by E. Nesbit
“Oh, mercy! I thought it was a great bird,” cried Jack. But it wasn’t. It was a fairy—Jack knew that at once, though he had never seen one before. There are some things you cannot mistake.
“Well, Jack,” said the fairy, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I believe I’ve been looking for you all my life, if you come to that,” said Jack.
“Yes, you have,” said the fairy. “Now listen.”
She told Jack a story that made him all hot, and cold, and ashamed, and eager to do something heroic at once, for she explained how the new land he had found had once belonged to his father, who was a good and great man, and who had ruled his land well and been loved by his subjects. But unfortunately one of his subjects happened to be a giant, and, being naturally of a large size, he considered himself more important than anyone else, and he had killed Jack’s father, and with the help of a bad fairy had imprisoned the faithful subjects in the trees. Since the giant’s rule began the land had not flourished—nothing would grow on it, the houses fell down in ruins and the waters ran dry. So the giant had shut himself and his wife up in a large white house with his precious belongings, and there he lived his selfish, horrid life.
“Now,” said the fairy, “the time has come for you to set things straight. And this is really what you’ve been trying to dream about all your life. You must find the giant and get back your father’s land for your mother. She has worked for you all your life. Now you will work for her; but you have the best of it, because her work was mending and washing and cooking and scrubbing, and your work is—adventures. Go straight on and do the things that first come into your head. This is good advice in ordinary life, and it works well in this land too. Good-bye.”
And with a flutter of sea-green, shining wings the fairy vanished, and Jack was left staring into nothingness. He didn’t stare long though, for, as I said before, he was a changed boy. There are plenty of people who could go in for adventures splendidly, but somehow they are never able to do anything else, and if they don’t happen to fall in with adventures they can do nothing but dream of them, and so have a poor time of it in this world. Jack was one of these people. Only he, you see, had got out of this world and had fallen in with adventures into the bargain.
He went along the road, and when he came to a large white house the first thing he thought of doing was, curiously enough, to knock at the door and ask for something to eat, just as you or I would have done if we had gone up a large beanstalk without our breakfast or our last night’s supper.
“Go away!” said the little old woman who opened the door, just as many people do if you ask them for something to eat and they don’t happen to know you. “My husband is a giant, and he’ll eat you if he sees you.”
“You needn’t let him see me,” said Jack. “I haven’t had anything to eat for ages. Do give me something, there’s a good sort!”
So she took him in and gave him some bread and butter and a poached egg, and before he was half-way through it the whole house began to shake, and the old woman seized Jack, put his eggy plate into his hand, and pushed him into the oven and closed the door.
Jack had the sense not to call out, and he finished his egg in the oven. Then he found he could see through the crack near the hinges, so he glued his eye to it and saw! He saw the giant—a great big fat man with red hair and mutton-chop whiskers. The giant flung himself down at the table and roared for his dinner, and his trembling old wife brought him a whole hog, which he tore in pieces in his hands and ate without any manners, and he didn’t offer his wife so much as a piece of the crackling. When he had finished he licked his great greasy fingers and called out: “Bring me my hen!”
Jack was rather surprised. He thought it was a curious creature to have on the dinner-table. But the next instant he understood, for the hen stood on the table, and every time the giant said “Lay!” it laid a golden egg.
It went on doing this until Jack thought it must be really tired, and until the giant was, for he lay back in his chair and fell asleep.
The first thing that occurred to Jack to do was to leap out of the oven, seize the hen under his arm, and make off for the beanstalk and his home as fast as ever he could.
I won’t describe the scene in the cottage when he arrived. His mother was inclined to scold him, but when she thoroughly understood about the hen she kissed him instead, and said that she had always believed he would do something clever, some day.
Jack sold golden eggs at the market every week, and his mother gave up taking in washing; but she still went on cleaning the cottage herself. I believe she rather liked that kind of work.
Then suddenly one morning, as Jack stood in the cottage garden with his hands in the pockets of a quite new pair of lavender-coloured breeches, he felt he couldn’t go on living without another journey up the beanstalk, and forgetting to tell his mother that he might not be in to dinner, he was off and up. He found the same dry, withered land at the top, and, although he was not hungry this time, he couldn’t think of anything new to say, so he said the same thing to the old woman; but this time he found it much harder to get round her, although she did not know him again. Either his face was changed, or the lavender-coloured breeches were a complete disguise.
“No,” she kept on saying, and Jack lost his temper when she had said it twenty-two times. “A boy came before, and he was a bad one and a thief, and I can’t let another boy in.”
“But I’ve got an honest face,” said Jack. “Everybody says so.”
“That’s true,” said the woman, and she let him in. This time he was obliged to hide before he had begun to eat, and he was rather glad, because, as I said, he was not hungry—the giant’s wife had only given him bread and cheese, and the cheese was rather stale. When they heard the giant coming along the road the woman lifted the copper lid and made Jack get in.
The giant seemed in a good temper, for he chucked his wife under the chin and said:
“Fresh meat today, my dear. I can smell it.”
