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"The Wonderful Pump"
An American Fairy Tale

 

           In a very small house outside of town lived a poor but honest farmer and his wife. From the time the sun went up until the sun went down, the two of them worked hard in their fields.

            One time in the morning and once at night, the woman would walk down a long path to a stream of water to fill up her pails with drinking water, for they had no running water in their house. One day as she was walking to the stream, the woman saw a beetle lying on its back with its feet up in the air. The kind woman reached down and flipped the beetle over. She was surprised when she heard it speak. “Thank you, kind woman,” it said.

            The woman leaned down close to the beetle, “I do not believe this! How can you talk?”

            “Why should I not talk if I have something to say?” replied the beetle. “It is seldom that we have something to say to humans, but you saved my life! I feared a bird had seen me and was coming to eat me. Tell me, woman, why do you walk to the stream every day?”

            The woman told the beetle that they had no water at home.

            “Dig a well,” the beetle replied, “and I promise you that you will get something more precious than water.” The beetle slowly walked into the grass and disappeared.

            When the woman returned home, she told her husband what had happened. “I have heard of such magical creatures,” said the husband. “Although we tried before to dig a well, I will do as the beetle suggests. It may be wise to listen to such a magical creature.”

The next day, the farmer started to dig the well when the sun came up. Finally, after laboring most of the day, he placed the pump on top of the well. By the time the sun was setting, he was ready to test the pump.

            At first there was nothing. Then there came a strange clinking and clanking sound. Soon, out of the spout of the pump came a gold coin with the water. The man picked up the gold coin and looked at it. The writing on it read, “$100 United States Mint.” The farmer and his wife looked at each other in astonishment. The woman moved to the pump and started cranking it. Clink, clank, clink, clank…gold coins started falling out of the pump and soon a whole bucket was filled.

            They brought the bucket onto the kitchen table and looked at it. The woman was smiling and full of excitement, but her husband looked worried, and a crease had formed upon his forehead. “We cannot use this gold,” The farmer said. “Either it is fairy gold and will disappear in twenty-four hours, or it is stolen gold. If it is stolen, then we ought to find the owner.” They hid the gold in a cabinet and went to sleep for the night.

            In the morning, the woman woke up early and checked on the gold. It was still there. She went down to the stream to wash some clothes. At the stream, she saw the beetle sitting on a rock. “Thank you!” cried the woman. “But the gold we cannot accept because my husband fears it is stolen.”

            “It is not stolen,” replied the beetle. “Beetles often find lost gold on the ground or buried in the sand. They bring the gold to me, for I am the king of beetles. We have no use for gold, but I have kept the gold, and now I have given it to you for saving my life.”

The woman was overjoyed. She immediately ran back to the house to tell her husband the good news. She ran so fast that she did not hear the beetle warning her to be careful with how she spent the gold.

            The farmer and his wife went to the well again and filled up another bucket full of gold. They changed clothes, filled their pockets, and in the afternoon, walked merrily into town.

In town, the farmer and his wife went to the finest shops and the finest restaurants and spent their money quite happily and foolishly. When the time came to pay for things, they were never shy about showing how many gold coins they had in their pockets. They soon ran out of gold coins. They had bought so many things that they had to hire a driver to bring back all of their goods, promising to pay him when they reached the house.

            As they had been flashing their gold around in town, word spread quickly about their new wealth, and a group of thieves wondered how much gold they had hidden in their house. As the farmer and his wife had been foolishly shopping, four thieves had ridden out to their house and stolen the gold hidden in the cabinet.

When the farmer and his wife returned home, they found they had been robbed and could not even pay the man for driving them home. They went to the well, but no more gold came out.

            The woman stayed up all night crying at their foolishness. The next morning she went to see the beetle and told her what had happened.

            “I am sorry for your loss,” said the beetle, “but the gold had been lost by someone before you, and it will surely be lost again. “I have no more gold to give you.”

            “What shall we do?” asked the woman.

            “What did you do before?” countered the beetle.

            “We worked from sun up until sun down.”

            “Then you will work again,” replied the beetle. “No one can rob you of that.”