A Bachelor Supper

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

"When I was a bachelor I lived by myself. And all the bread and cheese I got, I put upon the shelf; The rats and the mice, they made such a strife I was forced to go to London to buy me a wife. The streets were so broad and the lanes were so narrow. I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow."

This old Mother Goose rhyme was the keynote of a bachelor supper which one girl gave for her brother and a few of his friends on his birthday.

The centerpiece on the table was an arrangement of bachelors' buttons and at every place was a tiny toy wheelbarrow filled with candies, a wee dressed-up dolly dame perched atop of each load.

The rhyme also furnished the reason for the first course, which was most suitably bread and cheese, only the bread was in the form of buttered rounds of toast and the cheese was a delicious Welsh rarebit, accompanied by coffee or gingerale.

Ice-cream in cantaloupes with a chocolate mouse nibbling at the rind followed, to be eaten with those most delicious of all cookies -home-made "hermits."