er, help! I am
here--in the wolf's body."

It did not take long for the father to finish the wolf and rescue his
dear boy.

"We shall never let you go again, for all the riches of the world," said
the mother and father. But Tom was rather pleased with his adventures.

One day, when walking beside the river, he slipped and fell in. Before
he had a chance to swim out a fish came along and swallowed him. Tom had
escaped so often from such dangers that he was not much afraid. After a
time the fish saw a dainty worm, and, little thinking that it was on a
hook, took it in its mouth. Before it realized what had happened it was
pulled out of the water, with Little Thumb still inside.

Now, as luck would have it, this fish was to be for the King's dinner.
When the cook opened the fish to clean it and make it ready for
broiling, out stepped Little Thumb, much to the astonishment and delight
of everyone. The King said he had never seen so tiny and merry a fellow.
He knighted him, and had Sir Thomas Thumb and his father and mother live
in the palace the rest of their lives.

[Illustration]

WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT

In the reign of the famous King Edward III there was a little boy called
Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young,
so that he remembered nothing at all about them, and was left a ragged
little fellow, running about a country village. As poor Dick was not old
enough to work, he was very badly off; he got but little for his dinner,
and sometimes nothing at all for his breakfast; for the people who lived
in the village were very poor indeed, and could not spare him much more
than the parings of potatoes, and now and then a hard crust of bread.

For all this Dick Whittington was a very sharp boy, and was always
listening to what everybody talked about. On Sunday he was sure to
get near the farmers, as they sat talking on the tombstones in the
churchyard, before the parson was come; and once a week you might see
little Dick leaning against the sign-post of the village inn, where
people stopped as they came from the next market town; and when the
barber's shop door was open, Dick listened to all the news that his
customers told one another.

In this manner Dick heard a great many very strange things about the
great city called London; for the foolish country people at that time
thought that folks in London were all fine gentlemen and ladies; and
that there was singing and music