Chapter 4

Honestly, part of me wished that were true.

But I was the first person from Greenhill Village to go to college, so to say the village made me wasn't exactly wrong either.

"Whoever shouted that, no need to hide. Come out and say it to my face."

Even so, I let the displeasure show as I called out over the crowd.

"You say I'm shorting myself, that my conscience should bother me. You got any proof of that?"

The man turned his head away. Bartholomew laughed it off and held out a cigarette.

I hesitated, then took it and lit it off his lighter.

"Bartholomew, it really isn't that I don't want to raise your prices."

I explained it to him, and I meant every word.

"The Greenhill greenhouse hub is known far and wide. But known for what? You all should understand that better than I do."

It was the road I'd donated back then, free of charge, that gave Greenhill Village any way out to the world at all.

So from the very start, my father held every villager to a strict standard.

Whether growing the vegetables or selling them, the prices had to be transparent, fair, and honest.

"A reputation is built up little by little. You pull a stunt like this today, and tomorrow who's going to dare come out here to buy?"

"Tell me, isn't that how it works?"

Deep down, I still believed in them.

"Everything you say is right, Mr. Joyce. But we're just country folk. We don't follow all these big ideas of yours."

Bartholomew spoke up again in that thick local drawl, and this time it grated on me in a way I didn't expect.

"You're a city man now. Maybe you can't see how hard we work out in these fields."

"Dead of summer, dead of winter, we don't dare take our minds off it for a second!"

"And even then, all year round we clear thirty, maybe fifty thousand. Not even enough for a girl's dowry."

"If you won't meet the price, then I say we just call this deal off."

I'll admit it. I'd underestimated them.

This little routine, retreating to gain ground, they were playing it smoothly.

If nobody was coaching them from behind the curtain, I didn't believe a single word of it.

"Bartholomew, all this stirring you're doing here. Have you asked your father about it?"

At the mention of his father, Bartholomew's face went a little uneasy.

"That makes no sense at all. We're the ones farming the land. You saying we need his permission now?"

"Today, I'll just lay it right out here."

Bartholomew's temper was up now.

"This price goes up whether you like it or not. Say no, and it goes up all the more!"

"Otherwise, we just don't sell!"

I watched him in silence, and the villagers around him started egging him on.

"Bartholomew's right, no raise, no sale!"

"We're a famous greenhouse hub. Everyone else is begging to buy from us!"

"You ask me, we just sell to somebody else. Don't even bother talking to him!"

One after another, they piled on until there wasn't room for me to get a word in.

Smoking Bartholomew's cigarette, I just sat down on a stone block off to the side.

Antonia bent down and asked me quietly.

"Mr. Joyce, should we get your father to come over?"

I waved her off.

"Don't you dare call him! Today I want to see just how far they'll take this."

My father's heart wasn't good. If they worked him up into something serious, a small matter would turn into a big one.

Bartholomew was still soaking up everyone's flattery when a furious shout rang out from far off.

"You little brat, you looking to get yourself killed?"