weren’t looking, since they sounded sort of like a coin being dropped inside, then we’d
chuckle to ourselves about how we were putting something over on Jamie. We used to
joke about how she’d open one of her cans, expecting something good because of the
weight, and she’d dump it out and find nothing but slugs and paper clips. Sometimes,
when you remember the things you used to do, it makes you wince, and that’s exactly
what I did.
Jamie saw the look on my face.
“You don’t have to do it,” she said, obviously disappointed. “I was just thinking that
since Christmas is coming up so quickly and I don’t have a car, it’ll simply take me too
long to collect them all. . . .”
“No,” I said cutting her off, “I’ll do it. I don’t have much to do anyway.”
So that’s what I did starting Wednesday, even though I had tests to study for, even
with that application needing to be finished. Jamie had given me a list of every place she’d
placed a can, and I borrowed my mom’s car and started at the far end of town the
following day. She’d put out about sixty cans in all, and I figured that it would take only a
day to collect them all. Compared to putting them out, it would be a piece of cake. It had
taken Jamie almost six weeks to do because she’d first had to find sixty empty jars and
cans and then she could put out only two or three a day since she didn’t have a car and
could carry only so many at a time. When I started out, I felt sort of funny about being the
one who picked up the cans and jars, being that it was Jamie’s project, but I kept telling
myself that Jamie had asked me to help.
I went from business to business, collecting the cans and jars, and by end of the first
day I realized it was going to take a little longer than I’d thought. I’d picked up only about
twenty containers or so, because I’d forgotten one simple fact of life in Beaufort. In a
small town like this, it was impossible to simply run inside and grab the can without
chatting with the proprietor or saying hello to someone else you might recognize. It just
wasn’t done. So I’d sit there while some guy would be talking about the marlin he’d
hooked last fall, or they’d ask me how school was going and mention that they needed a
hand unloading a few boxes in the back, or maybe they wanted my opinion on whether
they should move the magazine rack over to the other side of the store. Jamie, I knew,
would have been good at this, and I tried to act like I thought she would want me to. It was
her project after all.
To keep things moving, I didn’t stop to check the take in between the businesses. I
just dumped one jar or can into the next, combining them as I went along. By the end of
the first day all the change was packed in two large jars, and I carried them up to my
room. I saw a few bills through the glass—not too many—but I wasn’t actually nervous
until I emptied the contents onto my floor and saw that the change consisted primarily of
pennies. Though there weren’t nearly as many slugs or paper clips as I’d thought there
might be, I was still disheartened when I counted up the money. There was $20.32. Even
in 1958 that wasn’t a lot of money, especially when divided among thirty kids.
I didn’t get discouraged, though. Thinking that it was a mistake, I went out the next