Peasie and Beansie

Once upon a time two sisters lived together. The elder, whose name was Beansie, was hard and quarrelsome and disagreed with everybody, but Peasie, the younger, was gentle and always pleasant.

One day Peasie, who was always trying to please someone, said to her sister, “Beansie, dear, don’t you think we ought to visit our poor old father? He must be lonely. It’s harvest time, and he has been left alone in the house.”

“I don’t care if he has!” said Beansie. “Go yourself! I’m not walking about in this heat to please an old man!”

So kind Peasie set off on her own. On the way she came to a plum tree.

“Oh, Peasie!” cried the tree. “Wait a moment, there’s a dear, and tidy my thorns a little. They are scattered about so untidily that I feel quite uncomfortable!”

“So they are!” said Peasie, and she set to work so busily that soon the tree was as neat as a new pin.

A little further on she came to a fire, and the fire cried, “Oh, sweet Peasie! Clean my hearth a little, for I am half choked with ashes!”

“So you are!” said good-natured Peasie, and she cleared the ashes away until the fire crackled and blazed with pleasure.

Further still she came to a pipal tree, and the pipal called out, “Oh, kind Peasie! Bind up this broken branch for me, or it will die and I shall lose it!”

“You poor thing!” cried soft-hearted Peasie. She tore a strip from her veil and carefully bandaged the hurt branch.

After a while she came to a stream, and the stream cried, “Pretty Peasie! Clear the sand and dead leaves out of my mouth, for I cannot flow when I am blocked!”

“No, you can’t!” said obliging Peasie, and in no time she had made the channel so clean and clear that the water ran swiftly on.

At last she reached her old father’s house, rather tired. He was so delighted to see her that he could hardly bear to let her go in the evening. He insisted on giving her a spinning wheel, a buffalo, some brass pots, a bed and all sorts of other things, just as if she were a bride setting off to her new home. She loaded them onto the buffalo’s back and started for home.

As she crossed the stream, she saw a length of fine cloth floating down towards her.

“Take it, Peasie, take it!” tinkled the stream. “I have carried it a long way as a reward for your kindness.”

So she picked up the cloth, laid it on the buffalo and went on.

When she passed the pipal tree, there on the branch she had bandaged hung a string of pearls.

“Take it, Peasie, take it!” rustled the pipal. “I caught it from a prince’s turban as a reward for your kindness.”

So she took the pearls, fastened them round her slender neck and went on, full of joy.

Further on she came to the fire, burning brightly, with an iron griddle on it, and on the griddle was a lovely hot sweet cake.

“Take it, Peasie, take it!” crackled the fire. “I have cooked it just right as a reward for your kindness.”

So lucky Peasie took the hot cake. She broke it in two, put one half aside for her sister and ate the other as she walked.

When she reached the plum tree, its highest branches were bent low with ripe yellow fruit.

“Take some, Peasie, take some!” groaned the heavy tree. “I have ripened these as a reward for your kindness.”

So she filled her veil with plums, ate a few and saved the rest for her sister.

But when she got home, disagreeable Beansie, instead of being glad about her little sister’s good luck and thoughtfulness, nearly cried with spite and jealousy. She was so cross that poor sweet Peasie began to feel sorry about her own good fortune, and suggested that her sister might be just as lucky if she went to visit their father too.

So the next morning greedy Beansie set off to see what she could get out of the old man. When she came to the plum tree, it cried, “Oh, Beansie! Wait a moment and tidy my thorns a little, there’s a dear!”

But disobliging Beansie tossed her head. “A likely story!” she said. “I could walk three miles in the time it would take me to sort out your silly old thorns. Do it yourself!”

When she came to the pipal tree and it asked her to bind up its broken branch, she only laughed. “It doesn’t hurt me,” she said, “and I could walk three miles in the time it would take to fix it. Ask someone else!”

When the fire said, “Oh, sweet Beansie! Clean my hearth a little, for I am half choked by my ashes,” the unkind girl replied, “More fool you for having ashes! Do you think I’m going to waste my time helping people who won’t help themselves? Not likely!”

