- ‘How lonely it is, wife,’ said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, ‘for you and me to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse us while oth-er people seem so happy and merry with their children!’ ‘What you say is very true,’ said the wife, sighing, and turn-ing round her wheel. - ‘how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were ever so small—nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb—I should be very happy, and love it dearly.’ Now—odd as you may think it—it came to pass that this good woman’s wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she had wished it. - So they said, ‘Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, little as he is, we will love him dearly.’ And they called him Thomas Thumb.. - They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. - One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut fuel, he said, ‘I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I want to make haste.’ ‘Oh, father,’ cried Tom, ‘I will take care of that. - the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.’ Then the woodman laughed, and said, ‘How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse’s bridle.’ ‘Never mind that, father,’ said Tom. - ‘if my mother will only harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to go.’ ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘we will try for once.’. - When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put Tom into his ear. - and as he sat there the little man told the beast how to go, crying out, ‘Go on!’ and ‘Stop!’ as he wanted: and thus the horse went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the wood. - ‘What an odd thing that is!’ said one: ‘there is a cart go-ing along, and I hear a carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.’ ‘That is queer, indeed,’ said the other. - ‘let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.’ So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the place where the woodman was. - Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, ‘See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take me down!’ So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with the other took his son out of the horse’s ear, and put him down upon a straw, where he sat as merry as you please.. - At last one took the other aside, and said, ‘That little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him about from town to town as a show. - we must buy him.’ So they went up to the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. - ‘He will be better off,’ said they, ‘with us than with you.’ ‘I won’t sell him at all,’ said the father. - ‘my own flesh and blood is dearer to me than all the silver and gold in the world.’ But Tom, hearing of the bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father’s coat to his shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘Take the money, father, and let them have me. - So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a large piece of gold, and they paid the price. - ‘Where would you like to sit?’ said one of them. - I can walk about there and see the country as we go along.’ So they did as he wished. - They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man said, ‘Let me get down, I’m tired.’ So the man took off his hat, and put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the road. - But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into an old mouse-hole. - ‘Good night, my masters!’ said he, ‘I’m off! mind and look sharp after me the next time.’ Then they ran at once to the place, and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain. - and at last it became quite dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as sulky as could be.. - ‘What dangerous walking it is,’ said he, ‘in this ploughed field! If I were to fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.’ At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail- shell. - ‘This is lucky,’ said he, ‘I can sleep here very well’. - Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting together. - and one said to the other, ‘How can we rob that rich parson’s house of his silver and gold?’ ‘I’ll tell you!’ cried Tom. - ‘What noise was that?’ said the thief, frightened. - ‘I’m sure I heard someone speak.’ They stood still listening, and Tom said, ‘Take me with you, and I’ll soon show you how to get the parson’s money.’ ‘But where are you?’ said they. - ‘Look about on the ground,’ answered he, ‘and listen where the sound comes from.’ At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him up in their hands. - ‘You little urchin!’ they said, ‘what can you do for us?’ ‘Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson’s house, and throw you out whatever you want.’ ‘That’s a good thought,’ said the thieves. - When they came to the parson’s house, Tom slipped through the window- bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, ‘Will you have all that is here?’ At this the thieves were frightened, and said, ‘Softly, soft-ly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.’ But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, ‘How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?’ Now the cook lay in the next room. - but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, ‘The little urchin is only trying to make fools of us.’ So they came back and whispered softly to him, saying, ‘Now let us have no more of your roguish jokes. - but throw us out some of the money.’ Then Tom called out as loud as he could, ‘Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.’. - By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn. - The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug place to finish his night’s rest in. - and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the mid-dle of it, fast asleep. - He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found himself in the mouth of the cow. - for the cook had put the hay into the cow’s rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. - ‘Good lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ But he soon found out where he really was. - and was forced to have all his wits about him, that he might not get between the cow’s teeth, and so be crushed to death. - At last down he went into her stomach. - ‘It is rather dark,’ said he. - At last he cried out as loud as he could, ‘Don’t bring me any more hay! Don’t bring me any more hay!’. - The maid happened to be just then milking the cow. - and hearing someone speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off her stool, and overset the milk-pail. - As soon as she could pick herself up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the parson, and said, ‘Sir, sir, the cow is talking!’ But the parson said, ‘Woman, thou art surely mad!’ However, he went with her into the cow-house, to try and see what was the matter.. - and thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the spot. - So the cow was killed, and cut up. - but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh ill-luck befell him. - and thinking the wolf would not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called out, ‘My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.’ ‘Where’s that?’ said the wolf. - ‘In such and such a house,’ said Tom, describing his own father’s house. - ‘You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and every-thing that your heart can wish.’ The wolf did not want to be asked twice. - so that very night he went to the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart’s content. - As soon as he had had enough he wanted to get away. - ‘Will you be easy?’ said the wolf. - ‘you’ll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.’ ‘What’s that to me?’ said the little man. - and he began, singing and shout-ing as loud as he could.. - The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through a crack in the door. - ‘Do you stay behind,’ said the woodman, ‘and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the scythe.’ Tom heard all this, and cried out, ‘Father, father! I am here, the wolf has swallowed me.’ And his fa-ther said, ‘Heaven be praised! we have found our dear child again’. - ‘Ah!’ said the father, ‘what fears we have had for you!’ ‘Yes, father,’ answered he. - and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.’ ‘Why, where have you been?’ said his father. - ‘I have been in a mouse-hole— and in a snail-shell—and down a cow’s throat— and in the wolf’s belly. - ‘Well,’ said they, ‘you are come back, and we will not sell you again for all the riches in the world.’