THE
MARY FRANCES
COOK BOOK

This book tells the story of Mary Frances, a littlegirl whose great ambition was to help her mother.So anxious was she to do this that even the humbleKitchen People became her teachers and instructors.They talked to her, a thing never heard of before;helped her over the hard places, and explained mysterioussecrets she could never otherwise have understood.They wove around a simple little book ofrecipes her mother had made for her the spell ofFairyland; they led her through a series of delightfuladventures such as never happened to any girl before,in which she lived for three whole happy weeks, andout of which she emerged no longer a little girl, buta real little woman.

Some very wise people would call this a storybook, some a manual training book, and others acookery book, but Mary Frances knows better; she[iv]knows that it is a Book within a Book that introducedher to Aunty Rolling Pin and a lot of other dear, dearfriends, such as no little girl ever had before, and whomshe now wishes to introduce for the first time to allother little girls. (I know that she gained their consentto do this because she told me so.)

In the hope that Mary Frances' wish may berealized, this record of her adventures is sent out tothe girls of America with the best wishes of