or the
mother to set to work to pick up the pieces; things are then in a bad
way, and it is well not to waste another word about them.

So it ended. Jack became a very disobedient child, and disobedience
avenges itself on the disobedient. If his father wanted to teach him
anything, and said: "My dear Jack, look, do it so, this is right; this
is the way oxen are harnessed in front of carts, this is the way the
nail is driven into the wheel, this is the way sacks are carried," and
other useful lessons, Jack's mind was fixed on other things, and he
replied, "Oh! let me alone." And so from one "Oh! let me alone," to
another "Oh! let me alone," Jack grew into a big boy without having
even learned so much as that a plow has handles, a mill is not a
mortar, and a cow is not an ox. And he couldn't do much in this way.

One day his father was preparing to go to the fair. Every thing was
ready except one pin, which had not yet been put through the yoke.

"Father," said Jack, "I'm coming with you."

"It will be better for you to stay at home, that you may not be lost
in the market," replied his father.

"I want to go--"

"I won't take you."

"I _will_ go."

"I won't take you."

Every body knows what forward children are. The instant they are told
that a thing can't be had, they want to seize it by force. His father
could not help himself, so he set Jack in the wagon and drove off with
him to the fair.

"Mind," he said, "you must keep close to me." "Yes, father," said
Jack, obediently, for the first time in the memory of the family. And
until they reached the end of the village, Jack sat as if he were
nailed to the back of the cart. At the end of the village he put out
one foot, then he raised his head and began to look around him.
Finally he stood up, leaned on the side of the cart, and began to
watch the wheels. He could not understand how one wheel moved of its
own accord, how one spoke hurried after another, constantly going
forward without stirring from the spot, nay, without moving from under
his own nose.

They reached the woods. Jack perked up his nose and stared with his
mouth wide open. The trees on the right and left set out and ran with
all their might, one after another. There must be witchcraft in it.
Jack jumped out of the cart and again felt the solid ground under his
feet. But he once more stood with his mouth wide open. The trees now
stood still, but the cart moved on further and further. "Stop,
fa