英语美文：每个人都可以创造的财富(2)

As a young woman, my mother had worked in the kitchen of a large Victorian farmhouse owned by Fannie Cratty and her twin pother, Farnsworth. They represented the end of the Cratty line. Neither had married nor had any living heirs and my father once told me (in a whisper) that it was because they were both too stingy to share their family wealth or pass it on. During those year my mother helped Aunt Fanny make the best blueberry cobbler jam ever tasted by anyone in Glenfield. She was noted for her jam and for never sharing the recipe with another living soul. (This was the real source of contention among the Baptist women.) Even though my mother knew the recipe by heart, as long as Aunt Fannie was alive (and she lived to be ninety-six!), she never made the jam without Ms. Cratty in our kitchen to direct the process and preserve the secret.

Each August, when blueberry season would roll around, my mother would prepare me for Aunt Fannie’s visit. It was imperative that I be on my best behavior. After all, the woman was old, wealthy, stern, and a pillar of the church (I guess that would make her my “sainted” Aunt Fannie). Reverend Nash had once preached on the consequences of looking on sinful things and had told about Lot’s wife being turned to a pillar of salt because she looked back on wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. I didn’t know what Aunt Fannie had looked at, but it must have been pretty bad. Whatever it wa it had left her hair a decided shade of blue and turned her into a pillar of the church. Whenever she was at the house, I didn’t need to be reminded to guard my thoughts and watch my tongue.