form the paste Peace had watched Hope handle with such ease and success.

“It doesn’t stay very well, does it?” remarked Allee.

“No, it doesn’t!” snapped Peace in exasperation. “I shall not bother with it any more. I’m tired of fooling with it when it acts like that. I’ll throw it out and play with my corncob doll this morning.”

“Are you going to throw away all these nice maps that you have cut out, too?” asked Allee, as the angry girl flung down the wet newspaper scraps and started for the house.

Peace paused, surveyed the gorgeously colored heap which she had spent so long a time in preparing, and answered, “Well, I’ll keep them awhile, for maybe some day we may want them again.” Gathering them up, she descended the ladder and marched off toward the kitchen, thoroughly out of patience with the whole world and with herself in particular.

Through the open windows and door came savory smells of something cooking, and she quickened her steps, sniffing the air and saying, “Faith has been baking; maybe there are some dishes to lick. I wonder if she made any frosting. Mrs. Lacy always wants caramel, and I just love that.”

“Faith’s cross like you are,” warned Allee, following in her sister’s steps, nevertheless.

“Cakes always make her cross,” answered Peace, ignoring her share of the compliment. “Gail says it makes her nervous thinking p’r’aps the oven will be too hot or too cool, or the dough not just right, or something. But Faith hardly ever gets so cross that she won’t let us clean out the pans.”

They entered the room in search of the cooking dishes it was so often their privilege to scrape, but the warm kitchen was in spick and span order, with nothing of the kind in sight; and Allee suggested hopefully, “Maybe they are in the pantry.”

“And maybe Faith is, too,” whispered Peace, cautiously opening the door and peeping within. “No, she ain’t, but she has made four big cakes. My! Don’t they look fine? One choc’late loaf, two caramel layers, and one white square one. Looks like a graveyard with them all set even in a row, doesn’t it? There ought to be three frosting pans to lick.”

“I don’t see a single any,” remarked Allee, poking into every nook and cranny in hope of finding their treat. “I guess she licked them all herself.”

“That’s too mean of her,” cried Peace, joining in the hunt with no better success. “She could have saved those dishes for us as well as not. What have you found?”

Allee at that moment had unearthed two mysterious little packages, and in trying to investigate one of them, she dropped it, and the bag’s contents were scattered all over the floor.

“Candies!” gasped Peace. “Sh! Don’t cry! I’ll help you pick them up. They must be for Minnie Eastman’s birthday cake. I s’pose that is the white frosted one. The candies aren’t hurt a mite, Allee. Stop snivelling. Let’s see what is in that other sack. Sugar, green sugar! Looks poison, doesn’t it? But it tastes all right. Oh, see what I’ve done! My little United States map fell right on top of the white cake.”

“It fits, too,” gulped tearful Allee. “Looks as if it b’longed there.”

“It’s going to b’long!” cried Peace with sudden decision. “I shall trace around it with this pointed knife and then fix it up like Hope does her paper mush maps. See, the frosting is soft enough to work easy.”

“You better not,” Allen protested. “Faith might not like it.”

“Faith’s tickled to death when she can find some new way of dec’rating her cakes, and as this is Minnie’s birthday cake she’ll be awfully pleased, ’cause she got the highest mark in geography of anyone in their room, Hope says.”

As she talked, she wielded the sharp knife with surprisingly good results in tracing the ragged outlines of the map in the soft icing, and even critical Allee was charmed when the paper was lifted, disclosing the knife marks. “You have to put all those blue lines in, too, don’t you?” she asked. “How can you do that?”

Peace pondered. “Those are rivers and these brown smudges are mountains. I asked Hope once. They all ought to go in, but I’m afraid I can’t draw straight enough. Oh, I know what I’ll do. Mrs. Strong uses pin-pricked patterns for stamping Glen’s dresses. I’ll try that.” Carefully, laboriously, she pricked in the rivers, mountains and state boundaries, mistaking the latter for railroads; and then drew back to survey her work.

“The pin marks don’t show much, do they?” ventured Allee.

