Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul (28 page)

Kindness Is Contagious

T
he place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands. . . .

Robert M. Pirsig

When I was through with my doctor’s appointment, I made my way down to the lobby. My mom was going to pick me up, but knowing how she was always late, I realized I had some time to spare. I took a seat in the lobby and smiled politely at the three elderly people sitting near me. There were two women and one old man. Then I dug into my backpack for my library book.

Just as I started to read, one of the women struck up a loud conversation with anyone who would listen. She relayed her adventures purchasing her new eyeglasses. I smiled and listened to her tale; she had a lot to say. When her husband pulled up in front of the big glass doors, her story ended abruptly. She was gone.

The old man’s ride arrived just as quickly. His daughter pulled up in a station wagon filled with kids. She burst through the doors, saying, “Pop, are you ready?” That left just me and a beautiful gray-haired woman in the lobby.

I looked directly at her. She appeared dignified, serious and stern. I thought she might be a former English teacher because she impressed me as a person with knowledge and confidence. She intentionally avoided my direct glance, but as I lifted my book to read, I could feel her eyes carefully gazing in my direction.

Concentrating on reading was impossible. My thoughts kept shifting from the beautiful gray-haired woman to thoughts of school.

Everyone was talking about graduation. The other kids had been discussing what presents to buy for each other. My face turned red at the thought. It had never occurred to me that kids bought presents for graduation. In our home, relatives bought the graduate presents, not friends. I had no money. And I couldn’t ask my parents; they hadn’t any money either. Yet I longed to be able to share with my best friends something that would help them remember our friendships, even if it was just something little.

I prayed,
Oh God, help. What am I going to do?

My mind was still deep in thought when suddenly I heard a commotion at the entrance doors. There was an elderly woman in a wheelchair and another older woman trying to push her along. They were struggling with the heavy glass door. A bustling crowd too busy to help sidestepped them to get by, leaving them to struggle alone.

I jumped up to help them. It was only then that I realized the woman pushing the wheelchair could barely walk. I eased them through both sets of doors and helped them to the elevator. They thanked me, but I could see that they still had a monumental struggle ahead. They still needed to get on and off of the elevator, and into their doctor’s office safely.

I decided to ride with them on the elevator. I asked them which floor they needed, and then I made sure they found the correct office. They thanked me again. I told them it was my pleasure, and I really meant it. I was truly happy to help them.

I was on my way down in the elevator when I realized that I had left my backpack on the lobby chair. My backpack had nothing of value in it, just a wallet with fifty-nine cents in change, a small mirror, a comb and some tissues. But then I remembered that my precious library book was also on the chair.

The elevator could not go fast enough. As the doors opened, I held my breath, hoping against all hope that my backpack and library book were still there. I rushed into the lobby.

They were both safely on the chair, just as I had left them.

As I sat down, I could feel the beautiful gray-haired woman’s smiling eyes on me. She seemed proud for some reason. Then her taxi arrived, and, without a word, she was gone.

I decided to pick through my pennies to see if I had enough money to buy a package of peanuts at the little pharmacy. I opened my backpack. To my surprise, tucked neatly inside my wallet was a fifty-dollar bill!

My mind flashed to the beautiful woman with the proud look in her eye. I had been kind to a stranger, and in turn, a stranger had been kind to me. I knew that God had answered my prayer.

Kristin Seuntjens

Do You Have Your Wallet?

T
he experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning: whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom.

Samuel Smiles

This is a story about a learning experience that had a big effect on the way that I live my life. The teacher in the story did not scream, assign homework, give me tests or even grade me on my work. I was taught by one of the most effective methods of teaching, one that only people with lots of love can do.

“My wallet! Where is it?” were my first words when I found out my wallet was missing. I searched my memory for a few good seconds, then realized that I had left my precious wallet at the library. Not only did I leave it at the library, but I had left it in the library’s public restroom! I distinctly remembered seeing it on the shelf as I went to the bathroom.

