Not quite 40 years before Jessica McClure fell into an abandoned well, another little girl, 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus, did the same thing in California. She was running a race with her sister and her cousin in a field in a suburb of Los Angeles in 1949 when she slipped into a 14-inch-wide hole and became trapped 95 feet underground. Her cries, too, could be heard from the surface and there was a mammoth rescue effort -- 132 volunteers worked for two days, while more than 5,000 people came to watch. Finally, after 49 hours, Kathy Fiscus was found dead. Apparently she died a few hours after her fall.

The story of Kathy Fiscus was worldwide news in 1949. Newspapers in London and Stockholm held their editions until her fate was known. Radio reporters brought word from the scene in hushed, dramatic voices. Thousands huddled around black-and-white sets watching KTLA-Channel 5, the first TV station in Los Angeles. But the difference between then and now was a difference of immediacy and numbers. Thousands watched for word of Kathy Fiscus, and what they saw was someone telling them what had happened, not showing them what was happening, since the perfection of the live TV remote was well in the future. Millions watched Jessica McClure, and they saw events as they happened. During the last minutes of her rescue, 3.1 million households were tuned to CNN alone. Those millions of people felt they were there. In a way, they were there. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture is worth many times that, and a live moving picture makes an emotional connection that goes deeper than logic and lasts well beyond the actual event. "Everybody in America became godfathers and godmothers of Jessica while this was going on," Ronald Reagan told Jessica's parents, Chip and Reba (Cissy) McClure, in a telephone call shortly after the rescue. He placed the call from Nancy Reagan's hospital room, where she had just told she had breast cancer. She refused to leave her room for her biopsy, she told Chip and Cissy, "until I watched her come up."

This was before correspondents reported live from the enemy capital while American bombs were falling. Before Saddam Hussein held a surreal press conference with a few of the hundreds of Americans he was holding hostage. Before the nation watched, riveted but powerless, as Los Angeles was looted and burned. Before O. J. Simpson took a slow ride in a white Bronco, and before everyone close to his case had an agent and a book contract. This was uncharted territory just a short time ago, and it was left to the McClures, Andy Glasscock, Steve Forbes, Robert O'Donnell and the besieged city of Midland, Tex., to figure out how to handle it.

It was a lot to handle. Suddenly everyone wanted to give things to Jessica. She spent 36 days in Midland Memorial Hospital, undergoing six surgeries for severe forehead and right-foot wounds, eventually having her smallest toe removed, and all her doctors -- the pediatricians, general practitioners, vascular surgeons and orthopedic surgeons -- donated their time. The rest of her bill, about $50,000, was paid by anonymous donors. During her stay, the hospital received an average of 50 calls an hour. Her room, the hallway outside her room and, eventually, the entire hospital, were filled with stuffed bears, elephants, balloons, flowers and baskets of fruit. The Walt Disney Company sent a 5-foot-tall Winnie the Pooh, along with an invitation to visit Disneyland as their guest. The Federal Express box that brought the bear was signed by Fedex employees at every stop along the way. Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and his wife, Matilda, sent a stuffed beaver, which is New York's official animal. When the toy store found out who it was for, they donated a Garfield the Cat.

A well-wisher in Vienna sent a chocolate cake. Someone closer to home shipped Jessica a custom-made water bed. A Shar-Pei puppy, which she named Shirley, was also a gift. She received enough clothing to last until she was 5. She was invited to the Vatican, for an audience with the Pope, to throw out the first ball at the Texas Rangers' home opener, and to Washington to be the Grand Marshal of the National Independence Day Parade.

Money poured into a trust fund established for her at a Midland bank, an account that today is estimated to be worth more than $700,000 by people close to the family, although the McClures have never officially released a figure. The Reagans sent an undisclosed amount. Jeanne Yate's third-grade class in Wellston, Okla., sold birdseed for 50 cents a bag and sent Jessica $421. Chip McClure tried to keep a computerized list of all the mail, and eventually it exceeded 60,000 names.

While Jessica was still in the hospital, Midland held a parade, to honor her and all the people who helped rescue her. They called it "A Salute to Jessica's Heroes." Between 35,000 and 40,000 people lined the eight blocks of downtown -- more than one-third of the city's population. Past her window rode the 400-plus people who had a part in her rescue. No one, it seems, was left out. O'Donnell rode with Forbes on top of the ambulance that brought Jessica to the hospital. Cherry pickers from the telephone company carried the directory assistance workers who fielded the onslaught of calls to the city. The drilling rig that first dug the parallel shaft was on display in the parade, as were the thermal-imaging camera used to watch Jessica while she was in the hole, and the vibraphone used to listen to her. A flatbed truck followed, filled to overflowing with stuffed animals. At a ceremony after the parade, the McClures gave autographed pictures to all 400 volunteers, and let them take their pick from the truckload of toys. Robert chose a bear for Casey and a smaller stuffed animal for Chance.