22 February 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3022: bean stew

In leaving his home region of Virginia in 1870, Horatio Lee knew he had forever given up the idea that everyone not a man with a big English legacy and name existed to serve him in one way or another. In doing so, he also was among the few in his family to willingly make the move. He also was young enough – just sixteen – to barely have perspective on what he was giving up while others, owing to losing the Civil War, were losing and would continue to lose as time rolled on and the rights of citizenship would extend to former slaves and their children, and all women, and even further on.

But because Horatio Lee chose to become an Appalachian to remove himself from all temptation to be what his foreparents had been and do what they had done, the people of the mountains received him gladly. He was young and eager to learn, and in twenty years, one would hardly have known he was not born in the mountains except that his accent still leaned a bit upper-class, and he could spell and read exceptionally well. However, everyone around him who wanted to know could also read and spell well, because he had gladly shared every advantage he had.

Horatio Lee had quickly learned how to cook, and cook well, and found in himself a love for taking the recipes he remembered from childhood and blending them with the recipes he learned going up and down the Appalachians and into the Adirondacks to the north. That long life track from north to south and back again, many times, created a recipe for bean soup that all of Horatio Lee's descendants knew how to cook … and so the recipe made it into the Ludlow family through Helen Lee Slocum-Bolling.

Helen's only surviving of two sons was a good cook also, being an army officer who knew that the army ran on its stomach but also on good leadership, and also knew sometimes as captain the leader needed to do a bit extra to keep up morale. Capt. R.E. Ludlow was a solid field cook even though that was not his department; his combat troops remembered fondly how he could improvise some rations into a straight warrior's feast in a heartbeat.

Capt. Ludlow had eaten his mother's cooking and his grandmother's cooking – but the difference with Hilda Lee was that while in the Ludlow household, boys had more important things to do than learn women's work, on the mountain, Hilda Lee invited and expected every child to learn everything – so she had taught her two grandsons how to cook and cook well.

One day, after having adopted his seven grandchildren and one little cousin, Capt. Ludlow remembered the bean soup. It was too hot and sticky a day to cook it, but the captain, deciding to follow his grandmother's practice instead of his father's, invited all eight little Ludlows to come learn about it and to help him get all the different beans together.

“This is fun!” five-year-old Lil' Robert said. “There's lots of red ones here!”

“And pink ones – I think these are called cranberry beans,” eleven-year-old Eleanor said.

“It ain't Legos, but, we gotta eat, too,” six-year-old Grayson said as he picked a rock out of the black beans and threw it into the trash pile.

“I'm good on pinto beans, but, where are the pinto ponies?” nine-year-old George said.

“They must be off finding another field of beans – I think there was a movie called Field of Beans,” ten-year-old Andrew said.

“I think that was Field of Dreams,” ten-year-old Glendella said, “but there's probably some good beans and tomatoes and onions and stuff in the field, too.”

“Yeah, because you need colorful food – it's more fashionable and better for you, too,” eight-year-old Edwina said as she put a handful of white beans into the jar for them after they had been picked.

“I love that Papa Horatio harmed no animals in the making of this stew!” seven-year-old Amanda said as she started inspecting a little pile of navy beans. “But, when do we fry these so we can refry them later?”

“It's a stew, Amanda,” Capt. Ludlow said. “We'll stew them all, and save time on the frying and re-frying – but refried beans with all kinds of beans could be interesting.”

“We gotta call Mrs. Gonzalez and ask!” Eleanor said.

“Yep,” Lil' Robert, Grayson, and Amanda said together.

“We also gotta be sure we pick them really well because it is a shame to be stewing stones, but at least they will sink to the bottom – but can you imagine frying and re-frying some rock and then breaking your teeth on it?” Glendella said.

“Yeah, because rocks have no kind of gratitude for all the work we're putting in,” George said.

“They are not well-behaved individuals at all, unlike young Ludlows,” Capt. Ludlow said.

“Yeah!” all eight said, and doubled their efforts.

Meanwhile, the Ludlow man-training and woman-training units being fully occupied for the moment, Mrs. Thalia Ludlow reread the note by the red and white rose her husband had left for her, and went on and took the long nap he had set up for her to enjoy.