Ben’s Pumpkins

BY JULIA SHIPLEY

he Pumpking”—that’s what Ben Notterman’s parents call him. Because, after all, here he is on their lawn at dawn, the blue-eyed, freckle-faced, bearded monarch, decked out in his vestments—sweatshirt, grubby jeans, and a crown, a ball cap smushed down on his sleeptousled hair—as he dismounts his ATV to inspect his loyal subjects: 6,000 pumpkins, arranged in tidy rows, like a royal court packed with orange faces. Consider also that Ben, 34, has been the reigning squash king of East Hardwick, Vermont, on a lovely dirt road called (so appropriately) Pumpkin Lane, for more than a quarter-century, growing his business since the ripe old age of 6.

Admittedly, it was his dad’s idea. One day after Ben and his mom had returned home with a trunkload of store-bought pumpkins, Ben’s father asked, “How much did all this cost?” Upon learning the truth, he replied, “I think we’ll grow our own.” So the same year that Ben’s teacher taught him simple arithmetic in school, he also learned that if he planted a 50-cent packet of seeds, tended his seedlings into thriving plants, and then sold his harvest of 24 portly squashes for a dollar apiece from the front lawn, he’d make what we grownups call a great rate of return.

But Ben’s lessons in financial literacy weren’t always so gratifying. When he was 8, he and his father made a sales call. Ben’s dad waited in the truck as Ben hopped out with an armload of inventory; he returned minutes later with a soda in one hand and a candy bar in the other, a triumphant grin all over his face.

“How’d it go?” Ben’s father asked.

“Oh, it went great.”

“Well, if you add up the cost of those pumpkins and compare it with the cost of what they gave you … Think about that.”

Ben did the math. “Whoa!” he blanched.

By fourth grade, Ben was discovering how to keep calm and carry on in customer satisfaction. In the weeks leading up to