"May it please your majesty, I wish I'd some melon-seeds that'd grow
like magic. I am dead tired of being nothin' but a cobbler. I want
to be a melon-merchant, and raise the finest, largest melons ever
seen,--supply the whole kingdom with them, and grow to be as rich as
the king himself."

"Oh, you do, do you?" she answered, laughing her merry little laugh,
and capering up and down the moonbeam. "Oh! quite a modest youth!
Well, I'll make a bargain with you; and if you will do something for
me, you shall have your wish," said the queen.

Nimble Jim was about to pour out his gratitude, when she interrupted
him, saying: "Now, Nimble Jim, listen to me. Your wish is a foolish
one, and I warn you that if you gain it you will be sorry. Why will
you not be content as you are?"

"Your majesty," replied the obstinate youth. "I _cannot_ be content as
I am."

"Well, since you insist on having your own way, we'll make our
bargain. Here,"--and, sitting down on the moonbeam, she pulled off a
shoe,--"here, sir, I want you to mend my shoe. I tripped just now on
a rough place in this moonbeam. Mend the rip; show me you are a good
cobbler, and I promise that you shall have your wish."

"But, your majesty," began Nimble Jim, taking the shoe, which was no
bigger than a bean, "I can't sew such a little shoe; my fingers are
----"

"There, there! Stop! I'm a queen, and people don't say 'can't' or
'wont' to me, sir," interrupted her majesty, with much dignity. "Take
the shoe, and find a way to mend it. I will come for it to-morrow
night at this same place and hour," and off she went up the moonbeam,
half skipping, half flying, while Jim stood stupidly staring until
she had entirely disappeared. Then he began, slowly: "Well,--I--never
--in--all--my--life--saw--such--a----"

He said no more, but went in, and sat up all night, thinking how and
where he could find needle and thread fine enough to do such a piece
of cobbling as this. About dawn a thought struck him. His mother
thought he had gone crazy when she saw him chasing bees and pulling
down spider-webs. Hours and hours he worked, and though his fingers
were big, they were nimble, like his name; so, by and by, with a
needle made of a bee's sting and thread drawn from a spider-web, he
sewed up the rip in her fairy majesty's dainty shoe.

He hardly could wait for the hour of meeting, but went into the
garden, with the shoe in his hand, long before the time. At length,
the queen ca