Because the library was now closed, I had to wait until the next morning to begin my search. When I got there the next day, all I found was a sparkling clean restroom, its counters clean and its floors shiny white. This was the first time I could remember ever hating to see a clean bathroom. As I walked out, I looked at myself in the mirror and shook my head at the forgetful fool in front of me.

Now all I could hope for was that the person who cleaned the restroom had found my wallet. So I politely approached an old lady reading her book at the front desk. I asked her if a wallet had been found in the bathroom yesterday. She didn’t answer me until she found a good place to pull herself away from her book. Then she peered at me from behind the thick black glasses parked on her nose. Letting out a quiet sigh, she slowly struggled out of her comfortable sitting position. She walked through a door and vanished for a moment. Then she came back to the desk.

“No.”

That was that. I quickly thanked her and walked off.

I wondered what
I
would do if I had found a wallet containing sixty dollars, a phone card and many other irreplaceable personal items. Finally, I painfully accepted the fact that my wallet was gone.

A week later, after I had canceled my bank card and reported my license missing, I received a mysterious package in the mail. Sure enough, it was my wallet! And most amazingly, nothing was missing! But something
was
different about it. There was a little yellow sheet of paper folded up in one of the wallet pockets that had not been there before. I slowly unfolded the paper. Into my hand fell a little copper medallion of Christ. The letter read something like this:

Always keep this medallion with you, no matter what your religion is, so that the angel that was watching over you last week will always be close.

This person didn’t even leave a return address, so I couldn’t thank whoever it was. I felt that this was an act of pure kindness that was extremely rare.

From that day on, I promised myself that whenever I am in a situation where I can help others the way that this person helped me, I will follow this example and make them as happy as I was when I opened that package!

Laksman Frank, age 16

© Lynn Johnston Productions, Inc. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

Small Talk

I
will speak to youth which can accomplish everything, precisely because it accepts no past, obeys no present and fears no future.

Rudyard Kipling

Coffee Soldiers

My mom is a first-grade teacher. It was around Christmas, and all the kids were really hyper. A little boy came into her room and put a coffee mug filled with toy soldiers on her desk. She asked what it was for, and he said, “The best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup.”

Vanessa Breeden, age 12

Belated Birthday

One day after work, I was driving my two sons home from school when Christopher asked if we could stop at a store so he could buy a birthday gift to take to school the next day. I said, “Sure, but why?” He proceeded to tell me that tomorrow would be George Washington’s birthday, and he wanted to take him a gift.

His older brother, Richard, looked at Christopher and said, “He’s dead, stupid!”

Christopher’s quick reply was, “Darn, I
knew
we should have bought it sooner!”

Lois Wooster Gopin

Turkey Day

As a teacher, I know that kindergarten has always been a place to learn important lessons. So, one day when I was visiting the school where my husband was the principal, I went to discover the place of wonder—the kindergarten class.

There, I noticed a little girl busily slapping paint on an easel. To my eye, her creation seemed to be nothing more than a big red blob. “Tell me about your painting,” I said.

The young artist stopped painting. She backed away from the easel and gave her work a careful look. Then she heaved a heavy sigh and exclaimed, “It’s a turkey!”

After what seemed an eternity, she added, “And tomorrow, I’m going to put the skin on it!”

Meg Conner

Being Tall

I wish I was tall. Taller than the basketball players, so that I could dunk the ball
so bad
. My friends tell me that I am not going to growanymore—but that’s not true. I don’t believe them. I
am
going to be taller. I just have to wait.

Bader Alshammeri, age 14

Yes, Sir!

My three-year-old brother had been told several times to get ready for bed. The last time that my mom told him, she was very insistent. His response was, “Yes, Sir!” Since he was talking to our mother (and she is a woman), we didn’t expect him to call her “Sir.”

“You would say, ‘Yes, Sir,’ to a man. I am a lady, and you would say ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ to a lady,” Mom said. To quiz him on his lesson, she then asked him, “What would you say to Daddy?”

“Yes, Sir!” came the reply.

“Then what would you say to Mama?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” he proudly answered.

