WHAT LUCK!
WHAT LUCK!
A STUDY IN OPPOSITES
BY
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE EYE AND
EAR INFIRMARY
BOSTON
Issued for private distribution only by
the Massachusetts Charitable Eye
and Ear Infirmary and presented to
their friends with their compliments
1827-1920
WHAT LUCK!
Side by side on the crowded waitingbench of the Infirmary sat twowomen, each with a child at herelbow, who had been eyeing one anotherfurtively. They were silently criticizingin different languages.
“Her mourning must have cost muchmoney!” thought Mrs. Rogazrovitch, enviously,looking down at her own painfulsaffron coat.
“Cielo! What a terrible hat!” musedthe other woman, considering the purplevelvet creation that crowned the frowzylocks of her neighbor. “She can have nocare to hold the love of her husband!”And she wiped a tear with her black-borderedhandkerchief.
The eyes of little Stephanie, who stoodat the knee of Mrs. Rogazrovitch, were redand swollen; but not with weeping. Eventhe subdued light of the waiting-roommade her squint horribly, and she kepther eyes turned from the window. Thisbrought in direct line her neighbor, thepale, emaciated little boy at the otherwoman’s side. Stephanie was five; theboy seemed older. He hung his head andnever looked up. Stephanie was ready tomake friends, for she had grown tiredof the long wait, but Paolo’s mother wasin the way. She was continually bendingover the boy, smoothing his hair orkissing his forehead, in what seemed toStephanie a very silly fashion. Stephanie’smother never kissed her at all.
Gradually Stephanie edged nearer.“Hello!” she said in a stage whispersuited to the solemn occasion. “Is youreyes sick, too?”
The boy stared, gave a blinking glancefrom big, brown eyes, and nodded.
“They look red, like mine,—onlyworse,” commented Stephanie, after thisrevealing look. “But they will fix themall right, if we’re lucky. The lady saidso.” Again the boy glanced at her pitifully,but said nothing.
“Do you go to Kindergarten?” askedStephanie. The boy shook his head. “Idon’t go nowhere,” he said.
“I guess you are too big for Kindergarten.Oh, it’s the grandest place!”went on Stephanie ecstatically. “But Ihad to stop when my eyes got sick.—Whatmakes your mother wear those blackclothes? I hate black clothes.”
“My father died,” said Paolo solemnly.
“My father ran