Once there was an accountant walking along a long and rocky trail. Where to no one knows, and where from doesn’t much matter. But what we do know and what does matter is this: he was an accountant, this man—and a man he was—and on that trail he went a-walking.

Now as Fate would have it, the accountant’s footing faltered. He stumbled on the uneven rocks, as many a poor and wretched soul had before him, and likely too would so many yet to come.

But fickle Fate felt forgiving this day. Before the gorge should swallow up this accountant—and a gorge there was—he grabbed hold of a root that hung naked from the earth. The root of a mulberry tree. This tree had stood witness over those who fell forgotten here for the past hundred years and hoped to stand witness for another hundred still. This tree’s root was all the accountant held between himself and his certain end.

The man’s cries carried far in the steep stone walls of this mountain pass. And before too long for us, and after an eternity for the accountant, a farmer found his way round the trail and looked down upon the scene. “Thank the stars,” prayed the accountant, “please help me up.” The farmer regarded him slowly, then agreed: “Sure will.”

One man did not move to help the other. His voice was warm but the words were cold, “What’s in it for me?”

“What? Anything, whatever you want! Please just help me. How can you think of yourself in a situation like this?”

“Now don’t you worry, I ain’t gonna let you fall. This here is a mulberry tree and I can tell by your knuckles you’d be squeezing the blood out of her, so you ain’t in no danger. I just feel it right to make an equitable trade now, one that you and I both can fathom and agree on ahead of time, proper-like. You understand,” he didn’t ask. “No sense in negotiatin’ a deal after half of it’s already gone and done.”

“I don’t have anything to offer you. I have no money or valuables.” “Alright then. What can you do?” “I… I’m an accountant!” His bellow echoed so crisp and clear the gorge’s every bird and beast heard and knew.

“Well,” drawled the farmer thoughtfully, “fraid I don’t have much need for accounting.” Quickly he added, “but that don’t mean I’m gonna leave you here, I know that’s what you’re probably thinkin. I wouldn’t do that, I’m a moral man,” and he was. Both men were silent. The accountant believed him, or he didn’t, it made no difference at all.

“You ever done any ditch diggin? I got a ditch needs dug, and I don’t fancy diggin her myself.”

And so the accountant agreed to dig. He dug alone and after a week or a day or a month of mud and labor—and labor it was—the two parted ways, not as friends, nor as enemies, but strangers just as they met. And so the accountant agreed to dig, and to live; and so the farmer’s ditch was dug. All just as the two had agreed, fair as fair can be.