Read Online Fairy Tales for Young Readers by E. Nesbit - Free Book Online

Carabas.”

    â€œSo this is your country seat, is it?” said the King. “Sly dog, not to say a word when we were wondering whose this fine estate could be!”
    â€œEnter, your Majesty,” said Yvo, “and let us see if my major-domo can find a crust to set before you.”
    The cat hurried away, and ordered a banquet to be served as soon as possible. The King was so pleased with looking at the castle gardens and pleasaunces that dinner seemed ready in no time. And it was a dinner fit for any king. As for the new Marquis of Carabas and the Princess, they had eyes for nothing but each other.
    The King, who had eyes for everything, saw this, and when his wine cup was filled for the seventh time he raised it so that its jewels flashed in the afternoon sun, and said, winking at the cat, who stood beside Yvo’s chair:
    â€œI cannot help thinking that the noble Marquis is worthy by his person and his estates of my daughter’s hand, and I am sure no one who has seen them together can doubt what they think about it. Bless you, my children! To the health of Princess Dulcibella and the Marquis of Carabas!”
    The King feasted three days in the castle of the Marquis of Carabas, and then the young people were married. The two brothers were invited, but they were too shy to come, so Yvo made one of them his wood-reeve and the other his grand almoner, and everyone was quite happy, especially Michau, whose cleverness had brought all this happiness about; because making other people happy is really astonishingly pleasant, as you will find if you try it.
    Of course, Michau told a lot of stories, but then all’s fair when you’re dealing with ogres.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

    J ACK LIVED WITH his mother in a little cottage. It had dormer windows and green shutters whose hinges were so rusty that the shutters wouldn’t shut. Jack had taken some of them to make a raft with. He was always trying to make things that seemed like the things in books—rafts or sledges, or wooden spear-heads to play at savages with, or paper crowns with which to play at kings. He never did any work; and this was very hard on his mother, who took in washing, and had great trouble to make both ends meet. But he did not run away to sea, or set out to seek his fortune, because he knew that that would have broken his mother’s heart, and he was very fond of her. Though he wouldn’t work, he did useless pretty things for her—brought her bunches of wild-flowers, and made up songs, sad and merry, and sang them to her of an evening. But most of the time he spent in looking at the sky and the clouds and the green leaves and the running water, and thinking how beautiful the world was, and how he would love to see every single thing in it. And he always seemed to be trying to dream one particular dream, and never could quite dream it. Sometimes the thought of his mother working so hard while he did nothing would come suddenly upon him, and he would rush off and try to help her, but whatever he did turned out wrong. If he went to draw water he was sure to lose the bucket in the well; if he lifted the wash-tub it always slipped out of his fingers, and thenthere was the floor to clean as well as the linen to wash all over again. So that it always ended in his mother saying. “Oh, run along, for goodness’ sake, and let me get on with my work.” And then Jack would go and lie on his front and look at the ants busy among the grass stalks, and make up a pretty poem about the Dignity of Labour, or about how dear and good mothers were.
    But poetry, however pretty, is difficult to sell, and the two got poorer and poorer. And at last one day Jack’s mother came out to where he was lying on his back watching the clouds go sailing by, and told him that the worst had come.
    â€œNo help for it,” she said; “we must sell the cow.”
    â€œOh, let me take it to market,” cried Jack, jumping up.