A 14-year-old-boy was on a fishing trip with his family when he caught something unexpected: a stranger’s wallet. Upon looking inside, Connor Halsa was even more surprised to find that it wasn’t empty. Although waterlogged, the wallet was still holding some personal items and cash. A lot of cash.
“I thought I had a big fish,” the teen told WDAY. “My cousin Brandon, he opened the wallet up and he … said some words that you probably shouldn’t say and then he said there was some money in it and he showed everyone and then we took the money out and placed it all on the dashboard to let it dry off.”
As it turns out, there was about $2,000 in the wallet. Connor and his father both agreed that the only course of action was to try to find the owner and return the money.
“My dad said we should give it to the person, so I told him we should, too,” Connor said.
Thankfully, there was also a business card with the owner’s name on it: Jim Denney, a farmer from Iowa. He’d been fishing on the very same lake last year when the billfold fell out of his pocket without him noticing. This made for an embarrassing situation when he returned to his hotel to settle the bill.
“They had to kind of float me the money for the whole deal,” said Jim. “Was the suckiest feeling I ever been. I didn’t have a penny on me.”
Jim was both shocked and grateful when Connor and his family contacted him. He never imagined he’d see that wallet or its contents again. When the farmer arrived in Minnesota to pick up his belongings, he tried to give the teenager reward money. However, the boy couldn’t be persuaded to take it.
“We didn’t really work hard for the money. He did, so it was his money,” he said, according to Insider.
This impressed Jim even more. He took the family out to dinner and gifted the young man a personalized cooler.
“I would take Connor for a grandson any day and I would fight for him any day,” the farmer told WDAY.
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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