He had not pictured this. Len felt both cheated and embarrassed by his own delusions. He glared at the basket of apples in the wagon. They would not eat this many in a month.
Ahead, he could see the little shed that served as the register. When they finally made it, the girl inside took their wagon and weighed the apples they had picked. Then she rang up the sale on an old-fashioned cash register. When the numbers flicked up, Len waited; surely, that was too much. He held his wallet in his hand, waiting for the girl to tell him the correct price.
“Sir?” she prompted finally, gesturing at the register. “It’s seven seventy-five.”
Len’s mouth opened. Eight bucks for a bag of apples? Bristling, he opened his wallet and pulled out the bills.
“What a rip-off,” he muttered as they trudged bac
