|Poor Tom Thumb! his troubles were only begun. The cook got up early
to feed the cows. She went straight to the hayloft, and carried away
a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it fast
asleep. He slept on, and did not wake till he found himself in the mouth
of a cow. She had taken him up with a mouthful of hay.
“Dear me,” said he, “how did I manage to tumble into the mill?” But he
soon found out where he was, and he had to keep all his wits about him,
or he would have fallen between the cow’s teeth, and then he would have
been crushed to death. At last he went down into her stomach.
“It is rather dark here,” said he; “they forgot to build windows in this
room to let the sun in.” He made the best of his bad luck, but he did
not like his resting-place at all. The worst of it was, that more and
more hay was coming down, and there was less and less room to turn round
in. 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 cook
just then was milking the cow. She heard some one speak, but she saw
nobody. Yet she was sure it was the same voice she had heard in the
night. It put her into such a fright that she fell off her stool and
upset her milk-pail. She ran off as fast as she could to the farmer, and
said:--
“Sir, sir, the cow is talking.” But the farmer said:--
“Woman, thou art surely mad.” Still, he went with her into the
cow-house, to see what was the matter. Just as they went in, Tom cried
out again:--
“Don’t bring me any more hay! don’t bring me any more hay!” Then the
farmer was in a fright. He was sure the cow must be mad, so he gave
orders to have her killed at once. The cow was killed, and the stomach
with Tom in it was thrown into the barnyard.