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By BILL THOMPSON
She was probably the smallest entrepreneur I ever saw. She couldn’t have been more than about 10 years old.
She wore the usual child’s costume of jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. Those were her business clothes.
She was sitting on the bench of a picnic table on that unusually warm January afternoon. The table was under a pecan tree about 15 yards from the little country store on N.C. 42 east of Clayton.
On the table she had placed several large paper cups. Inside each of the cups were about 10 unshelled pecans.
Taped on the edge of the table was a printed sign: PECANS $1 A CUP.
There was another group of cups of the same size placed on the other end of the picnic table. Another sign had been taped in front of that group of cups.
It read: SHELLED PECANS $5 A CUP. There were just a few shelled pecans in one cup. All of the pecans were in little pieces.
I had stopped at the little store for gasoline and my afternoon snack of a Pepsi and pack o’ nabs. As I pumped the gas I watched her.
She had a hammer much too large for her small hand to use efficiently to crack the pecans she was extracting from a galvanized bucket on the ground beside her. The result of her effort was that after she had smashed the pecan shell into small pieces, she would take a pair of needle-nose pliers and try to extract the remainder of the nut from the shell. Most of the time she would give up on that particular pecan and throw it on the ground and try another.
Occasionally she would leave enough of the meat of the pecan to pick out a few small pieces. These small remnants she ate.
I finished pumping the gasoline and went into the store to pay for the gas and purchase my snacks. I commented to the lady behind the counter, “Enterprising young lady out there. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anybody else set up a stand like that.”
“That’s my granddaughter,” said the lady. “She comes here after school every day and stays with me. Her mama and daddy both work so she stays with me ‘til her mama comes by to get her after work. You know, she printed those signs on a computer at school. Smart little thing.”
“Does she have many customers?” I asked.
“Oh, no. But it gives her something to do”, was the reply.
So I thought that instead of buying the crackers I’d buy some of the little girl’s shelled pecans. I walked over to the makeshift sales stand and asked, “Hi. Whatcha doin’?”
“Tryin’ to shell these pecans but I ain’t havin’ much luck.”
“How much are they?” I asked.
“Five dollars. Just like the sign says,” she replied without looking up from her labor.
“Can I get a cup of shelled ones?” I inquired.
“No, sir. I ain’t got a full cup. Cain’t seem to get ‘em outta the shell. I’m just a little girl, you know”.
She paused just a second and said, “Tell ya what. If you’ll help me shell ‘em I sell ‘em to ya for two dollars a cup.”
I sat down on the other end of the picnic bench and shelled a cup of pecans. I paid her $5 for them.
I’ve got a feeling that young lady will make a lot of money some day.