A poor but pious man had three silver pieces — all he had in the world. He took them to the mill, bought flour for his household, and walked home carrying the sack. On the way, at the edge of the sea, a sudden wind came up and blew the flour out of the sack and into the waves. Every grain was lost.

The man went to King David and demanded justice. David, moved by the man's poverty, simply handed him a gold piece from his own purse and sent him home. But at the door of the palace the man ran into young Solomon. Solomon listened to his story and said, "Go back. Return the gold piece. Insist on a trial."

The man went back. David gave him a second gold piece and again sent him away. Again he met Solomon at the door. Again Solomon sent him back. "Insist on your rights," the boy said. "Justice, not charity."

David, watching this back-and-forth, finally called Solomon himself. "How much am I supposed to give this man?" he demanded.

Solomon answered: "Give him nothing. Put the wind on trial."

David, half-amused and half-curious, invoked his authority over the unseen. A summons went out. The spirit of the wind appeared in the throne room. David asked it: "Why did you blow this poor man's flour into the sea?"

The wind answered: "There was a ship on the high seas with many Jews on board. The ship had sprung a leak and was about to sink. The sack of flour, when it landed in the water, dissolved into a paste and stopped the leak. The travelers, in their panic, vowed a third of their possessions in thanks if they were saved. Six days later the ship reached port. I am not a thief. I am a rescuer working with an older timetable than this poor man's supper."

Six days later the travelers arrived in town, found the poor man, and gave him a third of all they owned — the thank-offering for the miracle in which his flour had been the material of their salvation.

Gaster's Exempla (no. 444, 1924, from the Ladino Codex Gaster 274) preserves this story as a miniature argument for the mystical economy. The sack of flour looked like a disaster. It was, in fact, a line item in a longer ledger that only Solomon's wisdom — and the wind's testimony — could read.