WHEN MOTHER
LETS US GIVE A PARTY

Transcriber's Note: This cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

WHEN MOTHER
LETS US GIVE A PARTY

DRESSING UP

WHEN MOTHER LETS
US GIVE A PARTY

A BOOK THAT TELLS LITTLE FOLK HOW BEST TO
ENTERTAIN AND AMUSE THEIR LITTLE FRIENDS
By ELSIE DUNCAN YALE
ILLUSTRATED BY ADA BUDELL

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1909

Copyright, 1909, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
All Rights Reserved
———
Published, October, 1909

TO
MY DAUGHTERS
WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY MAY ALWAYS BE
“GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY”
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing that is much more fun than a party, is there? Mother hasn’t forgotten the days when she set a little table in the attic with the dolls’ tea-set, and had cambric tea and jam sandwiches. As for a birthday party, why it doesn’t seem a bit like a birthday without a frosted cake and pink candles and ice cream in forms—but there! That was to be a surprise.

Birthday parties only come once a year, of course, but there are other parties in between, afternoon teas on the piazza or in the playroom, or in the barn, if you are so fortunate as to have a barn. These parties oughtn’t to mean extra work for mother, for you can have them all yourself, if mother is willing.

So when she says, “Yes, you may have a party,” after you have hugged her, and told her she was the dearest mother in the world, you can begin to get ready.

“R. S. V. P.,” at the end,

Means “an answer kindly send,”

But a child who is polite,

Knows she should an answer write.

INVITATIONS

First of all, for the invitations. Choose your prettiest note paper, and don’t forget to write very plainly the date of the party. If you are just going to have a little afternoon tea, you can simply write,

Dear Daisy,—

“Will you come to my house to tea on Friday afternoon, June sixth, at three o’ clock? I hope you can.

“Lovingly,
“Dorothy.

“19 Elm Street.
“June first.”

Or if you are going to have a larger party, you can write:

“Miss Dorothy Manners requests the pleasure of your presence at her home on Friday afternoon, June sixth, from four until eight o’clock.

“19 Elm Street.
“June first.”

Be sure to send your invitations in time for your friends to write replies. Mother will need to know just how large a birthday cake to bake, and how much ice cream to freeze!

’Twill be a good plan (and there’s truth in my rhyme)

To always begin to get ready in time.

GETTING READY

If you are going to have many parties, there are quite a number of things which you can keep on hand, all ready to use when you need them. An old trunk or box, or barrel will be nice to have on purpose for “dress-up” clothes. Put away in this all the old hats, and dresses, and shawls, in which mother lets you dress up. Then they’ll be safe, so that no one will throw or give them away by mistake, and you’ll always know just where to find them.

It is a good thing to have wooden picnic plates on hand, and these will be very useful for outdoor parties. Mother may object to your using her good china, for sometimes plates will get broken when you are just as careful as you know how to be. So you can decorate your wooden plates very prettily by cutting out the flowers or figures which are on paper napkins, and pasting them on the plates. Then they will do nicely for your lawn or piazza parties.

It is a good plan to have a supply of paper napkins and you can buy them by the hundred, or by the dozen. If mother is afraid to let you have her pretty table cloth or lunch cloth for fear it might get stained, you can get a lovely paper table cloth with napkins and little dishes, for twenty-five cents.

You might suggest to your relatives when Christmas or your birthday is near, that a set of tea cups, or plates, or little spoons would be a very acceptable present.

A folding table is very useful when you have afternoon teas on the piazza or lawn, and this can be bought for a dollar.

You can make very dainty baskets for candy and salted nuts, from little paper cases costing fifteen cents a dozen, and crepe paper at ten cents a roll. Five or ten cents will buy a pretty souvenir, and every child enjoys something to take home from the party.

So you see a party isn’t such a great deal of trouble, and I’m sure the “best mother in the world” will let you invite your friends to come and see you quite often.

If you have a party and don’t bother mother,

I'm sure she'll allow you to soon have another.

PARTIES YOU CAN HAVE WITHOUT MOTHER’S HELP

Usually, when mother’s friends call on her in the afternoon, she serves them with tea and wafers or cakes. Perhaps she lets you help her. Now when your friends come to see you, very likely mother will sometimes be willing for you to make a pitcher of lemonade, or a few jam sandwiches, for them. Try to serve these very daintily on a tray, using the napkins which you have all ready.

