The Tale of Barton Bean

By Elisabetta Panzica

On the verge of losing everything, the citizens of Ness come together to save their kingdom, led by two young friends who show them how to work together by honoring their differences. Beans and humans alike come together to form a close-nit community that embraces different cultures and ways of life. The Ness farm discovers that their greatest crop isn't beans but love. Together they build a fair and peaceful world where all are free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kreative Outlets
• Release date: Dec 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201582968

Elisabetta Panzica

Elisabetta Panzica lives in Southern California. She has published short stories and poems, and was nominated Poet of the Year by Illiad Press. In 2010, Elisabetta started a writers critique group in Orange County California that includes several published authors, and a screenwriter for television and film. She calls it the Tuesday Night Fugitives and attributes her success to the support of this group. 

Book preview

Chapter 1 – Barton’s Secret

Barton Bean had a secret , and I was the only one who knew. My name is Ilana, and I live on a bean farm. Barton Bean is my best friend.  When I met Barton, I was eight years old, and he was too. My family and I had just moved to New Mexico. Before that, we lived in Sonora, Mexico. Sonora is one of Mexico's most prominent states and is cradled by the Sea of Cortez. It was hard to leave all my friends and family behind. Mamá had a teaching degree in Mexico, but she couldn't use it here. It was hard for us at first. Then, Papá started growing beans again. He was a farmer, that's what he knew. We bought a small farm in Estancia, New Mexico. Barton lived next door. He is the reason for this story.

The way I remember it, Barton Bean seemed like an ordinary boy. He had thick wavy red hair and tiny brown dots that decorated the top of his nose. He wore overalls, a white cotton shirt underneath, and an orange poncho with green and blue stripes. He wore it even when it wasn't cold.

Barton lived on a farm with Mr. and Mrs. Pods, who were too old to do anything themselves. Barton was a godsend to them, Mamá said. They found him on their doorstep six years ago, wrapped in a blanket woven of reeds and grass, shivering, wearing nothing but a thin linen robe. Mrs. Pods brought him in because it was the right thing to do, and she gave him a home. He was about two, that's what everyone figured. No one knew for sure.

Barton was different. He never quite fit in, but I liked him anyway. I liked him a lot. At school, he had friends, but he wasn't popular. No one ever picked him to be on their team when we played ball or anything. Mamá says that each and every person is important, and I believe that. Barton was as important as anyone else and just as good. I always picked him.

The first time I met Barton was in the fields. I was milking Miss Bessy Jane, our cow, when Papá asked me to buy some worms from the worm farm next door.  Papá used worms to create better drainage and a more stable soil structure, which helped our farm's productivity.

You want them? Barton held up a handful of worms. They crawled up his arm and around his wrist. I wasn’t very fond of worms, but I held out my bucket.

Yes, please, I said, taking two steps back and squeezing my eyes shut. The worms fell to the ground and all over my feet. I screamed. Get them off, get them off! Barton laughed, and it made me mad, although it was all my fault for having moved while he was dumping worms into the bucket.

I'll put them in for you, he said, and he did. He even covered the top with a netted cloth. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed, but it was funny, he said. He seemed sincere. I liked him right away. He had large chocolate brown eyes like Mamá had, kind eyes that twinkled when he spoke.

We talked for a long time, then he told me that before he came to live at the Pods farm, he lived with the gnomes. I believed him because I've seen the gnomes too. There's a family of them that live underneath our apple tree. Barton knew them first, he knew all the gnomes in the Beanlands. Mr. Tinkerfoot had fostered him for two years. He held a high place in the King's court. King Wiggleflute had made him an Elder of the court. Mr. Tinkerfoot represented the gnomes of Ness.

The gnomes were quirky, some of them even snooty. The men wore red hats, and their outfits ranged from purple to yellow and everything in between. They often decorated their outfits with tiny jewels. The women wore green hats that they wove out of fresh grass and skirts of every shade, often mixing three or four colors, even if they didn't match. They reminded me of gypsies. They wore thick belts and long blouses with billowing sleeves.

