Too Much Sugar

My grandmother made jam for sixty years and never sold a single jar. She gave it away — to neighbors, to the mailman, to anyone who stopped at the gate.

I sold it. Every Saturday I stood behind a small table at the market in Deering Oaks Park, in Portland, with forty jars of her strawberry jam in front of me.

The woman at the next table sold fancy jam. Gold labels, a brand name, little cloth hats on the lids. My labels had my grandmother’s handwriting on them, because I copied it. Four dollars a jar, two for seven. Not a bad deal.

For three months I sold six or seven jars a day. Then, in July, a man tasted a spoonful and bought four. His wife came back and bought four more. By eleven o’clock I had double the customers of the fancy table.

At half past twelve I sold my last jar. I sat and looked at the empty table for a while. I had never seen it empty before.

But there was one jar in my bag. That evening I took it to my grandmother’s kitchen and put it on the shelf where the jam always lives. She opened it and tasted it with a teaspoon.

“Too much sugar,” she said.

Then she took another spoonful.