Here is a very valuable secret. When mother says, “No, I can’t let you get your refreshments ready yourself,” do you know the reason? She is afraid you will not do it tidily, and that she will have to set the kitchen in order after you have finished. So put the sugar box back in its place, don’t leave the breadboard out, and set everything back just where you found it.

Then I’m sure that the next time you ask mother she will say, “Yes.”

So if she allows you to make lemonade, or cocoa for your friends, here are the recipes:

For one glass of lemonade take the juice of half a lemon, mix with two teaspoons of sugar, and add one cup of water. To make fruit lemonade add a few strawberries, or cherries, or bits of pineapple, or slices of orange to the lemonade.

For one cup of cocoa, mix a teaspoon of cocoa with a teaspoon of sugar, and then mix with one tablespoon of boiling water. Stir it well till the lumps are all out. Put a half pint of milk over the stove (being careful not to burn it), when it “wrinkles” on the top, pour the cocoa in, and let it boil a few minutes, stirring so that it will not scorch.

FOR SANDWICHES

Soften the butter a few minutes before you use it. Butter the bread before cutting off each slice, and cut very thin. Then lay the buttered slices neatly together and trim off the crusts. The sandwiches may be filled with jelly, jam, chopped hard boiled egg, chopped meat, or nuts.

CANDY PULL

Of course you must have this party in the kitchen, and either ask your friends to bring gingham aprons, or provide aprons for them. Have nice bright tin pans ready for your candy, and get together everything that the recipe calls for. If mother is willing you can make two kinds of candy at once on the stove, one for “pulling” and one for “nut taffy.” Although you can easily make the candy yourself, mother had best be on hand when you are working over the fire. This is a good party for a rainy day.

A candy pull is lots of fun.

FUDGE PARTY

For a fudge party, you will need aprons of course, and permission to use the stove, or perhaps your big sister’s chafing dish. Get your materials together, and when your friends come, you can have just as good a time as the girls do at college. “When Mother Lets Us Cook” will tell you just how to make your fudge, and then you will have one less thing to learn at college.

This is a good party for a rainy day.

POP CORN PARTY

For this you will need popping corn, and several poppers. If you only have one, maybe your guests will bring theirs.

You can take turns rubbing the corn from the ears, and popping it.

This is another rainy day party.

Come with a skip and come with a hop,

I’ve some corn that you must pop.

SEWING BEE

Mother will approve of a sewing bee, you see if she doesn’t! It is a most industrious way to spend an afternoon! Invite your friends around, and ask them to bring their dolls, their work baskets, and material to work with. (Of course this is just a girls’ party! Boys are left out!) If it is warm weather, it will be pleasant to sew on the piazza or lawn, and if it is too cool for this, the playroom will be pleasant for your sewing bee. Of course the boys will say that you do more talking than sewing, but show them that they are wrong by getting some pretty clothes made for your dolls.

At the end of the afternoon clear off your sewing table, cover it with a dainty cloth and serve afternoon tea. (It is queer to call it tea, when you have cocoa or lemonade!)

Come around and stay to tea,

We will have a sewing bee;

Bring your needle, thread and thimble,

Tongues and fingers will be nimble.

I wish to make each paper doll

A very stylish trousseau;

So come and help me dress them all,

I trust that you will do so.

PAPER DOLL PARTY

For this party you will need as many paper dolls as you have invited friends, and of course this, too, is just a girls’ party. Boys are out of it! Beside the dolls, get colored tissue or crepe paper, scissors, and paste. Arrange a table, at which to work, and when all your guests have come, you can begin dressing the paper dolls. Let each choose her own materials for the dresses. If you like, you can give a prize for the best dressed doll, mother to be the judge.

Then for refreshments lemonade, or cocoa and sandwiches will be nice, or if mother is willing, ice cream and cake. The refreshments can be served on the table, on which you are working, if you like, for it will only take a few moments to clear away the work, and arrange it for a tea table.

A clothespin party’s new to you,

I really have no doubt,

So come to spend the afternoon,

And then you will find out.

