THE SHOWMAN BECOMES GENEROUS
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Mabie, Hamilton Wright, Forbush, William Byron, and Hale, Edward Everett
"Would you like to make out of your five miserable gold pieces, a hundred, a thousand, two thousand?"
"I should think so! But in what way?"
"The way is easy enough. Instead of returning home you must go with us."
"And where do you wish to take me?"
"To the Land of the Owls."
Pinocchio reflected a moment, and then he said resolutely:
"No, I will not go. I am already close to the house, and I will return home to my papa who is waiting for me. Who can tell how often the poor old man must have sighed yesterday when I did not come back! I have been a bad son, indeed, and the Talking-cricket was right when he said 'Disobedient boys never come to any good in the world.' I have found it [page 408] to my cost, for many misfortunes have happened to me. Even yesterday in Fire-eater's house I ran the risk.... Oh! it makes me shudder only to think of it."
"Well, then," said the Fox, "you are quite decided to go home? Go, then, and so much the worse for you."
"So much the worse for you!" repeated the Cat.
"Think well of it, Pinocchio, for you are giving a kick to fortune."
"To fortune!" repeated the Cat.
"Between to-day and to-morrow your five gold pieces would have become two thousand."
"Two thousand!" repeated the Cat.
"But how is it possible that they could have become so many?" asked Pinocchio, remaining with his mouth open from astonishment.
"I will explain it to you at once," said the Fox. "You must know that in the Land of the Owls there is a sacred field called by everybody the Field of Miracles. In this field you must dig a little hole, and you put into it, we will say one gold piece. Then you cover up the hole with a little earth; you water it with two pails of water from the fountain, then sprinkle it with two pinches of salt, and when night comes you can go quietly to bed. In the meanwhile, during the night, the gold piece will grow and flower, and in the morning when you return to the field, what do you find? You find a beautiful tree laden with as many gold pieces as an ear of corn has grains in the month of June."
"So that," said Pinocchio, more and more bewildered, "supposing I buried my five gold pieces in that field, how many should I find there the following morning?"
"That is exceedingly easy calculation," replied the Fox, "a calculation that you can make on the ends of your fingers. Suppose that every gold piece gives you an increase of five hundred; multiply five hundred by five, and the following morning will find you with two thousand five hundred shining gold pieces in your pocket."
"Oh! how delightful!" cried Pinocchio, dancing for joy, "As soon as ever I have obtained those gold pieces, I will keep [page 409] two thousand for myself, and the other five hundred I will make a present of to you two."
"A present to us?" cried the Fox with indignation, and appearing much offended. "What are you dreaming of?"
"What are you dreaming of?" repeated the Cat.
"We do not work," said the Fox, "for dirty interest, we work solely to enrich others."
"Others!" repeated the Cat.
"What good people!" thought Pinocchio to himself; and forgetting there and then his papa, the new coat, the spelling-book, and all his good resolutions, he said to the Fox and the Cat:
"Let us be off at once. I will go with you."