The Stone Soup Factor: Part One

The Lucky Stone

"What kind of a stone is this?" Yoj asked, as he bent over to pick up a very smooth, round stone. "I have never seen anything like this before." All of the other stones in the area were large jagged rocks.

"Wonder how it got here?"

Yoj was a young boy, who spent most of his days on the mountain slopes looking for food to take home for his grandmother, a crippled and arthritic, elderly woman, who had taken him in when his parents died in a landslide. The landslide had erased most of the village and many of the families were destitute, as the mine that had sustained the village had to close, as well.

"I am going to save that stone," he decided, as he put it into his pocket and continued to hunt for berries. Even the blueberries were very scarce that year.

"Why are we all so poor," he wondered. Then, he hollered, "Why are we all so poor?"

"So poor.....so poor.....so poor?" the sound echoed through the mountain peaks, as if mocking his words.

He reached into his pocket to see if the stone was still there and it was. He rubbed it and said to himself, "This is my good luck stone. I am not poor," he decided. "I am rich. I have my good luck stone in my pocket."

He headed down the mountain with the pail of blueberries he had just picked. Tonight, he decided, they would have blueberry pancakes for dinner.

Meanwhile, his grandmother was trying to find something, anything to make soup with, so that she could feed her grandson and herself. She placed a big pot of water on the fire in the fireplace. She had nothing to put in it, other than some salt. She tossed the salt into the pot and almost burst into tears, just as her grandson walked through the doorway carrying a pail of berries.

"What's wrong, Gran?" he asked her immediately, sensing something was wrong.

She smiled at him with tears in her eyes and accepted the pail of berries graciously. "That won't make soup," she thought to herself, but at least the blueberries would taste good in pancakes. She had no flour to make pancakes that night either. "What are we going to do?" she asked herself.

"I have an idea," Yoj said, as she told him of their plight while they sat together drinking mint tea and cleaning the blueberries. They picked out all of the twigs and leaves carefully. The berries were very sweet, but they were small compared to other years.

"We will have stone soup, tonight," her grandson promised, as he tossed his new treasure into the salty water in the soup pot. "I will be back."

He really had no idea what he was going to do. He knew that there was little food anywhere in the village. He kissed her on the cheek and smiled his sweetest smile, as he headed out the door and down the pathway to the village.

As he walked down the hill, he passed an elderly, gray haired man carrying a little, wooden box.

"Stop by and see my Gran," he said to the old man. "We are having stone soup for dinner tonight."

The old man beamed, lifted his hat and waved. "I'll do that," he said. "What is stone soup? I don't think I ever had any before at your Gran's." He shook his head, but Yoj had already disappeared down the mountain pathway.

At the first doorway he came to, he saw a little girl named Lily. "Come by my Gran's for stone soup later, and tell your mom to come too!" She jumped for joy and ran to tell her mom. "What does stone soup taste like?" she hollered after him.

"It's really great! Just come by and you will see," Yoj hollered back happily. "If nothing else", everyone will have a good laugh," he thought to himself.

"Don't forget to bring your bowl!" he suggested, as an after thought.

Every person who he met in the village was invited in the same way. No one said they could not, or would not come. In fact, everyone seemed thrilled to be invited.

Yoj headed back home.

"Now what do I do?" he wondered, having a few second thoughts about what he had just done. He had invited the whole community for dinner, knowing that his grandmother did not have even flour to make pancakes.

"I am really dumb," he decided. "What a foolish thing to do."

Later on, one by one, the neighbors arrived and every single person who came brought something. The first young man on the scene had managed to catch a rabbit on his way. It was not long before he had cleaned it and prepared it for the soup pot.

"It almost got away," he said sheepishly.

The first, old man he had invited brought a box of mixed spices, the only treasure he had in the world. It was something given to him by his son for his birthday, just before he had lost him, as well as his entire family, in the landslide.

Lily brought one big, red onion that she dug out of an old garden behind their house. Her mother had found some carrots there too, under a heap of rubble. Another neighbor had some parsley, not much, but just enough to add some flavor to a pot of soup. A second little girl brought a head of cabbage she had found in a field.

Bit by bit, as the neighbors arrived, the soup pot was filled with turnips, potatoes and just about anything else that a person could ask for to make a hearty pot of soup. Someone even brought some dried beans and other lentils.

One short, bald middle-aged man carrying his mandolin told the tale of how he had run out of his house and had grabbed it, as the rocks hammered on the roof of his house. "I don't have anything to contribute to the soup," he said sadly.

"Would you play for us?" Yoj asked him, quietly. He knew how beautifully the man could play.

The man's eyes beamed as he started to play his favorite mountain melodies. One by one, the neighbors began to sing and got up to dance with each other and the children.

The stone soup started to smell good, as it simmered on the fire. Under the direction of Yoj, the young boys ran around gathering firewood and stacked it high for Gran.

In the crowd that gathered, there were a few tears shed, but the light of life began glowing in the eyes of many of the members of the community, even in the eyes of some who had not smiled for a long time.

One of the teenage girls, the second last to arrive, came carrying a cup of sugar. It had been outside on the doorstep when the landslide hit her home. She had saved it. The last couple to arrive came carrying a bag of flour. No one knows who brought the oil, the butter or the baking powder, which seemed to appear from nowhere.

The women began making blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, as the soup continued to simmer.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Yoj called out in his gentle voice, a little while later. "I know that you do not know why you were invited to dinner tonight, but thank you for coming. My grandmother is a good cook and thanks to all, we have a huge pot of stone soup and blueberry pancakes to share. I hope that you all enjoy your dinner."

His grandmother could scarcely believe what had happened.

"Bless you all and bless this food," he continued.

"Now we must begin to re-build our village," he continued. "Re-build our lives, re-build our homes, rebuild our mine, re-build our hopes and dreams, just simply re-build."

Gradually, the neighbors began to understand why they had been invited to dinner. They were served one at a time, sat down to eat and began to discuss the merits of his plan.

Finally, Yoj sat down and began to eat his own bowl of stone soup. He was the last one to be served. It was actually very tasty. When he got to the bottom of his bowl of soup, guess what he found?

"Oh, there you are," he said to himself. "My lucky stone."

His grandmother's eyes twinkled in delight, as she saw him pick up the stone and wipe it off. She watched as he began to polish it with the corner of his worn shirt and then put it his pocket.

"The stone soup factor," she told him later, as the thought echoed through her mind. "Build and rebuild, has always been our way." She knew that it would not be easy, but with a community pulling together, it was possible. After all, they had done that before, as had many mountain communities that had met the same fate. "I will have to remember the stone soup factor", she repeated as she drifted off to sleep. "Maybe we should start a stone soup factory, too." In her thoughts and dreams, the village and even the mountains echoed and re-echoed, "Re-build....re-build....build....build....build."

As Yoj stood on the side of the mountain and gazed at the stars, he caught sight of one falling star, with a very long fiery tail.

"Now I know how you got here," he said to the smooth stone in his hand. "You really are my lucky stone."