And he went to feel the handle of the door, but his wife cried out sharply: 

“Roast!  Why, you’d have to wait hours before they were done!  I’ll broil them—­see how bright the fire is!”

“Umph!” growled the ogre.  And then he began sniffing and calling out: 

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.  Be he alive, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

“Twaddle!” said the ogre’s wife.  “It’s only the bones of the boy you had last week that I’ve put into the pig-bucket!”

“Umph!” said the ogre harshly; but he ate the broiled calves, and then he said to his wife, “Bring me my hen that lays the magic eggs.  I want to see gold.”

So the ogre’s wife brought him a great big black hen with a shiny red comb.  She plumped it down on the table and took away the breakfast things.

Then the ogre said to the hen, “Lay!” and it promptly laid—­what do you think?—­a beautiful, shiny, yellow, golden egg!

“None so dusty, henny-penny,” laughed the ogre.  “I shan’t have to beg as long as I’ve got you.”  Then he said, “Lay!” once more; and, lo and behold! there was another beautiful, shiny, yellow, golden egg!

Jack could hardly believe his eyes, and made up his mind that he would have that hen, come what might.  So, when the ogre began to doze, he just out like a flash from the oven, seized the hen, and ran for his life!  But, you see, he reckoned without his prize; for hens, you know, always cackle when they leave their nests after laying an egg, and this one set up such a scrawing that it woke the ogre.

“Where’s my hen?” he shouted, and his wife came rushing in, and they both rushed to the door; but Jack had got the better of them by a good start, and all they could see was a little figure right away down the wide white road, holding a big, scrawing, cackling, fluttering black hen by the legs!

How Jack got down the beanstalk he never knew.  It was all wings, and leaves, and feathers, and cacklings; but get down he did, and there was his mother wondering if the sky was going to fall!

But the very moment Jack touched ground he called out, “Lay!” and the black hen ceased cackling and laid a great, big, shiny, yellow, golden egg.

So every one was satisfied; and from that moment everybody had everything that money could buy.  For, whenever they wanted anything, they just said, “Lay!” and the black hen provided them with gold.

But Jack began to wonder if he couldn’t find something else besides money in the sky.  So one fine moonlight midsummer night he refused his supper, and before he went to bed stole out to the garden with a big watering-can and watered the ground under his window; for, thought he, “there must be two more beans somewhere, and perhaps it is too dry for them to grow.”  Then he slept like a top.

And, lo and behold! when he woke, there was the green light shimmering through his room, and there he was in an instant on the beanstalk, climbing, climbing, climbing for all he was worth.