New Mexico pulsed with magic. The Ness Farm was one such place. It had wide-open spaces and fields that went on forever. Papá bought the Ness Farm because of the stories and legends that enveloped it. He said it had character and history. I liked that.

In the summer, when school was out, I liked to go out on the farm and watch the gnomes go about their business. I learned that every tree, plant, and flower, had a name, and the gnomes knew each one by heart. They nourished each blade of grass with the greatest care, helped the flowers grow, and kept watch over creatures great and small.

I helped them. They taught us how to see so that we could see their world as plainly as we saw our own. It was kind of like El Día de Los Muertos when our dead ancestors and loved ones come to visit our world from the other side. We put out flowers and food for them so that they can find their way to us. Likewise, the gnomes left a trail of clues so we could see them and visit their world.

The gnomes grew and harvested crops just like we did. Barton said they had a place to prepare the seeds, and nurseries filled with incubators to help them sprout. That made sense, but the rest of the story was nuts.

He told me that the beans were the most active as if he spoke about children. He said they were alive. Of course, seeds and plants have life, but he was insinuating a whole different level of life. He said there were black beans and navy beans, green beans, brown beans, and pinto beans there. He also noted that the beans were the most disruptive of any seed. They never got along and were territorial. Sometimes it was hard to care for them. The gnomes went to great lengths to grow them. I saw them in our fields every morning.

May is when we planted our beans. Papá added the worms to our soil to prepare it for planting. Before he planted, he soaked thousands of beans overnight in large tin tubs until they would swell a little. Early the following day, just before the sun came out, he would take buckets full of beans to plant. It took about a week to plant them all. We primarily grow pinto beans, but we also plant navy beans and edamame. Papá lets me help. At harvest time, we sell them at the country fair.

In Mexico, we lived on a big farm; we lost it when my abuelito died. The bank came to take it because we couldn't afford it anymore. Without Abuelito's money, we could not pay the workers. Ernesto Encinas had been a wealthy man. He was known and loved by our entire village and had helped many families throughout the years. So people wanted to assist us in return, wanted us to keep the farm going, but they needed to feed their own families. Papá decided to move. He said we could start again somewhere else.

Barton told me how the beans we planted had lives, families, and jobs when we were alone. Even our own Pinto beans did. He said the gnomes never stopped visiting him after leaving him at the Pods Farm.  They kept him informed of the ongoing bean feuds. It was what was most pressing on their hearts, he said. I didn't believe him at first. His story seemed a little far-fetched. He said that the black beans and navy beans were constantly at odds, exchanging harsh words and destroying each other's land. He said that they were mean and didn't want to help anyone. I told him they were just beans, and beans couldn't talk. He said that his past was linked to the beans. I thought that perhaps his real family also owned a bean farm, like our family's farm, but the truth was a lot stranger.

Barton lived in Estancia, New Mexico, all of his life. He had lots of friends, little gnome children, fairies, and the Monte Verde family with whom he'd sometimes spend weekends. They had four boys and a girl. Barton said he witnessed the bean wars, even at their farm, and it made him sad that the war had spread to encompass every farm in New Mexico. I still didn’t believe him.

There are some whacked-out beans here, Barton's eyes were red. They've infiltrated the Beandom!

That’s not true! You’re just making that up.

Barton hung his head, I've never seen any other living thing fight so much. They think they're right, even when they aren't, and they never compromise. Don't they know that they are all  born of the same earth? I didn't know what to say. He sounded so genuine, it almost scared me.  He kept talking as if his story were real.

Someday, Barton Bean, you'll make a great writer, I said, but that didn't stop him. He kept recounting his tale. So I gave in, leaned back on a bushel of hay, and listened. I liked the sound of his voice.

Once planted the different beans built great cities beneath the soil, Barton went on, "their roots became something like roads, maneuvering younger seeds to find their way above ground. They built armies to protect their soil. The lima beans used live peas to shoot from their pea shooters at the black beans. The other beans were not much better, but the Pinto beans and the brown beans