JACK SELLS THE COW

Edition and rights: Original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #540, marked public domain in the USA. The literary text below is reproduced without AI rewriting.

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Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her
only son Jack.

Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and affectionate.
There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from
fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet, and by degrees they grew dreadfully
poor. The widow saw that there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from
starvation but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, ‘I
am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and
sell her.’

Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as he was on the way,
he met a butcher who had some beautiful beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look
at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were of great value, and
persuaded the silly lad to sell the cow for these beans.

When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for
her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears, scolding Jack for his
folly. He was very sorry, and mother and son went to bed very sadly that night;
their last hope seemed gone.

At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden.

‘At least,’ he thought, ‘I will sow the wonderful beans.
Mother says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else; but I
may as well sow them.’

So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground, and put in the
beans.

That day they had very little dinner, and went sadly to bed, knowing that for
the next day there would be none and Jack, unable to sleep from grief and
vexation, got up at day-dawn and went out into the garden.

What was his amazement to find that the beans had grown up in the night, and
climbed up and up till they covered the high cliff that sheltered the cottage,
and disappeared above it! The stalks had twined and twisted themselves together
till they formed quite a ladder.

‘It would be easy to climb it,’ thought Jack.

And, having thought of the experiment, he at once resolved to carry it out, for
Jack was a good climber. However, after his late mistake about the cow, he
thought he had better consult his mother first.