In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dishof beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, andthat it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful ofstraw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one droppedwithout her observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, andsoon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two.Then the straw began and said: «Dear friends, from whence do youcome here?» The coal replied: «I fortunately sprang out of thefire, and if I had not escaped by sheer force, my death would havebeen certain,—I should have been burnt to ashes.» The bean said: «Itoo have escaped with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got meinto the pan, I should have been made into broth without any mercy,like my comrades.» «And would a better fate have fallen to my lot?» saidthe straw. «The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire andsmoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. I luckilyslipped through her fingers.»
«But what are we to do now?» said the coal.
«I think,» answered the bean, «that as we have so fortunatelyescaped death, we should keep together like good companions, andlest a new mischance should overtake us here, we should go awaytogether, and repair to a foreign country.»
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