Mrs. Johnson was a perfect but remote presence in the neighborhood, constantly dressed in sharp business clothes and hardly ever greeting anyone. This didn’t trouble the narrator until her son Ethan started working twenty bucks mowing Mrs. Johnson’s sizable lawn. Ethan labored two days, but Mrs. Johnson dismissed him when he went to pick his pay, declaring, “hard work was its own reward.” When Ethan’s mother saw his dismay, she became suddenly defensive. Driven to make sure her son received the respect he was due, she developed a strategy after phoning her friend Mark, a landscaping company owner. Mark cut Mrs. Johnson’s hedges into funny forms, and shortly after three mulch loads were dumped on her driveway, blocking her car and creating a show among the neighbors.

Mrs. Johnson was shocked when she returned home and noticed the mulch mounds, then she became enraged. She addressed Ethan’s mother, who gently reminded her of how she had discounted his diligence. Mrs. Johnson grudgingly pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill with a huff, which Ethan took with encouragement from his mother.
Mrs. Johnson stopped asking Ethan for aid that day forward. The episode turned into a neighborhood legend, a “cautionary tale” on the need of integrity and the results of exploiting people. The muck finally vanished, but everyone’s memory of justice and respect remained clear.