Beanstalk

“ The germ of the story of "Jack and the Bean Stalk" is to be found in old Hindu tales, in which the beans are used as the symbols of abundance, or as meaning the moon, and in which the white cow is the day and the black cow is the night There is also a Russian story in which a bean falls upon the ground and grows up to the sky, and an old man, meaning the sun, climbs up by it to heaven, and sees everything. ”

“ The huge national publicity drive, which was to end the Great War, was on—the drive for the conservation of the bean. On every wall, in every newspaper, upon every tongue was the slogan: Beans for Our Boys. Six million school children were working every evening on their national prize essays on The Message of the Bean. Beautiful artists' models of every type were seen on every billboard, bending tenderly over flowering beans. Upon every woman's page in the press appeared the model menus for beanless days. ”

“ With this, he put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out five curious-looking beans. "What do you call these?" he said.
"Beans," said Jack.
"Yes," said he, "beans, but they're the most wonderful beans that ever were known. If you plant them overnight, by the next morning they'll grow up and reach the sky. But to save you the trouble of going all the way to market, I don't mind exchanging them for that cow of yours." ”

“ The day on which you met the butcher, as you went to sell your mother’s cow, my power was restored. It was me who secretly prompted you to take the beans in exchange for the cow.
⁠“By my power, the bean-stalk grew to so great a height, and formed a ladder. I need not add, that I inspired you with a strong desire to ascend the ladder.
⁠“The giant lives in this country: you are the person appointed to punish him for all his wickedness. ”

“ I was talking of opportunities, and never in the whole of our school-days shall we get such another as next Thursday. How are we going to make use of it? I vote for a beano in our dormitory.”
“What’s a ‘beano’?” demanded Fauvette’s plaintive voice. “You’re always saying things I don’t understand.”
“You’re young, child!” returned Raymonde indulgently, “and you can’t be expected to know everything. A beano is a bean-feast. Now don’t look alarmed! We’re not going to eat beans; we’ll have something far more appetizing—sardines, and tinned peaches, and biscuits, and anything else we can get. ”

“ It was a logical idea.
“Stop, chick pea!” he cried, snapping his finger and thumb as Pea-Blossom had done.
Could a whole learned society have come to a more sensible conclusion? The fairy carriage came to a standstill so suddenly, you could not have stopped it quicker if you had nailed it down. 43It did not even shake.
The Luck of the Bean-rows alighted, picked up the carriage, and let it slip into a leather wallet which he carried at his belt for bean samples, but not before he had taken out the hold-all. ”

“ Why do we respect some vegetables and despise others, when all of them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the bean. Corn, which, in my garden, grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song. It waves in all literature. ”

“ In Sicily and Tuscany, girls who desire a husband learn their fate by means of Beans, in this fashion:—They put into a bag three Beans—one whole, another without the eye, a third without the rind. Then, after shaking them up, they draw one from the bag. The whole Bean signifies a rich husband; the Bean without an eye signifies a sickly husband; and the Bean without rind a husband without a penny.——The French have a legend, of one Pipette, who, like our Jack, reaches the sky by means of a Bean-stalk. ”

“ It turns them black when they get bigger.”
“But there are no beans yet,” Ann protested, looking up at Jo over her shoulder. “I don’t see how I could hurt them if I touched them delicately, just to find out whether they feel as strong as they look.”
“It doesn’t make any difference how young they are,” Jo answered. “It won’t seem to hurt them when you touch them, but when the beans form on the plants you have handled nobody will be able to eat them. They’ll be black and spotted; rusted, the farmers call it. Of course sometimes you can’t help beans rusting when there’s too much rain.” ”

“ I loathe them!"
"So do most down-and-outs," affirmed Father Roland, cheerfully. "That's one reason for the peculiar psychological value of beans. They begin to tell you when you're getting weaned away from a lobster palate and a stuffed-crab stomach, and when you get to the point where you want 'em on your regular bill of fare you'll find more fun in chopping down a tree than in going to a grand opera. But the beans must be cooked right, David—browned like a nut, juicy to the heart of 'em, and seasoned alongside a broiling duck or partridge, or a tender rabbit. ”

“ We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? ”

“ Black Beans were considered to be male, and white female, the latter being the inferior.——De Gubernatis relates several curious customs connected with Beans. In Tuscany, the fire of St. John is lighted in a Bean-field, so that it shall burn quickly. In Sicily, on Midsummer Eve, Beans are eaten with some little ceremony, and the good St. John is thanked for having obtained the blessings of a bountiful harvest from God. At Modica, in Sicily, on October 1st, a maiden in love will sow two Beans in the same pot. The one represents herself, the other the youth she loves. ”

“ As an ornamental garden plant the Bean has never received the attention it seems to deserve. A plant of Broad Beans grown singly is quite a stately plant, and the rich scent is an additional attraction to many, though to many others it is too strong, and it has a bad character—"Sleep in a Bean-field all night if you want to have awful dreams or go crazy," is a Leicestershire proverb: [34:3] and the Scarlet Runner (which is also a Bean) is one of the most beautiful climbers we have. ”

“ I cannot see you.”
29 “It is I, it is Pea-Blossom,” 30replied a low, sweet voice. “Oh, do come and get me out of this fix, Master Luck of the Bean-rows. It is easy as wishing and will cost you nothing.”
“Believe me, madam,” said the Luck, “it is not my way to count the cost when I can help. Whatever I have is yours to command, except these three quart measures of beans on my staff; they are not mine, they belong to father and mother. Mine I have just given away to a venerable owl, to a saintly wolf, who is preaching like a hermit, and to the most charming of mountain does. ”

