How The Bean Brothers Woke

1916

"Here are five little Bean Brothers for you," said mother one morning dropping something into Boykin's hand. "They have been in bathing all night long."

"With their clothes on too," exclaimed Boykin; "their little white coats are all wrinkled."

"You'd better put them to bed right away," suggested mother. "Here's a flower-pot on the sunny windowsill. The fresh soft earth will make a fine bed for the Bean Brothers. And if they have a good nap, who knows what will happen?"

So Boykin put them to bed in the soft, brown earth and covered them up snugly. Day after day the Bean brothers slept soundly and showed not a single sign of waking up. Then one morning Bean Brother poked up a tiny sign of slim green back, out from under the bedclothes, but his head kept safe underneath.

"Come, get up, you sleepyhead," cried Boykin, and, taking hold of Bean Brother's back, he pulled him straight out of bed.

"Oh, see," he called to mother, "Bean Brother has a leg, too, a long spindly one."

"Better put him back again, if you can, and let the others sleep a little longer. It's not time for them to be up yet," mother told him.

Next day the other Bean Brothers had poked up their little bent backs too, but Boykin only watched them and sprinkled their bed with fresh water. Day after day the Bean Brothers pushed up their backs higher.

"A funny way to get out of bed," declared Boykin; "they hump themselves up like green caterpillars."

Then one day the strongest of the Bean Brothers ventured to pull himself away from the warm bedclothes, but he could not stand up straight, and drooped his head sleepily.

"Oh, see, mother," cried Boykin, "Bean Brother has grown out of his old coat and split it in two."

True enough, what Boykin had called Bean Brother's coat before he had tucked him into bed was hanging in two pieces to his side.

Pretty soon the other Bean Brothers pulled themselves out from under the bedclothes. Then little by little they all straightened up and lifted their green plumy heads. The old coats clinging to their sides shrank and shriveled and finally dropped off altogether.

Boykin picked up two of the wrinkled bits.

"His coat is all worn out," said he.

"He won't need it again," mother explained. "But it was a good coat in its day and a wonderful one too, for it not only kept Bean Brother warm when he was a tiny baby, but it gave him food so that he could grow into this nice tall Bean plant."

"And will he always live in this [bed*]."

"No," answered mother; "when he is stronger we will take him and his four brothers out of this bed and put them in a corner of our big garden, where you can watch them." — Rebecca Deming Moore, in Mothers' Magazine.

*Note: This story was reprinted in a newspaper. And it is missing a line, leaving this paragraph hanging with "live in this".

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 4.