Mustgo Soup

 I heard the front screen door whine open, then a BANG shut. "I'm never going back over there!" I heard my niece yell at nobody in particular. "Why did you make me go over there, Auntie?" Sally asked.

Sally's parents were a thousand miles away at a conference, and we all agreed that Sally would stay at the farm with me for those two weeks. I hadn't seen Sally since she was five, and I'd forgotten about a fourteen year olds moods and angst.

I turned from the sink full of freshly picked green beans to see my usually sweet young niece's face pinched into an angry scowl.

 I poured each a glass of lemonade and motioned for her to sit at the kitchen table, and I joined her and slid her glass toward her. She grabbed it and downed half the contents before speaking, "Auntie, that old woman is crazy! You should have warned me before you sent me over there!"

I'd known Clara, aka "that old woman," for nearly forty years and never thought of her as another aging widow. She and I helped each other from time to time.

I asked, "What's wrong, Sal? This behavior isn't like you at all."

Sally held her glass with both hands, then lifted them to cool her face. "Whew, it's hot today, " she said.

Sally was the 'save the kitten from the lion at any cost' kind of girl. She was getting bored, so I suggested that Clara might need help. She'd broken her hip the year before and found it hard to do much of anything. 

"Okay, I can mop her kitchen floor and stuff. I don't mind."

 But apparently, things could have gone better. Sally sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "Have you really seen the inside of her house?"

"Well," I answered, with caution, "Not much. I mostly help her tend her garden and harvest the beans and tomatoes."

 "Well, if you'd seen what I saw today, you'd call OPPS!"

"Call what? The cops?" I asked. This was starting to sound much more serious.

"No, Old Peoples Protective Services! I made that up, but it should be a thing if it's not.

"Oh dear," I replied, "Is she okay?"

"Yeah," Sally said, then drank the rest of her lemonade, repeated the face-cooling gesture, and said, "She's just got some gross, weird stuff over there."

Now I felt worried and frustrated. I said, "Well, tell me what's wrong!" and put the rinsed green beans into a colander and carried it and a piece of paper towel back to the table. I began snapping off the stem ends, and Sally joined in.

I said, "Clara gave me these after we picked them from the pole beans yesterday. She seemed fine then."

Sally said, "Well, she asked me to help her clear her pantry and clean up her kitchen, and I didn't mind. It gave me something to do."

"That was very sweet of you. Clara has had trouble getting around since she broke her hip.  

"I thought so too. I even told her to sit in her recliner and put her feet up for a while. I cleaned up her whole mess of a kitchen, and all she did was yell at me, so I came home!". Sally folded her arms across her chest and sank back into her chair.

Sally calmed down but was still a bit testy, so I kept snapping beans and waited for more.

"I thought I was helping," Sally whined.

"I'm sure you did. Did you break something?" I asked, trying to sound non-judgmental.

"No"

"That's good. Why don't we just go over there and make sure everything is all right." I said.

Sally stood and reluctantly followed me across the dirt road to Clara's sagging front porch. I knocked and heard the 'clink, slide, clink, slide' of Clara's walker approach. Her face crinkled into a smile, then drooped into a frown when she saw Sally standing behind me.

I said, "Clara, I think there was some kind of misunderstanding here, and I'd like to clear it up."

Clara " humphed," opened the door, and motioned us to follow her into the kitchen. She pushed the walker aside and sat in one of four unmatched kitchen chairs, painted yellow, pink, light blue, and green, and Clara always sat in the blue one.

We joined her. I looked down at the clean oilcloth cover, red with yellow daisies. She'd had this same tablecloth as long as I'd known her, and it still looked new, except for a worn area where Clara sat for every meal.

I asked, "Clara are you feeling all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said, "I just don't like people messing with my stuff! And I especially don't want them throwing it away!"

Sally started to yell, "Auntie, she . . ." and then looked at me. As I gave her the warning look, my eyebrows were as high as they would go. Sally continued softer, "She called me a menace!

As I looked from Sally to Clara, I felt like a judge in a murder trial. "What did she do, Clara?"

"Clara looked tired and shrugged, "It's not that big of a deal, Norma. Sorry, I get grumpy more often than I should these days. I'm sorry, Sally."

Now I was grumpy and raised my voice, asking, "Will one of you please tell me what happened?" It was my turn to get the 'look' from both of them.

