Little Tom

by Václav Tille

The widow lifted up the shell very carefully and placed it on the palm of her hand. The tiny lad, letting go his oars, clasped his hands and said, »Dear Godmother, I thank you very much for saving me. I am Little Tom, but am so very tired that I can hardly sit up.« But his weariness came only from his efforts to keep himself from being swept back into the hole.

His Godmother placed the little fellow gingerly on the table and next to him she put a drop of milk and beside it a crumb of bread. Little Tom gulped the milk eagerly and ate nearly the whole crumb. When she placed near him a tiny bit of cloth for a pillow, Tom lay down and fell asleep.

She watched the little fellow tenderly as he lay there so quietly and all worn out with his hard work. He was now a fullgrown lad, finely built and with black hair. His little hands he had clasped across his breast. She felt very badly to think of his sufferings through the night in that terrible flood and she wondered what might have happened to the underground realm of the gnomes.

While he was sleeping, she started to work. She scrubbed the floor very clean, then sifted dry sand all over it; cleaned up the garden, and then put some soup to cook over the fire in the kitchen. When she returned to the big room, Little Tom was sitting up, rubbing his blue eyes with his little fists and calling for his mother. As he looked around, he recognized his Godmother and began to cry bitterly. The old lady tried to soothe him, begging him not to cry and to tell her all that had happened. But, for a long time, he could not be quieted. When he had cried himself out, he told her what misfortunes had come upon the underground realm.

All the gnomes were quietly sleeping, utterly unconscious of any danger, when, all of a sudden, great waters came from under the well, flooded the entire town, tore down the walls and rose to the upper floors. His mother woke Little Tom and ran with him to the upper corridor, through which was already running the stream which was their main river.

On this stream stood the great navy of the gnomes, made from walnut shells. The entire court entered the ships and started rowing to the east from the underground country; but the stream continued to rise and the over-crowded ships began to rock, until they sank one after the other and all the gnomes were lost. Little Tom knew how to swim very well but he would surely have been drowned, if he had not caught hold of a hazel-nut boat. This was taken up by a little current and swept through the hole by the hearth into the Godmother's large room.

Instantly, Little Tom knew where he was, for his parents had often told him of his christening and how kind the Godmother was to them all; so he continued to row with all his might, hoping that his Godmother would return in time to save him.

She was surprised to find him grown up, for at Christmas time, he was only a tiny baby, wrapped up in his cushions. Little Tom explained, that with the gnomes each week is counted as a year, so that he was now fifteen years old. Before that age, no prince may ever leave the underground realm, but must be studying and learning and, after that, he may only go into the outside world for experience. They were just preparing to celebrate his coming of age at his Godmother's and to send him on his journey into the world, when the great flood came and destroyed the whole kingdom. Little Tom was the only one of them to be saved, and that seemed to be through a miracle.

The Godmother did not wish to remind him of his misfortunes, so she told him that she would take good care of him and that he would find it very pleasant in her hut; but she was worried how she should find a suitable place for him to sleep, and how she should clothe him and provide the things necessary for his comfort.

She placed him on the top of the linen press and opened the altar for him; and when he saw the faces of the little figures, Tom became very cheerful, saying that the lady with the Child on her lap was very much like his mother. While Little Tom was looking at the kings, the shepherds and the manger, his Godmother found a nice, large Easter egg that was all hollow and gaily painted in red and yellow. With a pin she pricked out a door on one side, and on the other, two windows; then she set the egg firmly in the earth, under the tree and told him this would be his home and that he should carry some earth inside, and stamp it into a hard, level floor. She wanted to give him something to keep him busy, so that he would not think of the misfortunes that had befallen him.