And when she came to the stream and it asked her to clear away the sand and dead leaves that blocked it, she said, “Do you imagine I’m going to stop my walk so that you can run? No, no! Everyone for himself!”

At last she reached her father’s house, determined not to leave without enough to load at least two buffaloes. But just as she stepped into the courtyard, her brother and his wife rushed at her, shouting and shoving.

“So this is your plan, is it?” they cried. “Yesterday Peasie turns up while we’re hard at work and coaxes her soft old father out of his best buffalo and goodness knows what else, and today you come to rob us! Get out of this house, you rascal!”

And they chased her away, hot, tired, sore and hungry.

“Never mind,” she told herself. “I’ll still get the cloth!”

Sure enough, when she crossed the stream, a length of cloth three times finer than Peasie’s was floating near the bank, and greedy Beansie went straight in after it. But the water was so deep that she very nearly went under, and the beautiful cloth floated past her fingertips. All she got for her trouble was a soaking.

“Never mind,” she thought. “I’ll have the string of pearls!”

Yes, there it hung on the broken branch. But when Beansie jumped up to grab it, the branch came down, pearls and all, right on her head, and knocked her senseless. When she came round, someone else had walked off with the pearls, and all she had was a bump on her head as big as an egg.

By now she was worn out by all her bad luck and starving, so she hurried on to the fire, hoping for a lovely hot sweet cake.

Yes, there it was, smelling delicious. But Beansie grabbed at it so greedily that she burned her fingers badly, and the cake rolled away. While she was still blowing on her fingers and hopping about in pain, a crow flew off with the cake, and she was left wailing.

“At least I’ll have the plums!” cried miserable Beansie, and she ran on, her mouth watering at the sight of the juicy yellow fruit on the highest branches. First she held on to a low branch with her left hand and reached for the fruit with her right. When that hand was all scratched by the thorns, she held on with her right and reached with her left. But it was no use, and when her face and hands were stinging and full of prickles, she gave up and went home, bruised, wet, sore, hungry and scratched all over. And I have no doubt that her kind sister Peasie put her to bed and brought her a bowl of warm gruel.

Where this story comes from

This tale comes from Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab. In the book’s notes, R. C. Temple explains that the sisters are called Motho and Mung in the original, after two kinds of pulse, and that Peasie and Beansie are fair translations of their names. He identifies the plum tree as the ber, or jujube.

In Steel’s version the brother and his wife give Beansie a hard beating; here they shout at her, shove her and chase her away.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab (Project Gutenberg #6145, Peasie and Beansie)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult preview; includes family aggression, near-drowning, loss of consciousness after a falling branch, burns and scratches.

A closer reading

The return journey reverses the outward one. Peasie first removes obstacles—a blocked channel, a damaged branch, ashes and thorns—then encounters each place again as a source of help. The repeated route lets the reader compare actions and consequences without needing a new setting for every event.

Beansie imitates the journey’s destination and expected rewards but not its acts of care. Yet the brother and his wife’s attack is not a fair consequence of her refusals: they accuse her because of resentment about gifts their father gave Peasie. The two sisters’ outcomes therefore contain both patterned reward and the independent wrongdoing of other people.

Peasie saves food for her sister before knowing how Beansie will respond. At the end, the narrator imagines her caring for the injured Beansie again. This keeps kindness from becoming merely a way to earn treasure. It also leaves room to say that Peasie need not feel guilty for her good fortune or accept her sister’s anger as deserved.

Try this with the story

Draw an outward and a return route with four stopping places. Pair each request with its later result, then mark the brother’s accusation in a different colour because it comes from a separate decision. Explain how the imagined final bowl of gruel changes the ending’s tone.

Talk about it

• How does the return journey mirror the first journey?
• What does Beansie copy, and what does she leave out?
• Why are the brother’s accusation and aggression unfair?
• Why does the narrator imagine Peasie caring for Beansie at the end?

More stories like this

• Little Anklebone — another short tale from Tales of the Punjab
• The Sparrow And The Crow — another Indian story about someone who will not help
• Princess Pepperina — another tale from the same book