In which Bettina serves Bread Crumb Cookies

Except she doesn't call them that.

"If only critical Cousin Matilda had waited a few months before coming! But then, the only thing to do was to be as cheerful about it as possible--"--A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband

Chapter Six is more about That First Little House than it is about cooking, although Bettina manages to impress Critical Cousin with an impromptu punch-and-little-cakes party.

We had a First Little House too, a bit like Bettina's. The Apprentice is the only one of the Squirrelings that remembers our two-bedroom bungalow with the bedrooms right off the living room, and the butterfly wallpaper in the kitchen. By the time we bought the house, there was a dining room added on to the back, and the basement had been finished*, which gave us a nice amount of space; but when it was first built in the 1940's, a family with several children lived there in what was more or less a living room, small galley kitchen, laundry room on the back, bathroom, and the two bedrooms. They must have gotten everybody in there with a can opener.

But I digress. Bettina shows Cousin Matilda how well her simple decorating touches work in a small house, and then serves her that most tightwad of treats, Breadcrumb Cookies. (But she shouldn't have told her.)

*There's a semantics issue here with "finished basement." Finished, as in completely dug out, not as in "completely finished basement" which, around here, means you've turned the whole thing into a rec room. But we did have a small rec room down there too, and an extra bathroom, and felt very lucky.