I Led the Village to Wealth Farming, They Resented My Cut

Two years ago, I got the whole town into raspberries, signed a guaranteed-price agreement with every household, and the only thing I asked for in return was ten percent of the total.

Two years later the harvest came in big, and now they wanted to cut me out of my share.

The whole town was up in arms at the council. "He's not my son. Why the hell does he get ten percent? He's not getting a dime out of me!"

I smiled and pulled out the signed pledge from back then.

The room went dead silent. The town chief's son asked, his voice shaking, "You... when did you slip in that clause?"

This year the raspberries came in strong, and I put in real effort to lock down a price with an old classmate.

Miles Finch laughed. "Eddie, only for you. Because you vouched for it, I'll give fifteen. Anyone else, eleven at the most."

I thanked him a couple of times and told him to come out to the town the day after tomorrow to load up.

That same night, my childhood friend Wayne Fletcher sent me a video.

He made a point of warning me, "Edmund Dickerson, don't pass this around. Just watch your own back."

I opened it. Inside were a few of the people with pull in town, hashing things out at the council.

I knew every one of them.

Usually they couldn't be sweeter, calling me their boy every other breath.

But the faces in that video were ugly.

Short, stout Glen Lambert slammed the table first. "No way! Why should the Dickerson boy get ten percent?"

"All he did was supply the seedlings, then walk the fields a couple of times, and now he wants ten percent?"

"That's daylight robbery!"

The town chief's son, Tyler Glass, sat there smoking, his brow knit tight.

"Glen, didn't you all agree to this back then? Edmund provides the seed and the growing know-how, and takes ten percent when we sell the fruit."

Glen went red in the face, spit flying. "That was a trap he set for us! Where in the world is anything that easy?"

Then Old Mrs. Parsons, the sharpest tongue in town, spoke up too, her yellow teeth showing in a way that turned your stomach just to look at.

"Exactly! Edmund knew folks in this town are honest, so he asked for the moon."

"Have you all done the math? How much does ten percent take away?"

Tyler flipped open a notebook. "Rough estimate, sixty-three households in town, about five acres each."

"An acre yields two thousand pounds of raspberries. Edmund said fifteen dollars a pound."

Someone right away handed over a calculator, and everyone crowded in.

Some rubbed their fingers together, some craned their necks.

Tyler started scribbling in the notebook, the click of the calculator keys coming through clearly.

Finally the calculator spat out a cold number: 945,000.

When that total came up, everyone froze.

Then the cursing started, and the council turned into a farmers' market.

A madhouse.

Glen ground his cigarette out on the floor, fire in his eyes.

"We bust our asses growing this for two years and clear maybe a hundred grand all in, and Edmund walks off with over nine hundred thousand in one shot."

"How is that okay?"

Old Mrs. Parsons chimed in with a snide little dig. "Right. That's why they say young people know how to do business."

"Walk the fields, run his mouth a little, and pocket over nine hundred grand for free."

"Over nine hundred thousand. We couldn't earn that in a lifetime!"

Everyone burst out talking at once.

"No deal! Whoever agreed to give him ten percent can pay it themselves."

"Glen Lambert isn't giving a cent."

"Neither am I!" "Me neither!"

"Enough!" Tyler barked, low and heavy.

"What are you all carrying on about? When we were planting the raspberries, why didn't anybody say a word? And now you want it all for free?"

"Here's what we do. I'll go talk to Edmund on the town's behalf and give him five percent."

They grumbled a bit but went along with it, a few still cursing under their breath.

That was where the video ended.

My mind was churning. Back when it started, Marsh Hollow was dirt poor, the ground packed with stones, the soil half sand.

Whatever crops the town planted, they lost money year after year. Even the corn came up a size smaller than anywhere else.

Then I came home from the state agricultural college and saw all that sandy land, good drainage, big swings between day and night temperatures.

Grain would never work. But raspberries would fit just right.

Still, we'd have to change how we planted, or nothing would come up either way.

I spent half a month walking the fields, and finally worked out a way to improve the soil.

Then I took it to the town council, and we agreed on the spot.

I supplied the seedlings. The growing technique, the pruning, the spraying, the pest control, all of it I handled myself.

Just the costs, I sank three hundred thousand of my own money in.

But the condition was that once the fruit came in, I got a ten-percent cut.

The townsfolk were afraid it wouldn't work, so they even had me sign a pledge, guaranteeing no less than ten thousand dollars an acre.

