 Upon returning home with an armful of rocks he has collected, he witnesses his father at work at the family pawnshop business, in the middle of insisting that he cannot give a poor farmer any more money for his goods.Kenji later argues with his father about the business, decrying the practice of profiting off the poor.However, he is cheered by his sister Toshi; he asks her if she has read his poem in Azalea, a reference to the magazine that Miyazawa started with his friends.