(_Tell with stick-figure blackboard illustrations._)
In a village there lived an old woman who one day gathered some beans
from her garden to cook. She had a good fire on the hearth, but, to make
it burn more quickly, she threw on a handful of straw. As she threw the
beans into the pot to boil, one of them fell on the floor unseen by the
old woman, not far from a wisp of straw. Suddenly a glowing coal bounced
out of the fire, and fell close to them. They both started away, and
exclaimed, “Dear friend, don’t come near me till you are cooler. Whatever
brings you out here?”
“Oh,” replied the coal, “the heat luckily made me so strong that I was
able to bounce from the fire. Had I not done so, my death would have been
certain, and I should have been burnt to ashes by this time.”
“I, too, have escaped with a whole skin,” said the bean; “for had the old
woman put me into the pot with my comrades, I should have been boiled to
broth.”
“I might have shared the same fate,” said the straw, “for all my brothers
were pushed into fire and smoke by the old woman. She seized sixty of us
at once, and brought us in here to take away our lives, but luckily I
slipped through her fingers.”
“Well, now what shall we do with ourselves?” said the coal.
“I think,” answered the bean, “as we have been so fortunate as to escape
death together, we may as well be companions, and travel away together to
some more friendly country.”
This pleased the two others; so they started on their journey together.
After traveling a little distance, they came to a stream, over which
there was no bridge of any sort.
Then the straw thought of a plan, and said, “I will lay myself across the
stream, so that you may step over me, as if I were a bridge.”
So the straw stretched himself from one shore to the other, and the coal,
who was rather hot-headed, tripped out quite boldly on the newly built
bridge. But when he reached the middle of the stream, and heard the water
rushing under him, he was so frightened that he stood still, and dared
not move a step farther. The straw began to burn, broke in two, and fell
into the brook. The coal slid after him, hissed as he reached the water,
and gave up the ghost.
The bean, who had cautiously remained behind on the shore, could not keep
in when she saw what had happened, and laughed so heartily that she burst
her sides. It would have been all over with her, too; but, as good luck
would have it, a tailor, out on his travels, came to rest by the brook,
and noticed the bean. He was a kind-hearted man, so he took a needle and
thread out of his pocket, and, taking up the bean, sewed her together.
She thanked him prettily, but unfortunately he had only black thread to
sew with, and so since that time all beans have a black seam down their
sides.
—FOLK TALE