“Yeast? I don’t know what that is,” Betsy knit her brow. She’d finally figured out the tablespoon, the teaspoon, a pinch, a dash, a cube, the cups, and now this. Yeast. “Oh my word, girl. Yeast! It’s the magic that raises the bread, puts the puff in pastry.” Betsy’s grandmother shook her head. “Raising you under a rock they are. Raising you under a rock.” Betsy wanted to tell the old woman her neck was bound to be sore from shaking her head all day as she displayed her dismay and disgust. Betsy, it seemed, was not being raised by her parents at all. She was being ruined by them. “May God forgive them, she doesn’t even know yeast,” her grandmother muttered. “Well, girl, you’re going to be amazed by yeast. We’re going to bake cinnamon and raisin bread. Breakfast bread, you see. A dozen loaves.” Her grandmother pulled a small jar from the cupboard, a food thermometer, and a mixing bowl from the sideboard. “Here now, I’ll show you how to warm the yeast. It’s alive you know, and a bit temperamental. If it’s too hot, the yeast dies. If it’s too cold, it won’t activate. That’s why we…
Month: December 2014
The Story of Betsy and Grandmother Graham
The Story of Betsy and Grandma Graham Betsy Graham stood in the foyer of her grandmother’s home. She clutched her suitcase to her side as though it might be snatched away by the unfamiliar old woman standing in front of her. The woman wore a faded house dress, apron, and shoes like black blocks. Betsy tried to remember anything, one single thing about her, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were drawn to the spikes of gray hair sticking out all over her grandmother’s head. Betsy’s own head was killing her. Her mother had insisted she brush her hair straight back and secure it in a severely tight bun. Apparently, Grandma Graham thought all girls should wear their hair like boys; short, manageable. If this woman, her grandmother, was as awful as she’d been led to believe, why was she here? Her memory couldn’t conjure up a single nice thing said about Grandmother Graham. Yet her parents had shipped her off for the Christmas holiday, assuring her that Grandma wasn’t bad at all. She’d misunderstood. Suddenly, they had all kinds of nice things to say about the woman who raised Betsy’s father like some kind of slave driver or army sergeant.…
So Sorry!
I’m sorry I don’t have a blog ready this week. Life is in the way again! Please stay tuned – next week begins a new tall tale! Thank you so much! 1
Buddy Wilson
Buddy Wilson’s eyes were stuck. He wanted to snap out of his trance, to stop staring. After all, there wasn’t a minute to waste. Move it or lose it, he told himself while his burning tired eyes followed the cow’s hind end over the hill. It was out of sight now and still his eyes wouldn’t move any more than his feet would. The mud sucked his boots down a little further. The rain was constant. Not a nice light rain, not even a downpour. No, this was pelting rain: hard, loud, pounding. It was a punishment and it wouldn’t let up. His mind was lost in the banging on the metal roof of the barn just as his eyes were fixed on the end of the hill. If he didn’t go after her now, right now, she would probably drown. Just slide down the bank with the sliding earth, land in the mouth of the tumultuous monster the river had become, and be swallowed up. He couldn’t afford to lose another cow, yet he couldn’t get his eyes to move or his mind to give up on the rhythmic beating of the pelting rain. It had been ten days…