Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
General
Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
Children's literature
He was a big one, to be sure. At his belt he had three calves
strung up by the heels, and he unhooked them and threw them down
on the table and said: "Here, wife, broil me a couple of these for
breakfast. Ah! what's this I smell?
"Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I'll have his bones to grind my bread."
"Nonsense, dear," said his wife, "you're dreaming. Or perhaps
you smell the scraps of that little boy you liked so much for
yesterday's dinner. Here, you go and have a wash and tidy up, and
by the time you come back your breakfast'll be ready for you."
So off the ogre went, and Jack was just going to jump out of the
oven and run away when the woman told him not. "Wait till he's
asleep," says she; "he always has a doze after breakfast."
Well, the ogre had his breakfast, and after that he goes to a big
chest and takes out of it a couple of bags of gold, and down he sits
and counts till at last his head began to nod and he began to snore
till the whole house shook again.
Then Jack crept out on tiptoe from his oven, and as he was passing
the ogre he took one of the bags of gold under his arm, and off he
pelters till he came to the beanstalk, and then he threw down the bag
of gold, which of course fell into his mother's garden, and then he
climbed down and climbed down till at last he got home and told
his mother and showed her the gold and said: "Well, mother,
wasn't I right about the beans? They are really magical, you see."
So they lived on the bag of gold for some time, but at last they
came to the end of it, and Jack made up his mind to try his luck once
more at the top of the beanstalk. So one fine morning he rose up
early, and got on to the beanstalk, and he climbed and he climbed
and he climbed and he climbed and he climbed and he climbed till
at last he came out on to the road again and up to the great big tall
house he had been to before. There, sure enough, was the great
big tall woman a-standing on the doorstep.
"Good morning, mum," says Jack, as bold as brass, "could you
be so good as to give me something to eat?"
"Go away, my boy," said the big tall woman, "or else my man
will eat you up for breakfast. But aren't you the youngster who
came here once before? Do you know, that very day, my man
missed one of his bags of gold."
"That's strange, mum," said Jack, "I dare say I could tell you
something about that, but I'm so hungry I can't speak till I've had
something to eat."
Well, the big tall woman was so curious that she took him in and
gave him something to eat. But he had scarcely begun munching
it as slowly as he could when thump! thump! thump! they heard
the giant's footstep, and his wife hid Jack away in the oven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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