Page 310 - Child's own book

to ask for refreshment. The ploughman’a wife, with great
civility, immediately brought him some milk in a wooden bowl,
and some brown bread on a wooden plotter. Merlin could not
help observing', that although everything within the cottage
was particularly neat and clcan^aod 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 be the happiest creaturc in ihe world, if she
had a son, although he were no bigger than hia 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 stoc 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
mans wife had a son, who in a few minutes grew as tail as his
father's thumb. The^ueenofthe 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,
immediately summoned several fairies from Fairy Land to
clothe her new little favourite : —

An oali-lcaf hat lie liid feir hia frown,
Hi* shirt it vras fcy spiders spun :
W ith doublet wove of ihisllc <knynT
His (rowscrs up n ilh point? were done.
His stoc^irga, of opplc-rind, they ii*
W ith cye-laih pluck'd frnm hit moihcr’a eve j
His shoes were made of a fetoasc*? skin,
Nicely tanned frith the Lair vrhliiu.