Thirteen years ago. I was in Washington, D.C.
The heat was unbearable. On my way home, I noticed a little girl, maybe five or six, standing near our apartment building. She had set up a proper business on a folding table: plastic cups filled with lemonade, a handmade sign with crooked letters reading “LEMONADE 50¢,” and even a neat stack of napkins.
What struck me most was her face – serious, focused, like that of an adult at an important negotiation. No trace of childish carelessness. She was doing business. Important business.
A woman stood a little apart on a bench with a book in her hands. She pretended to read, but I could see her glancing up again and again, ready to rush over at any moment.
I sat down on the curb under a tree. I wanted to see what would happen.
The first customer was an elderly African-American woman with a rolling shopping bag. She opened her purse, picked out two coins, took a cup, and said something to the girl. The girl’s face lit up, and she exclaimed, “Thank you, ma’am!” – so loudly and solemnly it sounded as if she were announcing a change of government. The woman laughed and walked off, shaking her head.
Then came a young man in a basketball jersey, headphones in his ears. He pulled one out, handed over a dollar. “Keep the change, boss.” The girl hesitated, looked at her mother. The mother nodded. The girl slipped the dollar into her pocket and smiled so brightly that the man laughed and offered her a fist bump. She tapped his fist with her tiny one, shyly but proudly.
Next came a woman in her twenties, arms full of Whole Foods bags. She stopped, wiped her forehead, bought a lemonade, and drank it down in one go. “Best lemonade ever!” she said – and there was something so genuine in her voice that the girl laughed for the first time, with a child’s pure, ringing laughter.
Watching all this, I realized: none of them really needed the lemonade. They all had homes, air conditioning, refrigerators. But they stopped. Because each of them had once stood behind such a table – or seen their child do it – or dreamed their child might someday learn to earn their first dollar honestly, like this. It wasn’t a purchase; it was a passing of a cultural baton, a small act of public support, an investment in the American spirit of enterprise.
After each customer, the girl turned to her mother with the same question in her eyes: Did I do well? And every time, the mother nodded – calmly, confidently, as if to say, You’re doing fine. Keep going.
I walked over and bought a cup. The lemonade was warm and syrupy, probably had been sitting in the sun for too long. But I drank it to the last drop, smiled, waved to the girl, and she gave me a proud nod, like a partner in a serious business.
Climbing the stairs to my apartment, I thought: in that simple scene, there was more character building than in a hundred lectures on personal independence.
Alisher Faizullaev 