e set free, and
embraced their children. They had repented their wickedness, and were
never unkind and cruel any more; and Hop o' my Thumb kept them all in
comfort by going on errands for the king in his seven-league boots.

[Illustration: Tom Thumb Chased By Cat.]

Tom Thumb

In the days of good King Arthur there lived a ploughman and his wife
who wished very much to have a son; so the man went to Merlin, the
enchanter, and asked him to let him have a child, even, if it were
"_no bigger than his thumb._" "Go home and you will find one," said
Merlin; and when the man came back to his house he found his wife
nursing a very, very, wee baby, who in four minutes grew to the size
of the ploughman's thumb, and never grew any more. The fairy queen
came to his christening and named him "Tom Thumb." She then dressed
him nicely in a shirt of spider's web, and a doublet and hose of
thistledown.

One day, while Tom's mother was making a plum-pudding, Tom stood on
the edge of the bowl, with a lighted candle in his hand, that she
might see to make it properly. Unfortunately, however, while her back
was turned, Tom fell into the bowl, and his mother not missing him,
stirred him up in the pudding, and put it and him into the pot. Tom
no sooner felt the hot water than he danced about like man; the woman
was nearly frightened out of her wits to see the pudding come out of
the pot and jump about, and she was glad to give it to a tinker who
was passing that way.

The tinker was delighted with his present; but as he was getting over
a style, he happened to sneeze very hard, and Tom called out from the
middle of the pudding, "Hallo, Pickens!" which so terrified the
tinker that he threw the pudding into the field, and scampered away
as fast as he could. The pudding tumbled to pieces in the fall, and
Tom, creeping out, went home to his mother, who was in great
affliction because she could not find him. A few days afterwards Tom
went with his mother into the fields to milk the cows, and for fear
he should be blown away by the wind, she tied him to a thistle with a
small piece of thread. Very soon after a cow ate up the thistle and
swallowed Tom Thumb. His mother was in sad grief again; but Tom
scratched and kicked in the cow's throat till she was glad to throw
him out of her mouth again.

One day Tom Thumb went ploughing with his father, who gave him a whip
made of barley straw, to drive the oxen with; but an eagle, flying
by, ca