to cry,
and said to her son:

"Oh, Jack, there is nothing in the house to eat; and there is no money
to buy food. You will have to take the old cow to town and sell her. She
is all we have left."

Jack felt very bad when he saw his mother crying; so he quickly got the
cow and started off to town. As he was walking along he passed the
butcher, who stopped him and said:

"Why, Jack! what are you driving your cow away from home for?" And Jack
replied sadly: "I am taking her to town to sell her."

Then he noticed that the butcher held in his hand some colored beans.
They were so beautiful he could not keep from staring at them.

Now, the butcher was a very mean man. He knew the cow was worth more
than the beans, but he did not believe Jack knew it, so he said: "You
let me have your cow, and I will give you a whole bag of these beans."

Jack was so delighted that he could hardly wait to get the bag in his
hand. He ran off home as fast as he could.

"Oh, mother, mother!" he shouted, as he reached the house; "see what I
have got for the old cow!"

The good lady came hurrying out of the house, but when she saw only a
bagful of colored beans she was so disappointed to think he had sold her
cow "for nothing" that she flung the beans as far as she could. They
fell everywhere--on the steps, down the road, and in the garden.

That night Jack and his mother had to go to bed without anything to eat.

Next morning, when Jack looked out of his window, he could hardly
believe his eyes. In the garden where his mother had thrown some of the
beans there were great beanstalks. They were twisted together so that
they made a ladder. When Jack ran out to the garden to look more closely
he found the ladder reached up, up--'way up into the clouds! It was so
high he could not see the top.

Jack was very excited, and called to his mother: "Mother, dear, come
quickly! My beans have grown into a beautiful beanstalk ladder that
reaches to the sky! I am going to climb up and see what is at the top."

Hour after hour he climbed, until he was so tired he could hardly climb
any more. At last he came to the end, and peered eagerly over the top to
see what was there. Not a thing was to be seen but rocks and bare
ground.

"Oh," said Jack to himself. "This is a horrid place. I wish I had never
come."

Just then he saw, hobbling along, a wrinkled, ragged old woman. When she
reached Jack she looked at him and said:

"Well, my boy, where did