Lemonade Stand

August means lots of empty time for kids before school starts. A smart Mom finds something fun and instructive for two bored children that she wants out of her hair.

In 1950s childhood, late July meant boredom. Heat and long, uninspiring days of not having anything to do. I was about eight that summer. The bookmobile stack had already been read. Fourth of July and Pioneer Day had passed with their fireworks and parades a fading memory. My bed was made, toys put away. The only TV shows were Queen for a Day and The Millionaire. If I whined one more time, Mom would make me get down on my knees to scrub the bathroom floor.

Janielle knocked on the back door, looking just as void of ideas as I was. "Gram kicked me out and told me to come over here."

We stared at each other. I shrugged. She shrugged. Mom turned to look at us from the sink, her arms red and sudsy from the scalding dishwater. "Go into you room and find that toy cash register. That ought to keep you busy for a minute."

I knew what Mom was talking about and thought I remembered where I'd seen that register just a few months ago. Janielle and I plowed through that bedroom until at last, the little red cash register, with it's black keys on the curved front case and its little drawer with four wells for pennies, nickels, and dimes, emerged from a pile of clothes on the closet floor.

Placing it on the kitchen table, we waited patiently, sort of, for Mom to finish fussing with the stove and counters. Finally, she dried her hands, hung the towel and dishrag with a great deal more care than we could stand, and faced us, hands on hips and sighing with dismay.

"Okay, get the card table while I make a pitcher of lemonade."

"Lemonade! WOW! I could sure use a drink of lemonade right now," I crowed.

"It's not for you. Or Janielle. Go get the card table and set it up outside by the sidewalk."

Janielle and I stared at each other. We did a lot of staring in those days. The world was a mysterious place that adults always made more mystifying.

Once we had pried the table loose from where it wedged between the ironing board and folding chairs, we dragged the thing over the floor and out the door. It bumped down the steps with a disturbing thunk that we hoped didn't dent it. Mom would not be thrilled about that. Then we puzzled and tugged at the legs until the supports snapped tight at each corner.

Mom suddenly appeared with the thermos jug we used for camping and a bunch of paper cups with the green squiggly pattern around the lip. A checkered tablecloth hung over Mom's arm, waving back and forth as she stepped along the stones marking a path to our door.

"Go get your cash register and a couple of those folding chairs in the closet."

This was starting to show promise of something fun. Chairs set up. Cash register on the table. The thermos and cups placed just so. The cloth hung straight down on this breathless afternoon. It was blazing hot and we weren't sitting in the shade.

Mom dug into her pocket and produced ten pennies, a nickel, a dime, and a quarter which she put in each of the drawer wells. "Now you can make change. You DO know how to make change, don't you?"

Janielle nodded. "Oh that's easy. We learned that just last week in school."

She was a year older than me and visited her grandmother from a small town I tried to imagine far away. It was just … far away. It seemed she always knew so much more than me, like I was the dummy of the neighborhood. I saw Mom smile and nod, then look at me and wink. I knew that wink meant that maybe Janielle was telling "tales." Malarkey, Mom sometimes called it.

"Okay, so you're all set up for business. Sell the lemonade for a nickel a glass. You know how to turn the spigot here, right?" I nodded. At least I knew that much more than Janielle.

"Okay, try to sell it by dinner time. On a day like this, you'll probably be successful." Then she turned and walked back into the house.

Well, this was going to be an interesting experience. Selling lemonade. We looked up and down the street. During the afternoons, it seemed like even the birds went inside to get out of the sun. And here we sat, baking in the hottest part of the day. Then it dawned on me that maybe, if we were careful, we could skootch the table a few feet sideways and sit under the shade of the elm tree. Why we didn't set it up over there to begin with is a topic I'd rather avoid. Let's just say we weren't too sure at the time what this whole enterprise was going to become.

Anyway, we had to move everything to the ground and lift that unwieldy, heavy table. Janielle and I always seemed to work in opposite directions whenever we did anything, so it took us a few minutes to figure out how to manage that. Even my teachers would write on my report cards that I didn't work well with others.

Okay! Now we were all set. Nice shady place. Comfortable chairs. We didn't spill a drop of lemonade or get grass or dirt in the cups. We were ready for customers. Looking up and down the street, though, there were none in sight.

"Gees, after all that work setting up, I'm thirsty," Janielle said, rubbing her throat. I was too. It was a quick, non-verbal agreement between business partners. And I proved to Janielle that my mom makes the best lemonade in town. Janielle glanced at me like she thought I was full of malarkey.