“No, but I shan’t leave them there anyway not alone. We’ll cover the railroads with these colored candies, and the rivers we’ll make of green sugar. They are blue on the map, but green and blue ain’t much different, anyway. We’ll jam down the ocean and cover that with green, too. These curly choc’late candies will make good mountains, and by heaping up the frosting we dug out of the ocean we’ll have islands and lighthouses. Now, ain’t that elegant?”

“Oh, my precious State Fair cake!” cried a dismayed voice behind them, and before either guilty decorator could face the angry sister, they were seized firmly by the shoulders, jerked through the doorway, vigorously shaken, each dealt a smart blow across their ears, and left dazed and tearful in the middle of the kitchen, while the avenger rushed sobbing upstairs.

Neither culprit had recovered her breath when Gail was upon them, not the gentle sister they were accustomed to seeing, but a stern, indignant, justice-dealing judge.

“Peace Greenfield,” she said severely, “what have you done? Ruined the cake Faith has taken such pains with for the Fair!”

“I I thought it was Minnie’s birthday cake. I I just dec’rated it.”

“Just decorated it! What for? What business had you to touch it? That was pure mischief and nothing else. She intended making a spray of roses and green leaves on that cake and now you’ve spoiled it. Go sit down in your little chairs and stay there until noon. For fear you will forget about staying there, I shall tie you in.”

“Oh, Gail, as if we were little kids!”

“That is what you are when you meddle with things that don’t belong to you. I have talked until I am tired. You don’t pay a bit of attention, so I must punish you some other way. Next time I shall send you to bed. Perhaps I better do that today.”

“Oh, Gail,” sobbed miserable Peace, “I didn’t mean to be bad, truly! I thought Faith would like some new way to dec’rate her cakes. I please don’t send us to bed! I’m awful sorry! Allee isn’t to blame! She tried to make me leave it alone, didn’t you, Babe?”

“Yes,” hiccoughed the equally penitent, but loyal young sinner, “and then I helped dig up the rivers and pile on the mountains!”

Gail’s face relaxed a little; a great tenderness for these little orphan sisters swept through her heart, and she felt herself relenting. Then Faith’s tragic despair rose before her inner vision again, and she hardened her heart, drew out some stout cord from the cupboard drawer, and tied the humiliated duet into their rickety, worn-out old rockers, leaving them to their unhappy thoughts while she went back to her work upstairs.

For a long time, it seemed to them, they sat jogging back and forth in the warm kitchen, mournfully dabbing their eyes and sniffing tearfully. Then Peace sat up, drew a deep, quivering breath, and said decisively, “I’m going to take that cake over to Mrs. Grinnell’s ”

“Gail said we had to stay here until noon,” quavered Allee.

“She said we had to sit in these chairs till then,” Peace corrected.

“Well, that’s the same thing. How can you go over to Mrs. Grinnell’s and stay in your chair?”

“Easy enough. I’ll take it along. Gail didn’t tie our hands.”

Allee gasped. “But you can’t carry the cake, too!”

“I’ll put the cake in the big egg basket and you’ll take hold on one handle and I the other. That will leave us each a free hand to hold onto our chairs with.”

“Oh!”

“Will you do it?”

“Course.”

With some difficulty they rose to their feet, made their way into the pantry once more and found the market basket; but it was another task to get the heavy cake into it, and they were almost in despair, when Peace’s fertile mind found a solution to the problem.

“It’s ’cause my chair keeps slipping that I can’t do it,” she said, after several vain attempts to lift the cake. “I have only one hand to pick this heavy thing up with. Stick this piece of string through the back of my chair, Allee, and I’ll tie it to the arms in front. There, that makes straps and holds the chair better. It cuts into your shoulders, though, doesn’t it? Never mind, it won’t be so bad when we get started and can hold onto the chairs. Are you ready? Don’t make any noise, for Gail mustn’t hear us.”

