Village Stew: A Leadership Fable

Young Rhoda would assume her position in a fortnight. But the role felt daunting. She had the charisma and skills to get the job, but she felt inexperienced and not a little intimidated.

Rhoda walked her dog in her usual routine, passing right by the old lady's garden at the edge of town. It was a small little home, not much more than a shack, and according to the neighborhood rumor and lore, it had at all times recalled been home to an old crone with more cats than teeth. As a little girl, Rhoda would giggle and roll her eyes at the stories.

However, on another walk a few months ago, Rhoda met the woman and found her to be kind and fascinating. Her name was Ziva. She seemed old enough to be Rhoda's great-grandmother but was spry enough to go out and water the flowers in her overgrown but elaborate garden each week, and they would chat about the weather, the garden, their pets, and other small matters.

On this day the old woman happened to be re-potting some purple asters with geraniums. As the dog did as dogs do near the fence, Rhoda said, "I hope you're doing well today, Ziva. Those flowers look lovely together."

"Ah yes, Rhoda, I figured we would talk soon with all you have coming."

Rhoda was surprised Ziva would even know of her new role. The old lady seemed to live in separateness from the time and space of Rhoda's life and never brought up current events or politics.

"Come rest here while I finish."

Rhoda pushed open the spring-loaded gate and led her dog into the garden, saying, "I didn't know you knew about that."

"Oh yes. I bet you’ll do exceedingly well."

"Well, thanks. But, I don't know. I am excited, for sure, but it's kind of overwhelming."

"Ah well," Ziva said as she finished up the repotting. "It will be no problem. People will follow you, I have no doubt. Now, can you lift that pot and put it on the porch? I'm tuckered out."

Ziva sat down and after moving the pot Rhoda did the same, "Yes, I hope so, but I'm just figuring out how to start. I don't have a lot to work with."

The old lady tilted her shoulders square with Rhoda and gave a wry smirk. She looked Rhoda over, up and down. "Oh, I don't know. You've got nothing but you, and that's all you need."

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you a story to explain."

"Ok, sure." And so Ziva told the old tale of Village Stew.*

---

Village Stew

A young boy whose name nobody remembers came to town wearing nothing but blue breeches and a brown tunic. No shoes, no pack, no hat. The sunburned lad carried one long stick with a kerchief knotted to hang behind it. He walked right up to a little boy named Shem and said, 'Hello, Friend, you look hungry!'"

"Of course, I'm hungry, Stranger. Everyone is. Been a famine more months I can count. Aren't them hungry where you're from?"

"No, I just came from the village on the other side of the swamp, and they were all eating and feasting when I left."

Shem squished up his face, "No. Impossible. What were they feasting on in this drought?" Shem asked.

"Village stew!" said the boy without a name.

"What's in village stew?"

"All the best things. I'll give you a taste if we make some here."

"Really?" Shem said, "How you going to make it; you got nothing but a stick?"

The boy without a name took his kerchief off his stick and patted the small load inside, saying "We'll have to work together, but the secret ingredient is what brings it all together. Now tell me, are your parents around?"

"Father died last winter, but Mother is in that there broken down chuckwagon."

"Well, I was hoping you'd say that as I see her sitting on an overturned pot. Can you ask to borrow the pot for today?"

"I'll try."

As Shem went off to make a valiant attempt to procure the pot, the boy without a name meandered about nearby, picking up an armload of small sticks and three small logs. He brought these over not far from the drought-dried well in the center of the dusty and desolate village.

He built a small pyramid of logs with smaller branches down below, and as he did so, a small girl and her father, both gaunt about the eyes and with parched lips, walked up. The little girl was named Abigail, and she said, "Why you need a fire? It's hot."

"It is difficult to cook a stew without a fire."

The word "stew" lit up Abigail's eyes.

The boy asked, "Excuse me, good sir, would you happen to have a light?"

Abigail's father looked distantly toward the horizon and hadn't heard the boy's question. She tugged at his breeches, saying "Let him borrow your flint, Papa!"

