TOM THUMB
(Arranged as a continued story)
How He Came to His Mother and Father
Long, long ago, when good King Arthur ruled in Britain, there lived a magician named Merlin. He could change himself into anything he chose, and one day when he had changed himself into a beggar he stopped at a plowman’s cottage to ask for food.
“Come in, poor fellow,” cried the plowman, “there’s always a bite for another.” And the plowman’s wife set on the table a bowl of milk and a platter heaped with sweet brown bread. Merlin was greatly pleased with the good people’s kindness to him.
Now, by and by he noticed that although everything in the cottage was neat and comfortable, something was troubling these kind people. So he asked them what it was.
“Ah,” cried the poor woman, with tears in her eyes, “we have no little son. If I only had a little son, I should be the happiest woman in the world, even if he were no bigger than my husband’s thumb.”
Well, Merlin said nothing, and when he had rested he went on his way.
But he did not forget the kind people’s sorrow. As soon as he could, he paid a visit to the queen of the fairies, and told her about it and begged her to grant the woman’s wish. Sure enough, after a time the plowman’s wife had a little son, and lo and behold! he was not a bit bigger than her husband’s thumb. While his mother was admiring him, the queen of the fairies came in at the window. She kissed the child and called him Tom Thumb. She sent for some of the fairies to dress him, and she herself told what he should wear.
So the fairies came and dressed the little man according to the queen’s directions:
“An oak leaf hat he had for a crown;
His shirt of web by spiders spun;
With jacket wove of thistle down;
His trousers were of feathers done.
His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie
With eyelash from his mother’s eye;
His shoes were made of mouse’s skin,
Tann’d with the downy hair within.”
So it was that Tom Thumb, the fairy mannikin, came into the world; and, wonderful to tell, he never grew any bigger than his father’s thumb.