At the foot of the statue is the following inscription: "Give with a good heart, no one carries away the stone that gives you bread."
The following legend has been handed down:
"A miller, who was driving flour to his customers, had a wheel on his cart break on the way. Because he had loaded many sacks and the road was muddy, he couldn't unload the load. As he stood there, at a loss for what to do, Pumpfoot came hobbling up. Since the miller didn't know him, he kindly asked him to look after the cart until he could get help or get a new wheel. 'No need,' replied Pumpfoot, threw the broken wheel onto his left shoulder, grabbed the cart axle with his right, and called, 'Drive on!' The astonished miller mounted, took the reins, and off they went. Uphill, downhill, over rutted paths, Pumpfoot ran alongside the cart as the fourth wheel. When the miller reached his destination, he thanked him with a generous tip, without having recognized his helper.
Pumpfoot behaved quite differently when, as a journeyman craftsman, in ragged clothes, he encountered some Millwrights. They ignored him at all, didn't return his greeting, and didn't invite him to dinner, as was customary.
But how astonished were the builders that suddenly no workpiece fit the others. It was either too long or too short, too wide or too narrow.
The miller saw the perplexed craftsmen and also the strange journeyman standing around. He recognized him immediately, greeted him in the manner of a craftsman, and invited him to dinner.
Then the mill was built without a problem; everything fit. When the journeyman had moved on, the builders bombarded the master miller with questions. But he just said, "What, you don't know the journeyman miller Pumpfuß?"
Source: Templin – A Brandenburg Town Throughout History; Schibri Verlag Milow