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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