diff --git a/plugins/input/templates/helloworld/hello_featureset.cpp b/plugins/input/templates/helloworld/hello_featureset.cpp
index eb3f19a10..b24d4d37e 100644
--- a/plugins/input/templates/helloworld/hello_featureset.cpp
+++ b/plugins/input/templates/helloworld/hello_featureset.cpp
@@ -16,6 +16,12 @@ mapnik::feature_ptr hello_featureset::next()
 {
     if (feature_id_ == 1)
     {
+        // let us pretend it just has one column/attribute name
+        std::string attribute("key");
+
+        // the featureset context needs to know the field schema
+        ctx_->push(attribute);
+
         // create a new feature
         mapnik::feature_ptr feature(mapnik::feature_factory::create(ctx_,feature_id_));
 
@@ -24,7 +30,7 @@ mapnik::feature_ptr hello_featureset::next()
 
         // create an attribute pair of key:value
         UnicodeString ustr = tr_->transcode("hello world!");
-        feature->put("key",ustr);
+        feature->put(attribute,ustr);
 
         // we need a geometry to display so just for fun here
         // we take the center of the bbox that was used to query