Reading Notes: Week 10 Extra Credit Reading

Title: The Ass, the Table, and the Stick
Author: Joseph Jacobs
Link: Story link.

Plot:

• Jack, a strapping young lad, runs away from his dad because his dad just doesn't understand him and being a teenager is hard.
• He bumps into an old woman who decides to take Jack in as a servant.
• After a year's servitude, Jack receives his pay: A mule named "Neddy," who spills coins out of his mouth when he brays.
• Understandably, Jack thinks this is pretty sick.
• Jack goes and stays the night at an inn, where an unsavory sort swaps the coin-spewing mule for a regular one.
• Jack rides back to his dad's and asks to marry his childhood sweetheart -- after all, he's allowed to propose after he has enough money to support her.
• He yanks on the ears of the regular donkey (and tears one off) but no coins are expelled.
• Jack's dad beats him with a pitchfork.
• Jack then goes to work for a carpenter for year, after which time he is paid with a table that magically generates food.
• Jack stays at the same inn, and the same man swaps the magic table for a regular one.
• Jack goes back home, tries to impress his dad with the table so that he can marry the girl, and nothing happens.
• Jack's dad beats him again.
• Jack finds a man trying to build a tree bridge across a river and helps him out -- the man gives him a magic stick that attacks people who anger the wielder.
• Jack goes to the inn and uses the stick to clobber the thieving innkeeper. He takes back his table and mule.
• Caught up in his own power, Jack asks all the girls in the town to stand before his house the next day so that Jack can choose a wife. He also requests that they bring all their money, so that Jack can choose the richest bride.
• Jack blows off his original love, because she has no money.
• She begins to weep, and -- coincidentally -- it is revealed that her tears are actually diamonds. This catches Jack's eye.
• Using his magic stick, Jack mugs all of the other women for their money and marries his childhood sweetie.

Ol' Neddy, spewing some coins into a basket. Source: Project Gutenberg.

Setting:

• Generic English village -- probably the same place where Jack and the Beanstalk and all other English tales starring a boy named "Jack" occur. Location isn't really important here.

Characters:

• Jack: Hard to read. Seems foolish at first, because he doesn't learn from his mistakes. Extremely lucky to happen into a series of magic items. Unexpectedly callous and greedy, as evidenced by his robbery and manipulation of the innocent would-be brides of the town.
• Jack's Girl: Does very little in the story when you consider that she can cry diamonds. You'd think that she'd put this power to use so that she wouldn't be a mere village-dwelling peasant, but who knows.
• Jack's Dad: Beats his son way too often. Which, truth be told, he shouldn't really be doing at all. Besides -- if you beat your children, they aren't likely to share their wealth with you when they marry someone who can produce precious stones from their tear ducts.

Writing Style:

• Nothing to write home about other than the unapologetically cold ending. The moral is...manipulate people and treat them favorably when they can do good things for you?