A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman''s Soul

  After a long silence, he said to me, "I know what's going to happen. You're going to leave us here, aren't you?"

  "No, we're not. We're going to Disney World now, and then tonight, we're going home."

  "And do I get to go back to the Mullins?" The Mullins were his foster parents, who had shown this often very difficult boy a great deal of love.

  "Yes, you'll go back to the Mullins. I bet they'll be waiting at the airport when we land."

  "Right." He didn't believe me about this, either.

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  The Magic Kingdom worked its magic. All the kids got Mickey Mouse ears, rode every ride once and many of them twice, stuffed themselves with quite unhealthy food, talked to Snow White and Minnie Mouse and all the other characters, clapped loudly at all the shows, and in general had a perfect day. It was exhausting for the adults, trying to keep track of our overexcited charges, but we didn't lose a single child. Not even Corby, who began to smile a little the second time he went through ''It's a Small World" and who loved the Haunted Mansion almost as much as I did.

  As darkness began to fall over the Magic Kingdom, we rounded up the children in our groups and gave each child a twenty-dollar bill. This was for buying souvenirs in the Main Street gift shops, so that each child could have a personal reminder of this special day.

  But this was where I saw a new kind of magic. First the little girl with braids said to me, "I want to buy something for my brother because he didn't get to come. What do you think he'd like?" I helped her find a Mickey Mouse hat and yo-yo. Then another child asked for help in picking a gift for "this girl in my foster home who really wanted to come but she couldn't." And another wanted to purchase a gift for the teacher who had given him extra help all year.

  So it went, one child after another. My eyes blurred with tears as each of these childrenchildren who had been chosen for this trip because they came from impoverished, traumatic backgroundssearched for the right gift for someone who had been left behind. Given a little money to spend as they chose, they spent it on others.

  Finally, there was Corby.

  "Are we really going home?" he asked me once more, but this time he was smiling and confident that he knew the answer.

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  "We're really, really going home," I told him.

  "In that case," he said, "I'm going to buy presents for the Mullins."

  I told him I thought that was a lovely idea and walked away before he saw me cry.

  Teresa Pitman

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  Safe-Keeping

  "I'm so glad you're coming to live with us, Aunt Emma," twelve-year-old Jane said as she placed a hand-knitted bunting into Emma's trunk of keepsakes. Jane and her mother were helping Aunt Emma pack in preparation for her move. Mama had gone downstairs to box up Aunt Emma's kitchen, leaving Jane upstairs to help Emma pack her sentimental items.

  Jane stopped what she was doing for a minute and gazed out the open window of Emma's two-story farmhouse. She saw the roof of her own home, which stood at the far end of the cornfield. The wind carried the pounding of her father's hammer as he proudly finished the construction of additions to their new home, complete with extra rooms for Emma.

  Emma sighed. "This old house is too big for me to ramble around in now that I'm all alone."

  Young Jane's face reflected the anguish she saw on Emma's. It was still hard to believe Emma's husband and four children wouldn't come racing up the steps again. There were gone forever, all dying in one week during the last year's diphtheria epidemic.

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  Jane missed Emma's children more than anyone guessed. They had been like brothers and sisters to her. As an only child, she had spent most of her life ganging up with the two girls to fend off their two older, pesky brothers. Now, she usually cried as she walked home through the corn rows that had once been paths linking their lives.

  "I'm really going to miss this old place, though." Emma waved her hand toward the faded wallpaper and worn woodwork. "This is the only home I've known since we left the old country."

  Her eyes filled with tears as she hugged a baby quilt to her chest before placing it in the trunk.

  "Tell me again about leaving Ireland with Mama and Papa," Jane coaxed, hoping to see Emma's eyes dance as usual when she recalled that adventure.

  "You've heard that story a hundred times," Emma said, as she eased into the rocking chair with a bundle of children's clothes in her lap.

  "But I love it!" Jane begged. "Tell me again about Mama and Papa then."

  While she never gave much thought to having been adopted, Jane sometimes wondered whether that explained her relentless yearning for old family stories. She sat on the braided rug at the foot of the rocker and listened.

  "Well, your mother and I were best friendslike sistersall our lives."

  Jane blurted in on cue, "That's why I call you Aunt, even though we're not related!"

  Emma winked and smiled.

  The truth was, next to Mama and Papa, Jane loved Emma more than anyone else in the world.

