novelxo Chapter Dividing the Spoils
After a while, Joe spoke up about their ill-gotten gains.
“So?” he wanted to know. “How are we going to divide all this food up?”
The boy sat up to face him. “Right down the middle–fair and square. I get half and you get half–less my captain’s commission.”
“What’s a commission?”
“That’s an extra share,” the boy explained. “The captain of the expedition always gets an extra share. We divide everything up in equal shares. As the leader of this here outfit, I get an extra share. Then there’s the fact that you’re an apprentice. I also get a share for being your teacher. Then we divide everything up equally by shares.”
The boy began with the corn to divide it up for Young Joe. “Okay! Now I get three ears of corn for my three shares and you get one for yours.”
The boy divided up the corn and, when he had finished, he had nine ears of corn to Young Joe’s three.
Joe shook his head in confusion at that. “I don’t understand. How come I only have three ears of corn and you got a–uh–more than three? (Young Joe still couldn’t count past three.). That doesn’t look equal to me.”
“It is equal by share of the work,” the boy explained.
“I did just as much of the work as you did,” Young Joe stated. “More even–I shucked the corn.”
“I only made you do that because you got lost,” the boy reminded him in warning. “Be glad I don’t charge you for each time you got lost and me having to find you.”
“Well! Okay! I guess that’s fair enough,” Joe agreed. “But I still carried just as much out of the field as you did. I did the same amount of work.”
“You did," the boy said. "You get one share for putting in the same amount of work as me, and I get one share for putting in the same amount of work as you.”
“That’s true,” Joe agreed. “Fair enough.”
“Okay! And I get another share for teaching you how to be quiet and for lifting your pappy’s pipe and tobacco, none of which you could do without me. Is that fair?”
“That’s fair,” Joe agreed.
“And it was my idea. I get a share for that.”
“That’s true.”
“Okay!” the boy finished. “That’s how we divided it.”
“We did," Joe agreed, yet still argued. "But now you got more than me. That’s not fair!”
“You said it was fair!”
“It was fair before you divided it up. It isn’t now!”
“How wasn’t it fair?”
“You got more than me.”
“Of course, I got more than you. I did more!”
“You did not! I carried just as much as you did!”
“I provided all the brains. You even said it was fair.”
“Well! It may sound fair, but it sure doesn’t look fair.” Joe was adamant that he'd been cheated.
“Who are you going to trust? Me or your own eyes?” demanded the boy.
“Okay!” Joe agreed. “I’ll trust you.”
“Good! So? Can I divide up the watermelons now?” the boy asked.
“Okay! Have it your way. Divide them up.”
So the boy divided them up the same, three for him and one for Young Joe.
Joe’s mouth fell open. “Are we doing this on the watermelons, too?!”
“Well! Of course!” the boy replied. “That’s how you divide everything!”
“But now it’s come out unfair twice!” Joe was back to feeling cheated.
So the boy explained it to him again, but young Joe’s mind could not see it. “The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it. Dividing shares with you is like betting nuts in a game of cards against a squirrel!”
But, by and by, the two reached an agreement. It was eventually realized that the boy couldn’t carry his three watermelons and nine ears of corn back home by himself. Joe would have to help and Young Joe, now being much wiser, argued out how they should do it.
“Okay!” he said. “If I’m to help you carry it, we divide it up into shares.”
“What do you mean?” the boy now demanded.
“We did it by shares your way. How come we can’t do it by shares my way?”
He had the boy there.
“Well… Okay!” the boy agreed.
The division of shares now snaked like a wily river, twisting and turning through the landscape of fairness, with the boy as its crafty navigator and Joe as the eager passenger on this intricate journey.
“Okay!” Young Joe began. “We each get one share for equal work. Isn’t that right?”
“Right,” the boy agreed.
“Plus, I get another share because it was my idea.”
“What was your idea?” the boy asked in surprise.
“That I help you carry your share back in exchange for shares in it.”
“You didn’t get that idea.”
“Sure I did. I just said it.”
“We both thought of it.”
“No.” Joe corrected him. “You never said it. In fact, you opposed it.”
“You’re saying I have to give you a share for helping me carry my share, plus give you a share for thinking of dividing it into shares?”
“That’s what you did. You said you were the brains and got an extra share for it.”
“I did not! I took a share as captain and a share for you being my apprentice.”
“You said you were the brains. And, besides, when I help you carry your share back, I’m the captain.”
“We don’t need a captain to walk to Linthiel!”
“Then you don’t need me.”
“Maybe," the boy insisted, "but I don’t need a captain!”
“But you need me for the idea and that makes me captain.”
The boy gave in.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll do it your way! So how are you going to divide my share?”
“Well! Of your three watermelons, you get one for your share of the work and I get one for my share of the work. Then I get one for being captain.”
“You get two of my three watermelons?”
“Plus,” young Joe continued, “Of all your ears of corn, you get three for your share of the work, and I get three for mine. Then I get three more for being captain.”
“That leaves me with one watermelon and three ears of corn,” the boy replied, “while you have three watermelons and nine ears of corn!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Joe wanted to know, meeting the boy's eye. “You thought that was fair when it was the other way around.”
“Okay! But only if you carry your full share,” the boy reluctantly agreed.
“Fair enough,” said Joe.
So Young Joe loaded himself up with three watermelons and nine ears of corn and followed after the boy to Linthiel, who carried his one watermelon and three ears of corn.
Now the boy had to admit that young Joe had progressed pretty far for a human boy in one day–but not far enough. If Joe had really thought it through, he’d have realized it made no sense for him to carry three watermelons and nine ears of corn to Linthiel when his payment was to carry the same three watermelons and nine ears of corn back. There was no sense in him carrying them to Linthiel at all. He should have just taken them home.
But the boy said nothing, letting Joe uselessly carry his burden. For the boy had a plan by which to recover not only his lost loot–but also to have it carried home for him, too.
When they reached Linthiel it was getting dark, and the boy made a show of dividing up the shares again and letting Joe pick out his three watermelons and nine ears of corn in pay to carry it back here and leaving the boy with his one watermelon and three ears of corn.
When Joe was about to leave, the boy spoke up.
“Oh! Joe?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to make another trade?”
“What kind of trade?”
“I’ll trade you something for your three watermelons and nine ears of corn.”
“Like what?”
“Like this pipe,” the boy replied, “and this tobacco. Unless, of course, you think your father won’t miss them?”
Minutes later, the boy had all the watermelons and all the corn and young Joe had his father’s pipe and tobacco, which he judged to be a wise trade and so both went away happily. The boy then decided to share his good fortune. First, he headed for the tree gnomes. They were too short to reach corn and not strong enough to carry or open a watermelon. So he shared one watermelon and three ears of corn with them and even opened the melon for them as well as cleaned the corn, for which they were exceedingly grateful. Then he played his flute and summoned the fairies and gave them the same gift as well. This resulted in him getting a kiss from yet a different fairy girl, which, of course, led to a fight between her and Mariel over him. Once he got that stopped, he headed home and shared the last three ears and watermelon with his half-brother Sith, for the taste of raw, sweet corn is always the best. Yet he shared it only on condition of making Sith promise not to ask where he got it.
The contented, well-fed boy fell asleep that night, loved by all, yet completely unaware of how his luck was about to change dramatically the next day at school.