Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1910 — That Club Supper [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

That Club Supper

“When Mrs. Myron Tuttls spoke up In the business meeting of the Culture Club and opened her house for the annual supper which that leading woman s club of Three Pines was In the habit of giving Its husbands and some special outside guesta Mrs. Lawyer AVhlte, who was the president, coughed a little wildly to gain time. Always the club supper had been held at the spacious residence of the Springers, who had three full sets of china. This season Mrs. Springer was away, but It had been rather understood that Mrs. Dr. Sprong would offer to be hostess. Mrs. Tuttle had spoken so quickly when the question was put that every one knew she must -have planned it long ahead. And everybody, in the midst of her dißmay, wondered why. In the first place. Hetty Tuttlls was no housekeeper. She was a large, complacent woman, who did not wince when her small son Tommy scratched the mahogany piano with her embroidery scissors and who was perfectly happy If the bouse was undust«d and the broom was standing in the front hallway when callers arrived. Her benighted husband still adored -her after twenty-two years of underdone steaks and no place for anything and everything always out of its place. The way Myron Tuttle let himself be walked over was a scandal. Hetty Tuttle disliked work In any form, so nobody could imagine why she had put herself in the way of taking on bo much. Still, Mrs. Lawyer White rather helplessly accepted the offer from ’this dubious source and then brightly moved that a chairman be appointed to oversee the supper and

relieve Mrs. Tuttle of some of the work. This was conceded to be a decidedly clever arrangement, for there was no use talking—Hetty Tuttle never could manage the affair herself. Mrs. Dr. Sprong, who was given the post of chairman, began borrowing embroidered lunch cloths of every one right and left that very day, for she knew without asking that Mrs. Myron Tuttle hadn’t a couple of dozen laid by, as a good housekeeper should. “Goodness knows,” she mourned, “how we'll ever cook the chickens and things in her kitchen!” As the time for the supper approached the members of the Culture Club took to dropping In on Hetty Tuttle with cut glass and silver in their arms. They said they thought maybe she would find such things of use in serving so many. Hetty Tuttle accepted all these loans placidly. She was the least concerned member of the club. Seemingly, she did not worry at all over this most lmpcytant club function of the year, so every one else fretted herself into a fever. Minnie, the Tuttles’ 19-year-old daughter, seemed to catch the excitement, however. Her mother deferred to her in a worshipful way and handed all the cut glass over to her keeping. ‘ You go right ahead, Minnie," she often said in those days. “I guess you know what is right and can show 'em! I guess Alf Kreeble will see your folks can entertain and do things as well as his, even If they haven’t got so much money!" At that Minnie Tuttle would turn away with reddening cheeks, for she knew that the main idea behind having the Culture Club supper at their home was to dazzle Alf Kreeble and urge him on a trifle faster. Of late he had lagged in his attentions and Hetty Tuttle could not bear to see her daughter Unhappy. The women of the Culture Club will never forget the night of that annual Bupper. Amid all the hurry and turmoil Mrs. Myron Tuttle moved calm and undisturbed, while Mrs. Dr. Sprong in her black silk, Mrs. Lawyer White la rattling jet and half a dozen others with red faces and glittering eyes bumped into one another in, the Inconvenient kitchen, called wildly for utensils which were not, exploded at the discovery that there was no sugar in the pantry and had hysterics because Mrs. Tuttle had forgotten to order the special potatoes fdr baking. Crowded in the parlors around the

little tables were the elite of the men folks of the town, waiting for food. The tension was terrible. It was absolutely unthinkable that the Culture Club should have a failure laid at its door. So while all .the club women except Hetty Tuttle slaved and suffered and agonized to have things as they should be nobody noticed how Minnie Tuttle and Alf Kreeble were sitting together cozily on the lower stair. Nobody observed that Minnie got Alt -ill white meat and three orders of dumplings and two pieces of pie and a ridiculous amount of cabbage salad and hovered over him while he ate. Meanwhile Minnie looked very pretty in her fluffy white dress. "Say,” Alf Kreeble told her at last, “you people are certainly swell cooks; Minnie! I bet you helped your mother do most of this, now, didn’t you? Say, that cake —did you bake it?” Minnie was young, but she was wise. She smiled seraphically. “I’m so glad you like the supper, Alf,” she told him, smoothly. If she had died for it she cotrfd mot have told who had really cooked the supper—she had been too busy thinking of him and getting her gown ready. “Let’s sit over here out of the crowd,” she added. That was why a little later in the evening, when people were talking hard and the women were trying to forget the fatiguing evening they had put In and mentally execrating the serene Hetty Tuttle, that incompetent hostess was beaming. She was watching Alf Kreeble and Minnie in their secluded corner and she could see that Alf was holding Minnie's hand and talking very earnestly. Mrs. Myron Tuttle heaved a relieved sigh at last and absently ruboed a plump finger across the dust on top of a bookcase. “I think,” she murmured, “the club supper’s been an awful fine success!”—Chicago Daily News.

“YOU PEOPLE ARE CERTAINLY SWELL COOKS."