large or well appointed, displayed a dazzling array of offerings. Albert and I walked between rows of shelves that held shirts and pants and underthings, fabrics and linens. We passed a counter with cosmetics, where the air was filled with a floral scent.
We turned in to another aisle, one full of hardware, and almost ran smack into a tall, lean man dressed in bib overalls and wearing a seed cap. His back was to us, but I could see that he held an alarm clock in his hands and seemed to be scrutinizing it as carefully as he might a diamond. He turned toward us suddenly. One eye was covered with a black patch, like a pirate, and the look he gave us with his good eye was mean enough to scare off a wild pig.
The store clerk who was attending to him said, “I’ll see to you boys in a minute. Just look around.”
I gladly left the clerk with the one-eyed pig scarer, and we finally came to where the shoes were on display, boxes and boxes of them, with samples sitting atop. Albert walked to a box with BUSTER BROWN printed on the side. As he picked up the sample shoe, a pleasant voice behind us said, “Can I help you?”
The woman smiling at us reminded me a little of Miss Stratton—tall, slender, blond, with a plain face. Her eyes seemed a little odd, one of them not quite tracking along with the other. But they were kind eyes, and her smile was genuine and lovely.
“Uh . . .” Albert said. “We . . . uh . . .”
“Yes?” she encouraged him.
Albert looked at the floor and tried again. “W-we . . . uh . . . w-we . . . uh . . .”
It hit me. Whatever the story Albert had intended to tell her, he couldn’t do it. I didn’t think it was because he lacked courage. Hell, he’d faced down Clyde Brickman. If it wasn’t fear, the only explanation I could think of was that he simply couldn’t bring himself to lie to this nice woman.
“My brother’s got a speech defect, ma’am,” I leapt in. “He stutters. Terrible embarrassing to him. He’s not stupid or anything, he just has trouble talking.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“See, it’s this way,” I said. “Our pa sent us to buy new shoes.”
Her face lit with a desire to help. “Well, we can certainly take care of that. I see you’re looking at our Buster Browns. They’re very good shoes.” She glanced down, saw our cheap, worn footwear, and without losing her smile said, “But maybe you’d rather see something a little less expensive.”
There were some boots on a stack of boxes that had caught my eye. “What about those?”
Another voice boomed in, “Pershing boots, son, made by Red Wing. For my money, the best boot ever made. Helped our doughboys win the Great War.”
The man who’d been waiting on the one-eyed wild pig scarer joined us.
“Manufactured right here in Minnesota. Fine workmanship. Last you forever.”
“Lloyd,” the woman said, “I don’t think the boys would be interested in those boots.”
Her eyes went again to the paper-thin leather on our feet, and the man caught her drift.
“But we also have a fine assortment of other shoes to choose from,” he said heartily. “What did you boys have in mind?”
“How much are the Red Wings?” I asked.
“Five dollars and seventy cents a pair. Sounds expensive, I know, but worth every penny.”
“We got fifteen dollars,” I said. “But we also got to buy groceries for the week.”
“Fifteen dollars?” The man’s surprise was obvious, but I’d anticipated that. “Where’d you boys get fifteen dollars?”
“Their father gave it to them, Lloyd. Like the young man says, to buy shoes and groceries for the week.”
“You’re brothers?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“How come you don’t look nothing alike?”
“Lloyd, you look nothing like your brother. Aren’t you always saying you’re the handsome one?”
The man looked us over good. “Are those uniforms of some kind you’re wearing?”
“No, sir,” I said. “Some church ladies in Worthington gave us these clothes. Maybe they got them from a school or something, I don’t know. But they’re lots better than what we had before.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Clyde Stratton,” I said, grabbing at the first two names that came together in my mind.
“Don’t know him,” the man said.
“We just got to town. Pa’s got him some work over at the grain elevators.”
“They’re hiring? This time of year?”
“They hired him for repairs. Pa, he’s good with his hands.”
“If he