Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [434]

The Mosses had been selling to us all along, of course, meat, hides, fertilizer, everything except live rabbits. Those he hoarded as breeding stock. But now, stubborn, arrogant, and greedy, he had decided he could earn more if he peddled his merchandise outside. So, now the word is out on the street about the damned rabbits, and last night someone came to get them. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 434

Note

The triple adjective stack “stubborn, arrogant, and greedy” is Lauren passing judgment in free indirect style, and the causal chain that follows — he sold outside, so the street learned, so the thieves came — is delivered as cold consequence rather than tragedy. “The damned rabbits” is the tell: her exasperation is with Moss, not the thieves, and the passage shows how scarcity has made neighborly sharing collapse into blame.