by Stan
“Outta sight!” said Queenie.
“How much is he gonna pay us?” asked Lizzy.
“Not much,” said Brother. “Just chicken feed.”
“Chicken feed?” gasped Barry. “We can’t pay for Christmas gifts with chicken feed! We’ll get kicked out of every store!”
“It’s just an expression,” said Fred. “It means ‘money, but not a lot.’”
“I knew that,” said Barry, blushing.
“But that’s perfect,” said Trudy. “We don’t need a lot of money. And Farmer Ben needs help but can’t afford to pay high wages. So it’s a good deal for us and him. I think we should celebrate with another round of shakes. Right, Ferd?” She turned to her boyfriend, then frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You don’t look happy.”
Ferdy shrugged. “I never look happy,” he said.
“But you don’t even look your usual bored,” said Trudy. “You look upset.”
Ferdy folded his arms and looked away. “Well, why shouldn’t I be upset?” he said. “Farmwork?”
“What’s wrong with farmwork?” asked Sister.
“Are you joking?” said Ferdy. “It’s dirty. And smelly.”
“Oh, gimme a break!” moaned Queenie. “As if you’ve never done dirty or smelly work before! What about when you helped your uncle study the algae in Great Grizzly Lake and came back every day with your knickers full of muck?”
“Yeah,” said Barry. “And what about the time you studied the plants and animals of Forbidden Bog and fell in quicksand?”
“That’s different,” said Ferdy coldly. “That was science!”
Trudy was eyeing Ferdy with suspicion. “I think I know what’s really bothering you,” she said.
“Oh?” said Ferdy. “And what is it, pray tell?”
“You think farmwork is beneath you, don’t you?” said Trudy. “You don’t think it will challenge your mind.”
“Well, how could farmwork possibly challenge the mind of a genius?” Ferdy scoffed.
“Oh, come on, Ferd,” said Brother. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. At least give it a chance.”
With a sigh, Ferdy unfolded his arms. “All right,” he said. “I’ll try it. For one day. But if it’s boring …”
Chapter 2
A Farmer’s Pride
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when the cubs reached the front porch of the Bens’ farmhouse the following Saturday. Ferdy let out a yawn as Brother reached up and rang the doorbell. But it wasn’t his usual bored yawn. It was a sleepy yawn. And as sleepy yawns have a way of doing, it set off a wave of yawning among the cubs.
“Why in the world did we have to get up while it was still dark?” asked Queenie.
“I heard that!” boomed Farmer Ben’s deep voice as the front door swung open. That made the cubs jump, but they relaxed as soon as they saw that he was grinning. “The answer is: to learn how a farmer lives,” Ben continued. “A farmer always wakes while it’s still dark and gets to work at the crack of dawn.” He looked off to the east. “I see that dawn’s a-crackin’ already. Come in, cubs.”
The cubs followed Farmer Ben into the living room, where they sat on a sofa and some chairs.
“Today is just for watching, listening, and learning,” said Farmer Ben. “Next Saturday you’ll start doing chores all by yourselves. Before then you’ll each need to buy a pair of overalls like mine. Now, any questions before we go outside?”
Sister started to raise her hand, then remembered she wasn’t in school. “I have one, Farmer Ben,” she said. She pointed to three portraits that hung on the wall behind Ben. “Who are they?”
“Why, they’re my ancestors,” said Farmer Ben. “This one on the left is my great-grandfather, Ben Ezra, and the one in the middle is my grandfather, Ben Abner. And the last one is my father, Ben Noah.” His eyes got misty as he looked at the portraits of bears in overalls. “This farm has been passed down from father to son for generations,” he explained. “I plan to pass it down to my own son, Ben Wilmer, who’s studying farm science at Big Bear University. I’m mighty proud of that. We Bens are bears of the land, and we’ll never leave it.”
Farmer Ben spoke these words with a catch in his voice and a tear in his eye. It was clear to the cubs that he had deep feelings about his farm. But there was something else about his speech. Something troubling.
