Jack took off his hat to the old lady, and she said, pointing to the castle, While Jack was standing looking at the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out of the wood and advanced towards him. Jack wondered very much that he had never heard of or seen this castle before but when he reflected on the subject, he saw that it was as much separated from the village by the perpendicular rock on which it stood as if it were in another land. So after resting for a moment he went on, and at last reached the top of the bean, and found himself in a beautiful country, finely wooded and not far from the place where he had got off the bean-stalk stood a fine and strong castle. Jack felt a little tired, and thought for a moment that he would go back again but he was a very persevering boy, and he knew that the way to succeed in anything is not to give up. Jack instantly began to climb, and went up and up on the ladder-like bean till every thing he had left behind him, the cottage, the village, and even the tall church tower, looked quite little, and still he did not see the top of the bean stalk. His mother wished him not to venture up this strange ladder, but Jack coaxed her to give her consent to the attempt, for he was certain there must be something wonderful in the bean-stalk. “I wonder where it goes?” said Jack to his mother “I think I will climb up and see.” Greatly surprised, he called his mother, and they both gazed in silent wonder at the bean-stalk, which was not only of great height, but was thick enough to bear Jack’s weight. The next morning when he got up, he found that the beans had grown, till the bean stalks reached right over the top of the hill, and were lost to his sight. He was very sorry but, he said, he might as well make the best of his bargain, so he put the seed-beans into the ground close by the side of the steep hill under shelter of which their cottage was built, and went to bed. 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. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were of great value, and persuaded him to sell the cow for them! And Jack was so silly as to consent to this foolish bargain. 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. “I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her.” 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, Jack did no work as yet, and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and affectionate. Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack. We would encourage parents to read beforehand if your child is sensitive to such themes. Alberto’s friends realized that everybody has their own special qualities and that it is a GOOD thing that all people are not the same.This is a vintage fairy tale, and may contain violence.
His friends screamed, “Yay!” because they were now glad that Alberto was their friend. You may also like to read, The Magic Paintbrush. Even though they had laughed at him earlier, Alberto decided to help them out by picking the apples off the tree and giving them to his friends. Alberto was walking through the woods and saw his friends. The came across an apple tree and wanted to eat some of the apples, but the apples were too high to reach. The next day, two of Alberto’s friends were lost and got very hungry. When his friends saw him, they laughed at how tall he was and this made Alberto very sad. “What do I do?” he thought to himself.īy the next day, Alberto had grown so big that he couldn’t fit into his house anymore. Alberto went back downstairs to his store and saw that he was still growing taller every hour. “This is impossible! No one can grow this tall while taking a nap,” Alberto wondered. He did not know what was wrong until he stood up and saw that he was now ten feet tall. When Alberto woke up, he felt like something wasn’t quite right.