CLOTHES PIN PARTY

For a Clothespin Party you will need a couple of dozen clothespins, and plenty of colored tissue or crepe paper. In one corner of the invitation you can draw a clothespin. The clothespin party is very much like the paper doll party, except that you dress clothespins up for dolls, in the colored paper. You will be surprised to see what pretty dolls you can make. Mother can decide who has dressed the prettiest dolls, and give a little prize. Your friends will enjoy playing with the dolls they have dressed, until it is time for refreshments. You can serve “afternoon tea,” or something more if mother is willing.

At an indoor garden party, I your presence request,

And I’ll really be delighted, if you’ll come and be my guest.

INDOOR GARDEN PARTY

For the indoor garden party, you will need a large sheet for a screen, and plenty of pictures cut from magazines and catalogues. These pictures must be of houses, barns, stables, trees, animals, anything that will have place in an outdoor scene. You will also need a paper of pins, some large sheets of white paper, and, if you like, a couple of little gifts for prizes, such as a box of crayons or a box of paints.

After your friends have come, arrange the sheet in place, and pin in the center a large picture of a house which has been cut out. Now let your guests help themselves to the pictures which you have cut out, each taking one. For example, one child may have a barn, another a rose bush, another a dog kennel. Blindfold each in turn, and let him pin the picture on the sheet. When all have finished you will have a queer-looking landscape, for a dog kennel may be on the roof and a rose bush growing from a lawn mower!

After this game, get out your sheets of paper, scissors, and pictures which you have ready. Let each one try making a garden with his eyes open! Paste a house in the center of the paper, and arrange trees, bushes, fountain, etc., about it as tastefully as possible. Then after mother has decided which is the best, you can give the prize which you have bought.

You can serve your refreshments from a little table just as you would at a garden party.

When Christmas time is drawing near

With all its mirth and merry cheer,

In midst of all your Christmas joys

Remember other girls and boys!

CHRISTMAS SUNSHINE PARTY

This is really the very nicest kind of a party to give. Just try it and see for yourself! For this you will need plenty of narrow, red (or red and green ribbon) holly seals, nice white wrapping paper, and any other things which make holiday packages look “Christmas-y.” Be sure not to forget a jar of paste. Buy some of the beautiful copies of famous paintings, which are sold at a cent a piece, and cards on which to mount them, at two cents each. If mother can let you have some colored cambric-pink or blue-you can use it for scrap-books, and you will also need scrap pictures and plenty of old magazines from which to cut pictures. Have ready a couple of dozen holly napkins, and three pounds of candy.

Write your invitations on paper with a holly decoration in the corner, and ask your friends to bring any toys which they are willing to give away.

Then when the children come there will be plenty to do. Two can cut scrap pictures from the magazines, another can make the scrap book from the pink or blue cambric.

The pictures will need to be mounted, and when you do these, just paste the corners to the mount. They must be wrapped prettily in white paper, and either sealed with holly seals or tied with ribbon, or both. These are nice gifts for a hospital.

Two other children can attend to the candy bags. Lay a holly napkin right side up on the table and put a handful of candy in the center. Now draw the corners together, and tie firmly with ribbon, around the candy. Smooth out the corners, and you will have a pretty candy bag.

The toys which have been brought will need to be wrapped nicely and tied with ribbon, so the afternoon will pass quickly. Perhaps mother will let you serve creamed chicken, peas, potato chips, ice cream and cake to your guests, for after such a busy afternoon they will surely be hungry.

This is a very good way to entertain your Sunday school class.

When you’re the hostess, bear in mind

You must unselfish be, and kind.

Don’t play the games that you like best,

But always try to please the rest.

EASTER SUNSHINE PARTY

This is very much like a Christmas Sunshine Party, except that you will need a number of little baskets, candy Easter eggs, lavender or yellow ribbon, lily or violet napkins, and little chickens or rabbits which you can buy for a cent a piece.

Then you can make little Easter gifts for other children and have a good time while you are doing it. Tie up the candy in the Easter napkins just as you did in the Christmas napkins, and let the children arrange pretty Easter baskets.

This is a good party to give to your Sunday school class, and your teacher.

