“Yes,” she said. “Your Jack is a good boy. He did all this only because I told him to.” To Jack she said:
“Now, my dear, I hope you will always be good and kind to your mother. And I hope you will always be kind to the poor and unhappy people, just as your father was. If you are, I am sure that you will both be very happy as long as you live. Good-by, good-by, my dears!” And before they could thank her the Fairy disappeared.
Jack remembered all she had told him, and he and his mother lived together very happily all the rest of their lives.
TOM THUMB
RETOLD BY LAURA CLARKE
Have you ever heard about Little Thumb, or Tom Thumb as he was sometimes called? Such a queer little fellow, and such adventures, you surely must become acquainted with.
’Way back in the days of the good King Arthur, there lived a poor man and his wife who had no children. They wanted a child more than anything else in the world; and one day the woman said to her husband:
“Husband, if I had a son, even if he were no bigger than my thumb, I should be the happiest woman alive.”
Now, Merlin, the King’s magician, overheard this wish; and I suspect he was fond of playing tricks, for it was not many days before the woman had a child given her. He was so tiny that his father burst out laughing when he saw him, and called him Tom Thumb. But the parents were as happy as if he had been a large boy.