“Good boy! Now what would you say to Grandma?”

He lit up and said, “Can I have a cookie?”

Elizabeth Cornish, age 12

Just a Slight Misunderstanding

In my class, when a person has a birthday, instead of being given a present, the birthday person brings a book to our class for the in-room library. On my birthday, I chose my favorite book:
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom.

I went to the bookstore and asked the lady behind the counter, “Do you carry
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom?
” Instead of looking it up on the computer as I thought she would, she said, “Just a minute,” and she disappeared. My mom and I waited and waited.

Finally she came back, and she said to me, “There’s no one there now—he must have gone home with his mother.”

I started laughing, and so did my mom. The lady was embarrassed—I guess she hadn’t heard me say the words, “Do you carry . . . ?” She had been gone that entire time, looking for a boy in the girls’ bathroom.

Melanie Hansen, age 10

A French Accent

Last summer my family and I went to the beach for a camping trip. When we arrived at the campground, all my cousins, aunts, uncles, and even my grandparents were there. After we got the tent set up, the adults started to make dinner. All of the kids went down to the river.

When we arrived, there were some older kids throwing rocks in the river, so we decided to go downriver a little. As we turned around to leave, my little ten-year-old cousin was already having a blast. He was yelling and throwing rocks in the river. My cousin has a speech problem, so he speaks in kind of a funny way.

As we were walking away, the older kids started laughing at my cousin. They were teasing him and making fun of how he talks. At first he started to get really upset, but then he turned around and asked them why they were laughing. They told him that he talked stupidly. Then he asked them, “What, haven’t you ever heard a French accent before?”

They just stood there for a minute with dumb looks on their faces and finally just walked away.

Erin Althauser, age 13

The Science Snack

In my class, we were doing an experiment on mold and how it grows. We were studying the effects that light and dark would have on the mold. For our concluding science project, we placed pieces of moist bread in various places in the room. Some were placed in the back corner, where it was darker, and others were placed in the front part of the room. We also put some pieces out on our back porch, in the sunlight.

Several hours later, we checked on our specimens to see how they were doing. The ones left on the back porch were nowhere to be found. We searched high and low, but the pieces of bread had simply disappeared.

We later found out that the kindergartners, out at recess, had seen this “feast” laid out before their very eyes. They decided that this was a snack made just for them, so they ate our science experiment—soggy bread, mold and all.

Dr. Sherry L. Meinberg

Eyelids

When I was five years old, my dad told me that I could watch a movie all night called
Eyelids
. I got excited when bedtime came. “Can I watch
Eyelids
now?” I asked. But Dad said, “Time to go to bed, son.” I reminded him of how he had told me that I could watch the movie
Eyelids
. He said, “You have to go to sleep, with your eyes closed, to be able to see your eyelids.” So ever since then, I
think
before I ask questions like that. I don’t want to be tricked again.

Joshua Cantrell, age 12

The Great Pumpkin

By the time I entered the eighth grade, I had already grown to six feet two inches tall. I was at least a foot taller than any of the other kids at my school, and I was so self-conscious that I didn’t even want to talk to anyone. I walked around sort of bent over to hide my height.

All the kids at school listened to a disk jockey on WLS called the Great Pumpkin. He had a popular program where he answered letters on the air from the kids who wrote to him. I figured that if anyone could solve my problem, it would be the Great Pumpkin. So I wrote:

Dear Great Pumpkin:

  
My name is Mark Victor Hansen, and I am in the eighth grade at Jack Benny Junior High. I am six feet two inches tall and taller than anyone else in school. What should I do?

Yours truly,
Mark Victor Hansen

A week after mailing my letter to the Great Pumpkin, I was getting ready for school while I listened to his show. Then I heard, “To Mark Victor Hansen at Jack Benny Junior High: Cut off your head and carry it to school in a paper bag!”

The rest of the week everyone at school kept asking me, “Hey, Markie, where’s your paper bag?”

Just because someone is popular like the Great Pumpkin doesn’t mean they know all the answers.

Mark Victor Hansen