DOLL’S CHRISTMAS TREE PARTY

This is also a Christmas holiday party. For this you will need either small evergreen branches for the Christmas tree, or better yet, the little dwarf trees in pots. Ask mother to let you have some of the ornaments from your own tree, and have plenty of colored paper, paste, scissors, also popcorn, needles and thread, and tree hooks. If you can have a little netting, some colored worsted, and candy, you can find use for them. After your friends have come, make the ornaments for your trees, such as gilt and silver stars, strings of popcorn, and chains of colored paper. Using a doll’s stocking as a pattern, cut the net in the shape of stockings, overhand two pieces together with colored worsted on three sides. Fill these bags with candy, then overhand the top together and hang on the tree.

Hot chocolate with sandwiches is nice for a winter afternoon, and your friends will enjoy it after they have finished trimming their trees.

Come spend the afternoon with me,

Be sure to bring your dolly;

We’ll trim for her a Christmas tree,

Now won’t that be real jolly?

As Christmas time will be here soon,

Please come and spend the afternoon,

No matter what may be the weather,

And we will sit and sew together.

Unless we hurry, I’m afraid

We won’t get all our presents made.

A CHRISTMAS SEWING BEE

A Christmas sewing bee is very much like any other sewing bee, except that instead of making dolls’ clothes, you make Christmas presents. Ask the other girls to bring whatever gifts they are working on, and you can spend a busy afternoon together. Christmas time always comes more quickly than you think it will, and it is a good plan to have your presents ready early. So I’m sure mother will approve of a Christmas sewing bee.

INDOOR PICNIC

This is a nice party to give during Christmas week, when the Christmas greens are still up, and you have so many new toys that you want to show your friends. For this party you will need evergreens, an old covering like a “drugget” for the floor, large baskets, wooden plates, and refreshments such as you have at a picnic.

Before the children come, fill the baskets with sandwiches, devilled eggs, cookies, fruit, and cake, and whatever else you like to take when you go on a picnic.

Trim the playroom with greens, and cover the floor, so the picnic won’t hurt it. When your guests arrive, you can play outdoor games, just as if you were at a real picnic. When it is time for refreshments, the children can help you bring in the baskets, and can set the table in true picnic style. Instead of a pitcher of water, use a pail and dipper, and if you have lemonade, that should be in a pail, too.

You will find that an indoor picnic is a great deal of fun.

Please bring your dolls around to call,

That all my dolls may meet them,

We’ll have a good time for them all,

And to a picnic treat them.

INDOOR PICNIC FOR DOLLS

You can have this same kind of a picnic for your dolls. It will be great fun to make swings, see-saws and slides for them, but be careful not to let the dolls play too roughly, for they might get hurt!

Then of course you must get out your little china tea-set for your refreshments, and serve “cambric” tea and jam sandwiches.

AN AFTERNOON IN HOLLAND

This is a party which your friends will be sure to enjoy. Write your invitations on paper decorated with Delft scenes, or else upon cards cut in the shape of a Dutch shoe. Ask mother to please make you a Dutch cap of lawn, and then with a red or blue dress and a kerchief you’ll be a young Hollander. Have ready as many Dutch post cards as you have invited guests, also scissors, and a wooden shoe apiece.

First play “Going to Amsterdam,” which is the same as your old friend “Going to Jerusalem.” Then while your guests catch their breath after this very exciting trip, bring out your Dutch post cards and give one to each child, with a pair of scissors and an envelope. The post cards must all be cut into irregular pieces for puzzles, and then the pieces put in the envelope, being careful not to lose a single piece. When all the puzzles are cut, let each child pass to his right-hand neighbor. Then allow five minutes to put the puzzles together, after which you pass puzzles again. If you have not invited many guests, you can keep on passing puzzles till you have solved them all.

Now for the game of “Wise Men,” which is really a German game, but will do very well for a Dutch party. Choose three children for the wise men. These three enter the room, and are asked, “Who are you?” They answer, “Three men traveling hither from the East.” Then comes the question, “What kind of men are you?”

“We are good, honest men.”

“What is your trade?”

The “wise men” must then go through the motions of some trade, such as baking, ploughing, building, etc. The others must guess the occupation meant, and as soon as they have guessed three other wise men are chosen.

A more restful game is Dutch Housewife.

