d him and came down with his blunderbuss,
and the robbers ran off. So when the butler opened the door Thumbkin
crept out and went to the stable, and laid down to sleep in a nice
cozy bed of hay in the manger.

But in the morning the cows came into the stable, and one of them
walked up to the manger. And what do you think she did? She swallowed
the hay with little Thumbkin in it, and took him right down into her
tummy.

Shortly afterwards the cows were driven out to the milking place, and
the milkmaid commenced to milk the cow which had swallowed Thumbkin.
And when he heard the milk rattling into the pail he called out:

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

The milkmaid was so startled to hear a voice coming from the cow that
she upset the milking pail and rushed to her master, and said:

"The cow's bewitched! The cow's bewitched! She's talking through her
tummy."

The farmer came and looked at the cow, and when he heard Thumbkin
speaking out of her tummy he thought the milkmaid was quite right, and
gave orders for the cow to be slaughtered.

And when she was cut up by the butcher he didn't want the paunch--that
is the stomach--so he threw it out into the yard. And a wolf coming by
swallowed the paunch and Thumbkin with it.

When he found himself again in the wolf's stomach he called out as
before:

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

But the wolf said to him:

"What'll you do for me if I let you out?"

"I know a place where you can get as many chickens as you like, and if
you let me out I'll show you the way."

"No, no, my fine master," said the wolf; "you can tell me where it is,
and if I find you are right then I'll let you out."

So Thumbkin told him a way to his father's farm, and guided him to a
hole in the larder just big enough for the wolf to get through. When
he got through there were two fine fat ducks and a noble goose hung up
ready for the Sunday dinner. So Mr. Wolf set to work and ate the ducks
and the goose while Thumbkin kept calling out:

"Don't want any duck or geese. Let me out! Let me out!"

And when the wolf would not he called out:

"Father! Father! Mother! Mother!"

And his father and mother heard him, and they came rushing towards the
larder. Then the wolf tried to get through the hole he had come
through before, but he had eaten so much that he stuck there, and the
farmer and his wife came up and killed him.

Then they began to cut the wolf open and Thumbkin called o