This eBook was prepared by Stewart A. Levin. A LITTLE COOK-BOOK FOR A LITTLE GIRL by CAROLINE FRENCH BENTON Author of ``Gala Day Luncheons'' Boston, The Page Company, Publishers Copyright, 1905 by Dana Estes & Company For Katherine, Monica and Betty Three Little Girls Who Love To Do ``Little Girl Cooking'' Thanks are due to the editor of Good Housekeeping for permission to reproduce the greater part of this book from that magazine. INTRODUCTION Once upon a time there was a little girl named Margaret, and she wanted to cook, so she went into the kitchen and tried and tried, but she could not understand the cook-books, and she made dreadful messes, and spoiled her frocks and burned her fingers till she just had to cry. One day she went to her grandmother and her mother and her Pretty Aunt and her Other Aunt, who were all sitting sewing, and asked them to tell here about cooking. ``What is a roux,'' she said, ``and what's a mousse and what's an entrée? What are timbales and sautés and ingredients, and how do you mix 'em and how long do you bake 'em? Won't somebody please tell me all about it?'' And her Pretty Aunt said, ``See the flour all over that new frock!'' and her mother said, ``Dear child, you are not old enough to cooks yet;'' and her grandmother said, ``Just wait a year or two, and I'll teach you myself;'' and the Other Aunt said, ``Some day you shall go to cooking-school and learn everything; you know little girls can't cook.'' But Margaret said, ``I don't want to wait till I'm big; I want to cook now; and I don't want to do cooking-school cooking, but little girl cooking, all by myself.'' So she kept on trying to learn, but she burned her fingers and spoiled her dresses worse than ever, and her messes were so bad they had to be thrown out, every one of them; and she cried and cried. And then one day her grandmother said, ``It's a shame that child should not learn to cook if she really wants to so much;'' and her mother said ``Yes, it is a shame, and she shall learn! Let's get her a small table and some tins and aprons, and make a little cook-book all her own out of the old ones we wrote for ourselves long ago,--just the plain, easy things anybody can make.'' And both her aunts said, ``Do! We will help, and perhaps we might put in just a few cooking-school things beside.''