One Went Right

By WALTER SHAPIRO

Much of the time the world beyond our immediate experience seems like a vague intrusion, a series of flickering images we can turn off at will. Then there are times when the outside world is too much with us, when external events take on emotional freight, not only because of what they are but also because of what they might portend. Last week was one of those times.

One after another, like a series of timed charges, major events detonated through the week. Each seemed to end with a disquieting question mark, because each suggested powers beyond personal control: unhinged economic forces, irrational foreign crises, undetected illness. The stock market went into a panicked free fall. Iran launched a Chinese-made missile from Iraqi territory that hit a Kuwaiti tanker that was flying the U.S. flag in the Persian Gulf to protect, in part, Japanese oil supplies. Amid this babble of conflicting national interests, any American action, however justified, promised to inflame unfathomable hatreds. And the man with the responsibility for authorizing any retaliation was shouldering a more personal but no less worrisome burden as his wife entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for a biopsy and then a modified radical mastectomy. Nancy Reagan's plucky words on initially hearing of the cancer threat -- "I guess it's my turn" -- only underscored the randomness of life's lottery.

But another story was playing itself out last week as well, one that at first tugged only lightly at the fringes of the nation's attention, then seized it with surprising force as it inched toward a climax. For more than two days late in the week, Americans were gripped by the plight of little Jessica McClure, 18 months young, who tumbled down a well while playing in her aunt's backyard. Trapped underground for 58 desperate hours, the child seemed doomed. Yet a down-but-determined West Texas town rallied round and literally clawed its way to her rescue. The drama offered the ultimate counterpoint: the dark currents of world events shared the screen with the whimpers of a helpless toddler crying out for "Mommy."

William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" speaks of seeing the world in a grain of sand. Just so did Jessica McClure, bravely humming verses from a Winnie-the-Pooh song, tap the wellsprings of humanity. In a confusing week, it was the plight of this tiny girl that was most readily comprehensible, and best conveyed Blake's message that small things, and the life of an individual, are what really matter.

The ordeal began with every parent's nightmare: small children, unguarded for a few moments, tumble into tragedy. Jessica's teenage parents Chip, 18, and Reba, 17, live in a blue-collar section of Midland (pop. 100,000), a drilling center hard hit by the oil slump. Chip McClure is a house painter, and Reba helped baby-sit at the home of her sister-in-law Donna Johnson. It is still unclear how Jessica managed to fall through the 8-in. opening, partly covered only by a flowerpot, in the Johnson backyard. But suddenly last Wednesday she was wedged in a dogleg in the shaft, 22 ft. beneath the surface.

Rescue efforts were under way long before the story seeped into the national consciousness. A microphone dropped into the well quickly helped establish that Jessica was alive and conscious. The initial rescue plan seemed arduous but achievable: drill a shaft parallel to the one in which Jessica was trapped, then tunnel across and extricate her. Midland may have taken some heavy punches lately, but it is a town that knows how to drill. By Wednesday night, ten hours after Jessica's tumble, the groundhogs had burrowed to within 2 ft. of the frightened child. Came the first estimate of salvation: three more hours' drilling and the rescuers would burst through.

Then events turned disheartening: the diggers hit a tough limestone outcropping that snapped off expensive diamond-tipped drill bits as if they were pencil points. Underground, more than two dozen volunteers shared round- the-clock shifts, digging with cumbersome 30-lb. jackhammers in the cramped 20-in.-across rescue tunnel. But not until 4 a.m. Friday, more than 40 hours after Jessica fell, did the crew break through to the well shaft in which she was trapped. Even then, the opening was only a 2-in. hole, just wide enough to admit light and hope.

Friday was a day that brought a bumper crop of trouble. The nation awoke to discover that a U.S.-flagged tanker, Sea Isle City, had been hit by a missile, almost certainly Iranian, in Kuwaiti waters. In Midland that morning, a police spokesman was unable to predict how long it would take to reach Jessica.

At noon Presidential Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater surprised reporters with the announcement of Nancy Reagan's upcoming hospitalization, and once again the word cancer threw a pall over the White House. The lunchtime news from Midland provided little relief from the gloom: the rescue crew might not reach Jessica before dark. How much longer could the little girl hold out?

After a day in which the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted by a record 100-plus points, the stock market's 4 p.m. closing bell was like a dirge. The report from Midland: still inches away.

The evening news featured pictures of harried men peering into a silent hole. Below the surface, rescuers used a high-pressure water drill to cut through the last barrier of rock. Then, at nearly 8 p.m. Central Time, all three networks switched to Midland. The image endures: a grimy paramedic emerging from the rescue shaft cradling a bundle in his arms -- Jessica alive, swaddling bandages hiding all but her nose, her pitifully battered arms, her frightened eyes and wisps of blond hair.

The child's right foot was badly injured, though on Saturday doctors were optimistic about not having to amputate, and she may require cosmetic surgery to repair damage to her forehead. Withal, it was a story with that rarest of endings: a happy one. Through Jessica, the nation had briefly been transported back to a time when anything seemed possible with enough prayer and hard, selfless, backbreaking work. In a messy and maddening world, savor the memory.