The Golden Arm

The CampfireThe openingFree

This is the oldest trick in campfire telling. Mark Twain used to tell it on stage, in front of hundreds of people, more than a hundred years ago. He said the whole story is about one pause. If you get the pause right, somebody screams.

I'm going to try to get it right.

Once there was a man who lived way out in the country, all by himself, in a little house at the edge of a big dark field. He was a mean, stingy man, and the only thing he loved in this world was money.

One day he heard about a woman in the next county who had an arm made of gold. Solid gold, from the shoulder to the fingertips. Nobody knew how she'd lost her real arm, and she didn't say. But the gold one shone like the sun.

So he went and courted her. And he married her.

Not because he loved her. Because of the arm.

They lived out in the little house at the edge of the field. And every night, while she slept, he lay awake, looking at that golden arm shining in the moonlight on the blanket.