Onions

Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.

~ Carl Sandburg

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There is an old story of a baby onion that was about to be plucked from the ground to put in the stew of an old woman. 

"Wait!" he told the old woman. "You don't want to eat me!" 

"Why not?" she asked in a crackly old woman voice.

"Because I am puny and have little flavor. You will want to use something more bold and flavorful."  He looked quickly around and pointed at a wild garlic plant growing nearby. "That plant will be good," he said. "You will want to eat that."

The old woman stared for a moment at the garlic and then again at the onion. "Okay," she agreed finally. "I'll be back for you another day."

She walked over and fell into and perished a pit that the baby onion had dug near the garlic. 

And that is the origin of the term "rapscallion" because that baby onion was no baby onion.