He wordlessly handed it over, just as Shem returned hoisting the pot. "Oh my, Stranger. I were promisin' so many chores to borrow this here pot. Your stew better be worth it!"

With a quick flip of a wrist and a few fingers, the flint sparked and the fire was lit. The boy without a name returned it to the little girl's father and the man walked over and sat on the bricks surrounding the dried-up well.

The boy without a name inspected the pot with one eye while blowing out the other side of his mouth at the sparking fire. "Is there a creek near here that ain't dried up?"

Abigail pointed a tiny weathered thumb behind her, "We crossed at a little trickle of a creek not a furlong back."

After washing the pot thoroughly, the three of them filled it a hand short of full, which was hard because the creek was so thin. It took all three of the children to carry the water-heavy pot back to the fire, where two women were standing with questioning looks watching the children place the pot on the fire.

"What yer doing, you meddlers!" The older of the two women accused them. "Shem, are you getting into trouble again?"

"No, we're making stew!"

Both women made a sound like air escaping a rubber balloon, and waved the children away.

"You can have some too when it's done,” the boy with no name interjected, “But I have to ask, do either of you ladies have any carrots or potatoes about your home to add to the stew? I'm fresh out and it would improve it well."

The younger woman said, "Do I look like some Lady in a manor who has carrots to spare?"

"Oh, that's too bad. You really don't have anything at all?"

"Nope—nothing, we just stare at the bones of our last dead cow."

The boy with no name raised a hand to stop them, "Wait! You didn't say you had bones! That's actually exactly what we need most for this stew."

The older lady squinted at the boy with no name. But the younger woman just shrugged and walked over to her hovel. The pot had begun to simmer as they spoke.

Bending down on both knees, the boy with no name blew on the coals and the pot began to heat up. "Before we go much further I need to add the secret ingredient."

Shem and Abagail gathered around him to help also blow on the coals, with smoke blowing into each other's eyes. Shem's mother had come to investigate what the boy was doing with her precious pot-turned-chair.

"What are you doing over here, boys?"

"Making village stew!" Shem answered.

His mother made the same sound the other ladies just made, but she asked her son's new friend, "How are you making stew without meat?"

Just as she asked this the two other women returned with a rucksack and handed it brusquely to the boy with no name. He swiftly dumped the contents into the soup. "Thank you, my ladies!"

"Mrs Shem's mother, I must ask you kindly, do you have any spices in your cupboard? The stew would be much improved with some basil, pepper, sage, bay leaf, and salt, in particular."

Shem's mother abandoned her earlier question, saying "We used up all the salt and ate any leaves we could find, but I do know I have some thyme, rosemary, and pepper left."

"Well, that would be just wonderful if we could use some."

She turned toward her tent, "Might as well, we don't have nothin' to put the spices in anymore."

By now the pot had begun to boil, and the boy without a name went for his kerchief, holding it close to his gut. He spun his finger around to Abigail and Shem near the pot. "Hey now, it's called a secret ingredient for a reason."

They had not turned round but a moment and when they heard a "plop" in the roiling pot, and the boy with no name had already tied his empty kerchief around his neck like an ornamental scarf.

With that a whole family of eight walked up to the pot, "What you cooking?" the father said, as five tall teenage boys and one girl as tall as the rest all looked on from behind him.

Abigail answered this time, "We're making village stew."

"Oh man, that must be nice," the shortest of the five teenage boys said."I remember stew!"

"Don't worry, you can have some too," the boy with no name said. "The problem is we don't have enough of the real flavorful stuff. Would you as a family mind gathering some wild onions for the stew?"

The one girl of the family said, "Sure, that doesn't sound hard. But where do we find them?"

"Well, it will have a purple bulblike flowering thing with green coming out of it at the top. Dig out the root and stems and chop 'em up good."

The mother said, "Oh we call that stag's garlic round here." The father pulled out a small knife from his belt as if to say, "Yeah I have this, no problem."

“Oh, and if you see any bishop's lace while looking grab that too, but only the young ones, they have a still soft carrot-like root. We could use a whole bundle of that chopped up.”

