The whole summer through Thumbelina lived quite alone in the great wood.
She wove herself a bed out of blades of grass, and hung it up under a
shamrock to be sheltered from the rain. She scooped the honey out of the
flowers for food, and she drank the dew that stood every morning on the
leaves. So summer and autumn passed.
Now came the winter, the long cold winter. All the sweet birds who used
to sing to her flew away. The trees and flowers lost their leaves. The
great shamrock she lived under shriveled up, and left her shivering.
She tried to wrap herself in a dry leaf, but that tore in the middle.
Soon it began to snow. Every snowflake that fell on her was like a whole
shovelful thrown on us, for we are tall and she was only an inch high.
Poor little Thumbelina! she was nearly frozen!
She wandered out of the wood into a withered cornfield. The corn had gone
long ago; nothing but dry stubble stood up out of the frozen ground. But
it was like a great forest for Thumbelina to be lost in. How she trembled
with the cold!
After some time she came to a field-mouse’s home. It was in a little hole
under the corn stubble, warm and cosy. There was a kitchen in it and a
pantry filled with corn. Little Thumbelina stood at the door just like a
poor beggar girl and begged for a little bit of barleycorn. “I haven’t
eaten a crumb in two days,” she cried pitifully.
“You poor little creature,” said the kind field-mouse, “come into my warm
kitchen and eat as much as you wish.” And when Thumbelina came in, the
field-mouse liked her so well that she said, “If you wish you may stay
with me all winter, but you must keep my room clean and neat, and tell me
little stories, for I am very fond of them.”
So Thumbelina did, and had a very good time of it.