One child is chosen for “Housewife” and she must ask contributions for her kitchen. So each in turn offers to give some article used in the kitchen, such as a stove, dishpan, plate, etc. Then the “Housewife” must ask each player ten questions, and to each question, the article contributed must be given as the reply. Whoever laughs must pay a forfeit. If you have promised a dishpan, and the housewife asks, “In what do you ride?” you must of course answer, “A dishpan.” It’s hard not to laugh, and almost everyone has to pay a forfeit.

The supper table can be set in Delft blue with a small windmill for a centerpiece, and at each place have a wooden shoe, filled with chocolates. Mother would be sure to say that a regular “Dutch lunch” would mean a visit from the doctor some hours later. So instead of pickles and cheese, and all the other indigestibles that the grown folks enjoy, serve chocolate with whipped cream, sandwiches, chocolate bonbons, and honey cakes. (These latter you can buy at any German bakery.)

I’m sure your friends will all vote this “Afternoon in Holland” a great success.

TO MISS WISTARIA

To Miss Wistaria:

I write to inquire if my guest you will be,

And come to my home for a Japanese tea?

Slip on a kimono and carry a fan,

And then you will look like a maid of Japan.

JAPANESE TEA

This may be given indoors or on the piazza, according to the season of the year. Send your invitations on note paper with a Japanese decoration in the corner, and address each friend by some Japanese name such as Wistaria, Chrysanthemum or Cherry Blossom. If this is to be an indoor tea, arrange one room to look as much like Japan as possible, and this can be done by taking the furniture out! Place straw mats on the floor to be used for chairs. Little bamboo plant stands, and footstools will do very well for tables, and a few plants will decorate the room nicely. Maple branches at the doorways or artificial cherry boughs will give a very festive air.

Japanese costumes can be easily managed. All you need is a kimona, wide sash, and a few little fans for your hair. The sash should be tied under your arms with a “butterfly” bow in the back, and your hair should be dressed high, and ornamented with tiny fans. If you haven’t a kimona, borrow mother’s, and make a deep hem in it, so that it will be the right length.

If you want to be very “Japanese,” your friends can remove their shoes at the door of the room. They must address you very respectfully, and speak of your “magnificent home,” while you, according to Japanese rules of politeness, should thank them for coming to your miserable hut!

Have a few checker-boards, and a game of Halma in readiness, for checkers and backgammon are Japanese games, while Halma is very much like a game which represents the fifty-three post stations between Yedo and Kioto. Call the starting place “Yedo,” and your goal “Kioto” and you have almost exactly a Japanese game. Charades are favorite amusements of Japanese children, and so is a game like our “Authors.”

It would be very interesting if mother would read aloud a Japanese fairy story, for you would all enjoy it.

Refreshments should be brought in on a lacquer tray and served on the low stools, and of course you will need Japanese dishes. Tea, dainty little cakes and bonbons would be a good choice for refreshments, but it would be an excellent plan to set a plate of sandwiches on your tray, too, for the Japanese menu might not be sufficient for an American appetite.

JAPANESE TEA (Outdoors)

For a Japanese Tea on the lawn you will need the same costumes as for an indoor tea. The refreshments, too, are the same, and the piazza can be easily arranged in Japanese style.

If you are fortunate enough to have plenty of room for your party, a kite-playing contest will be great fun, and you must be sure to get the queer “bird” kites that the children of Japan love. Puss-in-the-corner is a Japanese game (did you know it before?) and so is Blindman’s Buff.

Japanese girls and boys enjoy battledore and shuttlecock, and when they play, whoever fails must have his face marked with charcoal.

The Japanese children are fond of playing ball, too, and they use a ball wound with silk of different colors.

By the time that you have tried all these games, you and your guests will be quite ready to sit down on the straw mats, and enjoy Japanese refreshments.

TO JACK-RUN-A-RACE

Won’t you come to my tepee?

Squaws and braves you there will see.

By canoe or forest trail,

At my wigwam do not fail.

HIAWATHA PARTY

This is a party for the country, and though it sounds like a boys’ party, the girls will enjoy it, too.

