Two Word Challenge - Chipped Teacup

Chipped Teacup - Two Word Challenge

Chipped Teacup

The chipped teacup sat in the middle of the top shelf of the china cabinet, with the chip turned for all to see. I looked at it, old, chipped and scratched, and wondered why it was among all the other fancy china and crystal that graced the cabinet. It looked so out of place.

I felt funny asking about it as it was my first visit to my future in-laws home and I did want to get along with them, since I planned on spending the rest of my life with their son. I suddenly realized that I wasn't the only one looking at the teacup and that my future mother-in-law had joined me. Uh-oh, I thought, now I'll either have to pretend that I was admiring something else or spit out what I'd been wondering about as I wasn't good at pretending.

For a minute or so, we just stood there. Then she asked me if I'd been looking at the teacup.
Busted. I replied that yes, I had and was wondering about it. She told me a story that to this day, I'll never forget.

The teacup had originally been part of a set of china that was supposed to make the trip from overseas with her mother, then a girl of thirteen, who was coming to America to work and hopefully, send money home to her family across the ocean. She arrived in America safely and even at that young age, had to find a room and a place to work, which she did as she really had no other choice.

She worked in a factory seven days a week, but barely made enough money to pay her room and board and get a little to eat. There wasn't any money left to send home and America wasn't what she'd heard back home either. There weren't rich people everywhere and most of the people she met were in the same shape as she was, barely getting by.

Not knowing what to do and also knowing she couldn't just go home, she stopped writing home and just worked and worked, never getting ahead. Finally, she noticed a shop that bought things nearby when she walked to work each day. She knew that she still had the set of china and even though her mother had told her to keep it for her wedding someday, she thought if she could sell it, she'd be able to send something home to her parents, brothers and sisters. Hunger was more important than china any day.

She carefully unpacked the china that night and got it ready to take to the shop. She'd take it after work the next day. She smiled at the pretty pattern on it and it reminded her of her old home, but she knew she needed to sell it for her family back there, though she'd never tell them that she did.

The next night, she took the china in a wagon that she borrowed from a friend and pulled it down the street to the little shop she'd seen. The owner was nice, and liked the china and while looking it over, found one cup with a chip in it. A teacup.

He told her he'd buy the rest of the set, but the chipped teacup he'd never be able to sell with the set and told her that he couldn't take that. He gave her enough money for the rest of the set so that she could send her family a good bit of money. She also got to take the chipped teacup back to her room.

That night, she sat and wrote her parents a letter about how great it was in America and how she'd saved up some money to send them. She enclosed all of the money that the man had paid her and sent off the letter the next day. The chipped teacup she kept.

A month or so later, a letter from her mother and father came. They told her how the money she'd sent would be enough to feed them all for many months and how her little brother had been very sick and they'd been able to take him to the doctor where he'd received medicine that made him well. They'd also been able to put some money aside for plants and a cow for the spring, so they'd be all set for the following year.

She sat and cried, holding the chipped teacup and missing them all so much. She also cried out of happiness for the china that would have been almost worthless, money-wise, where she'd come from, had bought her family so much in her new home.

She never made it back to see her parents again, but she did keep that chipped teacup for the rest of her long and happy life, keeping it always in the best place in the house. In time, it was passed down to her daugher and it would be passed down eventually to the next in line.

Years later, when I look at the chipped teacup sitting in my own china cabinet, chip-faced forward, and tell the old story to my own daughter, I think of that little thirteen year old brave girl and know that the chipped teacup will always be passed down and cherished in our family.

mn - 2007