The Miser and his Gold

ONCE upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used to come and visit his gold. "Did you ever take any of it out?" asked one of them. "Nay," said he, "I only came to look at it."

"Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour; "it will do you just as much good."

Wealth unused might as well not exist.

From The Miser and his Gold by Aesop, translated by Joseph Jacobs (1894). Public domain.

Check your understanding

1. What did the miser do with his gold every week?

He spent it at the market.He gave it to his neighbors.He dug it up to look at it.He hid it in his house.

2. What happens to the miser's gold in the story? Tell the events in order.

3. Why did the neighbor tell the miser to just come and look at the empty hole?

4. How do you think the miser felt when he found the empty hole, and what clues in the text tell you this?

5. The story ends by saying Wealth unused might as well not exist. Do you agree with this lesson? Why or why not?