Mr. Ingalls told him that they thought he was charging too much for the wheat.
“That’s my business,” said Loftus. “It’s my wheat, isn’t it? I paid good hard money for it.”
“A dollar and a quarter a bushel, we understand,” Mr. Ingalls said.
“That’s my business,” Mr. Loftus repeated.
“We’ll show you whose business it is!” the angry man shouted.
“You fellows so much as touch my property and I’ll have the law on you!” Mr. Loftus answered. Some of them laughed snarlingly. But Loftus was not going to back down. He banged his fist on the counter and told them, “That wheat’s mine and I’ve got a right to charge any price I want to for it.”
“That’s so, Loftus, you have,” Mr. Ingalls agreed with him. “This is a free country and every man’s got a right to do as he pleases with his own property.” He said to the crowd, “You know that’s a fact, boys,” and he went on, “Don’t forget every one of us is free and independent, Loftus. This winter won’t last forever and maybe you want to go on doing business after it’s over.”
“Threatening me, are you?” Mr. Loftus demanded.
“We don’t need to,” Mr. Ingalls replied. “It’s a plain fact. If you’ve got a right to do as you please, we’ve got a right to do as we please. It works both ways. You’ve got us down now. That’s your business, as you say. But your business depends on our good will. You maybe don’t notice that now, but along next summer you’ll likely notice it.”
“That’s so, Loftus,” Gerald Fuller said. “You got to treat folks right or you don
’t last long in business, not in this country.”
The angry man said, “We’re not here to palaver. Where’s that wheat?”
“Don’t be a fool, Loftus,” Mr. Harthorn said.
“The money wasn’t out of your till more than a day,” Mr. Ingalls said. “And the boys didn’t charge you a cent for hauling it. Charge a fair profit and you’ll have the cash back inside of an hour.”
“What do you call a fair profit?” Mr. Loftus asked. “I buy as low as I can and sell as high as I can; that’s good business.”
“That’s not my idea,” said Gerald Fuller. “I say it’s good business to treat people right.”
“We wouldn’t object to your price, if Wilder and Garland here had charged you what it was worth to go after that wheat,” Mr. Ingalls told Loftus.
“Well, why didn’t you?” Mr. Loftus asked them. “I stood ready to pay any reasonable charge for hauling.”
Cap Garland spoke up. He was not grinning. He had the look that had made the railroader back down. “Don’t offer us any of your filthy cash. Wilder and I didn’t make that trip to skin a profit off folks that are hungry.”
Almanzo was angry, too. “Get it through your head if you can, there’s not money enough in the mint to pay for that trip. We didn’t make it for you and you can’t pay us for it.”
Mr. Loftus looked from Cap to Almanzo and then around at the other faces. They all despised him. He opened his mouth and shut it. He looked beaten. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, boys. You can buy the wheat for just what it cost me, a dollar twenty-five cents a bushel.”
“We don’t object to your making a fair profit, Loftus,” Mr. Ingalls said, but Loftus shook his head. “No, I’ll let it go for what it cost me.”
This was so unexpected that for a moment no one knew exactly how to take it. Then Mr. Ingalls suggested, “What do you say we all get together and kind of ration it out, on a basis of how much our families need to last through till spring?”
They did this. It seemed that there was wheat enough to keep every family going for eight to ten weeks. Some had a few potatoes left and some even had crackers. One man had molasses. They bought less wheat. Almanzo bought none. Cap Garland bought half a bushel and Mr. Ingalls paid for a two-bushel sack.
Almanzo noticed that he did not swing it onto his shoulder as a man naturally would. “That’s quite a load to handle,” Almanzo said, and helped him lift and balance it. He would have carried it across the street for him, but a man does not like to admit that he cannot carry a hundred and twenty-five pounds.
“Bet you a cigar I can beat you at a game of checkers,” Almanzo then said to Cap, and they went up the street to the drugstore. Mr. Ingalls was going into his store building as they passed by in the blowing snow.
Laura heard the front door open and shut. They all sat still in the dark and, as if in a dream, they heard Pa’s steps coming heavily the length of the front room, and the kitchen door opening. Pa let a heavy weight come down on the floor with a thud that painfully shook it. Then he shut the door against the solid cold coming in with him.
“The boys got back!” he said, breathing hard. “Here’s some of the wheat they brought, Caroline!”
Chapter 30
It Can’t Beat Us