Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul

by Jack Canfield

  Granny looked into my wide blue eyes with an expression I couldn't read and said, "So she said, child. So she said."

  I went on, "Can I wear my best dress today? Can I? Oh please Granny." My words tumbled out so fast Granny couldn't get a word in.

  When she did reply, her voice sounded old and very tired, "I suppose so."

  Granny had told me my mother was planning to come,

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  but she'd warned me that she might not make it. What I didn't know then was how many times my mother had called to say, "I'm coming to see Victoria" only never to arrive. Granny had soon decided not to tell me so I wouldn't be disappointed. But this time, my mother had sounded so earnest that Granny had said something. Now she hoped she hadn't made a mistake.

  I ran to my closet and reached for my favorite dress. It was navy blue gingham with a white pinafore. As soon as I was dressed, with my hair pulled back in a ponytail and a white bow, I ran out the front door, down the steps and through the yard. I had already picked out the place where I would wait for my mother.

  There was an old telephone pedestal that sat by the edge of the road just wide enough for me to sit on. From there, I could see the entire road from all directions.

  The sun was bright and I had to hold my hand over my eyes to see. Nothing in sight except for our neighbor, old Mr. Bearden, who was plowing his fields.

  Then I saw something coming down the road. It was black, but too far away for me to see what it was. I waited, my feet swinging back and forth hitting the pedestal with satisfying thumps. The black thing moved closerit was too small and slow to be a car. I smiled when I saw it was an old mama dog running down the road with two puppies nipping at her heels.

  I loved puppies, though Granny wouldn't let me have one. I jumped off the pedestal and walked towards the dog. I could play with the puppies for a while, I thought, but I thought better of it when I looked down at my best dress. With a sigh, I turned back.

  The sun moved through the sky. Three hours passed, then five hours and still no sign of my mother. Granny made me a sandwich for lunch, but I fed it to the ants to watch them scurry around, snatching every last crumb.

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  Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead as the afternoon sun grew hotter but I never moved too far from the pedestal. I counted five cars come . . . and go. Each time my heart would race faster when they approached . . . then sink as they sped past me.

  I kept busy watching the ant piles. I watched the cows eating grass at Mr. Bearden's farm but even that wasn't fun anymore.

  The sun sank lower, casting shadows across the yard. As darkness fell, Granny came out on the front porch. She watched me pace back and forth straining to see if just one more car would come. But the car never came.

  Finally Granny called to me, "Come in, Victoria, it's getting dark now."

  I ignored my grandmother's words as tears welled in my eyes. My hands clenched into fists at my side, I whispered to myself, "No! I won't go in! My mama will come! She will!"

  I stood there a few minutes, tears making little rivers that ran down my dust-covered face. Then I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I strained harder to see and then I heard a whimper. It was a puppy, limping down the road, one leg held up off the ground. He looked just like the puppies who'd passed by with their mama so many hours ago.

  He was covered in dust and was so tired he could barely walk. I knelt down to get a better look and he hobbled toward me. I picked the puppy up, holding him tight against my white pinafore. He licked my tear-stained face, and I held him closer.

  "I guess you're looking for your mama, too."

  Granny had come up behind me and heard my words. The old woman picked me and the dusty puppy up and headed for the rocking chair on the porch.

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  She rocked us back and forth. No words were spoken; no words would do.

  Granny looked down at that little puppy and stroked his matted fur. He licked her hand. Finally Granny spoke, her voice gentle, "Victoria, I guess the angels sent you someone to love."

  Comforted, I held the puppy tight as I snuggled against Granny.

  The night was still. The only sound was my grandmother's soft singing, "Hush little baby, don't you cry, Granny's gonna sing you a lullaby . . ."

  Victoria Robinson

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  Margaret of New Orleans

  If you ever go to the beautiful city of New Orleans, somebody will be sure to take you down into the old business part of the city, where there are banks and shops and hotels, and show you a statue erected in 1884 that stands in a little square there. It is the statue of a woman, sitting in a low chair, with her arms around a child who leans against her. The woman is not at all pretty. She wears thick, common shoes, a plain dress with a little shawl and a sunbonnet. She is stout and short, and her face is a square-chinned Irish face. But her eyes look at you like your mother's.

