THE EGG LADY

 I have another story to tell you but it is not a happy one. I feel the need to share the situation with you anyway.

Our restaurant, The Spanish Cellar, in Fredericksburg, Texas, was small, with a capacity of only 45 people. As I think I told you before, we prepared every dish from "scratch" which made our menu rather unique. One or two days before our initial opening we were in the cellar busy as little bees when an elderly lady came down the steps into the dining area carrying a basket on her arm. Introducing herself, she explained that she had heard we were a new place in town and she wanted to know if we would like to buy her farm-fresh eggs on a regular basis. That was what was in the basket. Nice, large fresh eggs from her own hens. Having been raised in the country myself I knew that those were a lot better than the ones we could get at the local grocery store so we immediately came to an arrangement. 

I told this nice lady that if she would like I could drive out to her place and pick up the eggs so she wouldn't have to come in to town. She was quite thin and fragile looking and I thought that might help her. She lived in a very old two story stone house surrounded by wonderful fig and peach trees and a healthy vegetable garden. There was a small stream in the back of the house and a pen where she kept sheep. She managed all this by herself with only the help of a barking dog. It was a wonderful experience for me to get to visit with her. She is the one who taught me not to kill wasps because they are needed to make figs propagate. It seems they enter the fig early on and live there until they begin to ripen. I still don't understand this because I have eaten a lot of figs and never swallowed a wasp. Maybe I've got it wrong, but that's what I remember her telling me.  

She invited me into her house one time and I was astonished. It was one of the messiest places I have ever seen, except for the "parlor". Well, she didn't have time to clean the house if she was taking care of all those other things!

To get on with this story, there came a day when her son, a city boy who had never helped her, decided that she shouldn't live out there alone any longer. No, he didn't take her to live with him....he stuck her in a nursing home in town! I went to visit her and found her living in one room. It was packed with her bed, a chair, and a table with the toilet facilities right there by the bed. It was so disturbing that I had difficulty visiting with her but I managed to go see her a few times. Once she asked me to pick up some things from her country home, which I did, but it was so sorrowful to be there without her. Can you imagine the shock she went through having to leave that wonderful country home! Then one day I went to visit her and was told that she had passed away. I lost a very important person in my life.

Her property was sold by her son who, I am sure, made a pretty penny off of it. Personally I hope he swallowed a wasp!

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