On his seventh birthday, Andrew sat beneath this same old oak tree. In his mind’s eye, he could even now clearly see Charlie, a cherub faced five-year-old, extending his small hand toward his brother and saying, “For your birthday, Andrew. I want you to have it.”
In the hand was a small, unpainted wooden soldier, one whittled from a scrap of pine by Old Davey, the head groom of Papa’s fine stable. Compared to the mechanical tin clown or the horsehair rocking horse up in their nursery, it was a poor sort of toy, but Andrew had coveted it. Still, he resisted temptation.
“Thank you, Charlie,” he said. “But I can’t take it away from you. Old Davey gave it to you.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the rattle of an old buggy coming up the road. The horse was sturdy but unremarkable, while the buggy was out-and-out shabby, nothing like the smart surrey or the four-in-hand drag or any of the other fine carriages owned by the Masterses. This particular buggy was not unknown to the boys, for they had seen it only a week before. Andrew smiled, soon recognizing the two men in the buggy as those who had given them four peppermint sticks and a dozen pieces of taffy on that occasion. Mama did not approve of this sort of cheap candy, and the brothers had delighted in secretly consuming these confections not an hour before their supper.
“Hello, boys!” the driver called, pulling up. “Ain’t ya lookin’ fine today.” Andrew could not return the compliment. The driver, who had told them his name was Jack, was a short man whose dark hair curled wildly around the edges of his cap. His bushy eyebrows put Andrew in mind of a caterpillar race. One of his eyeteeth was missing, and the remainder of his smile was tobacco stained. The man sitting next to him appeared to be a stretched out version of the driver, tall and thin, but with the same brows and fewer teeth. Jack introduced him as Phil. “Me and Phil is brothers, jest like you two. C’mon and join us, we’re gonna buy us some fireworks!”
As Independence Day was only three days away, Charlie thought this would be a splendid adventure. Andrew hesitated. “I’ll ask Mama,” he said.
The men laughed. “Yer a mama’s boy, ain’t ya?” the thin one chided.
“Come on,” Charlie urged him. “It will be a secret, just between us two!”
Andrew, who could only resist so much temptation in one day, gave in to this one. The men helped the boys up into the dusty conveyance, and crowded in after them. Andrew sat between the men, while Phil held Charlie awkwardly on his lap. They were hardly settled when Jack snapped the reins. The buggy lurched forward and they traveled at a quick pace down the road.
Andrew began to regret his decision almost immediately. The buggy was not well-sprung, and its jolting motion jarred his teeth. Phil and Jack, he thought, had not bathed in weeks. When they reached the road that would take them a short distance into town, Jack turned the wrong way. Andrew told him so, which brought a sharp look from Phil, but Jack merely explained that if they bought the fireworks in a place where his family was so well-known, someone would likely tell his father all about it. Imagining his father in an angry mood was enough to curtail further protest from Andrew.
The road smoothed a little, and Jack began to sing certain songs, those which he undoubtedly knew to be of a nature guaranteed to intrigue small, well-mannered boys, and Andrew and Charlie eagerly took up the task of learning the melodies and (most especially) the lyrics of these odes to bodily functions. They had never heard the like before, not even from Old Davey, whose sporadic bouts of cursing they had been thrilled to overhear on a few memorable occasions.
After a time, though, Andrew’s enthusiasm waned and he began to look around him. He was unfamiliar with his surroundings, and began to worry that they had been gone too long. Phil, he noticed, was eyeing him in an unfriendly fashion.
Jack seemed to notice this, too, and said, “Nearly there, Phil. Don’t git yerself huffed.”
Phil grunted and sat back.
“Lookit here,” Jack said, pointing ahead. “There’s the little town we been lookin’ for. Firecrackers’ll be sold at a place jest on t’other side of town.”
It was not much of a town, and Andrew thought he would be happy to be finished with their mission and on his way home again. To his surprise, though, Jack halted the buggy, pulling up across the street from a small store.
“Andy,” Jack said, “Charlie here says it’s yer birthday. Z’at true?”
Andrew nodded.
“Well, I think Mr. Andy here should get something special, then, don’t you agree, Phil?”
“Sure,” Phil said.
Jack reached into one of his pockets and produced a small coin purse, and from this, a quarter. He handed the coin to Andrew and said, “Go on, there’s a store right over there. Spend it on anything you like. Two bits, jest for yerself.”
One might think that a child raised among the luxuries of the Masters household might snub a mere twenty-five cents, but it was, in fact, the first coin that had ever been given to Andrew. Nothing so mundane as legal tender had ever before been allowed within his grasp: all purchases, all exchanges of money, were in the hands of his elders and their employees. Never before had he enjoyed anything that might be called his own money.
He glanced up from the coin to see a look of envy on his brother’s face. He knew what he saw there well enough-from not long after the day Charlie was born, Andrew had often worn that look of envy. The fair-haired, sweet-tempered Charlie was more often in favor with his parents and the servants than was Andrew, who tended to be what Mama called “a willful child.” This look of envy, coming from Charlie, was almost exclusively limited to those rare occasions when the boys were visited by their grandparents, the only people who looked upon Andrew with anything resembling favoritism. And now, staring at the shiny coin, Charlie was positively green.
For Andrew, the quarter’s value grew.
“Go on,” Jack was saying. “We’ll wait here for you.”
“I wanna go with you,” Charlie cried as Jack helped Andrew down from the buggy.
“It’s my birthday,” Andrew said, turning his back on his brother, skipping his way to the store.
The store was of a type his parents would undoubtedly disdain. The windows were dusty, as were the tops of many of the jars and cans on the shelves. But to a boy of seven with two bits in his pocket, it was a palace of curiosities-buttons and ribbons, pencils and pipes, razors, and soap-all received Andrew’s study. He held his hands behind his back, not wanting to bring about the wrath of the palace’s king, a sturdy balding man who stood behind the counter.
The proprietor, seeing the fine quality of the material and workmanship in Andrew’s cap, shirt, knickerbockers, and silver buckled shoes (few of his adult customers wore footwear as fine as the boy’s), and noting the youth’s quiet politeness, was himself all patience and kindness. Indeed, these were hard, lean years, and it would serve no purpose to turn away any customer. This boy’s mother would be along soon, he thought, rubbing his hands together.
Andrew continued to stroll slowly through the narrow aisles. The air in the store was redolent with what he found to be an unusual mixture of scents: tobacco, leather, coffee, cheese, peppermint, and vinegar. He saved for last an examination of the jars on the counter-horehound candy, licorice, and all manner of other delights.
But each potential purchase was quickly dismissed as one other thought continued to occur to Andrew: taking home a piece of horehound candy or a peppermint would mean parting with his quarter. His lovely, shining quarter, with its full-figured Liberty seated in flowing robes, its eagle on the back. His hand closed tightly around it. No, it was his two bits.
It occurred to him that he need not spend his quarter in this store on this day, and the more he considered this idea, the better he liked it. The quarter itself was a prize, and if Charlie should nettle him, he would pull the shiny coin from his pocket and hold it before his younger brother. This thought of Charlie made him mindful of the fact that he had been in this store for quite some time now, and that Jack and Phil-especially Phil-might be angry with him for dawdling. He suddenly found himself uneasy over having left Charlie with only those two coarse men to keep him company. He bid the dismayed shopkeeper good day and left the store.