The Last Bean

There were nine in the house if you counted the thin, world-wearied wife; and the small, stone-like grandma; and the seven children who ranged in age from just over two to nearly fifteen.

It was a small, rundown cottage near the edge of the village, and you could spot it by the purple swathe of thistles that bobbed in the fields outside. There were pumpkins amongst the thistles, to be sure, and there was grain that grew, and a couple of chickens that pecked amongst the grain.

But the fields were small, and grain, eggs and pumpkin can only last so long. These things had been stripped and eaten, and the fields were bare now except for the bright heads of thistles, bobbing and bouncing in the wind.

Some walked past the house and murmured, “she should keep him at bay beneath the blankets.”

Others would look askance at the house, “perhaps they should have given that youngest one to the frost.”

Inside the cottage, they were not quite starving, but they were down to their last bean. It was the special one, their mother explained, the one that their father had set aside. He’d looked at her solemnly, and told her that she should keep it for last, until there was nothing else left, but that it would sustain them until he could come home with more.

She sighed as she looked at the bean, for it was only a single, ordinary bean-sized bean, and her husband had been away for two seasons now, swearing that he would return to them, and that when he did, he would make them rich. All their worries would be over.

Well, their worries were in plentitude right now. And they were down to the very last bean. She gathered her old mother, and her seven children, around her and cut the bean into ten pieces. To each of them she gave a piece of the bean, and the last piece she returned to the sack so she could cut it up again for supper. The pieces of bean were very tiny, but they each ate their piece and went about their day as best they could.

The mother went to her neighbours to ask for help, but they turned her away with a scowl.

The older children went to their neighbours to offer help in the fields or around the house, but the neighbours turned them away.

The grandmother offered to tell the neighbours their fortune, or to ward their homes against bad luck, but with a spit, a curse, a snarl, they all turned her away.

And in the evening, they came back to the fireside, and the mother cut the piece of bean again in ten. The pieces were even tinier. But they ate them, and retired to the straw to sleep.

Each day, the mother faithfully cut the bean in ten; each day, the pieces got smaller. Each day they ate them. And the day after that. And the day after that. Until the pieces were so small that each was a pinprick on the finger of the one who ate it, and the last piece was so small they couldn’t see it. And on that day the mother confessed that she didn’t think she could cut the bean again. They would go hungry after all.

They slept badly that night, feeling hungry for the first time since their husband/father/son-in-law had ventured off into the unknown. But in the morning, the wife awoke to the sound of her third-youngest child rushing to shake her and wake her up. “Mama! Mama!” he cried with joy, “Papa’s home. I can see him walking over the fields. There’s a sack on his back, and it’s big and full!”

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work