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Yiddish-Folktales
@Yiddish-Folktales

The Coat of Patches

Once there was a man so poor that he couldn’t support his wife and six children. They were hungry and cold. The man thought, “What good is a life like this? I’ll have to do something about it.” He decided to go out into the wide world to beg for alms. So he said farewell to his family and started off.

He wandered through woods and forests, from villages to towns, and collected a great sum of money in coins, which he then changed into banknotes. But how could he carry them safely? Well, he hid them inside his coat, beneath patches that he sewed over each bundle of bills.

Eventually he had so much money that his entire coat was covered with patches. Of course it didn’t all happen at once. Years went by before the body of the coat was covered with patches. Then he had to sew patches on the sleeves, on the collar, and inside, on the lining.

So the years passed. He didn’t write letters and his wife and children, long convinced that he was dead, stopped mourning for him. They grew poorer every year. The mother took in laundry and scrubbed floors, while the children did what they could to earn something for the family. And thus thirty years went by.

The husband had a real stock of capital by now. And he thought, “How much longer must I wander? I’ll go back to my wife.” So he bought an expensive coat with a fur collar and dressed himself up like a rich man. He made a parcel of the patched coat and took it with him. When he arrived at his shtetl, nobody recognized him. He went into his house and asked his grown children, “Where is your father?” They said, “Our father went wandering in the wide world. Probably he’s dead.”

He said, “No, he’s not. Children, I am your father,” and embraced them. Immediately the house was filled with a joyful commotion. “Khaim Yankl is back! He’s a millionaire!” The whole town was in an uproar.

When his wife, who was not at home, heard the news, she refused to believe it. Still, she started back to the house. Meanwhile her husband put the patched coat into a kitchen corner and went off to the synagogue to recite his prayers. The wife came in and saw the prayer shawl he had forgotten, and recognized it at once. So she started in to prepare the midday meal. As she was working in the kitchen she came upon the patched coat. Picking it up, she said, “Ugh. What an ugly thing,” and threw it aside.

Just then a poor man came in and asked for alms. She had nothing to give him, yet she was unwilling to send him off empty-handed. Then she remembered the patched coat and said, “Perhaps you could use this coat. It’s not much, I know.” But the poor man snatched it up and put it on, saying that it would do very well to keep him warm, and went on his way.

When her husband came back from the synagogue—ah, what joy and happiness! They embraced; they talked. When they had finished eating, the husband took out a knife and a sharpening stone and began to sharpen the blade.

This terrified the family. How could they be sure he was not a robber in disguise? They had heard of stranger things. And so they crouched in various corners of the room while one of them stood near the door so that he could go for help if necessary.

When the man had sharpened his knife, he went to the kitchen and looked in the corner where he had put the coat. Not there. He asked his wife if she had seen it. “Yes, and I gave it to a poor man,” she said. When he heard that, he fainted dead away.

They brought him to, and he said, “My whole fortune—all the money I collected over thirty years—is in that coat.” His wife fainted dead away.

Her husband put on his new coat and went to a store where he bought a fiddle, which he carried to the town square, where he played it as he sang, “I’m a fool, I’m a fool.” A crowd gathered and somebody said, “Khaim Yankl, what’s the matter with you? Playing the fiddle in the middle of the day!” But he kept on playing and repeating, “I’m a fool, I’m a fool.” People came running from all sides crying, “Khaim Yankl has gone mad.” The whole town gathered to watch.

The poor man who had taken the coat saw that a crowd had gathered and also came to watch. Recognizing his coat, Khaim Yankl cried even more loudly, “I’m a fool, I’m a fool, I’m a fool.” Turning to the poor man, he said, “Let’s exchange coats.” Everyone laughed. Just think what a crazy man will do! A fine coat with a fur collar for a patched rag!

The poor man was delighted by Khaim Yankl’s offer, and the two of them traded coats on the spot. Fearful that Khaim Yankl might change his mind, the poor man ran off as fast as he could. Khaim Yankl meanwhile walked along, wearing his tattered coat, playing the fiddle, and singing, “You’re a fool, you’re a fool, you’re a fool.”

When Khaim Yankl got home, he unstitched the patches on the coat and took the money out. And from that time on he lived like a rich man.

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Glossary

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AnnotationsTELLER: Gitl Rokhes, Grodne (Grodno), Poland, 1927.
COLLECTOR: Berl Verblinski, Grodne.
SOURCE: C.A. 26:37.
COMMENTS: The name Khaim Yankl became a generic term for a hapless fellow, a *shlimazl*.

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