Help me find a childhood story from my youth

March 4, 2016 12:10 PM

When I was young, my grandfather (who was Polish/French) would often tell me a bedtime story about a young man who was incredibly lazy and always making useless inventions. Can you help me find it?

Most of all the protagonist liked to sleep and was often tardy to work and chores. The town begrudged his laziness until one day the town was flooded and he invented something to help put sandbags against the edge of the river. Then the town rewarded him and had his whole house outfitted with mattresses so that he could always be in bed. I'd like to find this story so that I could tell it more accurately to my kids, but my grandfather has passed away and since he told it from memory, there's no book that survived him.

posted by analogue to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

I don't think I remember that story specifically, but it sounds similar to the ones I read as a child from this book by Isaac Baschevis Singer.
posted by that girl at 1:14 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I've ordered it and will let you know (Crossing Fingers)
posted by analogue at 12:54 PM on March 14, 2016