"You tell her," Clara motioned to Sally.

Sally took a deep breath, then said, "All I did was just clean up her kitchen. There was some funky brown mold all along the counter's backsplash, and I threw out an old tea bag on a saucer and that broken mug when I washed the dishes AND the counter. ." sally said, then took a breath.

Uh oh, I thought.

"And!" Sally continued, "Her freezer is full of garbage and old chicken bones." she said and shuddered, then added, "At least I HOPE they're chicken. There was a bucket of rotting cabbage on the floor in that corner," Sally said, pointing to said corner.

Clara and I looked at each other, smiled, and then chuckled.

Sally looked at us and asked, "What?"

I said, "Sally, you've lived in the city all your short life, and your parents earn good wages."

"So?" Sally said and rolled her eyes.

"We just do things a bit differently out here, and I guess it seems odd to you," I said as gently as possible and looked at Clara, who nodded.

"Sally, Clara lives on sandy soil over this side of the road, so she has a problem with ants in her kitchen." I said, "Cinnamon powder, or what you thought was funky brown mold, keeps the ants away that try to come in behind her counter. We put Diazanon powder all around the house's foundation in the old days. But they took it off the market because it is very toxic to animals and people. Ants don't like cinnamon, so they just turn around and go home. It might be a bit unsightly, but nobody dies." I said.

Clara added, "I'm on a tight budget, dear," she looked at Sally and continued, "And I get about six cups of tea out of one bag! I learned to enjoy it weak, so save money. That's why the old tea bag was there."

"Oh," Sally added, "But that mug, with no handle, it's weird, especially when you have those pretty cups and saucers in the dining room cupboard."

Clara nodded, "Yes, that's true, but I have arthritis in my hands and can't hold on to those fancy little handles. My daughter accidentally broke the handle off that blue mug, and I was going to throw it out. But when I picked it up, wrapping my fingers around it made it much easier to hold, and it warms my hands too! So, that's why I keep it."

Sally nodded, becoming less grumpy and more impressed, "That's cool. But what about all that garbage in your freezer?" She asked in a very accusatory voice.

I was starting to wish I had a gavel.

"Oh, that," she chuckled, "That's for Mustgo Soup!"

Sally's brow furrowed, "What the . .?

Clara added, "I save all the parts of the vegetables, carrot peelings, the ends of celery, onion skins, and the like by freezing them. Otherwise, I'd have to compost them. So, they 'must go' When I get enough, I make my own veggie broth. That's also why I save the chicken bones. They make a wonderful soup," Sally.

"Really? We just open a can. What about rotting stuff in the bucket?" Sally asked.

"I was making sauerkraut," Clara said, starting to sound defensive again.

"What's a sauerkraut?" Now sally started to sound interested and said, "I'm sorry I threw it away. "How do you make it?" Sally leaned in closer to Clara.

"It's okay. I can make more. It's a way of saving cabbage. You slice the cabbage, add onion and stir it all up. Pour it into a pail. Sometimes you add a little water or salt if the cabbage isn't fresh. You must keep it covered and let it sit for a month or more. That batch you threw out probably wasn't going to be very good, anyway, because it's too hot now. Saurkraut needs to be kept cool. I used to keep it in the basement, where it's cooler, but it's too hard for me to go down there and then try to walk back up." She added, "Getting old is not for sissies!"

Clara continued, "My grandmother lived through the great depression and World War II. I learned many ways to stretch a penny from her.

Sally asked, "That's so cool! You guys repurposed before it was a 'thing!'

We all laughed.

Sally asked, "What else did people do back then?"

"Clara patted Sally's hand, saying, "Oh, there's lots more, but I'm tired, sweetheart. "How about you come back tomorrow?"

"I will! And I'll help you make more of that sauerkraut stuff to replace what I threw out!" Sally said.

"It's a deal!" Clara said, and we laughed.

A few weeks after Sally returned to the city, Clara received a gift-wrapped package from her. Clara invited me over to see what was inside.

Note care read,

Hey, Miss Clara!

Thank you for everything you taught me. Mom and I made some Mustgo soup, and it's so much better than canned!

The journal is so you can write down any other memories, but only if you want to. I found a fat pen to make it easier to write with because of your arthritis.

Mom says I can come back and visit next summer!

Love, Sally xoxo