One day, when my mother and I were the only ones at home, she got out a big mixing bowl and cookie sheet and said, “Today, I’m going to bake soda crackers. I’m tired of buying them.” At the old ranch, we had nearly everything we needed, but there were still things we had to buy. Mother thought making crackers would be another way to save money. She already baked bread. How hard could this be?

We got out an old cookbook and followed the recipe as well as we could although some of the numbers were blurred. Mother poured the batter onto the cookie sheet and slid it into the oven. We waited, peeking a few times. When she took it out, there was this grayish tan, bubbly, rough slab of – crackers? She set it out to cool and then started scoring the slab but couldn’t get the knife through. I tried to break off a piece, which bent a little. I tested it. It was awful.

Mother tried it, too, and said, “We can’t eat this. Let’s give it to the chickens.”

We did, and they looked at it, scratched at it and walked away from it.

“I know,” said Mother. “Let’s bury it.”

So she dug a hole in the garden, poured in the “crackers” along with the rest of the batter, and covered it all up.

When Dad and the rest of the family got home, Mother had dinner ready. Dad said, “I’ll be right in as soon as I turn on the water in the garden.” He came back with a funny look and said, “There’s something grayish bubbling out of the ground. I’ll get a shovel and see what it is.”

Mother and I started laughing so hard. Then, we told him about our attempt at cracker-making. We didn’t save any money but we certainly got plenty of laughs about it for years.

Arloine Brown of Davenport