Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World Read Online Free Page B

came off easily. Then he cut the fish’s belly upward from a little vent hole and scraped all the stuff inside onto the paper. “Now see how easy that is. You try,” Grandpa said. “Be very careful with the knife.” He watched Justin to see if he knew what to do.
    Justin scraped the tiny scales off confidently. Then he hesitated. Screwing up his face, he shuddered as he cut, then pulled the insides out. Finally he got the knack of it.
    Grandpa, satisfied that Justin would do fine, went into the kitchen to make a fire in the big stove.
    Later that evening, Justin felt proud when Grandpa let him put the fish on the table.
    After dinner, they sat in the living roomnear the huge fireplace. Great-Great-Grandma Ward had used that same fireplace to cook her family’s meals.
    Justin looked at the fireplace, trying to imagine how it must have been then. How did people cook without a stove? He knew Grandpa’s stove was nothing like his mama’s. Once that big iron stove got hot there was no way to turn it off or to low or to simmer. You just set the pots in a cooler place on the back of Grandpa’s stove.
    â€œGrandpa, how did your grandma cook bread in this fireplace?” he asked.
    â€œCooking bread in this fireplace was easy for my grandma. She once had to bake her bread on a hoe.”
    â€œBut a hoe is for making a garden, Grandpa.”
    â€œYes, I know, and it was that kind of hoe that she used. She chopped cotton with her hoe down in Tennessee. There was no fireplace in the family’s little one-room house, so she cooked with a fire outside. She had no nice iron pots and skillets like I have now in the kitchen.
    â€œAt night when the family came in fromthe cotton fields, Grandma made a simple bread with cornmeal and a little flour. She patted it and dusted it with more flour. Then she put it on the iron hoe and stuck it in the ashes. When it was nice and brown the ashes brushed off easily.”
    â€œHow did they ever get from Tennessee to Missouri?”
    â€œJustin, I’ve told you that so many times.”
    â€œI know, Grandpa. But I like to hear it. Tell me again.”
    â€œAs a boy, my grandpa was a slave. Right after slavery my grandpa worked on a ranch in Tennessee. He rode wild mustangs and tamed them to become good riding horses. He cared so much about horses, he became a cowboy.
    â€œHe got married and had a family. Still he left home for many weeks, sometimes months, driving thousands of cattle over long trails. Then he heard about the government giving away land in the West through the Homestead Act. You only had to build a house and live in it to keep the land.”
    â€œSo my great-great-grandpa built this house.” Justin stretched out on the floor. He looked around at the walls that were now dark brown from many years of smoke from the fireplace.
    â€œJust the room we’re in now,” Grandpa said. “I guess every generation of Wards has added something. Now, my daddy, Phillip, added on the kitchen and the room right next to this one that is the dining room.
    â€œI built the bathroom and the rooms upstairs. Once we had a high loft. I guess you’d call it an attic. I made that into those rooms upstairs. So you see, over the years this house has grown and grown. Maybe when you’re a man, you’ll bring your family here,” Grandpa said.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe. But I’d have to have an electric kitchen.”
    â€œAs I had to have a bathroom with a shower. Guess that’s progress,” Grandpa said, and laughed.
    â€œGo on, Grandpa. Tell me what it was like when Great-Great-Grandpa first came to Missouri.”
    â€œI think it’s time for us to go to bed.”
    â€œIt’s not that late,” Justin protested.
    â€œFor me it is. We’ll have to get up early. I’ll have to ride fence tomorrow. You know, in winter Q-T Ranch becomes a feeder ranch for other people’s cattle. In