stone

Once upon a time...

STONE SOUP

It was a cold, rainy evening of a winter, in a village on the fringe of

a forest. An old man of a beggar had just drifted into the village before

sunset when thoughts of food and shelter had engulfed his mind. Much like

that of a feral animal too busy to think of anything else but the

instinct to attend to the urgency of its empty stomach and a relief for

the ache of its limbs.

The few doors that he had knocked on were already barred from behind even

before being opened to tease his imagination with the warmth and comfort

residing beyond them.

Darkness of mother nature (that which the very light is born from) was

swiftly descending upon its subjects. Desperation gripped the poor man

like an old acquaintance for the umpteenth time. He moved from door to

door, knocking, begging, moving on...

One house he came upon, he overheard voices of children. He knocked on the

door and rapped on the battened down window. A mother with a baby in her

arms and two toddlers hanging on to her skirt opened the door.

The beggar begged for food. "Dear lovely lady, may the good GOD bless

you, and would you spare some scraps of food for a poor old man."

The woman replied, "I would if I could, old man, but as you can see for

yourself," she opened the door wide, "I have many mouths to feed and none

for ourselves!"

The beggar peered inside, and indeed there were as many as eight children

ranging from crying babies, to sullen looking children. But he also

noticed a pot on the fireplace with something boiling in it.

He pleaded, "Madam, I do not ask much, but a mere cupful of the wonderful

broth you brew there in that pot." The poor woman replied, "Sir I would be

only too glad to share a bowl with you, but alas, if you inspect it

yourself you will find that what you see there is merely a pot

of boiling water and nothing more. It was all I could come up with to

allay my crying hungry children until they fell asleep with exhaustion.

For I have nothing left to cook even for my poor hungry babies."

The beggar did indeed step inside to have a look at the pot full of

steaming boiling water. And it was indeed nothing more than that. But he

did have an idea.

He produced a little duffel bag from his raggedy clothes, and in that

little cloth bag was a small stone. Much like that you would find in the

beds of streams and rivers. He said to the woman of the house, "How would

you like to make Stone Soup of this pot?" and promptly dropped the stone

into the boiling pot.

The woman exclaimed, "Sir, what do you mean to make light mockery of our

plight!? Can't you see you will be raising the hopes of my poor hungry

children?" But the beggar man simply re-assured her that it would be a

soup fit for a King and that there will be plenty for all. He stirred the

pot with the ladel and looked around the place. He noticed a dried up stub

of a carrot on the bench. He said, "That carrot, is it okay if we dropped

that in the soup?" And she said, "I guess it's okay since it's just a

dried up stub of a carrot." He had the root chopped off and whatever meat

of the vegetable was left was dropped in to the broth.

And he noticed some grains of corn and barley on the ledge. He asked one

of the children if they would gather and wash those grains then drop them

in the soup. At which the eldest promptly did so.

He ventured to look inside the cupboards and found one nearly soft potatoe

and half a head of onion. He glanced at the woman, and she nodded her

head. Quickly they were peeled, chopped and dropped into the simmering

pot.

In another cupboard he found a few leaves of cabbage, almost ready to

be thrown out. That too they washed and dropped in the now sweatly

smelling pot.

By now the children had gathered around the pot or were staring at it

expectantly. The old beggar noticed some chicken bones picked clean except

for a few shreads of meat hanging on it. He put them in too. A bit of

flour here, and a few drops of cream. Pretty soon the soup was ready.

The mother put out the bowls while the beggar poured the soup into them.

There was ample soup for everybody, and all the children were blissfully

well fed for the first time in many nights. In the end, when all the soup

was eaten, the man retrieved his stone from the bottom of the pot and

after cleaning it, replaced it in his duffle bag.

The End.

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