"Well, since you insist on having your own way, we'll make our bargain. Here,"—and, sitting down on the moonbeam, she pulled off a shoe,—"here, sir, I want you to mend my shoe. I tripped just now on a rough place in this moonbeam. Mend the rip; show me you are a good cobbler, and I promise that you shall have your wish."
"But, your majesty," began Nimble Jim, taking the shoe, which was no bigger than a bean, "I can't sew such a little shoe; my fingers are ——"
"There, there! Stop! I'm a queen, and people don't say 'can't' or 'wont' to me, sir," interrupted her majesty, with much dignity. "Take the shoe, and find a way to mend it. I will come for it to-morrow night at this same place and hour," and off she went up the moonbeam, half skipping, half flying, while Jim stood stupidly staring until she had entirely disappeared. Then he began, slowly: "Well,—I—never—in—all—my—life—saw—such—a——"
He said no more, but went in, and sat up all night, thinking how and where he could find needle and thread fine enough to do such a piece of cobbling as this. About dawn a thought struck him. His mother thought he had gone crazy when she saw him chasing bees and pulling down spider-webs. Hours and hours he worked, and though his fingers were big, they were nimble, like his name; so, by and by, with a needle made of a bee's sting and thread drawn from a spider-web, he sewed up the rip in her fairy majesty's dainty shoe.
He hardly could wait for the hour of meeting, but went into the garden, with the shoe in his hand, long before the time. At length, the queen came sliding down the moonbeam, laughing and singing:
"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"
But he was not angry now; he only laughed respectfully, made a profound bow, and said:
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"May it please your majesty, I have mended your majesty's shoe."