The following story is from my latest book “Stories of Us.” It was written by Jack Bittner. “Stories of Us” is available at The Framery of Vermont and Stone House Antiques Center.
Happy Birthday
Each year on our little subsistence farm in southern New Hampshire, we planted a cash crop of one kind or another. One year it was sweet corn for a canning factory in Westminster, Vt. Another year it was cucumbers for the pickle makers in Deerfield, Mass. We also tried strawberries, Indian flint corn, squash, and other assorted garden vegetables for roadside sales.
Whatever the crop and whatever the season, my brothers, sisters, and I spent long, weary hours in the fields planting, weeding, hoeing, and harvesting by hand.
We had just one horse at the time, Chub, strong enough to work the light, sandy, river-bottom soil. He could pull a planter or the one-row cultivator with ease. Because of his tendency to wander along the way, it was required that he be led up and down each row in the hot, dusty field. This was usually my job.
I had to be careful at all times not to let Chub step on my bare feet. With every step his massive, iron-shod hooves plopped into the loose, dusty earth, plop, plop, plop, close beside me, plop, plop, plop.
I spent most of my 10th birthday on Aug. 16, 1934, leading the horse in our biggest corn field. At every break, I eagerly, but furtively, watched for signs of preparation or hint of any observance of my birthday. No mention or evidence of preparation of my birthday was made by anyone. No aroma of a cake baking or the rustle of wrapping paper. I was so accustomed to disappointment and lack of emotional or sentimental attention that I was resigned to the thought that everyone had forgotten.
When we went in for supper, I warily watched and looked about for some last sign or hint that I was remembered. Nothing was seen or heard, but I was not shaken or devastated, just disappointed.
During the meal, some mention was made that it was my birthday, and everyone wished me a “happy birthday.” My mother left the table and came back to give me a quarter. A bright, shiny, new quarter. I was delighted with the gift, and with the fact my birthday had not been totally forgotten at all.
After supper, my father said, “Come on Jack. We have to finish cultivating that field before dark.” My mother said, “You better give me the quarter so you don’t lose it.” To me that was a contradiction. I recalled the year before, when I had been given six baby chicks that were runts, deformed, or sickly, to take care of, in hopes some of them might survive.
With much attention and loving care, all of them survived. One day when they were 12 weeks old, Steve Sczbak, a handsome Polish chicken buyer from Springfield, Mass., came by. After buying my parents’ flock, he agreed to buy my six little ones for $3. He sensed what it meant to me. He praised their good looks, and told me how glad he was to have them. He solemnly counted three crisp, clean, $1 bills into my trembling hand. After he left, my mother said to me, “You better let me keep the money so you don’t lose it.” I understood how badly they needed the money. It was almost a day’s pay in those days. They had furnished the chicks, the feed, and the housing, so I didn’t really resent it, but I never saw the money again.
But I felt differently about my quarter. It was a birthday present. It was mine, and I wasn’t about to chance giving it up. I defiantly slipped it into my pocket as I slowly walked out to resume the disagreeable task of leading the horse.
Several times I took it out to examine its size and its brilliant silver luster. I would trace my fingers over George Washington’s bold profile, and try to discern the eagle’s embracing wings on the reverse. Soon after each such examination, I made the sad discovery that I had lost my quarter. I must have dropped it when I had suddenly jumped aside to avoid Chub’s hoof as it came down too close. I told my father, and he let me release the horse and go looking for it. Frantically I raced down the row looking for the glint of my quarter. The sinking realization came to me that it could never be found in the loose dry soil. I ran up and down the row several times, but finally had to go back to cultivating.