Jack nodded without answering.
And now all listened, and Ellen knew that a sound she had heard some minutes before, without particularly noticing it, was the voice of some one weeping and complaining. The voice was very faint and far off, but in the silence the little girl could make out the words, "I can't get down! I can't get down! Woe is me, but it's lonely up here." Ellen could not tell where the voice came from, but it seemed to come from the sky. There was silence for a moment and then it began again lamenting and weeping.
The woman threw her silk apron over her head and began to rock herself and sob. "Oh, the poor thing! I can't stand it, Jack," she cried. "You've got to get her down somehow. You've got to."
The lad had turned somewhat pale. "What can I do, mother?" he asked. "You know I've tried everything I know, but there's never a ladder in all the world that would reach that far, and we have no more such beans as those."
"Who is it?" asked Ellen in a whisper.
The woman put down her apron and wiped her eyes. "It's that giant's poor wife," she answered. "You see it all came from Jack's selling our cow for a hatful of beans. I punished him well for it, but what good did that do? Then he planted them, and one of them grew so fast it grew right up to the sky."
"Oh; Jack and the Beanstalk!" cried Ellen.
"Then nothing would do but Jack must climb up and see what was at the top of the beanstalk. He climbed and he climbed," the woman went on, her voice broken by sobs, "until at last he climbed right up to the sky. There he found a wonderful country and a giant had a castle there. The giant was very rich. Besides his other treasures he had two bags of golden money, a golden hen, and a golden harp that played of itself. Perhaps you heard the harp playing as you came up."
"Yes, I did," said Ellen.