“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