For this you will need a target, one of the new guns which shoots rubber-tipped arrows, several boxes of beads, a set of quoits, boomerangs (which you can buy for twenty-five cents at a toy store), a football, and a number of prizes. These may be Indian baskets, birch bark canoes, or anything that is Indian. For your costume you can buy a “Hiawatha” or “Minnehaha” suit from a dollar up, or for twenty-five cents you can get a kind of Indian apron which is stamped on muslin, all ready to cut out. Write your invitations on birch bark, with your pyrography set (if you have one), and ask your friends to wear Indian costumes and to take an Indian name for the occasion.

A Hiawatha Party should be a field day of outdoor sports, so arrange a program of races, (obstacle and hurdle races would be fun) and have a prize for each winner. Quoits is an Indian game, or at least, the Indians play a game very much like our quoits, and when your guests are tired of this, set up your target for an archery contest. The girls will enjoy making bead necklaces, and if they have brought their dolls, each doll must be strapped to a board in “papoose” style, and be fastened to her “mother’s” shoulders.

Indians are fond of football, although they don’t play by rules, for they simply kick the ball about, and each tries to keep it as long as possible.

Boomerangs are very fascinating toys, which will sail through the air, circle around the object you aimed at, and come back to you.

“Skilled was he in sports and pastimes,

In the merry dance of snow shoes,

In the play of quoits and ball play;

Skilled was he in games of hazard,

In all games of skill and hazard,

Pugasing, the Bowl and Counters,

Kuntassor, the Game of Plum Stones.”

Hiawatha.

When the braves and squaws have grown hungry, the kettle of steaming “venison” should be brought in, and the whole tribe sits down around it. It is not really venison, but stewed chicken, which the “tribe” probably prefers to venison, and with it are passed hot cornbread and ears of corn. Berries may be served in birch bark dishes, and little birch bark canoes are good for souvenirs.

The Braves and the Squaws.

After supper the whole tribe should take part in an Indian war dance about a camp fire, and then, having said farewell to Hiawatha and Minnehaha, return along the trail, each to his own tepee.

The springtide has followed the winter so chilly

And brought to the garden Miss Daffy-down-dilly.

I’ll give in her honor, a daffodil tea,

So may I expect you precisely at three?

DAFFODIL PARTY

Plenty of “daffy-down-dillies” will be used for this party, also materials for making them of paper (you can buy this already prepared), brown tissue paper, yellow and green crepe paper, clothes pins, yellow baby ribbon, and as many little gifts as you have invited guests. Get a shallow wooden box about two feet long and one foot wide and fill it with sawdust. Wrap your gifts in the brown tissue paper, so that they will look like bulbs. Now fasten each to the stem of a daffodil (you may use paper daffodils if you wish) and “plant” them in your box of sawdust. When you have finished, your box will look like a bed of daffodils, especially if you cover the outside of the box with green paper. Arrange vases of daffodils around the room, or piazza. It would be a very good idea for you to wear yellow sash and ribbons with your white dress. Then you’ll be a “daffy-down-dilly” yourself! After your friends have come you can give each one materials for a paper daffodil, and whoever makes the prettiest, should receive a little prize. Next you can dress “daffy-down-dilly” dolls, using clothes pins, and the crepe paper, and of course the one whose doll is the best should have some reward.

After you have played whatever games your guests will enjoy the best, lead the way to the fairy daffodil bed, which is, of course, your wooden box. Then let each pull out a daffodil, and find the surprise hidden at the root.

Mother will probably decorate the table in yellow for you, and of course in the center will be a big bowl of daffodils. Chicken salad, potato chips, rolls, frozen custard, cakes with orange icing, and salted nuts, would be a very good choice for refreshments, as they would carry out the yellow plan. It would be an excellent idea to give each one of your guests a few daffodils to take home.

BUTTERCUP PARTY

This is just the party for the country when the buttercups seem to be nodding their yellow heads to you and saying, “Come and pick us!”

The invitations for this party may be neatly printed with gilt paint upon a white card, or else written on note paper which has a buttercup decoration.

You will need to have ready a number of little yellow baskets—as many as you have invited children—two or three pounds of “buttercup” candies, and a sheet on which mother has drawn in yellow crayon, a large buttercup without any stem. Cut out of pasteboard or cloth a stem to fit this buttercup.

It would be a good idea for you to wear a white dress with yellow sash and hair ribbons.