Stone Soup

“Okay,” Richard exclaimed. “Everyone all set?”

 

Everyone nodded as they settled in for the ride out to the woods.  Richard put his John Deere 730 in gear and the faded green machine lurched forward as it pulled a wooden flat-bed wagon behind. His grandchildren watched with varying levels of elation as the gray bank barn behind them shrank into the distance. The three-stand barbed wire fence of the pasture to the west of the drive passed beside them while the heifers that occupied the pasture watched the passers-by with mild curiosity. The oversized rear tires of the tractor rolled into a large puddle, dispelling the water from the driveway depression. The dry gravel around the puddle flooded with muddy water momentarily before the water rushed back to the puddle only to be dispelled again, though not as dramatically, by the smaller tires of the wagon. 

The driveway lazily curved around the northern end of the pasture and then took a hard right at the oak tree. The drive turned left at the cherry tree at the top of the waterway and left again at the crest of the eastern hill. The kids looked out over the hill to their left. A yellowing corn crop occupied the entire field with the exception of a grove of trees that had gained the title of “The Island.” The large red bank barn and the t-shaped farmhouse looked so small from the top of the hill. Soon enough, their view of the farm valley was blocked by the woods. 

Richard guided the tractor and wagon along the edge of the woods, down a small hill to a tractor path that led into the woods. From that point, a traveler could either take the drive to the left and go into the woods or that same traveler could go straight and arrive at Clyde Henning’s house by way of “Oldsmobile Pass.” (“Oldsmobile Pass” was a section the driveway that passed through a small section of woods and gained its name from a few old vehicles that sat decaying to the right of the drive.) The tractor took the road less traveled and disappeared into the woods. The trees shaded the travelers from the sun as they rode through the woods. The air in the woods was cooler as well. The driveway went up a small hill and leveled out just as it passed a large pile of tires to the west. The tractor slowed to a stop at the top of another hill. Scott hopped from his perch on the wagon and grabbed a yellow handle at the end of a single strand of barbed wire. He unhooked it from a loop in the fence and swung it to one side so that Richard could guide the tractor through the resulting opening. Once the wagon was clear, Scott reattached the wire gate to the other side and hopped back onto the wagon.

The tractor continued down a hill and emerged from the woods right at the oil well. Now, the route that Richard had taken to get to this point was a rather roundabout route. However, it really wasn’t much worse or better than the alternative which was to drive the tractor down the waterway to the farm and take the oil well drive back to the woods. There was no direct path from Richards home to the oil well as the crick that ran through the pasture acted as a fairly effective obstacle. There was a culvert that could be crossed at the farm. There was a shallow area at the southeastern corner of the woods where tractors had forged the crick in the past, but not in recent years. The route Richard had taken was beyond the springs which fed the crick so he hadn’t had to cross the brook at all.

The tractor pulled up beside one of the hickory trees that bordered the heifer pasture. Just off the driveway lay three large branches that had broken off two of the hickory trees in a recent storm. Dale had removed them from the road and had called his father to let him know that they were there. Richard had taken this information and kept it in the back of his mind knowing that Jonathan and Rebecca would be bringing their children to visit. So, on this particular day, he had loaded four of Dale’s kids (Scott, Kelsey, Luke, and Kerry) and all three of Jonathan’s (Samuel, Benjamin, and Johanna) onto his flatbed because they were going to make stone soup.

The idea of making stone soup comes from a children’s book that Richard often read to his grandchildren. The gist of the story is that three soldiers were walking on the road towards a village. When the villagers heard that they were on their way, they grew worried that the soldiers would require too much food and leave the villagers with less food than they had before the soldiers’ arrival. So, the villagers hid all their food before the soldiers came into town and told the soldiers that they had no food. The soldiers, suspicious that the villagers were not being honest, offered to make stone soup for the whole village. All they required was a large pot, three smooth round stones and a lot of water. The villagers were eager to oblige, thinking they might benefit from the soldiers instead of the soldiers taking advantage of them. As the soldiers stirred the pot of simmering water, they commented to themselves, but loud enough for others to hear, how much better the soup would be if they had a number of vegetables, meats, and milk. Little by little, the townspeople pulled their food from hiding and offered it to the soldiers. By the end of the day, there was a huge pot with enough of the best soup the villagers had ever had to feed the whole town, and all from three smooth round stones. (My synopsis really doesn’t do the story justice. I recommend you find the book and read it for yourself to get the whole story.)

Each cousin had looked that morning to find the perfect smooth round stone to be used in the stone soup. Richard would only choose three stones to be consistent with the story. Each child grabbed an item from the wagon and began setting up to make the soup. Richard took an axe and began working the tree branches into manageable sizes while the boy worked to clear a spot for the fire and the girls gathered small dry twigs to use as kindling. Finally, they were ready to start the fire. Richard took a piece of newspaper (he read the Alliance Review) and crumpled it up into a ball. He stacked twigs in a teepee shaped pile on top of the newspaper. Then, he took a blue tipped match (the blue tipped matches were “strike anywhere” matches) and stuck it on the head of his axe. He held the flaming tip of the match to the paper until the paper caught fire.

“I need some branches about this big around right away,” he directed the children as he held up his pinky finger.

The children scrambled to oblige. They rushed to the branches that Richard had been working on with the axe and returned with appropriate sized sticks in hand. Richard took the sticks from them and added them strategically to the growing fire before sending the children after thumb-thick branches. Before long, the fire was big enough to handle the larger sticks. The wood was dry and the fire quickly grew in size and intensity.

Richard reached into and apple crate and pulled out several cans of beef stew. He opened them up and poured them into a cast iron pot and added an appropriate amount of water.

“Alright,” he addressed his grandchildren. “Let’s see your stones.”

The children eagerly gathered around their grandfather with their hands outstretched. Each child held the smoothest, roundest stone they could find, hoping that their stone was just perfect. Richard appeared to carefully consider his options and secretly remembered the children whose stones he had chosen the last time. He avoided those three stone and arbitrarily chose three stones from the seven that had been offered. Those three children expressed their excitement in various ways while the other four returned their rocks to their respective pockets. Scott was kind of relieved that his rock hadn’t been chosen. Scott collected rocks and had grown rather attached to his stone during the day and was reluctant to give it up at that point.

Richard took the three chosen rocks and rinsed them off before dropping them into the beef stew. He set up a metal tripod and placed the pot over the fire. He stirred the pot occasionally with a homemade wooden spoon while the “stone soup” cooked. The children played in the pasture, being careful to watch out for pasture specific landmines (cow pies). After what seemed like a long time to the children but was about fifteen minutes in real life, Richard declared that the stone soup was ready for consumption. The children lined up with Styrofoam bowls in hand to get their helping. They fanned out around the fire and dug in expressing their satisfaction in various mmm’s and ahh’s. 

“All that from just three smooth round stones,” Samuel chuckled between bites.

The stone soup tasted just like regular old beef stew because it was regular old beef stew. However, in that moment it was the best beef stew the children had eaten in a long time because the experience of making stone soup with their grandfather was the true treat. One by one the children finished their meal and threw their bowls on the fire. The cross-generational crew stayed in the pasture until all the fallen limbs had been added to the fire and burned up. Finally, the children all piled back onto the wagon and enjoyed the ride to the farm by way of the oil well drive. The Ohio cousins were due back at the farm for chores. This, of course, meant that the South Carolina cousins were also due back at the farm for chores since the Ohio cousins insisted on their companionship through the evening routine. Therefore, their grandfather would be returning to his home by a different route.

Note from the author: making stone soup was something that happened several times over the course of my childhood and included different people at different times including Paul Henning's daughters Mandy and Katie.