We called her the "Lemon Lady" because of the sour-puss face she always presented to the public
and because she grew the finest lemons we had ever seen, on two huge trees in her front garden. We
often wondered why she looked so sour and how she grew such lemons -but we could find out nothing
about her. She was an old lady - at least 70 years of age, at a guess, perhaps more.
     One day we answered an advertisement for a flat to rent, as we had been asked to leave ours as
soon as we could, and when we went to the address given, it was the house of the Lemon Lady.
She didn't "unfreeze" during the whole of our interview. She said the flat would not be ready for
occupation for about a month; that she had 45 names on her list and might add more before she would
select the people to suit her best. She was just firm and austere, and I gathered that we were not likely
to be the ones selected.
     As my husband and I were leaving, I said, "How do you grow those wonderful lemons?" She gave
a wintry smile, which transformed her whole expression and made her look sweet and somehow pitiful.
     "I do grow nice lemons," she replied. We went on to tell her how much we had always admired them
every time we had passed, and she opened up and told us quite a lot about this fruit. "You know the
general theory of pruning(修剪), I suppose?" She asked.
     "Oh," said my husband, "I understand about pruning fruit trees and roses, but you must not prune
lemons, or so I understand." He added these last words when he saw from the Lemon Lady's expression
 that he had said the wrong thing.
     "No," said the Lemon Lady, "you must not prune lemons unless you want them to grow like mine.
What is the reason for pruning?"
     "Well, to cut off dead or diseased wood; to prevent one branch chafing another; to let the sunlight
into the center of the bush and to promote the growth of the more virile buds."
     "Very nicely put," said the Lemon Lady. "And why do you think that lemons are better with dead
or diseased wood on them; why should you not let sunlight into them; why should allowing many sickly
buds to develop make it a healthier tree?"
     "I hadn't thought about it at all," confessed my husband rather shamefacedly, as he prides himself on
being an original thinker, and here he was allowing an old lady to out-think him. "Everyone here said you
mustn't prune lemons, so I thought it must be right."
     We thanked her for the information and left, on much better terms with her than we would have ever
thought possible. We even felt quite a degree of affection towards her.
     In the course of the next three weeks we saw several places that might have been to let but which for
various reasons we could not get. Eventually we got a place that suited us very well and I returned to tell
the Lemon Lady that we would not be needing her flat.
     She was very nice and gave me afternoon tea. She said in her precise and careful style, "I'm glad you
have a house for the sake of your little boy, because a flat is no place for a child, especially a boy. But
for my own sake, I'm very sorry. I had decided to let you have the flat because I think we could have
got on very well together and because you liked my lemons."
     As I left, she handed me a bag with two huge lemons in it. They were the most magnificent I have
ever seen. As I looked back from the gate and saw her sweet smile, I wondered why we had called
her the Lemon Lady.
     As my husband said to me afterwards, "No one could do anything so well as she grew those lemons,
without being very proud of the accomplishment, and our touching on them was a good point in
psychology."  We have used that idea to good effect several times since then.
     At the house we did rent was a dying old lemon tree. My husband shook his head sadly as he gazed
at it. "Too late for treatment, I'm afraid," he said, but he set to and pruned it ruthlessly. We were in that
house for four years and from the second year onward, we each had the juice of a lemon every morning,
and when we left we took with us two 60-pound cases of lemons from the tree, and after we left a friend wrote and asked why we hadn't picked the lemons before we left.
     We still call her the Lemon Lady, but the term is now one of pure affection.   (825 words)