But one day when the mother had gone out, the little girl thought she would say, “Little pot, boil,” just to see how it would act. And so she said, “Little pot, boil.”
Well, the little pot boiled and bubbled away until it was full of beans, and then the little girl wished it to stop boiling, but she had forgotten what to say. So the pot boiled and boiled and kept bubbling and spilling over until the kitchen table was covered, until the kitchen was full, and next the whole house was full.
The little girl had to run out of the house, and the beans poured out of the door and down the road, and into other people’s houses, until there were enough to feed the whole town. And still no one was able to stop it.
The mother saw a stream of beans pouring down the road and ran home as fast as she could. She had to wade through boiled beans to get into her yard. She called out loudly: “Little pot, stop!” And of course, the little pot stopped boiling at once; but all the people had to eat their way back to their houses again.
Transcriber’s Notes:
“Thesus” changed to “Theseus” on page 94. ([After Theseus had killed the giant robber])
“dragon’s” changed to “Dragon’s” page 195. ([Dragon’s poison])
“aud” changed to “and” on page 304. ([by enterprise and good fortune])
Inconsistent hyphenation retained as printed. Obvious mis-printed punctuation repaired.