Summary: When Joe goes through old memories, it dawns on him that he hadn’t considered how different his oldest brother’s childhood was from his own. With the help of a few old trunks of treasures, Joe learns more about Adam’s past and how, despite their distinct upbringings, they both share a history that will forever be intertwined.

Word Count: 2,820   Rating: G

Author’s Note: The title is inspired by a line from a song by Shane Alexander called “Brother of Mine.”

Growing Up in Different Times

1857

When Adam came down the stairs that night, he almost turned right back around. It had been a long day of breaking steers and he ached from top to bottom. As if that weren’t enough, Pa and Hoss were out doing business in Reno, meaning he was in charge of the ranch.

And his fifteen-year-old brother, who would rather spend his time flirting in the saloons than helping out around the Ponderosa.

Adam couldn’t relate, even when he looked back on his own fifteen-year-old self, and he couldn’t say he wanted to. All he wanted was a hot cup of coffee before he had to dig into the books on Pa’s desk—the ones that had gone untouched since their father had left Sunday afternoon.

The ones Adam hadn’t been able to bring himself to go over because he just knew they were a mess due to his leaving them unattended for so long.

In short, it had been a long, tiring half-week so far and he was sorely missing the other part of his family.

It was for this reason that Adam almost retreated back to the peace and quiet of the upper level when he caught sight of Joe sitting cross-legged where the coffee table used to be. The table had been shoved off to the side to make room for a large chest and two or three smaller ones.

Adam recognized them immediately.

“Hey, Adam!” Joe greeted, glancing up from whatever prize he held in his hand. “Look what I found in the barn!”

“Ah, so that’s what you’d been doing in there all evening. And here I thought you were cleaning out the stalls.”

Joe waved a hand, trying his best to scowl, though the expression didn’t quite come across. The curiosity and elation on his face made sure of that.

“I did,” he said, “but then, I thought I heard some scuffling up in the loft, so I checked it for mice and I found these! It’s all our old stuff. You know, like baby stuff and all that. Where’ve they been all this time? I’ve never seen them up there before…”

Drawn into the living room by his own growing intrigue, Adam explained, “Pa was doing some cleaning out of the cellar last week. Apparently, he didn’t realize that some of the contents were getting damaged. It’s so musty down there. Probably my things, if we’re being honest.”

“Why yours?” Joe asked as Adam gazed down at the trinkets and tiny clothes strewn about the floor.

“Because that’d be just my luck,” came the overly cynical answer. Adam decided to blame the long day for that one. “Anyway, he put them up in the loft until he can find a better place to store them.”

“Yeah, but some of this should be on display!”

“All right, then, where would you like to hang your baby nightgown, Joe? In the office, or over the fireplace where everyone can get a nice, good look at it when they walk through the front door?”

Joe flashed him a look. “You know what I mean. This, for instance,” he pressed on, holding up a worn stuffed bear. “Man, I remember when Hoss ripped his arm off and Ma had to sew it on again.”

“Well, for starters, Hoss didn’t rip the arm off,” Adam corrected, “you did when you were throwing a tantrum. And second, it was the leg that came off. See?” Crouching down, he ran a finger along the seam as he corrected a three-year-old’s hazy memory. “She always stitched like she wrote, very flowy with lots of loops.”

“Huh.” Joe studied the bear for a second before replacing it back in the chest. “Maybe not that one, then. What about this, though?”

Adam gave him a look that was the epitome of unamused. “You really want your winter baby hat lying around?”

“No, I mean, she fixed this too, didn’t she?”

Still only half-committed to Joe’s impromptu trip down memory lane, Adam shifted in his crouch and nodded. “When you snagged it on a branch. You were not a very fun child in the snow,” he added with a slight chuckle.

“Hey, it’s not my fault my gloves kept falling off and I was too young to know how to put them back on.”

“Never said it was,” Adam replied with a sly grin. “I just said you weren’t fun. In the snow,” he clarified when Joe made a face. “You were a fun little toddler in the spring, summer, and fall. Winter, not so much. I still remember the way you’d always try to get Hoss and me to tell you whose name we picked for the Christmas gift exchange.”

Joe gave a chuckle of his own before sifting through the chest again. “I think this one has a lot of my stuff in it, but also a lot of Ma’s old things. Dresses and such… Hey, there’s Hoss’ old hat, though!”

“I don’t know why we kept half this stuff.” But even as he said it, Adam found himself fully sitting down and joining his brother’s efforts to unearth old treasures.

“Where are all of your things?” Joe asked after a moment.

“Here’s something.” Adam held up an old notebook, relinquishing his prize when Joe made a grab for it.

“An old journal?”

