Tuesday 21 July 2009

Firing the imagination


Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack. Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind hearted and affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet, and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor.

The widow saw that there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from starvation but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, "I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her."

Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were of great value and persuaded the silly lad to sell the cow for these beans.

When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother and son went to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed gone.

At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden. "At least," he thought, "I will sow the wonderful beans. Mother says that they are just common scarlet runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them." So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground, and put in the beans.

17 comments:

Lois said...

What an adorable little face!

eamon@ewmphotography said...

...with a childish dribble of concentration! Perfect.

Ann said...

Just gorgeous, you are getting very, very good at people shots.

My shot - from memory (it was taken a while ago) I was standing in a laneway off Phillip Street. I saw something up on a wall that looked interesting but it didn't make a good shot, then happened to look up and realised I had something.

cara said...

it must be the way you tell em!

brattcat said...

Beautiful, beautiful child, marvelous, marvelous post.

BlossomFlowerGirl said...

A lovely photo, a face so full of innocence and hope. The golden background just adds to it.

Blamey said...

Another compelling portrait

Tim Pasqualone said...

Stunning Julie.
I am really enjoying your posts.

Joan Elizabeth said...

As Ann said you are getting incredibly good at people shots ... but I also loved the reminder of the story.

Inday said...

You hang me in suspense but I love the image of the cute meek boy! lol.

Is there going to be a continuation to this story? Please!

Ming the Merciless said...

When I was a kid, my dad got us an Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales, Vol. I, II & III. I spent the whole summer reading them. From there, I moved on to Enid Blyton's fairy tales.

Those were the good old days.

Anonymous said...

That face! That photo!

(I didn't remember they were scarlet runners...)

Unknown said...

What a cute little face!!! Wonderful composition too, Julie!

Buenos Aires Photoblog said...

What a nice but sad story with a good moral lesson in it. I like the picture very much. He looks so quietly absorbing your words.

Julie said...

I am so pleased you liked this portrait. His parents were quite chuffed too ... you met his mum putting the necklace on last week.

AB said...

A nice photographic study of concentration.

Stephany said...

A wonderful post. He has beautiful eyes (and lashes).