  Now there is something very surprising about this statue. It was one of the first that was ever made in this country in honor of a woman. Even in old Europe there are not many monuments to women, and most of the few are to great queens or princesses, very beautiful and very richly dressed. You see, this statue in New Orleans is not quite like anything else.

  It is the statue of a woman named Margaret. Her whole name was Margaret Haughery, but no one in New Orleans remembers her by it, any more than you think of your dearest sister by her full name. She is just Margaret.

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  This is her story, and it tells why people made a monument honoring her.

  When Margaret was a tiny baby, her father and mother died, and she was adopted by two young people as poor and kind as her own parents. She lived with them until she grew up. Then she married and had a little baby of her own. But very soon her husband died, and then the baby died, too, and Margaret was all alone in the world. She was poor, but she was strong and knew how to work.

  All day, from morning until evening, she ironed clothes in a laundry. And every day, as she worked by the window, she saw the little motherless children from the orphanage nearby working and playing about. After a while, a great sickness came upon the city, and so many mothers and fathers died that there were more orphans than the orphanage could possibly take care of. They needed a good friend now. You would hardly think, would you, that a poor woman who worked in a laundry could be much of a friend to them? But Margaret was. She went straight to the kind Sisters who ran the orphanage and told them she was going to give them part of her wages and was going to work for them besides. Pretty soon she had worked so hard that she had some money saved from her wages. With this, she bought two cows and a little delivery cart. Then she carried her milk to her customers in the little cart every morning, and as she went, she begged the leftover food from the hotels and rich houses, and brought it back in the cart to the hungry children in the orphanage. In the very hardest times that was often all the food the children had.

  A part of the money Margaret earned went every week to the orphanage, and after a few years it was made very much larger and better. And Margaret was so careful and so good at business that, in spite of her giving, she earned more money and bought more cows. With this, she built a home for orphan babies; she called it her baby house.

  After a time, Margaret had a chance to get a bakery, and then she became a bread-woman instead of a milk-woman.

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  She carried the bread just as she had carried the milk, in her cart. And still she kept giving money to the orphanage.

  Then the great war came, the Civil War. In all the trouble and sickness and fear of that time, Margaret drove her cart of bread, and somehow she always had enough to give to the starving soldiers, and for her babies, besides what she sold. And despite all this, she earned enough so that when the war was over, she built a big steam factory to bake her bread. By this time everybody in the city knew her. The children all over the city loved her. The businessmen were proud of her. The poor peo
ple all came to her for advice. She used to sit at the open door of her office in a calico gown and a little shawl and give a good word to everybody, rich or poor.

  Then, by and by, one day Margaret died. And when it was time to read her will, the people found that, with all her giving, she had still saved a great deal of moneythirty thousand dollarsand that she had left every cent of it to the different orphanages of the cityeach one of them was given something. Whether they were for white children or black, or Jews, Catholics or Protestants, it made no difference; for Margaret always said, ''They are all orphans alike." And just think, that splendid, wise will was signed with a cross instead of a name, for Margaret had never learned to read or write!

  When the people of New Orleans knew that Margaret was dead, they said, "She was a mother to the motherless. She was a friend to those who had no friends. She had wisdom greater than schools can teach. We will not let her memory go from us." So they made a statue of her, just as she used to look, sitting in her own office or driving in her own little cart. And there it stands today, in memory of the great love and the great power of plain Margaret Haughery, of New Orleans.

  Sara Cone Bryant

  Submitted by Rochelle Pennington

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  Bridge Builder

  An old man going down a lone highway

  Came in the evening cold and gray

  To a chasm vast and deep and wide

  Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

  The old man crossing in the twilight dim;

  That swollen stream held no fears for him;

  But he turned when safe on the other side

  And built a bridge to span the tide.

  "Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,

  "You are wasting your strength with building here;

  Your journey will end with the ending day;

  You never again must pass this way;

  You have crossed the chasm deep and wide

  Why build you this bridge at the eventide?"

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  The builder lifted his old gray head.

  "Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,

  "There followeth after me today.

  A youth whose feet must pass this way.

  This swollen stream which was naught to me

  To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

  He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

  Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

  Will Allen Dromgoole

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  The Yellow Ribbon

  It was a hot, muggy day during the summer between second and third grade. My hair was in a French braid with my favorite yellow ribbonthe one my Great Aunt Lilly had given me before she died. "Flaunt it, Honey," she'd told me, whatever that meant.

