there lived in a certain village a poor old woman who had collected a mess of beans , and was going to cook them . so she made a fire on her hearth . in order to make it burn better , she put in a handful of straw . when the beans began to bubble in the pot , one of them fell out and lay , never noticed , near a straw which was already there . soon a red - hot coal jumped out of the fire and joined the pair . the straw began first , and said , " dear friends , how do you come here ? " the coal answered , " i jumped out of the fire by great good luck , or i should certainly have met with my death . i should have been burned to ashes . " the bean said , " i too have come out of it with a whole skin . if the old woman had kept me in the pot i should have been cooked into a soft mass like my comrades . " " nor should i have met with a better fate , " said the straw . " the old woman has turned my brothers into fire and smoke , sixty of them she took up at once and deprived of life . very luckily i managed to slip through her fingers . " " what had we better do now ? " said the coal . " i think , " answered the bean , " that as we have been so lucky as to escape with our lives , we will join in good fellowship together . lest any more bad fortune should happen to us here , we will go abroad into foreign lands . "
it would have been cooked into a soft mass .
what would have happened if the old woman kept the bean in the pot ?
what would have happened if the old woman kept the bean in the pot ?