Reproduction of the story

Jake Allsop

Cabbage White

The short story “Cabbage White” was written by Jake Allsop, an English writer. It tells a story of two children and their first working experience. Though the story is a funny one, it makes one think about the ways that people take to achieve their goals.

“Cabbage White” is a third person narrative, there are three main characters: Sarah, a girl of 12 years old; Jamie, her 11-year old brother; and the man who provided them with work. Sarah and Jamie are active and very smart children. They know what a cabbage white is, they also know about butterflies and caterpillars, moreover, Sarah can count quite well, Jamie listens to his sister and seems to admire her for her knowledge.

The children were looking for work with the idea to earn some money on their mind, which sounded quite surprising for their employer. The work that they were offered (the work that the man offered them) was to check the cabbages in the garden and remove caterpillars from them, as those insects were eating the cabbage. The man provided them with buckets for caterpillar (gave them …), and left. The first thing that Sarah and Jamie realized when they saw the cabbage patch was that there were millions of cabbages and, consequently, billions of caterpillars. After they finished the first row of cabbages they understood how horrible that business was, since (because) caterpillars wriggled in their hands and the work itself took a lot of time. Moreover, there were lots of cabbage white butterflies that flew around and seemed to be making fun of (laughing at) the children. Certainly, it made the children a bit angry. When Sarah tries to hit a butterfly and misses, a brilliant idea came to her mind – to hit butterflies when they sat on cabbages. In such a way they would destroy the butterflies that laid eggs, thus, without eggs there would be no caterpillars. In spite of the fact that it was a very clever idea, the children didn’t understand that in such a way they could get rid of the future caterpillars, but not the ones they had to pick up.

So, they found the right instruments to hit the butterflies – two bamboo poles which were used for the beans. Without thinking about the beans, Sarah removed the poles and gave one to Jamie. The beans died, and the children began to hit the butterflies when they were sitting on the cabbages. It was much easier than to hit them in the air. The children didn’t have any pity for the butterflies, all that seemed like a funny game and the children were enjoying it. They finished only when they got exhausted. They stood back admiring the results of their work. The cabbage patch looked like a battlefield: both the butterflies and the cabbages were destroyed.

As the children were very smart, they immediately understood what had happened; and that they were going to be punished but not paid for their “work.” They didn’t want to be punished, so, the best thing for them to do was to escape, and they tiptoed out of the garden without a word. They only questions the children asked each other were if the man knew their names and where they lived. Luckily for them, he didn’t know where they lived.

At first sight, the story seems to be an entertaining one, but somehow it makes me a little sad. People sometimes remind these children, who found a wonderful way to solve their problems. We are also happy, even proud of ourselves, and only at the end we may realize that we have destroyed what we were fighting for.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16