"Well, when I was a kiddie I had no one to play with but Mammy Susan, so I used to stay in the kitchen and play cooking. I've been making thimble biscuit and eggshell cake ever since I could walk." "How do you make eggshell cake?" "Just put the left-over scrapings of batter in the eggshells and bake it. It cooks in a minute and then you peel off the shell. Scrumptious!" Dee came running in with the mail, having been to the post office at Greendale with Josh and Bobby and the faithful Josephus. "A letter from Zebedee and he will be up for sure this evening! Ain't that grand? But guess who is coming with him--old Hiram G. Parker! I believe Zebedee must have lost his mind. I am really uneasy about him." "Why, what is the matter with Mr. Parker?" asked Helen, who had been much interested in what she had heard of that gentleman's charms and graces. "'No matter, no matter, only ideas!' as the idealist said when the materialist saw him falling down stairs, bumping his head at every step, and asked him what was the matter," laughed Dee. "Didn't you ever meet Mr. Parker?" "No, but I have always understood he was all kinds of lovely things." "Oh, he'll do," put in Dum, "if you like wax works. He wears the prettiest pants in town and has more neckties and socks than an ordinary man could buy if he went shopping every day. He knows all the latest jokes and when they give out, he starts in on the others. He makes jokes of his own, too--not like Zebedee's--Zebedee always bubbles out in a joke but Hiram G. leads up to his. First he gets one, a joke I mean, and then he gets a crowd of listeners. Then he directs the conversation into the proper channel and dams it up and when it is just right he launches his joke." "You certainly do mix your metaphors," laughed Page, crimping her turnovers with a fork. "You start out with bubbling brooks and end up with the launching of ships. "'She starts! she moves! she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel.'" "Well, Zebedee does bubble and Hiram G. Parker doesn't; neither does a boat, so there. Oh, oh! Look at the goodies. How on earth do you make such cute edges to your tarts? Just see them, girls!" "I did mine with a broken fork but Mammy Susan says she knows an old woman who always did hers with her false teeth." After the shout that went up from this had subsided, Helen begged to know more of Mr. Parker. "Is he a great friend of your father?"