Suddenly, the mailman drove his truck to the postal box on the corner. We always wondered what that olive green metal box was for. For the first time ever, we could watch the mailman do whatever it was he did there.

Opening the back of the truck, which resembled the ice cream truck only it was painted red, white, and blue. He took a few bins out and placed them in the postal box and locked it with a key on a long chain. Shoveling a bunch of the mail from the back of the truck into his big, leather bag, he hoisted that over his shoulder and turned to walk down Redondo. Then he saw us. The determined look on his face changed to a huge smile.

"Oh, you are little angels. How much are you selling your lemonade for?"

Hooray! Our first customer! We fluttered around, both grabbing at the cups and pushing them off the table. Our chairs fell backward to the ground. The mailman started laughing and we pulled ourselves to attention to get back into some sense of order. Janielle picked up the cups and I slid one off the bottom.

Checking it for dirt, I said, "We're charging five cents a cup. How'd you know we were selling lemonade?" pointing to the unlabeled camp thermos.

"Fifty-fifty chance. I hoped you weren't selling that Kool-Ade sh …. stuff."

"Oh, we don't use that in our house. My mom makes lemonade fresh from lemons and just enough sugar to take away the bitter." I beamed with pride.

"I'm impressed. That's a lot of work to squeeze enough lemons. I'll try a cup, please." He was very polite, which impressed me alot. We watched in awe as he handed over a dime. Before we could make change on it, he held up his hand to stop us and guzzled that lemonade right down.

"Oh, that was great. I'll take another cup … please."

Filling his cup, I was happy we didn't have to lose that one nickel in the drawer. What if somebody else came along and gave us a dime? Well, we did have ten pennies, but who wants a handful of pennies?

When he'd finished his second cup, he set it on the table and started his route down Redondo, first going to Jerry's house then Janielle's grandparents', then Sims, then he disappeared beyond the bushes.

Now what do we do with his cup? Janielle and I stared at each other and shrugged. Another non-verbal decision was made since we didn't have a wastebasket. We just left it there where he put it. If another customer should chance to come by, we'd know which cup was his anyway.

In a few minutes, though, the problem was solved. He returned with an empty bag over his shoulder, took more mail out of the postal box, and walked over to our lemonade stand.

"Ah, thank you for keeping my cup. I'll have another cup or two. And don't forget to tell your mom that she's the best lemonade maker in town."

"I will," I gloated, peering sideways at Janielle, who stuck out her tongue at me.

The mailman paid us another dime for two cups then crossed the street to deliver that bagful of mail up Sylvan.

"I'll bet that bag's real heavy carrying that mail all over the place," said Janielle. "I'm surprised he don't have a bad back doing that kinda work. My grampa's back is always hurting him. That's why he don't work a job no more." She sighed and pulled the neck of her shirt out a few times to fan herself. "Gee, it's hot even in the shade. Can I have another cup of lemonade?"

We both had one. She was right. It was that dry, oven-like heat that radiated up from the sidewalk. While it was definitely cooler in the shade, it was still 90 or a100 degrees. It only took a few minutes before we poured two more cups.

We'd barely finished drinking our lemonade when the mailman appeared across the street. He'd walked two blocks in this heat with that heavy bag over his shoulder. He was barreling straight for our stand with that determined look on his face. A grin didn't change it, though. He looked like a man on the edge of derangement.

Before he reached the table, I put his cup under the spigot and turned the knob. Out dribbled a sorry stream of lemonade that barely reached the top of the cup. I gasped and tipped the thermos to get the last few drops out of it.

"We're out of lemonade," I whispered in desperation. "What if he wants a second cup again?"

By that time, the mailman had arrived at the table, holding his hand to take the cup from me. He scooped it up and drank it in one gulp then held it out for another.

All I could do was sit there like a dope and hold my breath while he wheezed for air. He saw my distress, which only added to his own.

"I'm sorry, mister. We don't have any more lemonade. But you can have this one on the house." I grinned as big and friendly as I could. Janielle sat there, silent like a mouse trying to hide from a cat ready to pounce on it.

He took the cup with him as he wandered back to his truck, his back hunched as if the whole day's weight was more than he could bear.

At that instant, mom came out the front door carrying a big glass of ice water. "Oh mailman. You look like you could use a cold drink." When he swung around, he looked like he had seen God. He took the glass and slugged it down without a breath. Mom folded her arms, watching him, nodding her head at us.

We wondered how she knew he was on the verge of killing two children before thinking better of it. Or did she suspect what happened to the lemonade? Such mysteries would haunt me even when I became a mother decades later. That said, though, it's amazing how much of the world you notice while you're watching out for your kids.