Adam laughed outright at the disappointment on his brother’s face when he said, “And old school book. Actually, I think most of my college things are in this chest…”

Giving an exaggerated yawn, Joe pulled over one of the smaller chests. “Boring. No offense, of course.”

“Ah yes,” Adam said with a smirk, “the age-old excuse for hurting someone’s feelings and then pretending to take it all back.”

Though he was clearly trying to hide it, Adam caught Joe’s eye roll. Maybe that was his cue to get that cup of coffee…

“Okay,” Joe said, lifting the lid, “this looks like… Hoss’ stuff? Yeah…” He pulled out an old bag of marbles. “This is his. I remember he’d never let me play with these.”

“That’s because you’d always put them in your mouth, Joe. I think you even swallowed one, once, and nearly gave Pa a heart attack.”

Joe made no comment, sifting through Hoss’ things for a minute or two more before reaching for the other two chests. “Looks like a bunch of Pa’s old papers and… some other stuff that’s definitely not mine…”

Yeah, now’s definitely the time to get that coffee.

Instead of standing, however, Adam found himself inching closer to the last two chests. Joe was sifting through Pa’s papers like the snoop he would always be, but Adam was more drawn to the other chest.

He remembered helping his father pack all these things away, and for a moment, he wondered if Joe’s idea to display some of it wasn’t so crazy after all.

Some of the memories…

Adam dipped his hand into the chest and pulled out the first thing his fingers brushed up against, a dulled arrowhead wrapped in a worn length of cord.

“I forgot about this,” he murmured, turning it over in his hand.

“What is it?” Joe leaned over his shoulder.

“A few members of our wagon train traded with the Cheyenne,” Adam explained with a shrug. “One of the braves gave this to me.”

He could almost see Joe’s nose scrunching even as he kept his eyes fixed on the arrowhead. “Why? Just because?”

“A lot of our party were wary about trading with the Indians after… Well, after the attack. Pa told the Cheyenne as much.” A tremor of pain filtered through the air as Joe gave a knowing nod and Adam sucked in a short breath. “So, one of the braves pulled me aside. He told me, ‘Not all arrows are used for killing.’ He said this was used to cut his daughter free of some vines she got caught in that nearly strangled her. Then, he gave it to me.”

“Wow,” Joe breathed. “So… This chest is yours, then?” Adam nodded. “And that’s Hoss’… Wait, why do you two get your own chests and I have to share mine with more of your stuff and Mama’s?”

With a chuckle, Adam replaced the arrowhead. “It’s called Last Child Syndrome, Joe. By the time you came around, Pa either forgot to get you your own chest, or he just didn’t have the energy.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“Yes, it’s funny that you think I’m joking.”

Rather than wait for Joe to think up a good comeback, Adam sifted through more of his memories, shoving aside his actual childhood journal lest Joe find it and going for the small wooden box.

“What’s in there?” Joe was hovering over his shoulder again, but Adam couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed, even as he asked:

“Don’t you have your own things to go through?”

“Yeah, sure. Baby clothes, toys, and blankets. Real interesting. Come on, what’s in there?”

Adam ran a hand over the crude carving on the lid. “Well, for starters, you’re looking at the only carving I’ve ever attempted.”

“I can see why.”

“The vote of confidence is appreciated. Anyway,” Adam went on, opening the lid, “these are little odds and ends I collected on the wagon trail, and then some. Like this.” He picked up one of the trinkets. “The first nail to ever go into the Ponderosa Ranch.”

“All right, so if it’s the first nail, how do you have it?”

Adam grinned. “I took it out.” When Joe gaped at him, he couldn’t hold back a laugh. “The ranch house wasn’t always here, Joe. This came from the small cabin Pa built for us to live in while we worked on designing the house.”

“What about this?” Joe asked, and Adam appreciated that the kid pointed at the object instead of just snatching it up.

“That’s a lock of Jenny’s hair.”

“And exactly who is Jenny? Your summer lovin’ girlfriend?”

Giving Joe’s ribs a nudge with his elbow was more satisfying than Adam would care to admit. “She was a friend from the wagon train. Though, I think she wanted us to be a bit more than friends, which is why she gave me that.”

“Okay, what about this one…?”

Adam had figured Joe might get bored, but they went through the significance of each item until there weren’t any more to talk about. Next, they flipped through an old sketchbook that Adam had completely forgotten about. He could tell Joe was trying not to act too impressed.

“I mean, they’re good… for a ten-year-old.”

Adam made sure to conceal his oncoming smirk.

“But,” Joe questioned with a frown after they’d gone through nearly the entirety of the chest, “where’s all your baby stuff? And your toys and all that?”

