Beyond Trick or Treat

In the folktale Stone Soup, a hungry travel-worn boy comes to a big house and asks the old woman who lives there for something to eat. The old lady says she has nothing to give him. Little does she know that this is a “trick or treat” scenario. The boy replies that if she gives him a stone, he can make soup from that stone. The old lady had never heard of something so bizarre—“Make soup from a stone? Fancy that.”—so she complies with the boy’s request. When the pot of water comes to a boil, she comments, “This soup is cooking fast.” The boy says it would cook even faster with some onions. The old lady throws in a few onions from her garden and soon says, “This soup smells good.” The boy replies that it would smell even better with some carrots. 

Unlike the old lady, you probably get the picture now and don’t need the play-by-play account of every ingredient thrown into the pot. You might dislike the boy because he’s a trickster. On the other hand, you might find the story delightful, especially if you feel compassion for the hungry lad who wasn’t given any food by the resident of the big house, or if you think the old lady had a trick coming to her for lying. Regardless of what you think of the folktale, if we strip away “trick or treat” from the plot, we’re left with some powerful ideas:

First is the power of curiosity. It’s the special gift of innocence and childhood, usually dulled by time and experience, and hardened into a protective skepticism. Both curiosity and skepticism are rooted in the fact that there’s so much we don’t know, but curiosity is open to discovery in a way the other isn’t. The old lady could have been skeptical instead of curious. If she had, she might have seen the boy’s trick and shut the door on him. She would have saved herself a few onions and carrots, but she would have deprived herself of something greater.

Once the boy suggests they eat the soup, the old lady says, “Stop! This soup is indeed fit for a king. Now I will set a table fit for a king.” And she takes out her best dishes and tablecloth for their meal. This illustrates another powerful idea: that giving transforms the giver. The soup was not just to the boy’s benefit. It elevated the old lady to a nobler mindset. Generosity, even on the smallest scale, is a quality of kings and queens.

Another powerful idea is that generosity connects us to others. It establishes a relationship, whether we’re on the giving or the receiving end. The boy and the old lady were strangers but ended up sitting down at a table with each other, which reminds me of a beautiful initiative of my alma mater. Without generosity to bring them together, the boy and the old lady would have remained alone.

One last insight from the folktale is that even the smallest gift can make a big difference. That’s good news since no one has unlimited resources. We can’t always give as much as we want to every worthy cause. But if we’re open to being surprised, if we’re open to wonder and curiosity, this attitude can help us open our hands and cast something small—something we can afford to give—into the proverbial pot. And if enough people throw in their onions, carrots, beef bones, salt, pepper, butter, and barley, something magical might happen: we all just might be able to enjoy a bowl of soup fit for a king.