I have just learned something new! Isn’t it a wonderful thing that we are “never too old to learn” and also sometimes isn’t it strange that no matter how many years we have numbered we still learn best from that old, old teacher Experience? For instance, there was the time when I read, (not in a farm paper) that the addition of a little vinegar to the lard in which doughnuts were fried would keep them from soaking fat. I was preparing a company dinner not long afterward, and wishing to have my doughnuts especially good, was about to pour the vinegar into the lard when the Man of the Place came into the kitchen. From long association with the cook, he knew that she was doing something different and demanded to know why. When I had explained, he advised me not to try any experiments at that particular time. “Oh, it will be all right,” I answered easily, “or it would not have been in that paper.” I added the vinegar and learned it was perfectly true that the doughnuts would not soak the grease. They would hardly soak anything they were so tough.
Experience had taught me on more lesson!
Excerpt from “Giving and Taking Advice” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Missouri Ruralist, January 20, 1917