“I wouldn’t have even the slightest idea.” At the dip in Joe’s brows, Adam clarified, “I guess Pa didn’t think he’d ever have another child who could use them and we didn’t have much storage during our travels as it was, so everything I grew out of, we sold or gave to someone else.”

Joe nodded, fiddling with the sketchbook.

Heaving a sigh, Adam continued when he saw the prompting expression on his brother’s face. “As for toys… Like I said, there wasn’t that much room in our bags for that kind of thing. Sure, I vaguely remember Pa or someone else carving me a little animal or two, but there are other ways to occupy the time besides playing, you know.”

“Don’t tell my five-year-old self that,” Joe said with a snort. “You should display some of this stuff, though. No, I mean it! Your things are way more interesting than mine. They’re… They’re historical.“

Adam let out a soft chuckle. “Thanks for dating me.”

“I’m serious. You and Pa were part of a whole historical movement, traveling clear across the country like you did. Your stuff, it… it has character; it has history. Hoss and mine are just your typical, average baby things.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that…” Reaching into Hoss’ chest, Adam pulled out the bag of marbles. “These came from a traveling salesman passing through the area. Buying this made Pa his first customer, and years later, when the town started taking root, he came back and opened a store that’s still standing today: Schmitt’s Grocery and Mercantile.“

“You’re kidding me.” But Joe was smiling. “Really? I just figured Schmitt’s had always been there.”

“Everything had to get its start sometime, and I’d say that makes these marbles of Hoss’ pretty historical. And don’t get me started on your stuff.”

Joe was already tugging over the larger chest before Adam had a chance to finish. “All right, Mr. Historian. You’re always saying how you know so much more than Hoss and I do. Show me what’s special about some of this stuff. And don’t try to make anything up just to pacify me.”

Hiding a smirk, Adam scanned the contents of the chest, settling on the tiny winter hat from earlier.

“So, the great thing about this piece right here,” he began, making a show of studying the hat, “is that its historical significance comes from the fact that Virginia City’s very own Joseph Francis Cartwright wore it when he was only a baby.”

Joe made a face. “Ha ha. That’s not history. That’s just me as a baby.”

“And you were a damn cute one, too.”

“Well, gee, thanks, but that’s not what I want to know. Come on, find something else. Something real this time. Unless there’s actually something special about that hat?”

“I’m sorry to break it to you, but there’s literally nothing special about this little piece of cloth.”

“I thought so. So, something special this time.”

“All right, Joe,” Adam said, chuckling, “all right. Let’s see…” His eyes skimmed over Marie’s tightly folded wedding dress, his own worn college books, and several carved wooden animals that had once made up Joe’s favorite collection of toys.

Finally, he pulled out a blanket. A mismatched old thing that a much younger Joe had slept in, chewed on, and left out in the rain more times than any of them could count.

When Joe saw it, he scrunched his nose. “That thing?”

A small smile tugged at Adam’s lips. “Clearly, you don’t know the significance of that thing, or you wouldn’t have said it like that.”

“Enlighten me, then, oh wise one.”

Shooting Joe a quick eye roll, Adam leaned back against the edge of the settee, stretching out legs that had long since begun to cramp up. “Your Ma started working on this before you were even born. She wanted to make something special for you; something that would encompass all of our histories. Hers, Pa’s, the Ponderosa’s, even Hoss’ and mine.”

Running his fingers over the edge of the blanket, Adam continued, “Each triangle patch comes from something significant. Like this white one… Well, it used to be white. That’s a piece from the cover of our wagon. That light pink triangle is from Marie’s wedding veil, and the one next to it is from her great-grandmother’s shawl. That one there was cut from the first American flag Pa hung on the ranch. It got worn and tattered over the years, then a thunderstorm finally took it down, so Marie gave it another use.”

Joe was staring at the blanket now, as if truly seeing it for the first time. “I always thought it was just a regular old patchwork quilt. Why didn’t any of you tell me all this before?“

Adam flashed a grin. “Now, do you really think your five-year-old self would have cared about all that? Much less understood?“

Though Adam could clearly see it pained him to admit it, Joe gave a half-shrug. “I mean, I guess not. What’s this one, then?”

“That little patch was once a part of a buckskin vest given to Pa by a Comanche chief. They became blood brothers because the chief respected Pa enough to have his braves help of our wagon train pass through hostile Indian territory unscathed.”

“I told you not to pull my leg, Adam.”

“I’m not,” came Adam’s soft reply and Joe gently gripped the blanket. “See, Hoss and I aren’t the only ones with interesting memories. Or historical ones, as you like you put it.”

“Yeah…” Joe breathed, making a dive for the chest. “What else is in here…?”

As Joe dug through his old things, Adam shifted against the settee, settling in for a long night of stories and memories.

His coffee all but forgotten in the wake of his little brother’s joy.

The End