"Of course you are," said Grandmother. "A man is a man, be he no larger than a thumb. Stay nicely at home, Bikku dear." And Bikku remained at home that time.
But soon after that there was to be a Fair in the valley, a Horse Fair, and Bikku loved horses better than anything else in the world. He knew they would be there—black, white and brown ones. And there would be a Punch and Judy show, a merry-go-round, and many more wonderful things. Bikku Matti had heard the boys tell great tales about all these things, and now Bikku said that he must go to the Fair.
"It won't do, dear child," said Grandmother again.
"Why not?" asked Bikku Matti.
"There will be many people there, my dear, and you cannot go without trousers."
Bikku Matti struggled with himself a while, and Punch and Judy danced before his eyes. At last he said, "If Grandmother would lend me her skirt?"
"Here it is," said Grandmother, and laughed to herself when the little boy stumbled on the kitchen floor in the skirt. "But you look like a girl," she said.
"If I look like a girl, I won't go," said Bikku Matti. "I am no girl, I am a man."
"Well, you do look like a girl," said Grandmother, "but you might tell everybody whom you meet that you are a man."
"That's what I will do," thought Bikku Matti, and so he started off.