Drain the beans well and sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper. If they are canned, let them lie on a platter for at least an hour. Arrange them on a few white lettuce leaves on plates, or omit the lettuce and use a few yellow celery leaves; put two strips of hard-boiled egg on the plate, one on each side of the beans, and, just before serving, pour a little French dressing over all. This salad must be very cold. "Now, certainly, that is all," said Mother Blair, as they wrote this down, "and I'm sure nobody will go home hungry after such a supper as that!" "And what hot drink are you going to have, Mother?" "Oh, I almost forgot that. I planned something which is especially Thanksgivingy, too. It is really and truly what the Pilgrim Fathers are supposed to have made for Thanksgiving Day out of wild grapes; but I am sure they had no lemons or spices, so it could not have been quite as good as this. We will have this with the turkey and oysters for the supper, and no coffee or cocoa." MULLED GRAPE-JUICE 1 quart of bottled grape-juice. 1 pint of water. 1 cup of sugar. 2 lemons. 2 sticks of cinnamon. 1 dozen cloves. Put the spices in a piece of thin cloth and tie this up like a bag; put it in a saucepan with the grape-juice, sugar, and water, and let it slowly heat till it steams; stir well and let it stand on the back of the fire for ten minutes. Add the juice of the lemons and the thin yellow rind of one (you can peel this off in a strip and drop it in); bring it all to the boiling-point, take out the lemon-peel, taste it, and, if not sweet enough, add more sugar. Serve very hot. The next evening, just as it grew dark, Mildred and Jack hung a sheet before the double doors of the library, and they, with some of the cousins, gave a funny shadow-play, "Young Lochinvar," with a rocking-horse for the "steed," and a clothes-basket for a boat, and their father read the poem as they acted it. When everybody had stopped laughing at it, the junior Blairs brought in the supper (the oysters had been quietly cooking while they played), and arranged it on the library table. Everything was hot and delicious, or cold and delicious, and the mulled grape-juice was almost the best of all. After everything had been eaten up, they all gathered around the fire and told stories. At last, when the visitors had gone and bedtime had come for the Blairs, Mildred said impressively: "Now _that_ was what I call a Thanksgiving Day without a flaw!" CHAPTER XVI CANDY FOR THE FAIR