Writing Exercise: The Golden Key

As you may have noticed, I never got a writing exercise up yesterday. I had such a nice Mother's Day I just never had time to stop in here. I hope you also enjoyed a lovely weekend.

Most likely, if you grew up in an English-speaking country, you've heard of Grimm's Fairy Tales. In fact, a little research just informed me that the stories written by the brothers Grimm (and by others using the famous name, later,) are now read and enjoyed in over 160 languages.

It's widely known that the many of the stories the brothers wrote were already in circulation through word-of-mouth, in one form or another. One such story is The Golden Key.

This story has bothered me since the first time I came across it. Apparently the story came to the brothers Grimm from a German story. In that story, a small piece of red fur is found in a treasure chest, and very abruptly, the story ends there with the line, "If the piece of fur had been any longer, this story would have been." How frustrating for a child to have such an engaging start end with such suddenness!

So - here is the Grimm version of the story. My request for this week is to write a proper ending for this enchanting start:

The Golden Key

In the winter time, when deep snow lay on the ground, a poor boy was forced to go out to fetch wood.  When he had gathered it together, and packed it, he wished, as he was so frozen with cold, not to go home at once, but to light a fire and warm himself a little.

So he scraped away the snow, and as he was clearing the ground for the fire he found a tiny golden key.  Hereupon he thought that where the key was, the lock must be also, and dug in the ground until he found an iron chest.

 "If the key does but fit it!"  thought he; "no doubt there are precious things in that little box." 

He searched, but no keyhole was there.  At last he discovered one, but so small that it was hardly visible.  He tried it, and was very surprised when the key fitted it exactly.

 The next (and final) line, as it stands, says simply that wonderful things were found in the box. Nothing more. That, in my opinion, is no way to end a story!

Where does your imagination take you? What does he find in the box? Try to keep your answer under two hundred words, and post it as a comment (which I will remove when I see it). I'll post the submissions on Wed, this week, since I am posting this so late.