As he passed the brand new Model-T in Mr. Hanes circular driveway he smiled. The shiny black paint cast a reflection of himself in ragged overalls, a brand new baseball in his hand. He had never owned anything new. The baseballs he’d played with had always been red from the river soil, scraped from the wack of a good stick and complaining that soon their laces would soon rip out and their insides would unravel like a gutted fish. But this baseball was brand new, white with red stitching. It would be a shame to play with it, ruin its perfect veneer. A baseball has never been something that should sit on shelf, but still, to see it become just like the others would be a pity.

He thought about how high a new ball would fly, unencumbered by the scars of life; how it would sore through the air, white and brilliant against a blue Texas sky. He imagined his older brother Frank, catching it, bare handed, since neither of them owned a baseball glove. The new red stitching would burn Frank’s hands and he would bounce it in his hands like hot potato. Then back to reality, Paul jumped the barbed-wire fence that separated the farm his family worked from the Hanes property. Down the winding red-clay road, rutted out by recent heavy rains, Paul could see Frank holding hands with Patricia, his new wife and whistling a tune they both obviously knew. Paul couldn’t hear the tune, but the couple stared up at the billowing gray clouds above them and smiled as if the clouds were filling in the harmonies as Frank whistled. Frank who was seventeen had two weeks ago taken vows with Patricia, who had just turned sixteen. Ever since then the two of them were holding hands and looking deeply into each others eyes at every waking moment. Paul wondered what it would be like to be in love, briefly then felt nauseous and deliberately started thinking about his new baseball instead.

Frank was older, but in some ways he was even more of a kid than Paul. Three years older and married, Frank stood only two inches taller than his younger brother. He had a thin wiry frame that seemed almost brittle and carried a homemade slingshot with him everywhere, that he called his “bird shooter.” Frank’s sandy blond hair shown almost red when the sun shown through it, giving him such a boyish look that their mother still referred to him as her “Little Irish Cherub” and tousled his hair when he came close enough. Just the week before, he and Paul had Indian wrestled until the backs of their overalls were grass stained. Both of them had come home with an awful case of chiggers which their mother had treated by rubbing butter over the infected areas. Frank had paraded around the backyard without a stitch on, showing off his glistening skin and the tiny red dots that were the chiggers buried under the skin in the most private of places. Their mother had rushed him inside as Paul and two younger sisters had giggled and pointed. Their father had rolled his eyes, smirked, then tried to scold him without cracking a smile.

As Paul approached he stepped none to carefully through puddles, splashing mud all over his already dingy overalls, and giving the Bluebells and Wild Verbena, that dotted the Texas plains, a shock. Frank, looking pale against the backdrop of an ever darkening sky, recognized the ruckus that was his younger brother. “Hey Paul!” he shouted. Paul couldn’t hear him because thunder erupted loudly just as his brother spoke. A second time, “Paul Dean,” he called. Paul looked up at him with white teeth showing brightly against his dark skin.

“Guess what I got,” he yelled. It was easily heard because Paul had started running and was within ten feet of his brother when the words came galloping out of his mouth. His brother didn’t answer quickly enough so Paul threw the baseball at him. Deftly Frank caught the ball then tossed it from hand to hand to relieve some of the sting.

“No way,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

“Mr. Hanes gave it to me,” Paul exclaimed excitedly.

“He just gave it you?”

“Yup, and fifteen cents for doing his books,” Paul replied.

Frank had just come from the cotton fields, his face had the red tinge of Texas soil embe dded in the crow’s feet around his eyes and the smile creases around his mouth. “Quick,” he said. “Looks like rain any minute.” As if to prove the point thunder rumbled in the distance. The giant old elm that grew along the road they were standing on provided the perfect place for a little makeshift baseball. The twos boys ran toward it at a sprint, a footrace to decide who would bat first.