lucky

end of an era

One Very Lucky Day

Thirteen year old shoulder bones highlighted his washed out graying undershirt. Richie tapped the last of the "Breakfast of Champions" into a cereal bowl. He took the empty box into the pantry, pulled open the junk drawer and removed a pair of scissors to cut off the top of the box. Reaching up for a rusted canister on the top shelf of a thickly painted cabinet, he dropped in the top with all the others. He figured by the end of the winter or early spring he would have enough box tops to get the mitt being offered but with a pun──the "catch" was that he had to send in fifty-cents along with them.

In touching the checkered flannel shirt hanging over the back of a chair he had put in front of the gas oven he had lit, he was satisfied it was dry enough. He turned off the oven and put on his shirt and tucked it into his dungarees.

There was very little milk in the ice-box. Adding evaporated milk to the bottle, he drew some water from the tap and shook the bottle vigorously. He sprinkled on the flakes—in spite of his mother's rigorous rationing──more sugar than usual to offset the flat taste of the watered-down canned milk. All through breakfast he stared wistfully at the Charley Keller outfielder's glove on the side of the box.

His brother-in-law-to-be had given him an old Babe Ruth glove last summer, but it was several sizes too big for the youngster. He had dropped several easy pop-ups in neighborhood games; his team made fun of him and told him to stop using the glove, but he had no other─besides, he loved the glove. One day during a game, however, as fate would have it, having tossed the glove on the field at the coal yard as he and his team went in for a turn at bat, a crazy Irish-Setter ran onto the field and ran off with the glove. Richie chased the sprightly dog for blocks. The lad never would have caught up with him except that the dog had paused to chew the glove to shreds.

Hurriedly Richie jammed a sandwich into his pea coat and bounded out of the house. He turned up his collar and ran all the way along Hempstead Turnpike till he reached the Belt Parkway. Reaching the ramp, he reluctantly started thumbing a ride. He was hoping that the pretty lady in the blue Chevy convertible would come along again as she usually did every Saturday morning. As a big Buick was slowing down for him, he spotted the little convertible turning onto the ramp. He quickly shook his head and turned down his thumb and shrugged. The Buick blasted its horn and coughed up speed; the angry driver shook his fist. The lad's heart skipped when the blue convertible pulled along side.

The blonde girl in a light blue car-coat flashed a smile while leaning over to unlatch the door for him. Her familiar fresh scent tingled his nostrils as he slid onto the cold leather. "How'd you do last Saturday, Richard?" she asked with the same true interest of an older sister....

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