One summer my Great Aunt Charity Ann had a visitor. She was a distant relative who claimed she could see your future by reading the palms of your hands – Charge .25 cents. A fortune teller in our community! My friend Kay and I, at ten and eleven years old, did not know what to think of that. Most people wouldn’t go around her, but one day curiosity got the better of us. And there we sat in my great aunt’s living room with a few pennies in our pockets. Ms. Darcy was not at all what we had expected. There was no turban with stars and moon print on it wrapped around her head and no crystal ball. She looked like someone’s nice grandmother. She was old and walked with a cane. Her hair was very white. Black rimmed glasses framed her wise blue eyes. When Ms. Darcy smiled and spoke to us in her soft voice we liked her right away. “Hmmm,” she said, while studying the palms of our hands. “I can see that you are good girls. Now continue to obey your parents and help them. So that you may live long and prosper and you may find good fortune and be rich.” Ms. Darcy said some other stuff, but we didn’t remember what it was. Only that we would find good fortune and be rich. Telling our fortunes was free and we were so happy.
Then Ms. Darcy noticed the ugly seed wart on my right forefinger. She said that she would remove it for a penny. I gave her a penny. She held it to her lips and spoke some words. Then she rubbed the penny on my wart. As she slipped the coin into her pocket she said, “If you keep watch, the wart won’t leave.” For two weeks I checked the wart every morning and several more times during the day. When I forgot about the wart, it was gone. She was right about my wart, so surely Kay and I would find our good fortunes and be rich. But when, where, and how?
School started pretty soon and we were very busy all winter. Kay and I forgot all about finding our fortunes and being rich. To be continued…
