Have everything a housewife wants for ironing day--ironing-boards, irons, stands, holders, home-made holders, fine starch, bees' wax, ironing-board slips, polishing irons, etc.
Wednesday's booth should have everything for mending day, such as needle-books, stocking-bags, buttons, button-bags, pincushions, papers of pins, needles, thread, darning needles, darning-cotton, darning-balls, etc.
Make Thursday the reception day, arranging this booth as a reception hall, with a good, live committee in attendance. Have a book for the guests to register their names and addresses (for future use). Serve ice cream, cake, lemonade and candy. Introduce strangers and appoint a special committee to look after the backward ones.
Let this booth be suggestive of sweeping day. Have plenty of dust caps, dust bags, dusting cloths, brushes, brooms, dust-pans, dusters, large colored aprons (which sell readily), etc.
Let this booth be a regular bakery. Have your friends bake various things for you to sell, and have on sale all such articles as will sell readily, such as pies, cakes, cookies, doughnuts, bread, baked beans, etc.
Have Sunday the crowning day of all. Arrange to have a piano or organ at this booth, and secure a full choir or quartet to sing the sacred songs; have solos, duets, instrumental music and an orchestra if possible. Have sacred readings and make the time spent here an hour of sacred enjoyment.
If something extra is wanted let the singers dress in old time costumes and sing the old sacred songs with an organ accompaniment.
The invitations were written upon pale green note-paper, with a shamrock leaf painted in water-color in one corner. The exquisitely blended shades of this leaf make it an easy and effective decoration. In truth, we encountered some difficulty in finding a leaf to copy; but a volume of Moore's poems, incased by a considerate binder in a shamrock-sprinkled cover, solved the problem!
The event was called a "Shamrock Luncheon," the hours were from two until six, and the word "whist" explained our intentions.
The score-cards were cut from green cardboard, in the shape of a large shamrock; and across the back of each was written a line of a humorous St. Patrick's Day poem, which we had discovered in a newspaper. The verses will be found complete at the end of this article. It is adapted to twenty-four guests, but it is easy to insert more lines if more guests are invited.