Applesauce cooks like magic. At least that&8217;s what ehow.com says; I&8217;ve never tried it myself.

You&8217;ll need five large apples, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/4 cup apple cider.

Peel and seed the apples and chop them into quarters or eighths, the Web site says.

Put the apples and cider (or water) in a saucepan and set on low to medium-low heat. Keep it covered.

After 20 minutes, remove the cover and mash the apples (doesn&8217;t sound like magic to me.) They should &8220;practically disintegrate&8221; into sauce, the site says.

Add the sugar and cinnamon.

Then the sauce is ready to serve warm or chilled.

OK, so it&8217;s not magic, but it does still sound pretty easy.

You&8217;d rather have orange juice? Sorry. A is for apple, and apples make applesauce. We&8217;ll get to the Os later in the year, but Monday was A-day.

Mrs. Harveston&8217;s kindergartners at Trinity Episcopal had plans to look up a recipe for applesauce after their discussion Monday.

They talked about all different kinds of apples, apple pie &8212; the homemade kind and the kind from McDonald&8217;s, &8212; applesauce and Andy the anteater.

Andy, you see, was having a yard sale &8212; also known as a garage sale, the children pointed out.

And a garage sale is the place where you &8220;sell some toys that are broken&8221; and &8220;sell toys you don&8217;t like anymore.&8221; Or, if you are 5 now, you can sell your pacifiers, they said.

But sometimes, the sale is about more than getting rid of junk and making money. And the children will get a good taste of that spirit this year, Mrs. Harveston said.

Every year the Trinity kindergartners participate in a drive for the Children&8217;s Home, she told them.

But some of her students have already beat her to this. A few said they&8217;ve collected toys and clothes for the Children&8217;s Home, and others gave things to an &8220;emergency at the church,&8221; that sure sounded like Katrina.

It&8217;s something that comes naturally to a kindergartner, helping out. Sure, they don&8217;t want to share every toy (certainly not the new ones), but there is an innate kindness in a 5-year-old&8217;s heart.

You&8217;ll see it in a flash if a classmate gets hurt. Everyone will rush to the scene and the looks of worry on the other faces are almost too much to handle.

If another child needs help, kids want to help.

Monday, one of Mrs. Harveston&8217;s students lost her pencil (I think it rolled under a piece of paper). But never fear, &8220;You can have my pencil,&8221; was the immediate response from a table neighbor. Ignore the fact that the sharing party had work of her own to do and probably needed that pencil.

For most of us, logic sets in somewhere between 5 and 60 and we become less willing to share the things we know we need.

Without that pencil we can&8217;t do our work, without our work we won&8217;t make money, without money we can&8217;t support our families. It&8217;s logic, but it&8217;s not right.

It&8217;s a shame we can&8217;t all keep the kindergarten spirit.

Just think, if everyone shared what they had and taught the non-sharers to join in, we&8217;d have plenty of applesauce to go around.

Idealistic? Yes. But that&8217;s what kindergarten is all about.

And, everything you ever needed to know you learned in kindergarten, right? We just don&8217;t always practice those lessons.

Julie Finley

is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or

julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com

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