THERE lived in a certain village a poor old woman who had collected a
mess of beans, and was going to cook them. So she made a fire on her
hearth, and, in order to make it burn better, she put in a handful of
straw. When the beans began to bubble in the pot, one of them fell out
and lay, never noticed, near a straw which was already there; soon a
red-hot coal jumped out of the fire and joined the pair. The straw began
first, and said,
"Dear friends, how do you come here?" The coal answered,
"I jumped out of the fire by great good luck, or I should certainly have
met with my death. I should have been burned to ashes." The bean said,
"I too have come out of it with a whole skin, but if the old woman had
kept me in the pot I should have been cooked into a soft mass like my
comrades."
"Nor should I have met with a better fate," said the straw; "the old
woman has turned my brothers into fire and smoke, sixty of them she took
up at once and deprived of life. Very luckily I managed to slip through
her fingers."
"What had we better do now?" said the coal.
"I think," answered the bean, "that as we have been so lucky as to
escape with our lives, we will join in good fellowship together, and,
lest any more bad fortune should happen to us here, we will go abroad
into foreign lands."
The proposal pleased the two others, and forthwith they started on their
travels. Soon they came to a little brook, and as there was no
stepping-stone, and no bridge, they could not tell how they were to get
to the other side. The straw was struck with a good idea, and said,
"I will lay myself across, so that you can go over me as if I were a
bridge!"
So the straw stretched himself from one bank to the other, and the coal,
who was of an ardent nature, quickly trotted up to go over the new-made
bridge. When, however, she reached the middle, and heard the water
rushing past beneath her, she was struck with terror, and stopped, and
could get no farther. So the straw began to get burnt, broke in two
pieces, and fell in the brook, and the coal slipped down, hissing as she
touched the water, and gave up the ghost. The bean, who had prudently
remained behind on the bank, could not help laughing at the sight, and
not being able to contain herself, went on laughing so excessively that
she burst. And now would she certainly have been undone for ever, if a
tailor on his travels had not by good luck stopped to rest himself by
the brook. As he had a compassionate heart, he took out needle and
thread and stitched her together again. The bean thanked him in the most
elegant manner, but as he had sewn her up with black stitches, all beans
since then have a black seam.