SOLVED. Old timey setting, two friends, one rich, one poor 'After all, I did give you my wheelbarrow' [s]

[Brian]

I read this one in 1985, in a elementary textbook. There were two men, one rich, one very poor, who were friends. This was an old timey setting, but I can't remember the specifics. The rich man would constantly take advantage of his poor friend by buttering him up with compliments. One day the rich man gave the poor man his old, broken wheelbarrow. From then on, he'd ask the most outrageous favors from the poor man, always ending with 'After all, I did give you my wheelbarrow.' The story ends when the rich mans asks the poor man to fetch a doctor for his sick son in the middle of the night but refuses to lend him his lantern, and the poor man falls into a ditch on the way home and dies.

[Mai]

It's a short story by Oscar Wilde called "The Devoted Friend". You can read it here:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-sto...

I'm going to look up where it was published.

[Mai]

Google says it's part of The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde.

[Brian]

Aw, thanks everyone.