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Old Piley Parker was up in Massachusetts doing some concrete work on some kind of bridge in Boston. It was spring time and he said it was a little chilly but still pretty out.  The outfit he worked for sent him over to this little town name of Lexington to get some more chalk for the chalk line. He got up real early so he could get the chore out of the way ‘cause he was in kind of a hurry to get the job over with so he could get back to his wife, Punkin. He didn’t have a clue as to what he was going to wade into there in Lexington.

Seems this little town had a square right smack in the middle of it. The chalk store was right across the road from that square and Piley was there when they opened the doors. He noticed a bunch of fellas with muskets all gathered up in the square and asked the store keep about it. Well the store keep told Piley that the British was coming and that’s why them other fellas had their muskets. Old Piley said they looked like an ornery bunch and he wasn’t gonna mess with them and he thought they were ‘til he seen this other bunch coming up the road.

They was dressed in these bright red, funny looking coats, marching all neat and tidy. Piley said there was more of them than was at the last tractor pull he went to and that was in Houston. When they started getting close to the square, the gang that was hanging out at the square started running off ‘cause there was so many of these fellas wearing them red coats. Well, a few of them stayed and that’s when it happened. 

The first of them fellas in red to come into town was a fella on a horse name of John Pitcairn and he was a major in the British Army. Piley couldn’t hear what they was saying but he said them fellas went to hollering at one another and pretty soon this fella on the horse, this Pitcairn fella, pulls out a pistol and shoots at the cluster that was hollering at him. He missed the whole durn lot of them and the ball from the pistol hit the water trough right in front of the chalk store. Right then the store keep said that that shot was gonna be heard around the world. Piley didn’t think that was right. He said that there shot was loud and all but for folks to hear it plumb around the world? He didn’t see how that could happen.

Anyway, there was some more shooting and them fellas in red busted up some stuff then they got in their neat little rows and went marching off somewhere’s else. Right then, Piley got to thinking that, even though he didn’t believe it, maybe that store keep was right. Maybe folks would be able to hear it all around the world. So Piley paid for his chalk, got that ball from out of the horse trough and jammed it in his pocket.

When Piley got back to Texas, he come by to see us and told us the whole story. Now, you ain’t gonna believe this part but it’s the durn truth. Piley wanted to trade this here shot, you know, the shot heard all around the world, and all he wanted was this old penny we had. One penny! And it wasn’t even new and shiny! It was older’n that Studebaker pickup out back. Why, the date on it was 1909. And somebody musta messed up when they made it ‘cause it had four letters on it instead of one. We always knew old Piley wasn’t that smart. Anyway, we got that there shot and now you can buy it from us.

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