From the Relief Society Magazine, July 1961 –

The Missing Ingredient

By Pansye H. Powell

At four o’clock Miss Fannie placed the last jar of cherry preserves on the cellar shelf and stood back contentedly to survey the results of the hard work she had been doing for two days. There they were, lined up neatly in a row all to themselves – twenty pint jars of what she hoped would be the best cherry preserves put up that year in Clinton County.

Her hope was based upon experience. For thirty years Miss Fannie Himes had taken the blue ribbon at the Clinton County Fair for the unsurpassed tastiness of her cherry preserves. She had experimented with recipes, finding none that produced results entirely to her liking, adding to and taking away from the original ingredients, until, finally, she had developed a recipe that never failed to win her plaudits from the judges. The slightly tart, uncloying sweetness of her red cherry preserves had no equal, so the critics had said year after year.

To Miss Fannie this yearly tribute to her cooking ability was life’s greatest achievement. She looked forward to it all during the long dull winter when, sometimes for weeks together, she was marooned in her farmhouse, connected to the rest of her world b only the telephone, and that, too, at times made useless by heavy sleet that froze on the wires.

Working around in her spotlessly clean home, she would pause to look out across the snow-covered lawn to her orchard, where the cherry trees stood silently enduring the onslaught of cold weather. She knew they would live through it, they always had, but she suffered with them as the winds rattled their branches together and even broke off some of the precious twigs that would have borne crimson cargo. She dreamed in those long, cold months of the coming spring, when the carefully pruned trees would break into bloom, every blossom a promise of greater bounty to come. to Miss Fannie, at seventy-five the annual burgeoning of her cherry trees held spiritual significance; it was uplifting and moving, but she admitted privately and pridefully, it promised earthly glory, too.

Now, down in her cool cellar, she looked carefully at each jar and moved a few that were not exactly in line with the others. Everything Miss Fannie did was always done neatly and with care. The cellar bin for her potatoes was kept as clean as her kitchen cupboard shelves. Her apple bin still sheltered a few of last year’s Jonathans, each wrapped in its protective paper covering. The shelves above the bins held her store of home-canned tomatoes, green beans, spinach, peaches, and pears, and even some jars of meat. She had some relish left, too; but an unusually confining winter had caused her to use much of her available store of fruit and vegetables, so now she was planning how to replenish it. The cherry preserves had been her first product of this year’s crops, and they were beautiful, indeed.

“Miss Fannie!” A voice called form the yard above her.

She knew the voice. Carol Watkins was her closest neighbor, the young city-bred wife whom Ronnie Watkins had met at the university and brought home to share his life on the farm he had inherited from his parents. Miss Fannie had known Ronnie all his life, so she had been prepared to like his wife, and she did like her, although Carol’s home economics training at times had caused her and Miss Fannie to see things in different lights.

Miss Fannie called out cordially: “I’m in the cellar, Carol. Come on down here.”

A moment later a pretty girl of twenty in a freshly ironed pink gingham dress came down the steps, walking carefully so as not to drop the pint jar she was carrying.

“I brought you a sample of my cherry preserves,” she announced. “Of course, they are not nearly so good as yours are, but I’d like you to try them.”

“Why, thanks, Carol.” Miss Fannie spoke sincerely, for she appreciated the way Carol was always thinking of her and doing little things to please her. “I’ll tell you what let’s do. It’s about time for a snack, isn’t it? Let’s go up to the kitchen and I’ll make us a cup of Postum and I’ll try your preserves right now while you’re here.”

Miss Fannie gave a last maternal look, at the row of cherry preserves and then led the way up the stairs. She shut the cellar door carefully behind her, then conducted Carol through the back porch to the cheerful kitchen that still smelled of hot preserves.

“You sit down over there by the table,” she said, “while I heat some water in a jiffy.”

She busied herself about the stove, while Carol sat at the table. Miss Fannie went on talking as she got out a loaf of homemade bread and a dish of rich yellow butter molded in a rectangle.

