A bean and a hot coal met each other on the highroad, and as they were both rolling along in the same direction they soon struck up a friendship.

Presently they were joined by a straw, and the three began talking together. They were all going out in the world to seek their fortunes.

“It is just a bit of luck that I can travel about in this way,” said the bean. “If I had not been a stout active fellow I would have been boiled into soup by now. The mistress was about to throw me into the pot with a lot of other beans, but I managed to slip through her fingers and rolled out through the doorway and down the steps without her even noticing I was gone.”

“That was a clever trick,” said the hot coal. “I, too, am a lively chap. I and my brothers were set to heat a kettle, but I jumped out of the fire, and I was so hot the cook did not dare to touch me. She pushed me out of doors with her foot, and now I am free to go about the world as I choose, and seek my fortune.”

The straw sighed. “I was never as active as that,” she said. “Always wherever the wind blew me I went. The farmer had picked up a whole armful of straws to make a bed for the cow; but the wind caught me up and carried me off—and here I am.”

While they were talking in this way the comrades came to a brook, and this stopped their journey, for they did not know how to get across. The straw could easily have sailed over on the first puff of wind, but that way would not do for the other two.

“Listen!” said the straw. “I am long enough to reach from one side of the stream to the other. I will lay myself across it like a bridge, and then you can both walk on over me without getting wet.”

To this plan the other two were glad to agree, so the straw laid herself across the stream.

“You go first,” said the bean, for he was a cautious fellow, and wanted to see whether the bridge was safe before he tried it.

The coal, however, was quick and fiery. He ran out on the straw, but half-way over he grew dizzy and had to stop.

“Quick! quick!” cried the straw. “I am burning”; for the coal was still very hot.

“Wait,” said the coal, balancing himself. “Just a minute!”

But the straw could not wait even for a minute. The coal had burned through it, and down they both went into the water, the coal hissing as it fell.

That seemed so comical to the bean that it began to laugh. It laughed and laughed; it laughed so hard that at last it split its skin, and that would have been the end of it if a tailor had not chanced to come by just then.

“Help! help!” cried the bean.

The tailor looked all about him, and then he saw the bean lying on the ground. He picked it up, and it did not take him long to see what was the matter with it. “This slit can be easily mended,” said he, and he whipped out his needle and thread and sewed up the bean in a trice. Unluckily he had only black thread, and the stitches made a line of black down the side of the bean. And ever since then, if you look, you will see that every bean of that kind has a black line down one side of it.