Page:Europa's Fairy Book.djvu/138

 116 I am quite willing that you should take the ribbon of flesh from my back."

"Oh, if that's so," said the youngster, "I'll agree to stay. But we must have it in black and white."

So they sent for the notary and wrote it all down that if either lost his temper he should also lose a strip of skin from his back. But the eldest son had not been in the house a week when the master gave him so hard a task that he lost his temper and had to give up a strip of skin from his back. So he went home and told his brothers about it.

Well, the brothers were savage at hearing what he had suffered. And the second son went to the same man in the hope of getting revenge for his brother. But the same thing happened to him, and he had to come with a strip of skin from his back like his elder brother.

Now the third son, whose name was Jack, made up his mind he wouldn't be done like the other two. And he went to the man and he engaged himself to serve him for the same wage but on the same conditions that his two brothers had done.

The very first morning that Jack had to go out to work his master gave him a piece of dry bread and told him to mind the sheep.

"Is this all I'm to get to eat?" said Jack.

"Why, yes," said the master; "there'll be supper when you come home."