“ The surveyor resumed his chaffing. "They ought to have eased up while you were away. Can't account for it, unless—yes, it's beans! Beans, sir! You feed them beans and they work or—die. Query: What effect would a bean diet have on a philosopher? Ugh! I must avoid them."
"No"—Carter indicated a figure, gigantic in the loom of the smoke, "it's not beans; it's Bender. Without him we'd have plenty converts to your theory." ”

“ I have no root; I have no stem; or, if I have, they never move upward nor downward, as you say. Are you sure you are not mistaken?"
"Why, of course I'm not mistaken," cried the bean. "I feel within myself that I can grow; and I have absorbed so much moisture that I must soon begin."
Just then the bean's coat split from end to end, and for one or two minutes neither the stone nor the bean spoke. The stone was astonished, and the bean was a little frightened. However, he soon recovered his courage.
"There!" said he, showing the two packages he had been carrying; "these are my seed-leaves. ”

“ In Bean's mind was a confusion of many matters: Breede sleeping under a counter—people in log-cabins getting married—the best coon-dog in York State—a yoke of nice fat steers——
But beneath this was a sharpened consciousness of the girl breathing at his side. She seemed curiously to be waiting—waiting! The silence and their stillness became unbearable. Something must break . . . their breaths were too long drawn. He got to his feet and the flapper was unaccountably standing beside him. ”

“ He felt happy at recalling Markham's phrase.
"All right," said the expert resignedly. "We'll do what we can. May take three or four days."
Bean started for the door.
"Say," called the expert, as if on second thought, "you're up at Breede's office, ain't you—old J. B.'s?"
"Oh, I'm there for a few days yet," said Bean.
"Ah, ha!" said the expert. "Have a cigar!"
Bean aimlessly accepted the proffer.
"Sit down and gas a while," urged the expert genially. "Things looking up any over your way?"
"Oh, so-so, only," said Bean. "But I can't stop, thanks! Got to hurry back to see a man." ”

“ Yet a bean-stalk will sometimes show a kind of perversity or depravity that looks like the result of deliberate choice. Each season, among my dozen or more hills of pole-beans, there are usually two or three low-minded plants that will not climb the poles, but go groveling upon the ground, wandering off among the potato-vines or cucumbers, departing utterly from the traditions of their race, becoming shiftless and vagrant. ”

“ Bean felt like an insect in such a labyrinth of a place. He forgot where he put things, and then, overcome by the vastness and number of rooms, forgot what he was looking for, losing himself in an abstracted and fruitless survey of the walls. He must buy things to hang on the walls, especially over certain stains on the wall of the parlour, or throne-room, to which in the heat of battle, doubtless, certain items of the late Dutch lunch had been misdirected. ”

“ The little beans rattle down, the smallest to the very bottom, and the larger nuts shake up, the largest to the very top. Thus we find our place and hold it in life's struggle according not to our wishes but to our actual size. Friendly influence may elevate the little bean to high position, but the jolts of experience soon rattle him back to the place he fits without rattling ”

“ But the talented publicity agent responded only absently to her girlish friendliness, thinking his own thoughts—of the last two days' unaccountable softness in the bean market; reverting every now and then to the paragraphs of the press agents of the bean and stock market houses upon the financial pages of his paper:
Our advices are that beans are going lower. Sell beans on all advances; make no commitments on the long side of the bean carriers. The bear drive against beans has not yet touched bottom.—John Henry Cleanout & Co. We look for a stronger market in beans. ”

“ Bean was feeding toast to Nap, who didn't choke.
"She always has to come around though when the girl makes up her mind. I haven't had that child in my charge for nothing."
"I have a right to choose the——" The flapper broke her speech with tea. "I have the right," she concluded defiantly.
Bean shuddered. He recalled the terrific remainder of that speech.
"I thought we better have this little talk," said Grandma, "and get everything understood."
"'S the only way to do," said Bean, wrinkling his forehead, "have everything clear." ”

“ This with brown bread or cone pone, baked in the ashes, and good strong coffee, makes a meal in itself, and if the beans are served hot, the hungry campers feel they have had a feast fit for a king. Those who cling to their bean-pots keep one mess of beans baking all the time and are never without this dish. Even city folks have had royal good times at bean bakes given at some home with large yard, and, with an addition to the beans, salads, sandwiches, cakes, and other frills, generally scorned and passed by for the delicious baked beans. ”

“ Luck of the Bean-rows tramped on and on, taking huge strides like a five-foot giant, and staring left and right at the strange things he saw by the way. He had never dreamed that the world was so big and so full of wonders. ”

“ It is a popular tradition that during the flowering of the Bean more cases of lunacy occur than at any other season. In Leap Year, it is a common notion that broad Beans grow the wrong way, i.e., the seed is set in the pods in quite the contrary way to what it is in other years. ”

“ I think these deserve to be served in a course by themselves, even more than peas. If they are served with a joint they must simply be made hot in a tin, then drained and allowed to dry, and handed round just as they are. French beans go best with a haunch of venison or roast mutton. If, however, you serve the beans as a course by themselves, you must, after making them hot and draining off the liquid, add a couple of tablespoonfuls of good white sauce, that is béchamel sauce, or if you have none, add to a tin of beans about enough fresh butter to fill a dessertspoon ”

“ I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o’clock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds,—it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor,—disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. ”