Kinfolks
Adapted from AESOPs Fables
An Ozark farmer named Sam Davis, who never stopped worrying about
the safety of his many possessions, sold all his property and had the
money converted into a huge lump of gold. Then he buried the gold in
a hole in the ground near his chickencoop. Every morning he went to
visit the site and gloat over the size of it.
The farmer's strange behavior aroused the curiosity of one of the
local thieves.
Spying upon the rich man from some bushes, the thief saw him place
the lump of gold back in the hole and cover it up.
As soon as the farmer went to visit a neighbor, the thief went to the
spot, dug up the gold, and took it away.
The next morning when Sam came to gloat over his treasure he found
nothing but an empty hole. He wept and tore his hair, and so loud were
his shoutings that a neighboring farmer came running to see what was
the trouble. As soon as he had learned the cause of it, he said to
Sam:
"You are foolish to distress yourself so over something that was
buried in the earth. Take a stone and put it in the hole, and think
that it is your lump of gold. You never meant to use it anyway.
Therefore it will do you just as much good to love a lump of granite
as a lump of gold."
Kinda reminded me of the Newton County Sam Davis' story of his hidden
gold.
10 Jan 2000
Evelyn Flood
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