“I’m—I’m afraid you’re wrong,” said his wife; and Jack could hear by the way she said it that she was very frightened. “It’s half the ox you had yesterday, and that fresh meat you smell is just a bit of a dead cart-horse that a crow dropped on the roof.”
The giant seemed sulky after that, and didn’t eat his dinner with much appetite, and when his wife was clearing away he suddenly laid hold of her and shouted:
“Bring me my money-bags!”
Jack couldn’t help lifting up the copper lid a little bit when he heard the chink of the coins, and when he saw the giant counting out the great heap of gold and silver he longed to have it for his own, for he knew that it ought by rights to belong to him or his mother.
Presently the giant fell asleep, and Jack looked all round to see if the wife was about before he dared to get out of the copper. And he heard her walking about upstairs, so he jumped out, seized on the bags, and again made off for the beanstalk.
He reached home as his mother was clearing away the dinner-plates; but I won’t describe the scene. Of course they were now rich, and Jack wished to live in a large house, but his mother said she couldn’t leave the “bits of things,” and when he came to think it over Jack felt that he couldn’t bear to leave the beanstalk.
Another day came when Jack felt he must make another journey to the giant’s land, disguised in a new smock-frock and gaiters, and again the same thing happened, except that it was harder than ever to persuade the giant’s wife to take him in. She did at last, however, after explaining that two boys had served her badly, and that if he turned out bad too, then the giant would most likely kill her.
No sooner was Jack inside the house than the giant was heard coming. The woman showed Jack an empty barrel, and he crept under it.
Then the giant came in, and he rolled his eyes, twisted his great head about, and swore that he smelt fresh meat. His wife told him he was wrong, but this time he didn’t believe her, and he looked in the copper a
nd in the oven and in the bread-crock, and under the sink; but he never thought of the empty barrel—partly, I daresay, because he thought it was full of something that it wasn’t full of.
At last he gave up the search and sat down to his dinner, and when he had finished he stretched himself until Jack thought some of his buttons would burst, and called:
“Wife, bring me my harp!”
The old woman brought in a beautiful golden harp, which she set on the table, and as soon as the giant said, “Play!” it began to give out beautiful soothing music, and the giant presently fell asleep, while his wife went into the back kitchen to wash up.
The first thing that occurred to Jack was to upset the barrel, dash to the table, and take the harp, but as his hands touched it it cried out in a human voice, “Master, master!” For one second Jack nearly dropped it; then he realised that the giant was waking. He rushed to the door, kicking the cat in his hurry as he heard the giant stumble out after him. But the giant was heavy and only half awake, and by the time Jack was down the beanstalk the giant was only just at the top; but he was coming down, that was quite plain, for the next moment the great beanstalk shook and shivered with his great weight. Jack screamed to his mother for a chopper, and, like the good woman she was, she brought it without asking what it was for. Jack hacked at the beanstalk, and it cut like butter, so that when it fell the giant fell down with it and was killed, and that was the end of him.
And now Jack and his mother had plenty to live upon, and might have rented a palace if they had liked, but still Jack’s mother wouldn’t leave her cottage. As for the enchanted land up above—well, the fairy told Jack that after the death of the giant the people came out of the trees, and the land flourished under the rule of the giant’s wife, a most worthy woman, whose only fault was that she was too ready to trust boys.
DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT
WHEN DICK WHITTINGTON’S father and mother died he was still only a little boy, and he had no relations to take care of him. All the neighbours were poor too, so that they could not afford to give him more than just odds and ends of things to eat, and odds and ends of clothes to wear. He had nowhere to sleep at all, except under a haystack or a hedge; and though that is very pleasant on hot summer nights, it is very horrid at any other time of the year.
Poor Dick was too young to be much good at hard work. But he always kept on saying to himself, “Never mind; when I’m a little bit older I shall get work, and be paid for it, and grow rich, and be perfectly happy.” Like every other little boy in the world, he was always dreaming of what he would do when he grew up; and there was one word that came over and over again in his thoughts, and round it gathered all his dreams of riches and beauty. That word was “London.” You see, nobody he knew really well had ever been there; for Dick lived a long time ago, hundreds of years before there were railway trains and motor-cars or even those jolly post-chaises that you see pictures of, with coachmen in white hats and somebody behind blowing a horn. In Dick’s time, if people wanted to go anywhere they had to ride on horseback; and if they were too poor to have horses, as all Dick’s friends were, then they had to walk; so of course it was quite impossible to go gaily off to London for the weekend, and nobody ever went so far except those who had business there and meant to stay a long time.
Now Dick, having no work to keep him busy, used to spend a lot of his time loitering near the water-trough in the village, because the folk who were going on journeys to and from London used to stop there for their horses to drink, and then if they noticed Dick they would sometimes pass the time of day with him, and make jokes. If they looked really kind, he would summon up courage to ask them about where they had been, and what the great world was like out beyond the place where the white road was cut off short by the sky; and the stories they told him were different according to the sort of people they were. Some just said the simple truth, and that is often dull; but some, who liked to see his childish eyes grow big and round with wonder, made up the most wonderful tales about their adventures; and the most wonderful things of all were the things he heard about London Town. There, he was told, the streets were paved with red gold, and the houses roofed with tiles of silver, and there were always bells making music and flags fluttering, yellow and green and purple and blue; and all the people were big and beautiful, and honest and kind and happy.