The cubs were all thinking the same thing, but, as usual, it was Queenie who blurted it out. “Papa Bear said your farm is having hard times and that you had to fire your farm hand,” she said. “Is that true?”
The cubs saw a hardness come into Farmer Ben’s face. At first they thought he was angry with Queenie for raising the subject. But after a moment he relaxed and said, “It’s true, cubs. And it’s a darn shame. Jake is a fine farm hand. I hated to let him go. But I had no choice. Mrs. Ben did his chores for a while. But then things got so bad that she had to take a job at the fabric store in town to help support the farm. That’s why I’ve hired you cubs.”
“But why have things gotten so bad for the farm?” asked Sister.
Farmer Ben sighed. “It’s a long story,” he said. “For years and years I’ve sold my fruits, vegetables, and dairy products to the five grocery stores in the Beartown area. But about six months ago, Ed Hooper opened Hooper’s Sooper-Dooper Market out on the highway near Birder’s Woods. Maybe some of you have been there.”
“I have,” said Queenie. “It’s huge. And it’s got everything.”
“That’s just the trouble,” said Ben. “Hooper’s sells everything the small grocery stores sell and more. Plus, it sells everything cheaper. The small stores have lost so many customers to Hooper’s that three of them have already gone out of business. That’s been real tough on the farm.”
“Why is it tough on the farm?” asked Brother. “Can’t you sell your goods to Hooper?”
“Oh, I do,” said Ben. “But Hooper doesn’t pay us farmers nearly as much as the grocery stores do. He claims he can’t afford to pay as much because he sells cheap. But I’m not so sure about that.”
“Why?” asked Brother.
“Because of what happened when Hooper opened his first Sooper-Dooper Market over in Bearville,” said Ben. “Before that, he was just an ordinary small businessbear with a successful grocery store in Bearville. Then he borrowed a lot of money from some big businessbears in Big Bear City and opened the first Hooper’s Sooper-Dooper Market. At first he sold everything cheap. Of course, he lost money because of his low prices. But the loans kept him going until all the other grocery stores went out of business. As soon as Hooper’s was the only supermarket left in Bearville, he raised his prices. In fact, he raised them higher than they had been at the small grocery stores. But by then his customers had nowhere else to shop.”
“But when Hooper raised his prices,” said Brother, “couldn’t he also pay farmers more for their goods?”
“He could,” said Farmer Ben, “but he didn’t. That way he made a huge profit. At first, local farmers refused to sell their goods at such low prices. But Hooper had enough money to pay truckers to bring farm goods in from all over Bear Country. Finally, the local farmers were forced to sell to Hooper. So Hooper and his backers got richer while the farmers and shoppers got poorer.”
The cubs were silent for a while after Farmer Ben finished speaking. Finally, Sister asked, “So, what will you do if Hooper tries the same thing here?”
Ben thought for a moment. “I don’t know, cubs,” he said. “I’m already just hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Some folks are saying I should sell the farm. And I’ve had lots of offers from land developers who want to turn it into a housing development or a parking lot or some such thing. But I refuse to sell. The Bens have farmed this land ever since Ben Ezra first plowed, planted, and harvested it. And I just can’t let him and my other farmer ancestors down by selling it.”
Ben was misty-eyed again as he looked long and hard at the portraits. “But don’t wo
rry, cubs,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I’ll think of something.”
Ben kept staring at the portraits, as though the solution would somehow come from them. And then he said something that made the cubs realize that he really was expecting some kind of help from his ancestors.
“I have faith, cubs,” said Ben. “Faith in the wisdom of my ancestors. They wouldn’t let anything happen to this farm. You know, sometimes I feel as if their spirits are still here, protecting the farm.”
That gave the cubs a strange, shivery feeling. They looked at one another, wondering what Farmer Ben would say next.
Copyright
The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Run-Amuck Robot
Copyright © 1997 by Berenstain Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 2012
ISBN 978-0-06-218860-1
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062188601
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Originally published in 1997 by Random House, Inc.
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