Real Gold

Real Gold

by Onyi Ugochuku

John was up to his ankles in the creek. Holding a pan in one hand, he knelt down in the cool water. On each side rose the green hills in Ireland, quiet and soft and beautiful. No one was there except the boy, for it was four miles to the nearest hamlet. He had been sent to that little valley by his father to find enough gold to be made into a necklace for his mother’s thirty-fifth birthday. This was not the best of jobs in his opinion. He was wet now to his knees, and wanted to hurry and get home because it was clear that rain would soon fall.

He set the pan in the water and began to fill it with pebbles, gazing apprehensively at the sky, which was clouding fast. Finally the pan was full enough to sift.

Thunder rumbled. John sprang from his position and raced to the bank. In his haste to get out of the creek, however, he spilled the pan and everything in it. Seeing no lightning, he turned and threw the gravel irritably back into the pan.

“Even if you hadn’t spilled that,” came a voice, “you probably wouldn’t have found any gold.”

John turned sharply. “What?” Before him stood a short man with a very long beard, and he realized quickly what he was.

“I’m a leprechaun. I know everything there is about gold, and I can tell you wouldn’t have found much that way. It’s going to rain, maybe you’d like to come inside?”

John’s heart leapt. Here was a chance to get his mother a piece of gold without panning! For this reason only did he follow that creature into his place.

“Sure,” he responded. He followed the leprechaun down the valley into a cave he had never seen before. At one end, where pictures are often kept, over the fireplace, there was a large periodic table. Beside the fire were two pots, one of silver, one of gold, at which John stared. On

the shelf were a couple books, one called Gold in History and the other on Jason and the golden fleece. The leprechaun and John sat opposite each other just as the rain began to fall.

“Why,” began John somewhat curiously, “did you say my panning wouldn’t work?”

“You see, in panning, the gold’s density must be greater than that of the gravel and sand so you can find it.”

At the long word “density” John immediately stopped paying attention, but knew his only chance of getting anything lay in looking interested. “Tell me all about gold, from the beginning,” he half-sighed.

Oblivious to John’s tone, the leprechaun promptly replied, “Well, it’s a transition metal, so it’s solid at room temperature, and shiny, and hard. You can see it on the periodic table. It’s period 6, group 11, reads 79 Au.”

John dragged himself off the chair and studied the place indicated. “Why is it Au instead of G?”

“The Latin word for gold is aurum.”

John felt a keen vigor sweep him at the sight of the gold and silver. “May I touch?” “Absolutely not!” the leprechaun snapped. “Sit down!”

John sat down sullenly. The other seemed to be aware of his mood all of a sudden, and

got up, took one of the books and handed it to him, saying somewhat gruffly, “While I make tea, you can read in this book about the history of gold.”

Reluctantly the other accepted, scanning pages unseeingly, but then he spied something. “It says here that the Italian dentists of old used gold in their work! Do people still do that these days? Oh, yes, they use them in dental attachments. Wow.”

It was one of the first signs of genuine enthusiasm on John’s part.

“Read pages 248 to 249.”

“Wow. We can get gold from the sea. Have you ever tried that? It’s estimated, wait, 13.7 million tons?” Somewhere in his mind, he was traveling through uncharted territory, and he could see himself with all the gold he wanted, his mother with a gold necklace for each year each month each week! No longer bound by tiresome panning, he had twenty-four gold teeth, he was living with ancient Italians...

“Tea time,” the leprechaun announced in a more friendly tone than he had yet used.

As they ate gold-colored corn muffins and sipped tea, John asked why there was silver in the house, and some of the greed was gone from his voice.

The other could barely keep the pride from, “I am an amateur scientist.”

“So...”

“I found out through several experiments that gold reacts more violently than silver. You

can learn why at the periodic table.”

Accordingly John rose and found silver directly above gold. He turned inquiringly.

“The farther up the less reactive it is,” said the leprechaun. “So gold is more reactive than

silver but less than roentgenium.”

John said politely, “That’s nice.” He felt his interest fading. They cleared away the tea

things, and John brought up the subject of getting gold again. “Leprechaun, I would like some gold. You see, my mother is turning thirty-five and we intend to celebrate with some sort of necklace. That’s what I want to talk about.”

And suddenly he realized that was what he should not have said. The leprechaun gave him a look of pity and scorn. “Don’t you know,” he answered in a low voice, “that if you do not learn about gold’s properties, you will only think gold is for just that? A mother’s necklace? You

will not do experiments, nor enjoy it for what it is. You are sulky when I don’t let you take gold. But you need to know about real gold, John.”

John nodded shamefacedly. He first had to make himself listen, but soon was quite absorbed in the conversation. For the next three hours they sat and read of “real gold” of John Stewart MacArthur and Fritz Haber, and others who had researched how to extract gold, and how little gold had been found, and much more until the world seemed made of gold and nothing else mattered to John anymore, and time and time again John felt that thrill he had had over Italian dentists.

The conversation ended with, “Come here, I want to show you something.” When they left the cave John was still wondering about the California Gold Rush, and then he noticed that the pan and the creek were exactly as he had left them, the one still full of useless gravel and sand, and the other still burbling away toward his house four miles away. John realized that he would have to go back and pan, and felt a little sad, but not as much. For now there would be things to think on, and he knew that even if he found nothing in that creek, he had discovered real gold... he nearly bumped into a wall of color. John glanced up quickly. “A rainbow oh, look!” For the sun shone on the rain, and where they met was great beauty, and he was right in front of it. The little dale had a very tender feel, as though something wonderful would happen.

The leprechaun pointed to some object and, having no reply, walked away with a shrug of his shoulders.

It took a short while before John noticed that he was the only one basking in the pleasure of discovering the beauty of gold and nature all on the same day. He looked about, then up, then, down and shrieked.

At the foot of the rainbow lay a pot of gold.

THE END