Stone Soup page one

Once upon a time--not so VERY long ago--a young soldier finished his military duty and was walking back to his home village.

This story took place in a time before railroad trains or buses and the soldier was going to walk the entire distance home--a walk of many days.

He was happy to be out of the army and on his own again and he was quite healthy--but he was absolutely penniless!

This fact did not bother him because he had a lot of self confidence--and he had always had good luck!

And he looked forward to seeing his friends and his old parents who were waiting for him in his home village.

But he WAS hungry!

In fact he was VERY hungry!!

He was about to walk into a small village and he was sort of wondering HOW he was going to BUY something to eat with NO money--when he saw, right on the path in front of him --a small stone--exactly like the thousands of other stones he had passed that morning--but because he was SO HUNGRY and had NO MONEY----THIS stone gave him a GOOD IDEA!

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