Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

One Thin Dime

I had no idea so much trouble could be caused by one little dime. This was all my aunt could say and yet as everyone knows, ill-gotten gains bring ill-gotten rewards. I would like to tell you a strange story of the fall of a small town baron.

As a young girl, my aunt worked at the only bakery in the small town she lived in. The baker was a thrifty sort and when my aunt asked for work he quickly saw that he could have this lass working for peanuts and thus save even more money on his payroll. I say peanuts but I should say donuts for that is what he paid her, one dozen donuts per week. At first, she was happy just to have something to do during the boring summer plus she got donuts.

The problem started when her friend Emily started coming by everyday on her way to the ice cream shop, she always invited my aunt to go along, but alas, she had no money. Emily would say, "It's only a dime, I know you can find a dime somewhere." As Emily repeated this everyday my aunt soon came to resent her pay arrangement.

One of her jobs was sweeping the shop and as she did this one day, she swept a pile of dust and debris under the stairs where a little cabinet was built in. She was in a hurry to go home and couldn't locate the dustbin since no one ever opened this little cabinet she opened the lid with the thought of dumping the debris in it until the next day. Once the door was open and her eyes accustomed to the dark she saw the little place was filled with change. There were pails of dimes, quarters, and half-dollars just sitting there. My aunt looked at the pail of dimes and thought the baker would never miss just one dime, so she took one. When Emily came by my aunt surprised her by agreeing to go have ice cream. This became the regular routine every day my aunt would help herself to just one dime.

One day when my aunt came to work she saw men in suits placing the baker in handcuffs and another taking all the pails of coins from the storeroom. Unknown to my aunt all of the coins under the stairs were silver, unlike modern coins; they were actually worth more than face value. The baker's father was raised in post world war l in Germany where inflation ran rampant and paper money worthless. Always fearful of a monetary crash, everyday he would take all the silver coins and hide them under the stairs. He never told anyone of this and when he died his hoard went undiscovered, and the little cabinet unnoticed.

The ice cream man recognized the silver dimes right away and after a few days of my aunt paying with silver, he asked where she got them. My aunt young and innocent simply told him her boss had buckets of them under the stairs. It turns out the ice cream vendor and the baker had a long running feud so with a chance to do damage he turned in the baker into the Federal Reserve. Not only was the baker fined heavily for hoarding, he had never reported the coins as income so he was charged with tax evasion. As for my aunt who lost her job and her daily ice cream all she could say was," I had no idea so much trouble could be caused by one little dime"

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