In the summer of 1912, 11-year-old Francie Nolan sits on the fire escape of her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, gazing at the tree in her yard, whose species is known as Tree of Heaven, and wishing she were “living in a tree” as she often does (6). Since it is Saturday, Francie and her little brother, Neeley, take the scrap metal they have gathered all week from the trash and the streets to a person they call “the junkie,” to whom they sell the metal for spare change. Though this is a habit for Francie and all the other children in the area, Francie still feels “ashamed” about having to sift through the garbage. Francie is the one who approaches the junkie because “he liked girls better than boys” (8). She returns with the money, and Neeley splits it evenly between them. He allows Francie to keep an extra penny since she allowed the junkie to “pinch […] her cheek,” a gesture that warrants extra cash (8).

Neeley and Francie then fan out to separate candy and trinket shops, where they barter their freshly earned pennies for small sweets. After Francie walks around for several hours, she returns home to find that her mother, Katie, needs her to run some errands.