540 NURSERY RHYMES.

man, the father, to his rest, his mother, being tender of him,
maintained him by her hard labour as well as she could; but
this was no easy matter, for Tom would sit all day in the
chimney-corner, instead of doing anything to assist her, and
although at the period we are speaking of he was only ten years
old, he would eat more than four or five ordinary men, and was
five feet and a half in height, and two feet and a half broad. His
hand was more like a shoulder of mutton than a boy’s hand, and
he was altogether like a little monster, “ but yet his great strength
was not known.”

Tom’s strength came to be known inthis manner: His mother,
it appears, as well as himself, for they lived in the primitive days
of merry old England, slept upon straw. This was in character
with the wretched mud hovels then occupied by the labouring
population, not half so good as many pig-styes nowadays. Now,
being a tidy old creature, she must every now and then replenish
her homely couch, and one day, having been promised a “ bottle”
of straw by a neighbouring farmer, after considerable entreaty,
she prevailed on her son to fetch it. Tom, however, made her
borrow a cart-rope first, before he would budge a step, without
condescending to enter into any explanation respecting the use
he intended it for; and the poor woman, too glad to obtain his
assistance upon any terms, readily complied with his singular
request. Tom, swinging the rope round his shoulders, went to
the farmer’s, and found him with two men threshing in a barn.
Having mentioned the object of his visit, the farmer somewhat
inconsiderately told him he might take as much straw as he could
carry. Tom immediately took him at his word, and, placing the