“I’ll serve you some of my cherry preserves,” she said. “I always keep some that are left over from the canning, for just such occasions as this.”

“I’d love to taste your preserves,” Carol said delightedly. “Ronnie has told me how delicious they are, and how you have won the county fair prize for so many years.”

“Practice – that’s all,” Miss Fannie replied. “Make preserves as many years as I have, and ‘most anybody ought to win a prize.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carol laughed. “They say you’ve got the secret ingredient that makes all other people’s cherries seem insipid in contrast. Mine will probably taste the same way.”

Miss Fannie spread a clean white cloth on the table and placed two of her best plates on it.

“Now,” she said to Carol, “you get the silver and napkins and the cups and saucers and we’re about ready.”

While Carol carried out her instructions, Miss Fannie took two identical small glass dishes from the cupboard and emptied some of her own preserves into one and some of Carol’s into the other. Then she set the preserves on the table, Carol’s at one place and her own at the other.

While Miss Fannie went to the stove to pour the water, Carol finished making the table ready, moving the glass dishes as she did so to make room for the cups and saucers at each place. In returning the glass dishes to their former position, she inadvertently placed them in reverse order, so that now Miss Fannie was being served her own preserves.

“Now, are we all ready?” Miss Fannie beamed over her cup of Postum.

She sat down at her place and they bowed their heads in prayer. Miss Fannie buttered a piece of bread and spread it with the preserves that were by her plate. As she tasted the first bite of the bread, a strange look came over her face. She looked at the two glass dishes, but discovered that the preserves in the two dishes were identical in color. Carol, who had not tasted the preserves yet, was unaware that Miss Fannie was disturbed.

Surely, Miss Fannie thought, surely, Carol hadn’t made these preserves. Why, they are every bit as good as mine! Could a girl just out of school do what it took me almost forty years to learn to do?

By this time Carol had prepared a piece of bread for herself and was eating it. She smiled suddenly. “How do you like my preserves, Miss Fannie?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

Miss Fannie answered at once, “These are very good, Carol. They’re every bit as good as mine.”

Carol laughed gaily. “They are yours, Miss Fannie! I guess I must have changed the places when I was setting the table. Here, you try some of mine now. I’ll bet you won’t think mine are every bit as good as yours.”

Carol handed Miss Fannie the dish containing her own preserves and watched anxiously as Miss Fannie spread some of the cherries on a piece of bread and tasted them with the air of a connoisseur; then, as Miss Fannie smiled at her, she sat back in her chair and awaited the verdict.

“They are very nice,” Miss Fannie said sincerely.

“But they aren’t quite the way they ought to be,” Carol declared. “I’ll never be content until they are. I’ll keep trying, though. If I could make cherry preserves like yours, I’d really think I was a good cook. There are things a person can’t learn out of a book about cooking, I know. It takes experience and sometimes just a little thing to make the difference between something really good and something just so-so. Don’t you think that’s right?”

“I do think it is true,” Miss Fannie answered. “I tried for a long time to find just the right length of time to cook my preserves, and the right proportion of sugar and cherries. Even now, sometimes, I do not do them just right.”

“They taste just right to me,” Carol declared, “and I hope you win the blue ribbon again this year. You truly deserve it. Now, I think I’d better be getting on home. Ronnie wanted supper early so he could go to a Farm Bureau meeting tonight. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Fannie, I’ll run along now.”

And Carol was gone, a flash of pink out the door and past the kitchen window. Miss Fannie heard her car start up and listened as the sound died out down the lane.

Sitting alone at the table, Miss Fannie thought back over Carol’s visit. Somehow she felt as though something had gone wrong, and she was vaguely dissatisfied with herself as she reconstructed the conversation she had had with Carol. Miss Fannie was a very honest person, with others and with herself. When she remembered what she had thought when she first tasted the preserves and believed them to be Carol’s, she knew she had allowed herself to feel envy, for only a second, indeed, but it had been in her mind. Now she brought herself to task sharply.