The more he heard of London the more he dreamt of it by day and by night, until it seemed to him that the only thing in the whole world worth doing was to go there at once, and live there for always, and be big and beautiful and all the other nice things himself. But it seemed dreadfully far away, and there might be nobody along the road generous enough to give him food; and he was young and weak, and what could he do? So it went on for a long time—hunger and poverty for poor Dick, with nothing but his dreams of London Town to give him happiness.
But at last it happened—as things always do happen if only you wait long enough—that a lucky chance of actually going to London fell in Dick’s way. And this was how it was. A waggon went lumbering by, with the friendliest-looking waggoner you ever saw walking beside it and cracking a big whip. Just as they passed Dick a heavy sack fell off the waggon, and the man called out in a very jovial voice, “Come here and help me hoist this up, and I’ll give you a ride as far as you like to go.” So Dick helped him as well as he could, and when they had got the sack up again he said to the waggoner:
“Please, where are you going with your cart and horse?”
And the waggoner answered: “To London, my inquisitive child.”
Then Dick’s heart began to beat like a hammer, and he seemed to see all in a moment the coloured flags fluttering, and the golden streets shining, and the silver tiles flashing in the sun; and he seemed to hear the innumerable bells of a great city all ringing in harmony and making the most beautiful music in the world. Tears came into his eyes, and he clasped his hands.
“Oh do, do take me to London with you!” he cried. “I can’t tell you how much I want to go.” And the waggoner kept his word, and gave him a ride as far as he liked, which, of course, was the whole way to London; only it took them a great many days, and they had to run the risk of robbers on the journey, and so they had good reason to be glad when at last they were safely there. Dick did not feel glad at all. For he looked round and round and round, and nowhere at all could he see the golden pavement or the silver tiles; and there wasn’t a single bell ringing the whole town through.
Now the waggoner, though he was kind and honest, was rather stupid, and when he saw Dick almost in tears, and not a bit pleased to have come safely through so long a journey, he thought him most ungrateful, and packed him off without listening to a word of explanation.
So there was Dick without a friend and without a penny; and, for all his bitter disappointment, he knew that he must set out at once to find work or he would starve. So, like a brave boy, he wasted no time, but began to look about him. Even for a big strong man work is often terribly hard to find, and Dick could think of nothing that he might turn his hand to.
For a long time he had to get on as best he could by odd jobs, and once he was lucky enough to be given some haymaking to do in Holborn. I know that doesn’t sound right, because those of you who have been to Holborn think of offices and bicycle-shops and hotels, all sorts of great buildings, and omnibuses and cabs and men in top-hats; but in Dick’s time, though you never would think it, most of London was still green and countrified; and Dick made hay in Holborn all those hundreds of years ago, which is rather strange to think of.
But the haymaking season passed, and the cold weather came on, and Dick began to have bad luck; till one night when he had had no food for two days he lay down in despair and went to sleep on a doorstep that happened to be handy. And on this doorstep the owner of the house, a merchant whose name was Fitzwarren, found him in the morning.
“Get up,” said Master Fitzwarren, quite kindly. And when Dick had got up he went on:
“H
ow is it you are not at work and earning your living?”
“Indeed, sir,” said Dick, “I should be very glad of the chance.”
And, seeing that he meant it, Master Fitzwarren took him indoors and gave him soup and pudding, and engaged him straight away as a scullery-boy.
Now he would have been happy enough if it had not been for the cook. She was a disagreeable old thing, and having some one under her, she liked to show her power, so she showed it by tormenting Dick in every possible way. Some people are like that. When they are Czars or Kings we call them tyrants; when they are cooks we call them—but let us be polite, whatever we are! The head footman, however, took a fancy to Dick, and gave him little presents of sweets and toys, and also—which was far the best and kindest thing he could have done—taught him to read.
Also Master Fitzwarren had a daughter, named Alice; and she too was kind to Dick; so that he was not as badly off as he might have been. Still, his life was very sad; he was continually in trouble with the cook, and he did not see any chance of ever being more than a scullery-boy.
One day, however, something happened which was to turn out the most important event in his life, though, of course, he did not know it at the time. Miss Alice sent him to the bleaching-ground to fetch home some linen; and there he saw the spurrier’s little daughter, Madge, feeding a cat with milk out of a platter. Dick looked at the cat, and longed to have it for his own. He had in his pocket a silver groat (or fourpenny-bit) which an alderman had given him for cleaning his shoes. So he went up to Madge and said:
“Please will you sell me that cat? How much is it?”
“Why,” said the little girl, “my brother was going to drown it this morning, only I saved it; and now I wish I could find some one to take it and be good to it, for to be sure I don’t know what to do with it myself.”