The Impersonal Transaction of Henry and Joshua

The authors seem to imagine the two men as the heads of patriarchal households, on good terms with each other. How might henry pay joshua back? There are endless possibilities. Henry might not have something joshua wants right now, but if the two are neighbors, it's obviously only a matter of time before he will. This in turn means that the need to stock pile commonly acceptable items in the way that smith suggested, disappears as well. As with so many actual small communities, everyone simply keeps track of who owes what to whom.