The Stone Soup Variations - II

In a different version of the story, the visitor asked that the townspeople fill a large pot with water, and set it to boil over a fire. They eagerly did so, and then he said "I will place this stone in our soup, what will each of you add?" He placed the stone in the water, and waited for the townspeople to respond.

One villager scratched his head, and suddenly ran home, returning with some rusty worn bolts, and he added these to the soup. Someone else had been collecting bits of wire for a few years, but she volunteered them into the soup. Another villager had some pens that had run out of ink and through them in. And so it went.

All day long the soup boiled and boiled. The visitor looked a little puzzled, though no one knew why. That night the pleased townspeople gathered to eat the soup. But the visitor looked ill and said that would go. He picked up his satchel and continued down the road.