Not Quite Lemonade

 

It came to pass that one day, the fair damsel Elaine (my wife) purchased some lemons at the Store of Groceries.  For, she had decided to make a pie of which the name in the common speech is Lemon Meringue.

(And as pies go, it is in my top ten, which is high praise indeed).

This, apparently, is a good way of expending many eggs.  Our chickens are Holding Up their end of the bargain well and we have an abundance of eggs.

So it was that Elaine finished making the pie and she looked upon it and behold, it was very good.  And she ceased from pie making and the evening and the morning were the First Day.

There were, however, several lemons left over and this, is the story of one of those lemons.

The maiden, Victoria took one for to make lemonade with.  She took the lemon and cut it in the center part and proceeded to squeeze the juice out of it.  This done, she fished out the seeds that had made their way into her juice and proceeded to taste it and shared somewhat with her younger sister.

"Is it delectable?"  I asked them, although I could sense the answer to this question from the appearances of their faces.

"No, Dad," Victoria replied.  "It's terrible sour!"

Whereupon she went to the pantry and there secured some sugar and combined at least as much sugar as there was lemon juice to make a mixture.  And there was a small "sugar disaster area" in our kitchen besides after this adventure.

I, with great wisdom, suggested diluting the potent mixture with some water.  This done, a cup of Fairly Passable Lemonade came to be shared among the two girls.

I pondered on this simple recipe.  Victoria had understood the important ingredient of lemonade to be pure, unadulterated Juice of a Lemon and I suppose this is right.  It taketh lemon flavoring of some sort to create lemonade.

A little sweetener helps too.

I thought on the fact that many men and perhaps some women, believe themselves to have the fair gift of prophecy and to be speakers of truth.  They who have these gifts are not careful on whom they bestow their advice and criticism.  Further, few of them seem endowed with the gift of loving speech.

The end result is that their words are sour and bitter in mouths of those who are fated to receive them.  As like as not, they are spit on the ground, rather than taken to heart and made useful.

I took note.  For while it is a blessing to speak words of truth, Love is a wonderful Sweetener for such words.

As a great man once said, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."