The job wasn’t much, but John hadn’t expected it. Much was beyond the ken of any Farlow, and why should he have more? He’d noticed a small ad in the paper saying that such and such a company needed a stock boy so that’s when he’d applied. They were gracious enough to look at a pale, six-foot kid, who had barely seen fifteen, and give him the job; now the butterflies and what ifs took over.

 “What if they started asking about his parents?”

 “What if grandad said no?” (John had walked down there without any specific permission and grandad, being a famous old fire-breathing Baptist, may not allow John to work in a store that was thinking about opening on Sundays.)

 “What if he was as awkward as he feared and broke things?” People would get mad, the old folks would be shamed, and he would further stain a soiled family name.  Pride and right were more important to grandad than any job. John suspected the old man would worry that patched overalls weren’t the kind of uniform  a slick store wanted from its employees or maybe he fretted that a man and his son were cut from the same lazy cloth.

 But those fears didn’t carry the day. The old man okayed the play with a sour look (then winked at grandma behind the boy’s back. No use increasing a pride that was already too well developed as far as he was concerned). John said the job started next day after school and he would do what work around the house needed done after he got home at seven. He knew the stipulation had always been that his real work didn’t suffer.

 He walked out of the kitchen and ran into a flurry of younger brothers.

 “What’d he say?”

 “All the way in town John?”

 “Can I go?” This from the littlest and bravest of them. He didn’t want to ride coattails. He thought that whatever someone else got to do he should be able to also. Leaving him behind wasn’t only injustice, it was an appeal to fight. John got down on a knee, placed one hand on the younger boy’s shoulder and smiled into the eyes that were now level with his.

 “Jesse, you would be better at this than any of us, but you may be too little to see over the counter yet. Maybe if grandad lets you come out some day, you can help me tote a few bags out to cars.” His brother maintained a pout for a few more seconds and then squared his shoulders like the little man he was. A sad statement that he had to be a man at five years old, but he had already seen too much not to be.

 John walked to his clothes box in the corner of the living room and took off the lid. Everything in grandma’s house was squared up in case company came over, and the boys had long learned to be tidy about their few belongings. He took out a white shirt, it was required by the manager, and a newer pair of overalls. These hadn’t been patched yet, though the knees were all but threads. The straps were shiny from where he hung his hands and the stitches had begun to unravel from the chest pocket, but they were the best he had. Grandad would have liked to buy the boys newer clothes to wear. He worried every dime to keep them fed and decent. Funds just weren’t there to buy a new set of clothes every season and grandma was forced to make their shirts from ones that grandad wore first. By the time they made it to Jesse there was only just enough cloth left.

 The other boys boxes were lined up in the corner along the wall between the pleather couch and the armchair that grandad used. His reading light was there in front of the boxes to hide them from company eyes. The folks would help out family, but it wouldn’t do to be bragging about it by having the kid’s things out where any stranger could know it. Pride came before destruction after all, and the deed was supposed to be its own reward.

 With the clothes in hand for the next day’s beginning, John replaced the box, and went to the room he shared with his brothers. A few hours reading or listening to the radio remained until bed time. So he picked a book, turned the room’s light off, and went to read it to the younger boys. Tomorrow was  now well in hand. He might get nervous during the day at school, but not because he wasn’t prepared. New experiences had a way of dredging up butterflies; No way to keep them down when you lived life. At least that was one of grandad’s favorite phrases. John would enjoy the familiar comforts of home tonight and forget that he must start an adult’s journey tomorrow.

 After a day glazing at muddled words in text books, the school buzzer sounded like a knell. John was never happy being the oldest because that meant you had to do it first. The other boys knew what was coming because John had already done it, but to him it was all a surprise. School was only just up from the store on Oakleaf, so he hesitated down the street until he saw himself opening the door. Mr. Tryall was in the office, high up above everybody else, and he motioned John inside. He was given a long white apron that he had to keep clean and use every day. Mr. Tryall told him how to bag the cans on bottom and the breakables on top; remember to put the breakables on top. He was to be paid every Saturday afternoon and he could have it as a check or they would take the money out of the cash drawer. He was not allowed to take food from the store unless he told Mr. Tryall about it. It would be rung up to be deducted from his pay each week. Don’t try to sneak any food past me boy.

 “Any questions? Boy have you been listening? Any questions, I said.”

 John looked at Mr. Tryall and there was a fog between them. He hadn’t thought about the pay much. He just wanted some work. He thought maybe grandma would be able to buy there for a little less when he got the job. Now that he was going to be paid seventy five cents an hour he was stuck to the ground.

 “Can I get it in quarters?”

 “Can you get what in quarters boy? You mean your pay? I don’t care how you get  it.”

 “Thank you sir.”

 John turned to open the office door and Mr. Tryall stopped him with a question.

 “Boy why do you want to be paid in quarters?

 John turned back around and hoped he hadn’t been wrong to ask. All his life he had been saying it wrong and now he didn’t want to lose this job.

 “I have three brothers sir. It would be easier to split up if I had it in quarters.”