Now the raspberries hung heavy on the branches, and their appetites had grown right along with them.

I didn't take the video to their faces. I just called Miles Finch.

"Miles, hold off on coming for now. Wait for word from me."

Finch went still, then spat. "Edmund, what are you playing at? I've got my refrigerated trucks, my sterile bottling line, all of it standing by."

"Nobody's got berries as sweet as your town's. I could search the whole state with a lantern and not find them. That fifteen a pound, that's me paying for quality. Don't tell me the town wants to jack the price on me now? I'll say it plain up front: if those berries get ruined by people who don't know what they're doing, and they hit the market under my label, our deal's dead."

I shook my head. "Can't explain it in a sentence. Just wait for my word."

"Fine... fine. But don't drag it out too long. Berries go soft, and they're worth nothing."

"I know." I hung up, lit a cigarette, and thought about the last two years, bit by bit. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I dug out the pledge the townsfolk had all pressed their fingerprints to two years ago, along with the town council's official seal.

Every one of them had only seen the clause where I paid out ten thousand if the raspberries failed. Not one had noticed I'd left myself a way out.

Early the next morning, sure enough, Tyler Glass came knocking.

He had a basket of farm-fresh eggs in his hand, with Glen Lambert trailing behind him.

Tyler opened up all cheerful. "Edmund, up bright and early, huh."

I played it like I knew nothing. "Mayor Glass, you didn't come by this early just to say that, did you?"

He set the eggs down on the table and lowered himself into a chair.

"Edmund, you're one of ours, one of the boys Marsh Hollow sent out into the world. You've got the skills, and you've seen things the rest of us haven't."

"The town's raspberries came this far, and that's all thanks to you."

Glen chimed in from the side. "That's right, kid. I watched you grow up. Little dark, dopey thing you were, who'd have guessed you'd turn out this capable."

I listened to the two of them play off each other and didn't react.

I knocked on the table. "Mayor Glass, just say it straight. I don't like beating around the bush."

Tyler gave an awkward laugh. "Ha... all right, I'll say it plain, then. Don't hold it against me."

"You know, these past two years, the whole town tightened its belt to get these raspberries going."

"Now we can finally pick the fruit, there's something to look forward to, everybody's happy..."

"But... but, your..."

He stammered on for a long while, the words stuck at the edge of his mouth.

Glen shot him a look and picked up where he'd left off. "What Mayor Glass means is, could you take a smaller cut?"

"Ten percent's too much. We ran the numbers. That's over nine hundred thousand."

I kept my face blank and lit myself a cigarette.

For a moment the room went quiet.

Tyler looked a little awkward. "Edmund, it's not that folks don't keep their word. It's just there's no way around it. Nobody's got it easy."

"The whole town's counting on these raspberries to turn things around."

"Take Glen here. Two sons waiting to get married."

Glen nodded along, hard.

"The Millers, they've got old folks and little ones both to feed. The Suttons need this money to sign their kid up for school."

"Old Mrs. Parsons is counting on it to pay off her debts."

He rattled off one hardship after another, like I was supposed to foot the bill for their poverty and troubles.

I waved a hand and cut him off. "Mayor Glass, their troubles aren't of my making."

"Let me ask you something. How much did the villagers actually put in? The seedlings were mine. The pest control was mine. I paid for the spraying across the whole town out of my own pocket."

"The special organic fertilizer, I got through a dedicated channel from the state agricultural college, at eighty percent of the market price. I covered half, the villagers covered the other half."

"All they did was pull weeds and manage the drainage."

"Each household put in maybe three thousand dollars. I put in close to three hundred thousand."

Tyler had nothing to say to that. His face went pale, then red.

I kept going. "And another thing. Back when the whole town made me sign that pledge, what were you all thinking then? If the raspberries failed, I'd have owed ten thousand an acre."

"That works out to over three million!"

"My risk was a lot bigger than yours. If it weren't for the fact that we're all neighbors here, I never would have done this in the first place."

That got Tyler's head down. But Glen gave a cold snort. "Edmund, don't make it sound so pretty."

"You only signed that pledge because you were sure of yourself. I don't buy that you did it out of the goodness of your heart."

"If you hadn't seen a profit in it, would you have come around pushing us to grow raspberries?"

I glanced at him. "That's my business. The deal was set from the start. I carry the risk, I take ten percent of the profit."

