In which a little girl gets into trouble by meddling.

There was once a little girl who lived alone with her mother. They were so poor that often they had nothing to eat. One day they had eaten the very last thing they had in the house, and were very hungry. So the mother went out to try to find some food for her little girl.

As she went along the road she met a very old woman. The old woman seemed very cold and so the mother said, “Take my cloak, for you need it more than I do.” The old woman took the cloak and then gave her a little iron pot, which she had been carrying under her apron.

“You must say to it, ‘Little pot, boil,’” said the old woman, “and it will boil for you, and when you say to it, ‘Little pot, stop,’ then it will stop boiling.” So the mother took the pot home with her and put it on the table.

Then she said to it, “Little pot, boil.” It began boiling at once, and they had all the beans they needed for many days.

But one day when the mother had gone out, the little girl thought she would say, “Little pot, boil,” just to see how it would act. And so she said, “Little pot, boil.”

Well, the little pot boiled and bubbled away until it was full of beans, and then the little girl wished it to stop boiling, but she had forgotten what to say. So the pot boiled and boiled and kept bubbling and spilling over until the kitchen table was covered, until the kitchen was full, and next the whole house was full.

The little girl had to run out of the house, and the beans poured out of the door and down the road, and into other people’s houses, until there were enough to feed the whole town. And still no one was able to stop it.

The mother saw a stream of beans pouring down the road and ran home as fast as she could. She had to wade through boiled beans to get into her yard. She called out loudly: “Little pot, stop!” And of course, the little pot stopped boiling at once; but all the people had to eat their way back to their houses again.