In the days of good King Arthur there lived a ploughman and his wife
who wished very much to have a son; so the man went to Merlin, the
enchanter, and asked him to let him have a child, even, if it were
"_no bigger than his thumb._" "Go home and you will find one," said
Merlin; and when the man came back to his house he found his wife
nursing a very, very, wee baby, who in four minutes grew to the size
of the ploughman's thumb, and never grew any more. The fairy queen
came to his christening and named him "Tom Thumb." She then dressed
him nicely in a shirt of spider's web, and a doublet and hose of
thistledown.
One day, while Tom's mother was making a plum-pudding, Tom stood on
the edge of the bowl, with a lighted candle in his hand, that she
might see to make it properly. Unfortunately, however, while her back
was turned, Tom fell into the bowl, and his mother not missing him,
stirred him up in the pudding, and put it and him into the pot. Tom
no sooner felt the hot water than he danced about like man; the woman
was nearly frightened out of her wits to see the pudding come out of
the pot and jump about, and she was glad to give it to a tinker who
was passing that way.
The tinker was delighted with his present; but as he was getting over
a style, he happened to sneeze very hard, and Tom called out from the
middle of the pudding, "Hallo, Pickens!" which so terrified the
tinker that he threw the pudding into the field, and scampered away
as fast as he could. The pudding tumbled to pieces in the fall, and
Tom, creeping out, went home to his mother, who was in great
affliction because she could not find him. A few days afterwards Tom
went with his mother into the fields to milk the cows, and for fear
he should be blown away by the wind, she tied him to a thistle with a
small piece of thread. Very soon after a cow ate up the thistle and
swallowed Tom Thumb. His mother was in sad grief again; but Tom
scratched and kicked in the cow's throat till she was glad to throw
him out of her mouth again.
One day Tom Thumb went ploughing with his father, who gave him a whip
made of barley straw, to drive the oxen with; but an eagle, flying
by, caught him up in his beak, and carried him to the top of a great
giant's castle. The giant would have eaten Tom up; but the fairy
dwarf scratched and bit his tongue and held on by his teeth till the
giant in a passion took him out again and threw him into the sea,
when a very large fish swallowed him up directly. The fish was caught
soon after and sent as a present to King Arthur, and when the cook
opened it there was Tom Thumb inside. He was carried to the king, who
was delighted with the little man.
The king ordered a little chair to be made, in order that Tom might
sit on his table, and also a palace of gold a span high, with a door
an inch wide, for little Tom to live in. He also gave him a coach
drawn by six small mice.
This made the queen angry, because she had no a new coach too;
therefore, resolving to ruin Tom, she complained to the king that he
had spoken insolently to her. The king sent for him. Tom, to escape
his fury, crept into an empty snail shell, and lay there till he was
almost starved; when peeping out of the shell he saw a fine butterfly
settled on the ground: he now ventured out, and getting on it, the
butterfly took wing, and mounted into the air with little Tom on his
back. Away he flew from field to field, from tree to tree, till at
last he flew to the king's court. The king, queen, and nobles all
strove to catch the butterfly but could not. At length poor Tom,
having neither bridle or saddle, slipped from his seat and fell into
a pool of water, where he was found nearly drowned. The queen vowed
he should be beheaded, and while the scaffold was getting ready, he
was secured in a mouse-trap; when the cat seeing something stir
supposing it to be a mouse, patted the trap about till she broke it,
and set Tom at liberty.
Sometimes Tom rode out on a mouse for a horse. One day a big black
met him along the road, and wanted to kill the mouse. Tom jumped off
the mouse's back, drew his sword, and fought the cat, and made her
run away.
In order to show his courage and please the queen, the new knight
undertook a terrible adventure.
In one corner of the palace garden there was found a great black
spider, of which the lady was very much afraid.
Tom undertook to kill this insect; so he took a gold button for a
shield, and his sharp needle-sword, and went out to attack the
spider; the knights went also, to witness the combat.
Tom drew his sword and fought valiantly, but the spider's poisonous
breath overcame him.
King Arthur and his whole Court went into mourning for little Tom
Thumb. They buried him under a rose-bush, and raised a nice white
marble monument over his grave.
[Page 34--Naughty Boys]
[Illustration: Mr. Brown caning boys stealing sugar.]
Mr. Brown, the grocer, having nearly emptied a cask of sugar in front
of his shop, a number of naughty boys, seeing his back turned,
commenced to steal some. Mr. Brown, spying them through the window,
came out, and the reader can see what happened--A bystander informs
us that muttered howls of agony arose from the cask, and all the
boys' interest in sugar was at an end.