Yappa went over to what the Mexicans called a metate, and sitting down on the ground began to grind the corn. The metate was a big, smooth stone with two legs on one end of it. The legs made it stand up slanting. Yappa put some corn on the metate and ground it with another smooth stone.
Putsha built a fire in the big brick oven at the back of the house. She then came near where Yappa was at work, and began to make the bread. When the fire had made the oven very hot, she went to it, scraped the fire all out, and pushed the bread in on the hot bricks. Then she closed the oven door and left the bread until it was baked.
When the bread was in the oven, she said to Yappa, “Hurry, Yappa, and build a fire. Shecol will be back soon and he will be hungry. We must have some tortillas ready for him.”
“Isn’t father coming too?” asked Yappa.
“No; he will have to stay all night to turn the meat so that it does not burn,” answered Putsha.
Putsha put some big, smooth stones into the fire she had built outside on the ground. Then she brought some grease and rubbed it well into the cornmeal, so that the little grains of cornmeal all stuck together and made a paste.
By this time, the stone Putsha had put into the fire was very hot, so she pulled it out a little to one side and spread some of the batter over it. In a little while one side of the tortilla was brown, so Putsha turned it over to cook on the other side. Just as it was cooked Shecol came hurrying up.
“Anything to eat?” he asked.
Yappa grinding corn.