The porch ran smooth now. The widow cut, the boy washed, and Pepper baked. But the coin pile stayed thin. Each morning Pepper set aside a few coins for the bakery she wanted, and each morning the stack for real walls barely grew. She counted it after the wages went out and frowned. She needed more days like this to build anything. Sable came around the corner with her ledger under her arm. She rang the brass bell at the same hour every day, rain or shine, and she never forgot a face or a sum. She stopped at the plank counter and watched the eaters fill every seat. Coins clinked into the tin. Her green eyes moved down the line, counting. "Busy," Sable said. She tapped the tin with one finger. "Busier than I thought. This porch was my empty storage once. Now it feeds half the town." She looked at Pepper over her canvas apron. "Our split was fair when nobody sat back here. Things changed. I think my half should grow." Pepper's stomach dropped. A bigger cut for Sable meant less for the bakery fund. It meant her walls and roof stayed a dream. "The split was fair this morning too," Pepper said. "I bake. I hired the help. I built this counter." "On my porch," Sable said. She did not raise her voice. She rarely did. "No porch, no crowd." Pepper wiped her hands and thought fast. Inside, at the end of the bar, sat Tobias Elm in his rumpled vest. He kept a card catalog below the counter and matched strangers to books and to each other. He had found her the widow. He watched now over his spectacles. "Sable," Pepper said. "You want a bigger share of one porch. Tobias, how many folks come in just for pie and leave without a drink?" Tobias slid off his stool. "Most of them," he said. "They eat, they talk, they go. But a full porch is a full saloon. A full saloon looks alive. Strangers walk in because it looks alive. Then they buy drinks." He tapped a card. "The pie draws the room. The room sells your whiskey, Sable." Sable was quiet. She looked at the crowded porch, then through the door at the busy bar. Her fingers moved, counting the thing she had missed. "Keep the split as it stands," Pepper said. "The crowd I pull fills your bar too. Break me, and both go quiet." Sable closed her ledger. "Fair," she said at last. "Same split. But I'll be watching those bar sales." She turned and walked back to ring in the noon hour. Pepper let out a slow breath. Her fund was safe. The stack for walls would keep growing, slow but sure. Then she looked at the wobbling plank and the leaning barrels. The porch was full. Too full. She had saved her coin, but the crowd still had nowhere real to sit.