  Like every summer day, I was in my front yard playing with Wilma Wynonna Willett, my imaginary friend. Since I wasn't allowed to leave my yard and no one my age lived nearby, "Triple W," as I called her, was my best friend.

  Suddenly out of nowhere came a big yellow moving truck. I heard an annoying beep and realized our new neighbors were moving in. I was excited, though I prayed there wouldn't be any boys, because boys, of course, had "cooties." But then, I saw an unusual object being removed from the trucka wheelchair. It looked cold and heavy. What kind of people were moving in? They were obviously not like the neighbors I had grown to expect in my sheltered life.

  Soon I learned these neighbors had a daughter my age named Laura. She could not walk or talk, however, and she was confined to the wheelchair. I didn't know how to

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  respond. Should I go over, shake hands and introduce myself as my parents had taught, or should I hide under my bed so I would never have to meet her?

  The problem was solved when my mom announced that the new neighbors were coming for dinner Friday night. When the doorbell rang, I answered and introduced myself. Laura's parents quickly explained that Laura had been born with cerebral palsy, an incurable condition that limited her mobility, controlled her muscles and destroyed her speech. Pretty sobering news for an eight-year-old whose previous hurts were healed with a kiss and a bandage.

  Timidly, I said "Hello." Then I heard it, stammering from the bottom of her stomach and exploding from her lips: the loudest, strongest and most peculiar laugh I had ever heard. My mom told me that Victor Borge once said, "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people," and this couldn't have been more accurate. Even though Laura could not speak, her laugh did not need any explanations. Instantly I knew this was the beginning of a very special friendship.

  I could not understand why the other kids could not perceive Laura as I did. Instead they made fun of her, threatened her and even tipped her wheelchair. I, too, was teased because I was friends with "Cripple." No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the other children stop.

  What did I learn from my friendship with Laura? I learned bad things happen to nice people. Life was unfair! I learned lessons no other situation could have taught: I learned patience as I watched Laura painstakingly perform simple tasks that took forever because she was not physically able to do them any faster. I learned compassion when I heard the teasing and saw the hurt in Laura's eyes. I learned about courage as I watched Laura face the battles she had each day with her body and speech.

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  Each morning, Laura awakens to powerful, painful muscle cramps; eating is a chore because she is fed every meal; talking is only something she and her parents dream of. Laura cannot stand, but if she could, she would be five feet six inches tall. She has big brown eyes, soft curly hair and, of course, that great big laugh. Laura is able to understand when spoken to; she simply cannot respond with speech. Instead, she communicates by pointing to the communication board on the tray of her wheelchair.

  This past summer, I had the honor and privilege of being Laura's able-bodied person in the Special Olympics. My job consisted of helping Laura do anything she would have done if she were not handicapped. I wrapped her clenched hand around the ball before we threw it. Our hands swung that bat together, and I cheered the loudest when she won the wheelchair race. We were a team and our bodies worked together to pursue the "gold."

  Watching each Special Olympian compete in his or her event made my heart cheer and cry at the same time. Most of all, it made me appreciate the many blessings of life I had taken for granted. Helping Laura win the gold in two of her events was a gift we gave each other. I took the yellow ribbon that was in my hair that day and tied it around Laura's long, curly ponytail.

  "Flaunt it, Honey," I whispered, finally understanding what Great Aunt Lilly had meant.

  Nikki Willett

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  And, And, And

  Peeking out from the corner of my desk blotter is a note, slowly yellowing and bent from time.

  It is a card from my mother, containing only four sentences, but with enough impact to change my life forever.

  In it, she praises my abilities as a writer without qualification. Each sentence is filled with love, offering specific examples of what my pursuit has meant to her and my father.

  The word "but" never appears on the card. However the word "and" is there almost a half dozen times.

  Every time I read itwhich is almost every dayI am reminded to ask myself if I am doing the same thing for my daughters. I've asked myself how many times I've "but-ted" them, and me, out of happiness.

  I hate to say that it's more often than I'd like to admit.

  Although our eldest daughter usually got all As on her report card, there was never a semester when at least one teacher would not suggest that she talked too much in class. I always forgot to ask them if she was making improvement in controlling her behavior, if her comments contributed to the discussion in progress or encouraged a quieter child to talk. Instead, I would come