I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
“What nonsense!” said his wife. “If anyone had come here don’t you suppose I would have seen him? A crow flew over the roof and dropped a bone down the chimney, and that is what you smell.”
When she said that the giant believed her. He sat down at the table and called for breakfast. The woman set before him three whole roasted oxen and two loaves of bread each as big as a hogshead, and the giant ate them up in a twinkling.
“Now, wife, bring me my moneybags from the treasure-room,” he said.
His wife went out through a great door studded with nails, and when she came back she brought two bags with her and set them on the table in front of the giant. The giant untied the strings and opened them, and they were full of clinking golden money. The giant sat there and counted and counted the money. After it was all counted he put it back in the bags again, and then he stretched his legs out in front of him and went to sleep and snored until the rafters shook.
The giant’s wife worked around for awhile and then she went into another room. Jack waited until he was sure she had gone, and then he pushed the lid of the pot aside and crept out. He crept over to the table and seized hold of the moneybags and made off with them, and neither the giant nor his wife knew anything about it until Jack was safe down the bean-stalk and home again.
When Jack’s mother saw the moneybags she was filled with wonder and joy. “Those were once your father’s,” said she, “but they were stolen from him, and never did I think to see them again.”
After that Jack and his mother lived well, they had plenty to eat and drink, and good clothes to wear, and everything they wanted. And they were not stingy; they shared their good luck with their neighbors as well.
After awhile the money was almost gone. “I’ll just climb up the bean-stalk again,” said Jack to himself, “and see what else the giant has in his castle.”
He climbed and he climbed and he climbed, and after awhile he came to the giant’s country, and there in front of him lay the road to the castle. Jack walked along briskly, setting one foot in front of the other till he came to the castle door, and as he saw no one he opened the door and stepped inside.