Keith was 12 the first time the old man in the well spoke to him. Keith was out playing after dark on the family's small farm near the well. The old well had beams supporting a rope and pulley with a bucket attached, even though Keith was told that well ran dry before he was born.
Suddenly he heard someone say his name in a slow raspy voice. Keith whirled around and saw no one. A look of confusion spread across his face as he heard it again.
"Keith!"
This time, it was said with more force and a bit louder. The voice sounded like one of the old farmers who liked to smoke, thought Keith.
Looking down the well, Keith heard the same voice asking, "Have you got anything tasty?". Keith couldn't see anything past the first 12 or so feet down the well, even though it was a full moon.
"Who are you? How'd you get down there?", Keith asked.
"If you give me something tasty, I'll reward you", replied the voice.
All Keith had were some cookies he had stuffed in his pocket as he left to play. He put those in the bucket and it lowered it. He had lowered it nearly 40 feet and was literally at the end of his rope when he no longer felt the weight of the bucket on the rope.
20 seconds passed and he felt the weight of the bucket again and began to pull the bucket up.
As he finished the pulling the bucket up to the top he heard the voice say, "No nice." Keith saw a reflection in the
bucket and saw a rectangular piece of silver metal, about the size of an army dog tag. It was completely flat and smooth.
"Want fresh!" the voice said. Even though Keith tried to talk to the old man again there was no response.
Keith made up a story about where he found the metal and took it to his father who took it into town and confirmed it was an ounce of pure silver.
After that, Keith kept it a secret. It took a while to discover that the old man was only there the night of full moons.
Keith quickly learned that only live things he put in the well would be rewarded, but only once for each item and once every full moon. So one of each kind of animal was lowered down the well and rewarded.
Keith now had a cigar box mostly full of silver pieces by the time he was 16, but had run out of different animals to get rewarded for.
It was around this time that a local farmhand went missing. It was also the same time that Keith was rewarded with gold pieces for the first time. Once Keith took over the farm, temp workers seemed to vanish every now and then without explanation from the farm.
The old man had finally found something tasty enough to always reward.