  "So, of course, then our husbands became best friends," Emma continued.

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  "We did everything together, the four of us. We danced . . ." Emma's voice trailed off and her head swayed slightly, as if in time with the music. Then her eyes danced, too.

  "We shared everything, good times and bad. Your mama was there at every one of our children's births, even though she could never give birth to a child of her own." Emma took her usual pause and shook her head slowly.

  "There was never a woman who wanted or deserved a child more than your mama did. She wanted a baby more than anything else on earth."

  "I know," Jane whispered, then beamed. "That's why I'm so glad she got me! She calls me her special gift."

  Emma took a deep breath. "So when my husband, Patrick, had a chance to come to a Wisconsin farm in America, it didn't take long to decide your folks would come along, too. Like I said, we shared everything."

  Emma rocked as she recounted the difficult journey. The storm at sea had tossed the ship for weeks longer than expected. All the passengers got sick.

  "Especially me," Emma moaned. "I was expecting our fifth child. If it hadn't been for your mama, I wouldn't have survived that trip. Patrick and the others were far too sick to care for me. I could tell I was about to lose the baby." She stopped to blot tears with the child's shirt she was holding. "Your mother left her own sick bed to help me . . ." Her voice trailed off again. ''She was an angel. If it hadn't been for her, both the baby and I would have died, then and there."

  Jane rested her head on Emma's lap. "I'm so glad you made it. My life wouldn't have been the same without you."

  Jane looked up into Emma's face. She knew that this was the part of the story that was hard for Emma to

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  repeat, so Jane said it for her. "Thanks to Mama, that baby girl was born on that old ship, all pink and pretty!" Both their faces lit upthen faded when Jane added, "But the next day your baby went to live with the angels."

  Emma only nodded, then abruptly stood and began placing the items on her lap into the trunk of treasures. Without speaking, she went to a bureau drawer and began sorting more children's clothes. Some worn items were put in a wooden crate. Others she placed reverently into the trunk.

  The old wooden stairs creaked as Mama came up from the kitchen, took Jane's hand, and sat next to her on the bed.

  From the bottom drawer, Emma retrieved a bundle wrapped in white linen and tied with a satin bow. She took it to the bed and unwrapped it slowly. One by one, she laid the tiny white garments on the bedspread.

  "These are the baptism gowns I made for each of my babies before they were born," she said softly.

  Mama squeezed Jane's hand.

  Emma's fingers trembled as she smoothed the fabric and straightened the lace on each delicate gown. I stitched each one by hand and crocheted the trim myself."

  Mama reached for Emma's hand and stroked
it, as if they both knew now was the time to tell me the whole story.

  Emma picked up the gowns one at a time. I was to give them to my children to keep when they grew up." She could barely speak. "This one was Colin's. This one was Shane's. This was Kathleen's. This was Margaret's."

  Her tears fell onto the fifth one as she handed it to Jane. "And this one was yours."

  Thoughts, memories and old stories tumbled wildly in Jane's head. She stared into her mama's eyes before turning back to Emma.

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  "What are you saying, Aunt Emma?"

  Emma's voice shook. "Did you ever notice I never said that baby girl died, just that she went to live with God's angels?"

  Jane nodded. "I was that baby?" Her lips curved in a hesitant smile. "And Mama and Papa were God's angels on earth!"

  Now Emma nodded. "It was tradition in the old country, when someone couldn't have a baby, another family would give them one of theirs. I loved your mama so much. . . . Her voice broke, so Mama finished the sentence.

  "She and Patrick gave us the greatest gift of love."

  Jane's smile widened. "Your special gift." She wrapped her arms around her mama.

  Tears flooded down Mama's cheeks as she rocked Jane in her arms. "It's as if God gave you to Papa and me for safe-keeping."

  Emma cried softly, "Oh Jane . . . I'd have lost you with the others."

  Jane fondled the baptism gown in her hands, then embraced Emma, whispering, "Thank you."

  The sound of Papa's hammering drifted through the open window. Emma smiled and her eyes danced. "Twelve years ago on that ship, I gave your folks the greatest gift. Now they share that special gift with me."

  LeAnn Thieman

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  The Best Badge of All

  When I became a Girl Scout, my mother told me this story about her scout troop and what happened to them a long time ago, during World War II:

  On a chilly Saturday morning in December, the eleven-year-old girls in our troop gathered excitedly at the bus stop, where we met our leader, Mrs. Taylor. We carried large paper sacks filled with skillets, mixing bowls and assorted groceries. On this long-awaited day, the girls of Troop 11 were going to earn our cooking badges.

