Folk Stories & Fables - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... THUMBLING By Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm THERE was a tailor who had a son, and he was a tailor too. As the little fellow, who happened to be small, was no bigger than a Thumb, he got the name of Thumbling. But he was brave if he was small, and so he said to his father,-- "Father, I must and will go out into the world." "That's right, my son," said the old man, and took a long darning-needle and made a knob of sealing-wax on it at the candle, "and there is a sword for you to take with you on the way." Then Thumbling wanted to have one more meal at home, and hopped into the kitchen to see what his mother had cooked for the last time. "Mother," he asked, "what is there to eat to-day?" "See for yourself," said she. So Thumbling jumped onto the hearth, and peeped into the dish, but as he stretched his neck in too far the steam from the food caught hold of him and carried him up the chimney. He rode about in the air on the steam for a while, until at last he sank down to the ground again. Now the little tailor was outside in the wide world, and he traveled about, and went to a master in his craft. But the food was not good enough for him. "Mistress, if you give us no better food," said Thumbling, "I will go away, and early to-morrow morning I will write with chalk on the door of your house, 'Too many potatoes, too little meat! Good-by, Mr. PotatoKing.'" "What would you have, pray, grasshopper?" said the mistress, and she grew angry, and seized a dishcloth, and was just going to strike him; but Thumbling crept nimbly under a thimble, peeped out from beneath it, and put his tongue out at the mistress. She took up the thimble, and wanted to get hold of him, but little Thumbling hopped into the cloth, and while she was opening it out and looking for...