TOM THUMB. 303

to ask for refreshment. The ploughman’s wife, with great
civility, immediately brought him some milk in a wooden bowl,
and some brown bread on a wooden platter. Merlin could not
help observing, that although everything within the cottage
was particularly neat and clean, and in good order, the plough-
man and his wife had the most sorrowful air imaginable: so
he questioned them on the cause of their melancholy, and
learned that they were very miserable because they had no
children. ‘The poor woman declared, with tears in her eyes,
that she should he the happiest ercature in the world, if she
had a son, although he were no bigger than his father’s thumb.
Merlin was much amused with the thoughts of a boy no bigger
than a man’s thumb; and as soon as he returned home, he
sent for the queen of the fairies (with whom he was very inti-
mate), and related to her the desire of the ploughman and
his wife to have a son the size of his father’s thumb. The
queen of the fairies liked the plan exceedingly, and declared
their wish should be speedily granted. Accordingly the plough-
man’s wife had a son, who ina few minutes grew as tall as his
father’s thumb. ‘The queen of the fairies came in at the window
as the mother was sitting up in bed admiring the child. The
queen kissed the infant, and giving it the name of Tom Thumb,
immediatcly summoned several fairies from Fairy Land to
clothe her new little favou

 

 

‘An oak-leaf hat he had for his crown,
His shirt it was by spiders spun :

With doublet wove of thistle down,

His trowsers up with points were done,

His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie

With eye-lash pluck’d from his mother's eye 5
His shoes were made of a mouse’s skin,
Nicely tanned with the hair within,