Field of Wonders

The Field of Wonders is a lonely field just beyond the walls of the City of Simple Simons, made significant not by any genuine marvel but by a story told about it. The Fox presents it as a place where buried gold grows into more gold overnight, then uses that promise to divert Pinocchio from his journey home. The field becomes the setting for the theft of his remaining coins and for the collapse of his hope of becoming rich without work.

Location and Supposed Wonder

The Fox describes the Field of Wonders as a blessed place outside the City of Simple Simons. According to his account, a visitor need only dig a hole, bury a gold piece, cover it with earth, water it, sprinkle salt over it, and go to bed. During the night, he claims, the coin sprouts and blossoms into a tree laden with gold pieces, ready to be gathered the next morning. The promise turns an ordinary agricultural field into the imagined source of sudden fortune: familiar acts of sowing and watering are presented as a way to multiply money instead of crops.

The Fox gives Pinocchio an enticing calculation as well as a procedure. He says that each buried coin will yield five hundred, and claims that Pinocchio’s five coins could produce twenty-five hundred. Later, he speaks of the reward as two thousand coins. The changing figures do not weaken the lure; both versions make the promised return enormous beside Pinocchio’s small original sum. The scene’s central contrast is between the labor implied by planting and the effortless wealth the Fox says will follow it.

The Journey and the Bait

The coins Pinocchio carries have a specific intended purpose. Fire Eater gave him five gold pieces and asked him to take them to Geppetto, whose poverty had led him to sell his patched coat to buy Pinocchio a schoolbook. The Fox and The Cat redirect that money toward the supposed harvest. When Pinocchio hesitates, The Fox presses him with a deadline: he claims a rich man has bought the field and that this is the last day it will be open to the public. He adds that it is only two miles away and promises they can reach it quickly, plant the money, and return with the winnings.

When Pinocchio grows tired of waiting, the travelers pass through the city and emerge just outside its walls into a lonely field that looks much like any other. The contrast between its plain appearance and its promised riches is immediate. The Fox points out a spot and tells Pinocchio to dig. Pinocchio obeys, placing the four coins he still has into the hole and carefully covering them. Asked to water the earth, he has no pail; he pulls off his shoe, fills it from a nearby brook, and uses it to sprinkle the ground. His practical improvisation makes the ritual feel momentarily real, even as it serves the deception.

Theft and Discovery

The planting instructions keep Pinocchio occupied while The Fox and The Cat put their scheme into effect. The Fox tells him to go back toward the city. While Pinocchio is away, the two return in haste, take the four buried coins, and run off. The field produces nothing; the gold is gone because it has been stolen, not transformed.

A Parrot tells Pinocchio what happened and mocks his belief that gold could be sown like beans or squash. Pinocchio refuses to accept the news at first. He digs furiously until the hole is as large as himself, but finds no money at all. That physical enlargement of the excavation records the failure of the promised miracle: the more desperately he searches, the more completely the bare earth confirms the loss. In his later account of the episode, Pinocchio remembers that he expected two thousand coins and found none.

Aftermath and Significance

The consequences extend beyond the field. Pinocchio runs to the courthouse to report the robbery, but the Judge sends him to jail rather than punishing the thieves. In recalling his misfortunes to Geppetto, Pinocchio connects the buried coins, their theft, and his imprisonment as part of the same chain of events. The field is therefore not simply the setting for a swindle; it marks the point where a promise of easy gain turns into loss and further trouble.

Its false abundance also stands against the story’s later picture of how money is actually earned. For more than five months, Pinocchio rises at dawn to draw water at a farm, makes and sells reed baskets, and studies by lamplight; that work helps support Geppetto and allows Pinocchio to save. The contrast is concrete: the coins buried in the Field of Wonders disappear while Pinocchio is lured away, whereas patient labor produces food, care, learning, and savings. The field’s supposed magic thus gives the Fox and The Cat a persuasive tool, but the episode’s outcome exposes wealth without work as bait rather than a path to security.