Marion Kornfeld was beside herself with worry when she arrived home and realized her wallet was gone.

It was a simple stop at the gas station for a fill-up that put a chink in an otherwise uneventful day.

When Kornfeld, 82, asked for help with the newfangled gas pump at the Freeland Shell Station, she put her wallet down on the roof of her car.

“Well, of course I forgot it was there,” Kornfeld said.

“When I got home I noticed my wallet was gone and I started looking all over the house. But then I thought, ‘Marion, what are you doing? You know it’s not here!’”

Then she remembered where she had left it and could picture where it probably had fallen in the road when she turned out of the station.

What happened next reminded her of how happy she is to live on South Whidbey, her home since she settled in Langley in 1993.

“Everyone was so nice. I called the bank to cancel my debit card and then I called the Record to put something in the paper,” Kornfeld said.

That’s when Tiffany Walker, who places ads for Sound Publishing customers, told Kornfeld that a gentleman named Richard Law had just called about placing an ad about having found a wallet.

“She was so freaked out, saying her whole life was in that wallet,” Walker said.

“That was good of Richard. There’s a lot of people who wouldn’t have taken that extra step.”

After confirming that Law had the right wallet, Walker gave him the frantic lady’s phone number.

Kornfeld was at Law’s house within a few hours of losing the wallet.

“I had all my credit cards, license and $80 in there. It was all there,” Kornfeld said.

Kornfeld offered the good Samaritan a reward but he refused it, saying he would want someone to do the same for him.

“It’s just about being a good guy,” Law said. “I told her, ‘Ya know, just pay it forward and do somebody else a favor.’”

Later that day, Kornfeld thought the story of Law’s good deed needed to be told.

“We get so much bad news all the time,” Kornfeld said. “With so many tragedies between the war, the Gulf (oil spill), forest fires and everything else, I thought it would be nice to get a reminder that we are nice people and that there is some good news sometimes.”

“To me, it’s incredible that he didn’t take advantage of me; we don’t usually hear about that,” she said.

It’s important, she added, to hear news that shows that people are not all greedy racketeers and con artists.

“When all the news is pointing to depression, sadness and chaos, it’s nice to hear that some of us are just pretty good people,” she said.