Plot Summary
Lencho, a hardworking and dedicated farmer, lives in a solitary house perched on the crest of a low hill. Overlooking the valley, his ripe cornfield is dotted with flowers, promising an excellent harvest. The only thing the earth requires is a good downpour of rain. When the skies finally open up during supper, Lencho is ecstatic, stepping outside just to feel the rain on his body. He joyfully compares the large raindrops to ten-cent pieces and the smaller ones to five-cent pieces, seeing them as literal currency falling from the sky to enrich his family.
Tragically, this joy is short-lived. A fierce wind suddenly sweeps through the valley, bringing with it a devastating hailstorm that lasts for an entire hour. The once-promising green fields are left completely white, as though covered in salt, and the corn is entirely destroyed. Surveying the ruin, Lencho remarks that even a plague of locusts would have left more behind. Facing the grim prospect of his family going hungry that year, Lencho turns to his only remaining hope: an absolute, unwavering faith in God.
The following Sunday, Lencho writes a letter addressed directly to "God." In it, he plainly explains his dire situation and requests exactly one hundred pesos to re-sow his field and survive until the next harvest. He walks to town, places a stamp on the envelope, and drops it into the mailbox. At the post office, a postman discovers the unusually addressed letter and shows it to the postmaster, a fat and amiable man. Though initially amused by the sheer absurdity of a letter addressed to the Almighty, the postmaster quickly turns serious, deeply moved by the purity of the farmer’s faith.
Determined not to let Lencho's faith be broken, the postmaster takes it upon himself to answer the letter. He gathers money from his employees, donates a portion of his own salary, and asks friends to contribute to this act of charity. Despite his best efforts, he can only collect seventy pesos. He places the money in an envelope addressed to Lencho, including a letter with only a single word as a signature: "God." However, when Lencho receives the money, he exhibits no surprise at the divine intervention, but rather intense anger upon counting the cash. Believing that God could not possibly make a mathematical error, Lencho writes a second letter demanding the remaining thirty pesos. In a stroke of deep situational irony, he asks God not to send the rest of the money through the mail, as he is convinced the helpful post office employees are nothing but "a bunch of crooks."
Character Profiles
Lencho
Described as an "ox of a man," Lencho works the fields with physical intensity but possesses the intellect to read and write. His defining trait is his profound, literal innocence and unquestioning belief that God will actively and directly intervene in his daily life.
The Postmaster
A kind-hearted and generous leader. He serves as the story's representation of human empathy and anonymous charity. He sacrifices his own financial resources simply to preserve the spiritual comfort of a stranger he has never met.
Core Themes & Analysis
- The Power and Blindness of Faith: Lencho's belief gives him immense psychological resilience in the face of absolute ruin. However, it also blinds him to the reality of the human compassion that actually saved him.
- Situational Irony: The story concludes with a sharp, ironic twist. The post office workers, who acted as agents of grace and charity, are ultimately branded as thieves by the man they impoverished themselves to help.
- Man versus Nature: The narrative highlights the precarious existence of agricultural life, where a farmer's livelihood is completely at the mercy of unpredictable, and often unforgiving, natural forces.
Important Metaphors
- Raindrops as New Coins: Illustrates how directly the weather translates to economic survival for a farmer.
- Hailstones as Frozen Pearls/Silver Coins: A cruel subversion of the first metaphor; what initially looked like wealth literally froze and destroyed his future.
- A Plague of Locusts: Used to emphasize the absolute totality of the destruction, noting that a swarm of pests would have been more merciful than the weather.
