HOP-O'-MY-THUMB

NCE upon a time there was a wood-cutter and his wife who had seven children, all boys. The eldest was only ten years old, and the youngest seven. They were very poor, and their seven children were a great burden, since not one of them was able to earn his living.

What troubled them still more was the fact that the youngest was not only very delicate, but very silent, which they took for stupidity, but which was really a mark of his good sense. He was very small, and when he was born he was scarcely bigger than one's thumb, which caused him to be called little "Hop-o'-MyThumb." This poor child was the scapegoat of the house, and was blamed for everything. He was, however, sharper and wiser than all his brothers, and though he spoke little, he listened a great deal.

At last there came a very bad year, and there was so great a famine, that these poor people resolved to rid themselves of their children. One evening, when the children were all in bed, and the wood-cutter, with a sorrowful heart, was sitting by the fire with his wife, he said to her: "You know that we can no longer support our children. I cannot let them die of hunger before my eyes, and I am resolved to take them to the wood to-morrow, and lose them there. It will be very easy to

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do this, for, while they amuse themselves tying up sticks, we have only to slip away without their seeing us." "Ah!" cried his wife, "would you then destroy your children?" In vain did her husband set forth to her their great poverty: she would not consent. She was poor, she said, but she was their mother. At last, having considered what a grief it would be to her to have them die of hunger before her eyes, she agreed to her husband's plan, and went, weeping, to bed.

Hop-o'-My-Thumb had listened to all that they had said, for having heard them, from his bed, talking of family matters, he had risen softly and slipped under his father's stool, in order to hear without being seen. He then went back to bed, but lay awake the rest of the night, thinking what he should do. He rose early and went to a brook, where he filled his pocket with little white pebbles, and then returned to the house.

Soon after, they all set off, but Hop-o'-My-Thumb did not tell his brothers anything of what he knew. They went into a forest, so thick that they could not see each other at a distance of ten paces. The wood-cutter began to fell a tree, while the children gathered sticks to make up into bundles. The father and mother, seeing them thus employed, slipped away unnoticed, and then fled rapidly, by a little winding path.

When the children found they were alone, they began to scream and cry with all their strength. Hopo'-My-Thumb let them cry, knowing well how to get home; for, while walking, he had dropped along the

path the little white pebbles which he had in his pockets

He therefore said to them, " Fear not, brothers, my father and mother have left us here, but I will lead you to the house-only follow me."

They obeyed at once, and he led them home along the same path by which they had come into the forest at first. They did not dare to go into the house, but placed themselves near the door, in order to hear what their father and mother were saying.

Now it had so happened that, just as the wood-cutter and his wife reached home, the lord of the village had sent them ten crowns, which he had long owed them, and which they had never hoped to obtain. This gave them new life, for the poor creatures were almost dead from hunger.

The wood-cutter immediately sent his wife to the butcher's, where, as it was long since they had eaten anything, she bought three times as much meat as was needed for the supper of two people.

When they were seated at table, the wife said, "Alas! where now are our poor children? They would make good cheer with what we have left.

repent it.

But it is you, Wil

liam, who wished to lose them. I always said we should What are they doing now in the forest? Alas! alas! perhaps the wolves have already eaten them! You were most cruel thus to lose your children."

The wood-cutter at last grew impatient, for she repeated more than twenty times that they would repent

He

what they had done, and that she had told him so. threatened to beat her if she was not silent. The woodcutter did not do this because he was less sorry than his wife, but because her reproaches angered him. His wife now shed tears, and cried out, "Alas! where are my children, my poor children?"

She said this so loud that the children, who were at the door, heard her, and all cried out together, " Here we are! here we are!"

She ran quickly to open the door, and said, as she embraced them, "How overjoyed I am to see you again, my darling children! you must be very tired and very hungry; and you, Peter, how muddy you are! come, let me brush you." Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved more than all the others.

The children then sat down at the table, and ate with an appetite which delighted their father and mother, to whom they described, all speaking at once, how frightened they had been in the forest.

These good people were filled with joy to have their children again with them, and this joy lasted as long as the ten crowns held out. But when the money was spent, they fell back into their former misery, and resolved to lose them once more; and in order not to fail again, they determined to take them much further into the forest than the first time.

They could not, however, speak of this so secretly but that they were overheard by Hop-o'-My-Thumb, who laid his plans to escape as before. But although he

got up early in order to go out and pick up some little stones, he could not succeed in his purpose, for he found the door of the house shut and double-bolted. He was wondering what he should do, when, his mother having given them each a bit of bread for breakfast, he thought that he might use his bread instead of pebbles by dropping crumbs along the paths as they walked. He therefore slipped the bread into his pocket.

Their father and mother led them this time into the thickest and darkest part of the forest, and, as soon as they were there, ran away and left them.

Hop-o'-My-Thumb was not much troubled, because he believed he could easily find his way by means of the bread which he had scattered as he passed along. What was his surprise when he could not find a single crumb the birds had come and eaten it all.

Now was their lot indeed wretched; the more they wandered about, the deeper they buried themselves in the forest. Night came, and a great wind arose which frightened them terribly. They thought they heard on all sides the howling of hungry wolves coming to eat them up. They did not dare to speak, or even turn their heads. Rain began to fall, which wet them to the skin. They slipped at every step, and, if they fell, got up so covered with mud that they could hardly move their hands.

Finally, Hop-o'-My-Thumb climbed to the top of a tree, to see if he could not discover something. Having looked on all sides, he at last saw a little gleam of light, like that from a candle, but it was very far off, beyond the