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Bartering For Better Butter (What A Person Doesn’t Know Won’t Hurt Them) l Frank owned the local community general store in the little western frontier town. Hard cash was a scarce commodity, and most purchases were formulated through a barter system. For example, if a person had chickens, he might bring in a dozen eggs to trade for five pounds of flour. Likewise, if someone brought in flour, he could trade ten pounds for a dozen eggs. It was the difference in what Frank paid and what he sold it for that was his profit. One of the most important commodities that Frank sold, bought, and traded for was butter. No self-respecting person would think of having a meal without setting a plate of rich, creamy butter on the table. The wives of farmers, who owned dairy cows, churned their own cream to make the butter. Some families were especially proud of their traditional butter recipes. Most families only produced enough for themselves, but a few produced enough that they sold or traded the extra. Those who used it for trading might wrap their butter in a special paper that marked it as coming from their farm. Others would just bring theirs to Frank in a container, and he would wrap it in the generic 28