"And now you want to back out?"

Glen's face darkened. "Not backing out. Just talking it over with you. Ten percent's too much! That's bleeding us dry."

"Five percent, that's the most you're getting. If you don't believe me, I'll call the whole town over. Ask them yourself, see who's willing to pay it."

I looked at Tyler, still hanging his head. "Mayor Glass, is this your position too?"

Tyler cleared his throat and mumbled, "It's it's what all the villagers want. It's not my call to make."

I nodded. "Fine. Then let's settle this today, right here."

Glen fired off a message in the co-op group chat right away. "Everyone get down to the Dickerson yard, now."

I didn't stop him. I just carried a chair out to the yard and sat down to wait.

Five minutes, tops, and a crowd of three-wheelers and motorcycles came pouring into the yard.

A dark wall of people, every eye locked on me.

Wayne texted me. "Edmund, I'm sorry. My parents don't show up, the town'll freeze them out. But don't worry, they won't push you on this."

I gave a small, grateful smile. Only Wayne knew right from wrong.

One person from every household in town had come.

Glen raised that big voice of his. "Neighbors, friends, these past two years we've all been out there breaking our backs. Grew these raspberries till we barely looked human anymore."

"Every last family is counting on these raspberries to get by."

"And now the Dickerson boy, Edmund, opens his mouth and wants ten percent. You all okay with that?"

A murmur ran through the crowd, and Old Mrs. Parsons was the first to jump out. "No way! These raspberries grow in our fields. I water them three times a day."

"I take better care of them than I do my own grandson. Why should Edmund skim off that kind of money for nothing?"

Once someone led the charge, the rest piled on behind her.

A jumble of shouting broke loose. "No! I don't agree."

"We're out there baking in the sun all day like dogs, and he swings by the field twice and wants a cut that big?"

"I don't agree either. There was never a contract signed. Who ever said he gets ten percent?"

The moment those words landed, the crowd seemed to find its opening.

One after another, they demanded I produce the contract.

Glen Lambert shot me a smug look. "Edmund, you heard them. Nobody's owning up to it."

"Even if you take this to court, it won't do you any good."

I ignored him and turned to Tyler Glass.

These people were just noise, backup for show. Tyler was the real backbone of Marsh Hollow.

"Mayor Glass, why don't you tell them. Is this really how it is?"

"One town, over nine million in farm output. That's no small feather in your cap, is it?"

"You're standing in the middle playing peacemaker. You think I don't know what you're angling for?"

At that, Tyler shot to his feet, his face dark as a storm cloud.

He snapped at me under his breath. "Edmund, what nonsense are you spouting?"

"There really is no contract for this. Yes, there was a verbal agreement back then."

"But now the town won't own it. You can't go against the will of the people. What am I supposed to do? You want me to set myself against the whole town?"

He strode over to my side and dropped his voice. "Edmund, if you ask me, take the loss. Settle for five percent. How's that?"

"That still works out to nearly five hundred thousand. That's not nothing."

"One man. How are you going to fight this many people?"

He wanted me to swallow it and keep quiet. But I'm no pushover.

"Mayor Glass, why don't you ask them how many are willing to hand over five percent? It's not that I look down on the town. All they see is money. Five percent is flesh off their own bones to them."

Tyler cleared his throat and raised his voice. "Everyone, quiet down! I'll ask on Edmund's behalf, once. If he only takes a five percent cut, are you willing?"

Every head dropped. Not one of them made a sound.

Then someone muttered, "Dream on. Why should he get five percent? He's not my son."

The voice was low, but it carried clear enough.

The whole crowd burst out laughing.

Anger surfaced on my face for the first time. These people wouldn't shed a tear until they saw the coffin.

Fine, then. No need for me to keep worrying about hometown feelings.

I pulled the copy of the pledge from my pocket and unfolded it in front of everyone.

"I never signed a profit-sharing contract with you, true. But this pledge lays it out in black and white."

"All raspberries in Marsh Hollow may not be sold privately to any third party without Edmund's permission. In the event of a breach, Edmund has the right to pursue all costs and related losses."

"Your fingerprints are on it. The town council's official seal is on it. It holds up in law. You want to weasel out? Then be ready to let the fruit rot in the fields."

"Let's see which is harder, you or the law."

The laughing crowd went dead silent in an instant, every mouth hanging open, staring in disbelief at the thing in my hand.