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This tear-jerking tale of brotherly self-sacrifice appears to have begun its online life in June 1998 (although the core story is much older, as you soon will find out). The text is lifted word-for-word from the 1993 best seller, Chicken Soup for the Soul, the first book in what was to become a veritable downpour of Chicken Soup drenchings: Whoever transcribed the tale for inclusion in a Life's Lessons compilation mailing trimmed off the opening as given in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Why that bit was excised is anybody's guess. Possibly its unsung cyber-editor felt those opening paragraphs positioned the tale as one of courage in general, whereas snipping that part out better presented it as an inspirational tale of the self-sacrificing love of one innocent tot for another. Chicken Soup for the Soul listed the source for this tale (which it called On Courage) as Dan Millman. Interestingly, a remarkably similar story appeared in a book published a year later: Did Kornfield (Lamott's source) get the story from Chicken Soup for the Soul? Or from another fount? Just as interestingly, a 1974 issue of a magazine distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints contained the following unattributed item: LDS high school students of the 1970s recalled viewing in class a short film that used the same storyline even though it swapped the genders of the dying and rescuing children, making the little girl the heroine. Another reader recalled reading the story set in a Vietnamese village just leveled by U.S. ground forces. An American medic was tending two just-orphaned children, the one desperately in need of a battlefield transfusion if she was to pull through. The little boy submitted to having his blood taken to put into his sibling even though he believed this would kill him. In that version, some plausibility was gained from the presence of a language barrier, forcing the critical exchanges to take place in pidgin. Undeniably, however, the oldest sighting surfaced in a 1925 Mary Pickford film, Little Annie Rooney. Upon hearing her beloved brother had been shot in a gun battle, Annabelle Rooney (32-year-old Mary Pickford playing the part of a 12-year-old) rushed to the hospital to offer herself up for a life-saving transfusion, even though she thought the procedure would kill her. This touching yet true life offering has been kicking around in popular culture for more than 90 years, which means it has already enjoyed a longer life than most of the people who repeat it will. No chicken soup keeps that well, and the astute should by now be ruling out the likelihood of so many critical-condition youngsters brought back from the brink of death by transfusion from siblings who were convinced they were submitting to having all their blood drained off. Whatever the online story's source, it is typical of many glurgerific offerings: the sticky-sweet surface message masks a darker reading of the same tale. What should we make of the idea that a little boy believed his parents loved his sister far more than they loved him, and would happily throw away his life for hers?
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