Good morning honourable judges.

The title of my
story today is A Truly Rich Man.

In ancient Japan, there was a village where the people were very
poor. In this village lived two brothers named Kito and Komo.
One winter, the brothers set off to seek their fortunes. They
walked for miles until they came to a wood. There, they met an old
man who asked them, “Would you cut some wood for me?”
“Yes, certainly,” they replied. After a while, they noticed a
strange thing. No matter how much wood they cut, the heap of wood
remained the same. They looked around for the old man but he had
disappeared. Instead they found a bag of silver each.
“I shall return to our village and use the silver to help the poor.”
said Komo.
“That is not very clever. I want to be richer before I help
anyone.”
said Kito.
So the two brothers went their separate ways. Komo returned to
his village. He gave the villagers his silver to buy food and warm
clothing. The people were so grateful to Komo that they bowed and
thanked him profusely.
After one year, Komo found that he had no more silver. So once
more, Komo had to leave the village to seek his fortune.
In the meantime, Kito had become a money-lender in a big
town. He lent money to people and when they couldn’t repay him, he
took their possessions. He even drove them out of their homes. Thus,
he became a rich man.
When Komo heard that his brother had become rich, he went to
see him.

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“The poor in our village need help,” Komo told Kito.
“But I want to be a truly rich man first so that I can help them
properly,” replied Kito.
Kito then invited Komo to stay and work for him.
Meanwhile, Kito married a rich widow and became the richest
man in the town. Kito and his wife kept their money in the cellar.
They went there often to count their money.
Kito’s wife told Komo, “If you want money, you must work for
it. Our kitchen helper has just left. You can take his place.”
So Komo worked in the kitchen. When beggars begged for food,
he would give them scraps from his brother’s table.
When Kito found out about this, he was very furious.
“Those scraps are for my dogs and not for such dirty human!”
he shouted and drove Komo away.
One day, while Kito and his wife were counting their money in
the cellar, one, two, three, four, five… there was a sudden earthquake.
Their house collapsed on top of them and they were buried with their
wealth forever.
Spring came, Komo was taking a walk one day when he met a
dwarf.
“Would you mind digging a hole for me?” the dwarf asked.
Komo did not mind of course. He dug for a long time but the
dwarf kept telling him to dig deeper and deeper. The hole grew until it
was as deep as his own height. Only then was the dwarf satisfied. The
dwarf gave Komo a small seed and asked him to bury it.
“You can harvest the fruit of the tree this summer,” the dwarf
told Komo.

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 When summer came, Komo was surprised to find that the tree
did not bear ordinary fruit but gold coins! Komo gave away the gold
coins! The more he gave away, the more gold coins appeared on the
tree. Thus, Komo became a truly rich man.