“Scarlett, how do you even know how to sell like this?”
Elizabeth clutched the money, amazed at how naturally clever her daughter seemed.
Scarlett, confident, replied, “Does this really need to be taught?”
The few people watching nearby looked miserable. *If this doesn’t need to be taught, then we’ve wasted all our years alive.
Not long after, the woman who had first bought duck eggs came back, leading a group of people. “That’s her! She hasn’t left yet!”
Elizabeth turned pale, thinking there was some problem with the eggs. But the woman and her companions surrounded Scarlett and asked, “Are the duck eggs still the same price as before?”
Scarlett nodded. “Of course. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets.”
The group began talking at once, trying to bargain. One complained that wild duck eggs didn’t taste as smooth as chicken eggs; another nitpicked about the size. Scarlett only smiled, knowing full well that customers who nitpick the most often end up buying. She let them talk as much as they wanted.
Sure enough, when Scarlett’s patience remained unshaken, her smile unyielding, the woman and her three companions bought up the remaining eggs. All 84 eggs sold, with each person buying 21. Scarlett had anticipated this, pricing her eggs to appeal to the buyer’s desire for a “deal.”
As before, she waived the extra penny of change for each buyer.
The same people who had been complaining earlier now walked away, money spent, looking thoroughly pleased with themselves.
However, Scarlett miscalculated when it came to selling the ducklings she had brought. Urban residents lived in small spaces and didn’t have leftover food to feed ducks. The ducklings proved difficult to market.
Altogether, Scarlett sold 84 duck eggs for 9 dollars and 20 cents. She handed the money to Elizabeth, who, instead of keeping it, insisted Scarlett hold onto it. Scarlett wanted to explore the city further to look for other opportunities. Just then, the man selling sweet potatoes approached her.
“Would you trade those ducklings for sweet potatoes?” he asked, his eyes betraying his interest after seeing how well Scarlett’s eggs sold. While city folk had no space to raise ducks, he had plenty of room.
Scarlett didn’t really want to eat more sweet potatoes. Overeating them caused bloating. Elizabeth, however, was willing to trade. Sweet potatoes were abundant this time of year and could hardly compete with the value of eggs, which were a luxury in 1983.
After thinking it through, Scarlett proposed, “Make it an even 20 pounds of sweet potatoes, and I’ll give you all eight ducklings.”
The man hesitated. “One pound of sweet potatoes for one duckling? If they grow up and fly away, I’d lose everything!”
Scarlett, serious, gave him instructions. “Clip their wing feathers. They won’t be able to fly anywhere. If you think 20 pounds is too much, I’ll just take them back and raise them myself.”
Sweet potatoes weren’t worth much, and ducks could be fed on vegetable scraps, grass, and worms. While raising them was a bit troublesome, it didn’t require grain. If two of the ducks turned out to be egg-layers, they could produce at least two eggs a day, worth 20 cents. Over a month, that was 3 dollars; over a year, 36 dollars.
Scarlett laid out the math, and the man gave in, trading 20 pounds of sweet potatoes for the eight ducklings.
Mother and daughter packed the sweet potatoes into their reed baskets and strolled through the city.
Elizabeth was in awe. She had never imagined making money could be this easy.
Between the money from selling duck eggs and the 20 pounds of sweet potatoes, they had roughly 10 dollars’ worth of goods. For rural people scraping a living from the fields, a year’s income barely reached 200 dollars, much of which was spent on seeds and fertilizer. Savings were meager, and any hope for financial stability depended on no one falling seriously ill or having to pay school fees.
“Ten dollars in a day! That’s 300 dollars a month,” Elizabeth muttered, calculating in her head. She couldn’t even fathom how much money that would be in a year.
Scarlett smiled faintly. “Unfortunately, duck eggs aren’t something we can gather every day.”
Elizabeth sighed wistfully, “I could’ve raised those ducklings. Clipping their wings would have been easy, and they would’ve laid eggs long-term.”
Scarlett didn’t show any impatience. She understood that Elizabeth was a typical rural woman of the time—simple, uneducated, and resigned to her fate. In the closed-off, conservative 1980s, people like Elizabeth were honest and dutiful but lacked broader perspectives.
Scarlett knew that if she wanted to lead Elizabeth out of Larkspur Village and its stifling poverty, she would have to help her mother slowly change her mindset.
