2574. A fortuitous day

Lucy was at the end of her tether. She had three children’s mouths to feed; three children to clothe, three children to get to school. She had lost her job during the pandemic and never got it back.

Knitting wasn’t really Lucy’s thing but she pulled a pullover apart that was now too small for any of the children, wound the wool, and began to knit. In the end she had knitted three scarves and three sets of mittens. That should help the tiniest bit in winter. There was a little bit of wool left over. Little Eden had always wanted a doll. Lucy knitted a little doll’s costume around a small plastic bottle. Eden called her doll “Olivia”.

But now winter was setting in and not a dime was left in the kitty. Eden said, “If you want to, you can sell Olivia online.”

Would you believe! It went for twenty-four dollars within 10 minutes, along with the promise that Olivia’s little sister, Avery, would always answer Olivia’s letters if she wrote. It wasn’t an email or a text; it was a real letter with a stamp that would arrive in the mailbox. That was a lot more exciting! To cut a long story short, it took a lot of work but Lucy soon had thousands of people wanting dolls whose little sisters would answer letters. Lucy had five people working full time.

A famous online market wanted to take over Lucy’s enterprise and Lucy told them to jump into the lake. The same online market tried to do the same as Lucy and failed. After three years, Lucy’s dolls became unfashionable. They were put on forgotten shelves along with every Cabbage Patch doll in the world.

But it didn’t matter. Eden is now a qualified Marine Biologist and the other two children have equally successful careers. Lucy’s grandchildren often come to stay with their grandmother in her mansion.