Johnnie was very fond of gardening. One day, he found a small seed. He took the seed and planted it in his garden.
He watered the seed and took care of it with all the plants in his garden. But he was surprised to find that the seed grew very fast. Within two weeks he had a beautiful tree in his garden with lovely fruits on it that looked like apples!
He decided to taste one of the fruits. So, he plucked it and cut it with a knife. Lo and behold! Five gold coins fell out of it! Johnnie was thrilled. Now he would not be poor any more. “But if I tell anyone, my fruits will be stolen. So, I won’t tell anyone at all, not even my mother,” thought Johnnie, “Or she will tell others and that will create a problem.”
Johnnie’s mother was old and blind, but she was clever. She knew nothing about the gold coins. Johnnie only gave her some part of the fruit to eat.
But soon, she found that Johnnie was giving her good food to eat; her bed was soft and she had a new pillow; he got her a new dress and a pair of shoes. She was very happy. “But how did Johnnie get all these things?” she wondered. And one day, she heard the clink of the gold coins and asked him where he had got them. Finally, Johnnie had to tell her.
“Every day I cut one fruit and take the gold coins to buy all that we need,” explained Johnnie. The old lady was very happy. But slowly, an idea came into her head.
“Why not pluck all the fruits at once and have loads of money? Then we’ll be really rich!” she thought. She began to pester poor Johnnie daily to pluck all the fruits. He would tell her they did not need more. But she kept on troubling him day after day.
Finally, Johnnie got fed up and decided to pluck all the fruits. He brought a large basket and filled it up with all the fruits on the tree. He began to cut them but one after another the fruits turned out to be rotten inside. Poor Johnnie! When he looked out, he found the tree had lost all its leaves and had withered. His greedy mother had dried up the tree and all their money too!
