ry, "and you will come to the Giant's
house. And do not forget that some day you are to punish the wicked
Giant." And then she disappeared.

Jack had not gone far before he came to a great house. In front of it
stood a little woman. Jack went up to her and said very piteously: "Oh,
please, good, kind lady, let me come in your beautiful house and have
something to eat and a place to sleep."

The woman looked surprised. "Why, what are you doing here?" she said.
"Don't you know this is where my husband, the terrible Giant, lives? No
one dares to come near here. Every one my husband finds he has locked up
in his house. Then when he is hungry he _eats them_! He walks fifty
miles to find some one to eat."

When Jack heard this he was very much afraid. But he remembered what the
Fairy had told him, and once more he asked the woman to let him in.

"Just let me sleep in the oven," he said. "The Giant will never find me
there."

He seemed so tired and sad that the woman couldn't say no, and she gave
him a nice supper.

Then they climbed a winding stair and reached a bright, cozy kitchen.
Jack was just beginning to enjoy himself, when suddenly there was a
great pounding at the front door.

"Quick, quick!" cried the Giant's wife; "jump into the oven."

Jack was no sooner safely hidden than he heard the Giant say, in tones
of thunder:

"Fee, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman!"

When Jack heard this he thought surely the Giant knew that he was in the
house, but the wife said calmly:

"Oh, my dear, it is probably the people in the dungeon."

Then they both came down to the kitchen. The Giant sat so close to the
oven that by peeping through a hole, Jack could easily see him. He _was
enormous_! And how much he did eat and drink for his supper! When at
last he was through, he roared:

"Wife, bring me my hen!" And the woman brought in a beautiful hen.

"Lay!" commanded the Giant; and what was Jack's surprise when the hen
laid a golden egg. Every time the Giant said: "Lay!"--and he said it
many times--the hen obeyed.

At last both the woman and her husband fell asleep. But Jack did not
dare to sleep. He sat all cramped and tired in the oven, watching the
Giant.

When it began to get light he slowly pushed the oven door open and
crawled out ever so softly. For a minute he hardly dared breathe for
fear of waking the Giant. Then quick as a flash, he seized the hen and
stole out of the house as fast