A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul
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Slowly, like a steam engine pulling into the station, my sobbing ground to a halt.
Becky smiled at me until she forced me to smile back. "Someday," she confided, "you're going to find a girl so wonderful you'll know she's the right one for you. Then, you'll forget all about me. I promise you."
"May I help you," the ceramic-shop man repeated a bit more firmly. "Is Becky in?" I muttered finally. "Are you a friend of hers?" he shot back suspiciously.
"Sort of," I mumbled. "About 20 years ago she spent the summer waiting tables at my family's inn. My father and I were waxing nostalgic last evening, and her name came up. He said I might be able to find her here."
His furrowed brow softened and he extended his hand. "I'm her husband. This here's her daughter." The girl snatched the phone from the wall and began dialing. "Becky's at home today," the man explained. "She's not been well."
"Momma, somebody here knows you." The girl spoke in her customary mountain twang. "He says you used to work at his family's inn." She listened for a moment and then wordlessly handed me the phone.
I stared at it in my hand as if holding one for the first time. She smiled a dimpled smile that seemed to say, "Go ahead."
"Hi Becky," I stammered a bit too energetically. The other end of the line was completely still. Five seconds. Ten.
"Robbie, is that you?" The voice I knew. It was deeper, more grown-upbut unforgettable.
"It's me," I assured her.
"Well, how have you been?" she asked with a smile in her voice.
"Fine, Becky. How about you?"
We reminiscedsmall talk among long-lost friends trying to fold 20 years into a five-minute phone conversation.
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"I have such happy memories of that summer," Becky said at last. "I am so touched you remembered. I only wish I could be there to see you because you really made my year."
"But, Becky," I said smiling at the girl across the counter, "I'm looking at you right now."
"Now, don't you go and fall in love with my daughter," she teased.
My cheeks flushed bright red. I was 11 again.
Robert Tate Miller
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Innocence Abroad
Fate loves the fearless.
James Russell Lowell
My wife prepared breakfast as I stood at the dining room window gazing beyond a sentinel row of palm trees at the early morning sun forcing its rays through wisps of Texas fog. Our three-year-old daughter, Becky, was in the backyard, her attention riveted to the antics of a pair of quarreling blue jays.
Suddenly I snapped to attention. An awesome creature, ugly and misshapen, was meandering up the alley. In the hazy light of the early morning, it appeared like a monster out of the past. It was a huge thing, armed with long, curving tusks; down its high, arched back ran a great ridge, crowned with stiff bristles. I realized suddenly what it was: a pugnacious javelina, the fierce, wild hog of the Southwest plains country.
I took no time to ponder where it came from or how it had managed to penetrate a thickly populated residential section, for it was progressing slowly, grunting, sniffing
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and rooting with its long snout as it ambled along. I started to shout to Becky to run inside, but I was too late. She and the animal had sighted each other simultaneously. The grunting shifted to a low, menacing rumble. The tip of the long nose was an inch from the ground, gleaming button eyes were fastened on my daughter, the beast's four stubby legs were braced to charge.
I started to dash upstairs for a gun, but I knew I could never get it in time. As though hypnotized, I stared at the drama that was unfolding just a few yards away.
Becky approached the javelina, hands outstretched, making gurgling childish sounds as she advanced. The hog stood its ground, its grunts even more threatening. I looked at those fearsome tusks and the sharp even teethone slash could lay a man open.
I started to call to my wife, but something held me mute. If she should look out the window and scream, a chain reaction might be touched off that could end in terrible tragedy.
Becky, who had been only a few steps away from the beast when they first sighted each other, closed the distance between them with calm deliberation. With hands still outstretched, she reached the side of the beast. One small hand went up to a tough, bristly ear and scratched it. The deep-throated rumblings gradually turned into a gravely, almost purring sound. I thought irrelevantly of the idling of a powerful motor. The top of the round, wet nose was gently nudging against Becky's ankle. Unbelievably, the animal seemed to be enjoying the attention he was receiving, and my pulse beat slowly dropped to normal. Some perception within the ugly creature must have told him that he had nothing to fear from this tiny child.
The encounter ended as abruptly as it began. Becky suddenly turned away and came toward the house. The