im. The very same day he married the princess.

Puss became a personage of great importance, and gave up hunting mice,
except for amusement.

[Illustration: Decoration]

LITTLE TOM THUMB

Once upon a time there lived a wood-cutter and his wife, who had seven
children, all boys. The eldest was only ten years old, and the youngest
was seven. People were astonished that the wood-cutter had had so many
children in so short a time, but the reason was that his wife delighted
in children, and never had less than two at a time.

They were very poor, and their seven children were a great tax on them,
for none of them was yet able to earn his own living. And they were
troubled also because the youngest was very delicate and could not speak
a word. They mistook for stupidity what was in reality a mark of good
sense.

This youngest boy was very little. At his birth he was scarcely bigger
than a man's thumb, and he was called in consequence 'Little Tom Thumb.'
The poor child was the scapegoat of the family, and got the blame for
everything. All the same, he was the sharpest and shrewdest of the
brothers, and if he spoke but little he listened much.

There came a very bad year, when the famine was so great that these poor
people resolved to get rid of their family. One evening, after the
children had gone to bed, the wood-cutter was sitting in the
chimney-corner with his wife. His heart was heavy with sorrow as he said
to her:

'It must be plain enough to you that we can no longer feed our
children. I cannot see them die of hunger before my eyes, and I have
made up my mind to take them to-morrow to the forest and lose them
there. It will be easy enough to manage, for while they are amusing
themselves by collecting faggots we have only to disappear without their
seeing us.'

'Ah!' cried the wood-cutter's wife, 'do you mean to say you are capable
of letting your own children be lost?'

In vain did her husband remind her of their terrible poverty; she could
not agree. She was poor, but she was their mother. In the end, however,
reflecting what a grief it would be to see them die of hunger, she
consented to the plan, and went weeping to bed.

Little Tom Thumb had heard all that was said. Having discovered, when in
bed, that serious talk was going on, he had got up softly, and had
slipped under his father's stool in order to listen without being seen.
He went back to bed, but did not sleep a wink for the rest of the