  "Nothing tastes as good as the first meal you cook yourself, especially on an open fire," Mrs. Taylor smiled.

  It would take three bus transfers to get us all the way out to the wilderness. As we boarded the first, we clutched our groceries as if they were bags of jewels. Several mothers had generously contributed precious ration stamps so we could buy the ingredients for a real breakfast: pancakes with actual butter, bacon, and even some brown sugar for homemade syrup! We scouts would earn our badges in spite of hardship, in spite of

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  the war. In our minds, we were not only learning to cook in the wilderness; we were doing our parts to keep life going apace on the home front.

  We finally arrived at Papango Park, a beautiful desert refuge filled with palo verde trees, smoky mesquite bushes and massive red rock formations. As we started hiking up the dirt road into the park, a U.S. Army truck filled with German prisoners of war passed us, heading into the park.

  "There go those Germans!" one of the girls said, contemptuously. "I hate them!"

  "Why did they have to start the war?" another complained. "My dad's been gone for so long."

  We all had fathers, brothers or uncles fighting in Europe.

  Determinedly, we hiked to our campsite, and soon the bacon was sizzling in the skillets while the pancakes turned golden brown around the edges.

  The meal was a success. Mrs. Taylor's prediction about our gastronomic delight was proved correct.

  After the meal, one of the girls started a scouting song as we cleaned up our cooking site. One by one, we all joined in. Our leader started another song, and we continued wholeheartedly.

  Then, unexpectedly, we heard male voices. A beautiful tune sung in deep, strong tones filled the December air and drifted down to us.

  We looked up to see the cavernous natural shell in the red sediment boulders, called "Hole in the Rock," filled with the German prisoners and their guards.

  As they finished their song, we began another. They reciprocated with another haunting melody. We couldn't understand a word they were singing, but to our delight, we continued exchanging songs throughout the clear desert morning.

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  Finally one of the girls began to sing "Silent Night," and we all added our voices to the Christmas carol. A few moments of silence followed, and then . . . the familiar melody flowed back to us.

  "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht . . ."

  "How can they know our Christmas carols?" one of the girls asked our leader. They were our country's enemies!

  We continued to listen in awe. For an odd, unforgettable moment, the men in the cave became somebody's fathers and brothers, just as they understood us to be beloved daughters and sisters.

  In the years that followed, others probably looked at our new badges as proof that we could cook over a fire. But to us, they were reminders of the need for peace, and a very strange transformation that happened one Christmastime.

  Gerry Niskern

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  The Christmas Star

  This was my grandmother's first Christmas without Grandfather, and we had promised him before he passed away that we would make this her best Christmas ever. When my mom, dad, three sisters and I arrived at her little house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we found she had waited up all night for us to arrive from Texas. After we exchanged hugs, Donna, Karen, Kristi and I ran into the house. It did seem a little empty without Grandfather, and we knew it was up to us to make this Christmas special for her.

  Grandfather had always said that the Christmas tree was the most important decoration of all. So we immediately set to work assembling the beautiful artificial tree that was stored in Grandfather's closet. Although artificial, it was the most genuine-looking Douglas fir I had ever seen. Tucked away in the closet with the tree was a spectacular array of ornaments, many of which had been my father's when he was a little boy. As we unwrapped each one, Grandmother had a story to go along with it. My mother strung the tree with bright white lights and a red button garland; my sisters and I carefully placed the

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  ornaments on the tree; and finally, Father was given the honor of lighting the tree.

  We stepped back to admire our handiwork. To us, it looked magnificent, as beautiful as the tree in Rockefeller Center. But something was missing.

  ''Where's your star?" I asked.

  The star was my grandmother's favorite part of the tree.

  "Why, it must be here somewhere," she said, starting to sort through the boxes again. "Your grandfather always packed everything so carefully when he took the tree down."

  As we emptied box after box and found no star, my grandmother's eyes filled with tears. This was no ordinary ornament, but an elaborate golden star covered with colored jewels and blue lights that blinked on and off. Moreover, Grandfather had given it to Grandmother some fifty years ago, on their first Christmas together. Now, on her first Christmas without him, the star was gone, too.