"My dear father," answered he, "I am become a turner."
"A very ingenious handicraft," said the father. "And what have you brought with you from your travels?"
"A very valuable thing, dear father," answered the son. "A stick in a sack!"
"What!" cried the father. "A stick! The thing is not worth so much trouble when you can cut one from any tree."
"But it is not a common stick, dear father," said the young man. "When I say, "Stick, out of the bag!" out jumps the stick upon any one who means harm to me, and makes him dance again, and does not leave off till he is beaten to the earth, and asks pardon. Just look here, with this stick I have recovered the table and the a.s.s which the thieving landlord had taken from my two brothers. Now, let them both be sent for, and bid all the neighbours too, and they shall eat and drink to their hearts"
content, and I will fill their pockets with gold."
The old tailor could not quite believe in such a thing, but he called his sons and all the neighbours together. Then the turner brought in the a.s.s, opened a cloth before him, and said to his brother,
"Now, my dear brother, speak to him." And the miller said, "Bricklebrit!" and immediately the cloth was covered with gold pieces, until they had all got more than they could carry away. (I tell you this because it is a pity you were not there.) Then the turner set down the table, and said,
"Now, my dear brother, speak to it." And the joiner said, "Table, be covered!" and directly it was covered, and set forth plentifully with the richest dishes. Then they held a feast such as had never taken place in the tailor"s house before, and the whole company remained through the night, merry and content.
The tailor after that locked up in a cupboard his needle and thread, his yard-measure and goose, and lived ever after with his three sons in great joy and splendour.
But what became of the goat, the unlucky cause of the tailor"s sons being driven out? I will tell you. She felt so ashamed of her bald head that she ran into a fox"s hole and hid herself. When the fox came home he caught sight of two great eyes staring at him out of the darkness, and was very frightened and ran away. A bear met him, and seeing that he looked very disturbed, asked him,
"What is the matter, brother fox, that you should look like that?"
"Oh dear," answered the fox, "a grisly beast is sitting in my hole, and he stared at me with fiery eyes!"
"We will soon drive him out," said the bear; and went to the hole and looked in, but when he caught sight of the fiery eyes he likewise felt great terror seize him, and not wishing to have anything to do with so grisly a beast, he made off. He was soon met by a bee, who remarked that he had not a very courageous air, and said to him,
"Bear, you have a very depressed countenance, what has become of your high spirit?"
"You may well ask," answered the bear. "In the fox"s hole there sits a grisly beast with fiery eyes, and we cannot drive him out."
The bee answered, "I know you despise me, bear. I am a poor feeble little creature, but I think I can help you."
So she flew into the fox"s hole, and settling on the goat"s smooth-shaven head, stung her so severely that she jumped up, crying, "Ba-baa!" and ran out like mad into the world; and to this hour no one knows where she ran to.
TOM THUMB
THERE was once a poor countryman who used to sit in the chimney-corner all evening and poke the fire, while his wife sat at her spinning-wheel.
And he used to say,
"How dull it is without any children about us; our house is so quiet, and other people"s houses so noisy and merry!"
"Yes," answered his wife, and sighed, "if we could only have one, and that one ever so little, no bigger than my thumb, how happy I should be!
It would, indeed, be having our heart"s desire."
Now, it happened that after a while the woman had a child who was perfect in all his limbs, but no bigger than a thumb. Then the parents said,
"He is just what we wished for, and we will love him very much," and they named him according to his stature, "Tom Thumb." And though they gave him plenty of nourishment, he grew no bigger, but remained exactly the same size as when he was first born; and he had very good faculties, and was very quick and prudent, so that all he did prospered.
One day his father made ready to go into the forest to cut wood, and he said, as if to himself,
"Now, I wish there was some one to bring the cart to meet me."
"O father," cried Tom Thumb, "I can bring the cart, let me alone for that, and in proper time, too!"
Then the father laughed, and said,
"How will you manage that? You are much too little to hold the reins."
"That has nothing to do with it, father; while my mother goes on with her spinning I will sit in the horse"s ear and tell him where to go."
"Well," answered the father, "we will try it for once."
When it was time to set off, the mother went on spinning, after setting Tom Thumb in the horse"s ear; and so he drove off, crying,
"Gee-up, gee-wo!"
So the horse went on quite as if his master were driving him, and drew the waggon along the right road to the wood.
Now it happened just as they turned a corner, and the little fellow was calling out "Gee-up!" that two strange men pa.s.sed by.
"Look," said one of them, "how is this? There goes a waggon, and the driver is calling to the horse, and yet he is nowhere to be seen."
"It is very strange," said the other; "we will follow the waggon, and see where it belongs."
And the waggon went right through the wood, up to the place where the wood had been hewed. When Tom Thumb caught sight of his father, he cried out,
"Look, father, here am I with the waggon; now, take me down."
The father held the horse with his left hand, and with the right he lifted down his little son out of the horse"s ear, and Tom Thumb sat down on a stump, quite happy and content. When the two strangers saw him they were struck dumb with wonder. At last one of them, taking the other aside, said to him, "Look here, the little chap would make our fortune if we were to show him in the town for money. Suppose we buy him."
So they went up to the woodcutter, and said,
"Sell the little man to us; we will take care he shall come to no harm."
"No," answered the father; "he is the apple of my eye, and not for all the money in the world would I sell him."
But Tom Thumb, when he heard what was going on, climbed up by his father"s coat tails, and, perching himself on his shoulder, he whispered in his ear,
"Father, you might as well let me go. I will soon come back again."
Then the father gave him up to the two men for a large piece of money.
They asked him where he would like to sit,