As the family left for their hunt, Shem's mother returned with the promised spices and one of her neighbors in tow. "I found some sage over at my neighbor's house though." Shem's mother added the spices to the boy’s specifications, and the neighbor lady whispered said something quietly to him by the pot.

"Oh my, that would be perfect! Where do they grow?" he said. She pointed north of the village, "Up on that hill."

"Shem, do you mind going with our spice queens here and getting some bay leaf up on that hill? Nothing quite completes village stew like bay leaves!"

As they left a solitary man with a bow hung on his shoulder walked over with a scowl. "What you cookin'?"

The boy with no name replied, "Why it's village stew. Have you had any?"

"Nope. I'm good. I'm a hunter. I don't starve."

The boy without a name was quick to add, "Ah I suppose. There's not starvin', and then there's livin'! I myself enjoy some meat in a nice stew to compliment the flavors."

"Well, I have a trine of marmots just butchered out from this morning. Was gonna put them on the spit tonight, but they're not a lot of meat. Might be better in a stew."

"No doubt" the boy with no name nodded.

The hunter returned a stolid nod, "I'll be back."

With that, it seemed like the whole village was turning up with a few potatoes here and there stashed in this or that tin. A man had been growing mushrooms in a basement and brought out his first harvest. One search would stumble on a tumbler of flour in a cupboard and another would discover a jigger of filbert oil in an otherwise empty breadbox. It all went in the pot.

The sun began to hang low over the surrounding hills. The stew had thickened with the passing hours, and the air was alive with both forgotten smells and forgotten voices.

Everyone went off to collect a bowl from their homes. Shem's mother borrowed a ladle from her cousin, and she started to dish out the stew at sundown. For some time after, it was rumored that the stew was first fired by Shem's mother. But the children knew. They stood there waiting as every villager went through the line, getting a heaping helping of stew, and then they followed. All supped when the boy with no name was given a bowl by Shem's mother and he sat by the pot and ate to his full as well.

Abagail and Shem reveled in their full bellies and the changed tone of their town. It was as if a great wedding had taken place, or one of the now faintly recalled festivals when they were even younger. They saw the boy with no name set aside his empty bowl and reach into the now nearly empty pot with the borrowed ladle.

Out of the pot he yanked a large roundish stone with stew leftovers dripping off of it. He had taken the kerchief off his neck and laid it out with four corners on the ground. There he dished out with the ladle the steaming stone. He used the kerchief to wipe off the stone, and then tied it all back onto his long stick and stood up with Shem and Abagail staring at him in disbelief.

Shem asked, "That was the secret ingredient?"

Winking at them, the boy with no name said, "No, the secret ingredient was this." He waved a hand around the town circle where all were enjoying the company as well as the stew. Shem's gaze rested on the family of eight that were all laughing at a joke the mother told. Abagail's gaze landed upon her own father, who still sat on the bricks of the dried well, but he absent-mindedly flicked a spark off his flint and steel while looking up at the first stars to light the sky.

When they both looked back at the pot the boy with no name had already left.

---

"And that, my dear Rhoda, is the story of the village stew."

Rhoda shook her head as if waking from a daydream. She looked down and somehow she was leaning back in the Adirondack chair on Ziva's porch where her dog dozed at her feet. She had a half-sipped glass of iced tea in her hand which she didn’t remember ever receiving. The sun was beginning to set here too, in real life.

"You see," Ziva the old crone said, "You've got nothing but you, and that's all you need. As long as you use the secret ingredient."

Rhoda smiled and took a sip of tea. "I think I can do that."

*This is my retelling (entirely in my own words) of a traditional story often called “Stone Soup,” a European folktale where some variation of strangers to town convince villagers to contribute food to create a shared meal. In some stories the “secret ingredient” is an inedible object like an axe, button, or nail. The earliest published version appears to be “Soupe au Caillou” by Madame du Noyer (1720), although I haven’t read that version or any other version of this folktale—I have only heard it told verbally in truncated form and used that rough inspiration for this version.