Of all the people who knew Miss Fannie – and she was known by everyone who lived within a radius of twenty miles of the home where she had lived all her life – no one would ever have suspected her of being proud. She was loved for her generosity, her benevolence, her fairness, and her honesty. No one could look at Miss Fannie’s fresh rosy cheeks, her plump figure, her clear blue eyes, and feel that behind this facade there lurked one little fault. No one knew better than Miss Fannie herself what her failing was. Now, as she sat alone in her kitchen with the sound of the car retreating down the lane, Miss Fannie once more faced her weakness and acknowledged that pride in her achievement had intervened between her and what secretly she knew she ought to do – share with Carol the knowledge she had gained over so many years.

Why, she demanded of herself, shouldn’t a younger woman be able to produce cherry preserves like hers? Did everything in the world have to come the hard way, as her special ability had? Wasn’t it why people struggled and worked that they might pass on to others their knowledge and make life easier for them? She knew, now that she thought over the conversation, that Carol had wanted her to say what was wrong with the preserves that Carol had brought her. And she had said nothing, selfishly hoarding her knowledge, not realizing, really.

Miss Fannie knew what it would mean if she did share her knowledge with Carol. The tempting picture of the exhibit at the County Fair was often in her mind: the judges examining so carefully each jar; the blue ribbon; the exclamations of her friends and of people who didn’t even know her; the priceless moments of the only real distinction she had ever had – she who had quit school when she was fourteen to take care of her sick mother; who remained at home after her mother’s death to manage her father’s household; who never had a chance to go to college to learn to do things the easy way – all to be cast aside to allow someone younger to place in the competition.

There was another little voice that spoke to Fannie, sometimes, when she least expected it. Now it made itself heard again: “Fannie, just how long do you expect to be in this business? You’re seventy-five, Fannie, and there comes a day when your work should let up, you know. Isn’t it about time to let someone younger take over?”

Of course, Carol was the most logical person in the world to pick up where Miss Fannie would let go. Carol’s preserves were good; with a little extra coaching she should be able to duplicate Miss Fannie’s achievement, especially if Miss Fannie did the coaching.

The little voice was trying again. “You’re seventy-five, Fannie. Time to retire, isn’t it? Time to share your greatest achievement? Why don’t you try, Fannie? Isn’t it selfish to want all the honor for yourself?”

The nagging little voice kept on, and the one word that echoed and re-echoed in Miss Fannie’s mind was selfish, selfish, selfish.

“I won’t be selfish,” she heard herself saying. “I’ll call Carol right now and tell her to come over.”

Immediately she found herself at the telephone, dialing her nearest neighbor’s number. Ronnie answered. Miss Fannie didn’t ask for Carol, but spoke quickly to Ronnie.

“Ronnie, this is Miss Fannie. Is Carol going with you to the Farm Bureau meeting tonight?”

“Why, no, I believe not. It’s just a committee meeting for some men.”

“Then you bring her over here to stay with me while you’re gone. You tell her I said it’s very important that she come, and I don’t want no for an answer. You bring her, Ronnie, will you?”

“I sure will, Miss Fannie, I sure will.”

Miss Fannie hung up the receiver with a strange feeling of having come to either the end of something or the beginning, and she wasn’t sure which. Maybe, she thought, it’s both – the end of my prize-winning days and the beginning of Carol’s.

Carol arrived at seven-thirty. She and Miss Fannie had a long session, during which Carol took copious notes and after which she kissed Miss Fannie goodbye heartily.

Miss Fannie walked slowly up her stairs that night. The day had been a hard one and she needed rest. Though her body was tired, her mind was clear, her conscience free. In fact, she felt whole, as though that part of her character which had been missing had suddenly popped into its place and now she was the kind of person that she ought to be.

Her evening prayer was one of gratitude that all this should be so. “Amen,” she said at the end of her prayer – and then she repeated softly and with deep conviction, “Amen!”