Slowly, cautiously, they tiptoed across the kitchen floor, let themselves out, and with wildly beating hearts hurried, as fast as the bumping chairs tied to their backs would permit, toward the tiny red cottage where Mrs. Grinnell lived all alone. Owing to their burdens, they made slow progress, and both conspirators expected any moment to hear Gail in pursuit. But it chanced that the busy housekeeper was too much occupied in the front chambers to discover their absence, and they reached the red house all out of breath, but without a mishap.

“For the land sakes!” cried the plump, motherly woman, upsetting a pan of apples in her surprise. “What are you young ones playing now?”

“This isn’t exactly a play,” Peace answered. “We’ve spoiled Faith’s State Fair cake and now she ain’t going to send it. I thought maybe you could tell us some way to fix it up.” She set down the basket, lifted the paper covering and disclosed the queer, geographical decorations to the woman’s astonished gaze.

“Well, now, if that ain’t the cutest!” exclaimed the worthy lady in genuine admiration. “Who’d ever have thought of putting the United States on a cake top but you, Peace Greenfield!”

“I never thought of it,” answered the child honestly. “The map fell there, it fitted and I scratched it in. Now it is spoiled for the Fair and Faith is bawling her eyes out.”

Mrs. Grinnell looked keenly at the two sober, tear-stained faces before her, guessed the rest of the story, and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Then she laughed in childish delight. “Why, I’ve got the finest scheme, you ducklings! We will just do a little juggling, and I think Faith will stand a better chance for the blue ribbon than she would with this white cake.”

“What do you mean?” faltered puzzled Peace.

“Just this: I ordered a caramel layer of Faith for a little supper some of my people in the city are intending to give a niece of mine and her beau. They are to be married next week. She is a school teacher, and this cake will tickle her immensely. I’ll just trot this in for the supper, and we’ll take the caramel layer to the Fair. According to my notion of thinking, Faith’s caramel cakes beat her others all hollow.”

“But but the caramel cakes haven’t any red candy roses and green leaves on them,” stammered Peace.

“They don’t need them,” said Mrs. Grinnell, scornfully. “Goodness knows they are pretty enough plain, and as for taste they are the finest I ever ate, and I used to be a pretty good cake-maker myself when the children were at home and my husband living. Now, not a word to Faith about this. Don’t even tell Gail unless you have to. You better scamper for home now before you are missed.”

So they shambled back to the close kitchen, with the chairs still bumping and rubbing at every step, and were safely settled in their corner once more before Gail had finished her Saturday sweeping and dusting above. When she came downstairs to prepare their simple lunch and found the geographical cake missing from the pantry shelf, she thought Faith had disposed of it in some way, and consequently asked no questions, but released the sorry little sinners from their chairs, gave them their dinner and sent them off to play.

When red-eyed Faith put in appearance late that afternoon, ready to deliver the other three cakes to her customers, she looked stealthily about for the ruined white mound, and not finding it, decided that Gail had hid it until her heavy disappointment should have eased somewhat; and she, too, asked no questions.

At first she refused to accompany the sisters on their visit to the fairgrounds, but Peace’s bitter misery softened her heart, and she went, though still too sorely grieved to enjoy much of the gay scenes and beautiful exhibits. However, all day long she studiously avoided the building where the cooked food was on exhibition, though Peace was wild to investigate its mysteries, and even Gail tried to persuade her to enter. Late in the afternoon, just as the oldest sister was proposing that they start for home, Cherry caught sight of a familiar figure entering the Horticultural Building, and raced after her with a yell of recognition, “Mrs. Grinnell, Mrs. Grinnell, we are all here!”

“Well, well,” exclaimed the woman, smiling into the flushed face at her elbow, “this is great luck. Come, all of you! I have found something I want you to see. You, most of all, Faith.”

She led them down one street and up another, into a white doorway before any of them had a chance to discover the name of the building, through a maze of aisles and a surging throng of weary sightseers, and paused in the cake department, pointed toward a blue-ribbon cake in one case, and said triumphantly, “Peace’s geography cake was the hit of the evening last Saturday, but it took the caramel layer to win the prize, Faith!”