"IF you're not more careful, I'll spout water over your boat and sink
it," cried the whale, growing tired of Tom Thumb's fruitless endeavors
to get the fish hook out. "My nose is bleeding now and the hook is still
in it."
"Let me give the string a yank," said Tom Thumb. "Didn't you ever have a
tooth pulled out that way? It won't hurt much."
"Well, go ahead," said the whale, closing his eyes and shutting his
teeth tight. And then out came the hook and over went Tom into the
bottom of the boat.
"Ouch! Ouch!" said the whale, while little Tom Thumb picked himself up
and said to Puss, Junior, "Don't you ever ask me to fish again in the
ocean. I'd rather fish like Simple Simon."
Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale;
All the water he had got
Was in his mother's pail.
"What are you grumbling about?" asked the whale, peering over the side
of the boat. "One would think you had been caught with a hook," and
saying this disagreeable thing, he dived down into the sea.
"No more fishing for me," laughed Tom Thumb.
[Illustration]
And just then they came close to a lighthouse on a big rock. So they ran
the boat up on the little stretch of sand.
"I don't know what we're landing for," said Captain Puss, Junior, "only
I've never been in a lighthouse and here's a good chance."
"Haven't you?" asked a pretty voice, and a young girl appeared on the
stone steps leading down to the beach. "Come, my gallant tars, and I'll
show you my lighthouse and after that you can tell me some of your
adventures, for 'tis a lonely life I lead here alone on the rock until
my Bobby Shafto returns."
Bobby Shafto's gone to sea
In his schooner Mary Lee.
Hard-a-port, or hard-a-lee,
"Hasten, Bobby, home to me."
So Puss picked up Tom Thumb and followed the girl into the lighthouse
and up the stairs to the very top where the great lamp sent out its rays
of light to guide the ships at night; or the great bell clanged in foggy
weather to warn the weary sailor from the cruel rocks.