Back to Thumbelisa: Part Two
Poor little
Thumbelisa lived all the
summer quite
alone in the wood. She
plaited a bed of grass for herself and hung it up under a big dock-leaf which sheltered her from the
rain; she sucked the
honey from the flowers for her food, and her drink was the dew which lay on the leaves in the
morning. In this way the summer and
autumn passed, but then came the winter. All the birds which used to sing so sweetly to her
flew away, the great dock-leaf under which she had lived shrivelled up leaving nothing but a
dead yellow stalk, and she shivered with the
cold, for her clothes were worn out; she was such a tiny creature, poor little Thumbelisa, she certainly must be
frozen to death. It began to snow and every
snowflake that fell upon her was like a whole shovelful upon one of us, for we are big and she was
only one inch in height. Then she wrapped herself up in a
withered leaf, but that did not warm her much, she
trembled with the cold.
Close to the wood in which she had been living lay a large
cornfield, but the corn had long ago been carried away and nothing remained but the bare, dry
stubble which stood up out of the frozen ground. The stubble was quite a
forest for her to walk about in;
oh, how she shook with the cold. Then she came to the door of a
field-mouse's home. It was a little
hole down under the stubble. the field-mouse lived so cosily and warm there, her whole room was full of corn, and she had a beautiful
kitchen and
larder besides. Poor Thumbelisa stood just inside the door like any other poor
beggar child and begged for a little piece of
barley corn, for she had had nothing to eat for two whole days.
"
You poor little thing," said the field-mouse, for she was at bottom a good old
field-mouse. "Come into my warm room and dine with me." Then, as she took a fancy to Thumbelisa, she said, "you may
with pleasure stay with me for the winter, but you must keep my room clean and tidy and tell me
stories, for I am very fond of them," and Thumbelisa did what the good old field-mouse desired and was on the whole very
comfortable.
"Now we shall soon have a visitor," said the field-mouse; "my neighbour generally comes to see me every
week-day. He is even better housed than I am; his rooms are very large and he wears a most beautiful
black velvet coat; if only you could get him for a husband you would indeed be well settled, but he can't see. You must tell him all the most
beautiful stories you know."
But Thumbelisa did not like this, and she would have nothing to say to the
neighbour for he was a mole. He came and paid a visit in his black velvet coat. He was very
rich and wise, said the field-mouse, and his home was twenty times as large as hers; he had much
learning but he did not like the
sun or the beautiful flowers, in fact he spoke
slightingly of them for he had never seen them. Thumbelisa had to
sing to him and she sang both "Fly away
cockchafer" and "
A monk, he wandered through the meadow," then the mole
fell in love with her because of her
sweet voice, but he did not say anything for he was of a
discreet turn of mind.
On to Part Four