worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming
down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he
cried out as loud as he could, 'Don't bring me any more hay! Don't bring
me any more hay!'

The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone
speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice
that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off
her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself
up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the
parson, and said, 'Sir, sir, the cow is talking!' But the parson
said, 'Woman, thou art surely mad!' However, he went with her into the
cow-house, to try and see what was the matter.

Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, 'Don't
bring me any more hay!' Then the parson himself was frightened; and
thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the
spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom
lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill.

Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy
task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh
ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the
whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away.

Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would
not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called
out, 'My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.' 'Where's that?'
said the wolf. 'In such and such a house,' said Tom, describing his own
father's house. 'You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and
then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold
chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can
wish.'

The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to
the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into
the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart's content. As soon as
he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that
he could not go out by the same way he came in.

This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a
great shout, making all the noise he could. 'Will you be easy?' said the
wolf; 'you'll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.'
'What's that to me?' said the little man; 'you have