Chapter 342: Chapter 342: Farm Daily Life 14
"The Farm Master is back! Everyone, look! The person in the passenger seat is the Farm Master."
Someone’s shout sent the refugees behind them swarming forward. Evelyn Ford narrowed her eyes, sizing them up. Some carried firewood on their backs, while others had brought their entire families.
"Farm Master, please take us in! I’ll only eat one steamed bun a day. Just a place to shelter from the wind and snow is enough. I can work. I studied architecture."
"Farm Master, we want to trade for supplies! Please, don’t close the trading post. We’ll have no other way to survive."
The sound was mingled with the wails of children. Face after face, etched with hardship, flashed before Evelyn Ford’s eyes. She clenched her fists tightly.
"Drive back into the farm. Don’t get out of the car," Ronan Kendrick said, then honked the horn. From inside, Officer Graham and Taylor Vance opened the main gate, weapons in hand.
"Farm Master, don’t go! We need to trade for supplies."
"Farm Master, we can work for free! Please, take pity on my child. She hasn’t eaten in days. She’s starving! Farm Master, please don’t go! I’m begging you!"
The desperate, hoarse cries were shut out by the farm’s main gate. Evelyn Ford lowered her gaze in silence, and no one knew what she was thinking.
By the time they unloaded all the branches they had chopped today and stacked them in the shed, night had already fallen. The refugees outside still refused to leave. A father holding his daughter kept shouting, begging the farm to take the girl in. All he asked for was a single meal for her. The child clung tightly to her father, her eyes filled with fear and unease as she looked at her surroundings.
"Go and tell them that if they want to continue trading for supplies, there will be no more coarse flour. From now on, it will only be wheat bran and rice bran, and trades will only happen once every ten days."
"And the amount of wood required for the trade remains the same?"
Evelyn Ford nodded. "Unchanged."
"Isn’t that too harsh?"
"Anyone who thinks I’m being too harsh can leave." Evelyn Ford looked at everyone coldly. "There are no saviors in this world."
Back in the log cabin, Evelyn Ford entered her space and hulled all the rice she had harvested previously. Ronan Kendrick used a grinder to mill the rice bran into a powder. The bran, originally intended as chicken feed, would now be used as goods for trade.
The next day, before the trading post opened, Evelyn Ford had Quincy and Miles Vaughn grind all the wheat and rice bran into a fine powder. She had also made some matches, which could also be traded. Very few people had a means of starting a fire anymore; most had to trade their supplies for a fire source just to stay warm and cook their food.
A box of thirty matches could be traded for one hundred pounds of wood. If they kept the box and brought it back for their next trade, it would only cost eighty pounds of wood.
Taylor Vance said Evelyn Ford was all talk, but had a soft heart, which she denied.
"If you were in my line of work, you would be successful."
Evelyn Ford scoffed. "I’m not that charitable."
"It’s precisely because of your personality. You aren’t charitable, but you have principles. You don’t save people indiscriminately, but you give them a fighting chance. You switched the coarse flour to bran, and you even went as far as to grind it into powder for them. It seems heartless, but it’s actually compassionate."
The bran was filling; just a few bites could make one feel full, and it allowed them to provide for more people. Many would think the farm was profiting from their suffering, but when you looked at the big picture, it was the best possible solution.
"There aren’t just a few dozen refugees in Fairgate, there are hundreds. For me to start doling out charity would be laughable. As I’ve said, there are no saviors in this world. People can only save themselves."
Taylor Vance smiled. "You’ve already done more than enough. You’re right. Everyone has to save themselves."
A large crowd showed up to trade for supplies. Everyone was quiet, not daring to make a scene. The ground bran was still somewhat coarse, so it didn’t look all that different from the previous coarse flour.
The moment the matchboxes were brought out, everyone grew excited. "I want to trade for matches! Before, I was getting a fire source from the patrolmen. They have a monthly deal, but it costs three hundred pounds of wood a month! The farm’s matches are a much better deal. Thirty matches will last a long time, and it only costs one hundred pounds of wood."
In the extreme cold, the most important resource besides food was a way to make fire.
"Don’t throw away the matchboxes. Next time you come to trade, bring them back, and we can re-coat the striker strip." As soon as Quincy said this, someone immediately raised their hand with a question.
"Is it free?"
Quincy nodded. "Re-coating the striker is free, but we can only do it for you twice. And for your second purchase of matches, a box of thirty will only cost eighty pounds of wood."
"That’s wonderful! With matches, we won’t have to be afraid of the cold. We won’t freeze to death anymore! And the bran the farm gives us is already ground up. I think it’s a great deal."
"Bran tastes awful and has no nutritional value, yet they’re still charging so much wood for it. The Farm Master is so greedy—must be Silas Hawthorne reincarnated."
There were all sorts of opinions in the crowd, but the thought that the trading post only opened once every ten days made everyone fear they would miss their chance. So, whatever their private complaints, they continued to push desperately into the line.
Evelyn Ford watched Wyatt Vaughn playing with Zoe Hughes and suddenly understood why Wyatt had wanted to keep the child. ’She must want to be a mother.’ Although Evelyn hadn’t been able to understand it at first, she realized she no longer felt the same initial aversion to the baby.
"Zoe, you’re such a good girl! You smile whenever you see me. You must really like me, huh?"
"Evelyn, Zoe really likes me," Wyatt Vaughn said, her face beaming with joy.
"Wyatt Vaughn, since you like her so much, you could adopt her as your daughter."
Wyatt Vaughn shook her head. "I’m very fond of Zoe, but she has her own mother. I won’t insist on it. It’s enough for me that she grows up healthy."
"Besides, my brother keeps saying that raising her is just taking on another burden. He hasn’t spoken to me in days because of it."
"Your brother is just afraid you’ll end up like Serena Lynch—losing your chance to escape for the sake of a child."
"I know my brother means well, but I’m just so fond of Zoe. The connections between people are a wondrous thing." Wyatt Vaughn poked Zoe’s cheek, and the little girl broke into a silly grin, revealing her toothless gums. She looked both dorky and cute.
When Quincy and the others returned after closing the trading post, Evelyn Ford went to inspect the day’s haul. The wood and branches were piled as high as a mountain.
"The matches were traded the fastest. I’d never have even thought of them. No wonder so many people in Fairgate have frozen to death. A lot of people don’t have any way to start a fire. They even have to trade supplies just to borrow a light! Someone said that getting a fire source from the patrolmen costs three hundred pounds of wood a month."
Everyone was shocked. "Those three patrolmen really know how to do business. They’re no different from bandits."
"Evelyn, leave the match-making to us."
Evelyn Ford nodded. "Alright. I’ll leave it to the three of you—Wyatt Vaughn, Miles Vaughn, and Quincy. Everyone’s tired today. Aunt Crane, please slaughter three chickens for dinner tonight."
Everyone burst into wild applause. "The Farm Master is mighty! Long live the Farm Master!"
Quincy brought over his radio to play a cassette. It was the sentimental pop music of the pre-apocalyptic world, and now, everyone listened, completely captivated and entranced.
That world, to which they could never return, would forever live on in their memories.
The children born in the years to come might ask: What was that world like?
There would be a thousand different answers.
But that world had possessed the last vestiges of civilization, peace, and order...
