First, Jayden Hanson, who turns 12 tomorrow, picked the apples from the big, old tree in his parents' backyard.
Then he displayed them down at the gate alongside the Wanaka to Lake Hawea road.
And before long he had earned $30.
But, his father, Matt Plant, told the Otago Daily Times yesterday what began as a lesson in business enterprise ended up as an exercise in getting over disappointment.
While he was taking a break from his business late on the morning of Otago Anniversary Day, someone attacked Jayden's stall.
''Some useless ... pulled up and stole the big umbrella and threw the signs thanking people for their honesty on the ground and ripped up all his bags of apples and left them open on the ground,'' Mr Plant said.
''They just destroyed his money-making venture.''
Jayden told the ODT he was ''surprised'' someone would stop and ''trash'' his apple stand.
He was selling 3kg bags of apples for $4.
Mr Plant said Jayden had ''really lost interest''.
''It's not the sort of end result I wanted, really. We were just trying to teach the young fellow the value of the dollar and how to make some extra cash.''
Jayden had now stopped selling apples.
''Which is understandable from an 11-year-old after putting all that effort into it and somebody just pulls up and does that.''
