A bean and a hot coal met each other on the highroad, and as they
were both rolling along in the same direction they soon struck up a
friendship.
Presently they were joined by a straw, and the three began talking
together. They were all going out in the world to seek their fortunes.
“It is just a bit of luck that I can travel about in this way,” said
the bean. “If I had not been a stout active fellow I would have been
boiled into soup by now. The mistress was about to throw me into the
pot with a lot of other beans, but I managed to slip through her
fingers and rolled out through the doorway and down the steps without
her even noticing I was gone.”
“That was a clever trick,” said the hot coal. “I, too, am a lively
chap. I and my brothers were set to heat a kettle, but I jumped out
of the fire, and I was so hot the cook did not dare to touch me. She
pushed me out of doors with her foot, and now I am free to go about the
world as I choose, and seek my fortune.”
The straw sighed. “I was never as active as that,” she said. “Always
wherever the wind blew me I went. The farmer had picked up a whole
armful of straws to make a bed for the cow; but the wind caught me up
and carried me off—and here I am.”
While they were talking in this way the comrades came to a brook, and
this stopped their journey, for they did not know how to get across.
The straw could easily have sailed over on the first puff of wind, but
that way would not do for the other two.
“Listen!” said the straw. “I am long enough to reach from one side of
the stream to the other. I will lay myself across it like a bridge,
and then you can both walk on over me without getting wet.”
To this plan the other two were glad to agree, so the straw laid
herself across the stream.
“You go first,” said the bean, for he was a cautious fellow, and wanted
to see whether the bridge was safe before he tried it.
The coal, however, was quick and fiery. He ran out on the straw, but
half-way over he grew dizzy and had to stop.
“Quick! quick!” cried the straw. “I am burning”; for the coal was still
very hot.
“Wait,” said the coal, balancing himself. “Just a minute!”
But the straw could not wait even for a minute. The coal had burned
through it, and down they both went into the water, the coal hissing as
it fell.
That seemed so comical to the bean that it began to laugh. It laughed
and laughed; it laughed so hard that at last it split its skin, and
that would have been the end of it if a tailor had not chanced to come
by just then.
“Help! help!” cried the bean.
The tailor looked all about him, and then he saw the bean lying on the
ground. He picked it up, and it did not take him long to see what was
the matter with it. “This slit can be easily mended,” said he, and he
whipped out his needle and thread and sewed up the bean in a trice.
Unluckily he had only black thread, and the stitches made a line of
black down the side of the bean. And ever since then, if you look, you
will see that every bean of that kind has a black line down one side of
it.
[Illustration]