The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean

In a small village, there lived an old woman who had gathered a handful of beans for her dinner. She prepared a fire in her hearth and, to make it burn more quickly, lit it with a handful of straw. As she was pouring the beans into the pot, one of them slipped unnoticed from her hand, and fell to the floor near a piece of straw that was already lying there. Soon after, a glowing coal jumped out of the fire and landed right beside them.

The straw began to speak first, saying, “Dear friends, where have you come from?”

The coal replied, “I was fortunate enough to leap from the fire, or else my death would have been certain—I would have been reduced to ashes.”

The bean said, “I too have escaped with my life, for had the old woman put me into the pot with my brothers, I would have been boiled to soup without mercy.”

“Would my fate have been any better?” said the straw. “The old woman has destroyed all of my brothers in fire and smoke. She seized sixty of us at once and took our lives. Fortunately, I slipped through her fingers.”

“What should we do now?” asked the coal.

“I think,” answered the bean, “that since we have all been so lucky as to escape death, we should join together as good companions and, lest some new misfortune befall us here, set forth together to a foreign land.”

This proposal pleased the others, and they set off together on their journey. Soon they came to a small brook, and as there was no bridge or stepping stones, they didn’t know how to get across. The straw had a good idea and said, “I will lay myself across, and you can walk over me like a bridge.”

So the straw stretched himself from one bank to the other. The coal, who was an impetuous fellow, promptly stepped onto the newly constructed bridge. But when he had reached the middle and heard the water rushing beneath him, he became frightened, stopped, and dared not go any further. The straw began to burn, broke in two pieces, and fell into the brook. The coal, with his natural heat, hissed as he touched the water, breathed his last, and sank to the bottom.

The bean, who had cautiously remained on the shore, could not help laughing at the sight of this disaster. She laughed so hard that she burst at her side. Now she would have been in a worse plight than her comrades, but, fortunately, a wandering tailor was taking a rest near the brook. He had a compassionate heart, so he took out a needle and thread and stitched her back together.

The bean thanked him most kindly, but as he had used black thread, all beans since that time have a black seam down their bellies.

The tailor, amused by the bean’s predicament, asked her what had happened. The bean told him the story of her journey with the straw and the coal, and how they had met their unfortunate ends at the brook.

“What were you planning to do once you crossed the brook?” the tailor asked.

“We hadn’t thought that far ahead,” admitted the bean. “We were simply fleeing from the old woman’s kitchen, where our kind meet terrible fates.”

The tailor smiled and said, “Well, little bean, perhaps you should be more careful about choosing your traveling companions in the future. A straw is too fragile to be a bridge, and a coal carries its own destruction within it.”

“You are right,” said the bean thoughtfully. “Though they were my friends, we were not well-suited for the challenges of the journey.”

“Would you like to travel with me for a while?” offered the tailor. “I’m heading to the next village to seek work.”

The bean agreed, and the tailor carefully placed her in his pocket. As they walked, the bean told stories of life in the garden where she had grown, and the tailor shared tales of the different towns he had visited in his travels.

When they reached the next village, the tailor found work with a kind family. He planted the bean in their garden, where she thrived and produced many new beans. Her descendants spread throughout the garden, and they all carried the distinctive black seam that reminded them of their ancestor’s adventurous spirit and the kindness of the wandering tailor.

And to this day, if you look closely at a bean, you will see the black seam where the tailor stitched the first bean back together after her fit of laughter. It serves as a reminder that even the smallest and humblest things can have great adventures and that kindness can come from unexpected places.

And the beans lived happily ever after.