Household Tales by Jacob Grimm (classic books for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

“What is this? There is a cart coming, and a driver is calling to the horse and still he is not to be seen!”

“That can’t be right,” said the other, “we will follow the cart and see where it stops.”

The cart, however, drove right into the forest, and exactly to the place where the wood had been cut. When Thumbling saw his father, he cried to him, “Seest thou, father, here I am with the cart; now take me down.” The father got hold of the horse with his left hand and with the right took his little son out of the ear. Thumbling sat down quite merrily on a straw, but when the two strange men saw him, they did not know what to say for astonishment.

Then one of them took the other aside and said, “Hark, the little fellow would make our fortune if we exhibited him in a large town, for money. We will buy him.”

They went to the peasant and said, “Sell us the little man. He shall be well treated with us.”

“No,” replied the father, “he is the apple of my eye, and all the money in the world cannot buy him from me.”

Thumbling, however, when he heard of the bargain, had crept up the folds of his father’s coat, placed himself on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Father do give me away, I will soon come back again.” Then the father parted with him to the two men for a handsome bit of money.

“Where wilt thou sit?” they said to him.

“Oh just set me on the rim of your hat, and then I can walk backwards and forwards and look at the country, and still not fall down.” They did as he wished, and when Thumbling had taken leave of his father, they went away with him. They walked until it was dusk, and then the little fellow said, “Do take me down, I want to come down.” The man took his hat off, and put the little fellow on the ground by the wayside, and he leapt and crept about a little between the sods, and then he suddenly slipped into a mouse-hole which he had sought out. “Good evening, gentlemen, just go home without me,” he cried to them, and mocked them. They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was all lost labour. Thumbling crept still farther in, and as it soon became quite dark, they were forced to go home with their vexation and their empty purses.

When Thumbling saw that they were gone, he crept back out of the subterranean passage. “It is so dangerous to walk on the ground in the dark,” said he; “how easily a neck or a leg is broken!” Fortunately he knocked against an empty snail-shell. “Thank God!” said he. “In that I can pass the night in safety,” and got into it.

Not long afterwards, when he was just going to sleep, he heard two men go by, and one of them was saying, “How shall we contrive to get hold of the rich pastor’s silver and gold?”

“I could tell thee that,” cried Thumbling, interrupting them.

“What was that?” said one of the thieves in fright, “I heard someone speaking.”

They stood still listening, and Thumbling spoke again, and said, “Take me with you, and I’ll help you.”

“But where art thou?”

“Just look on the ground, and observe from whence my voice comes,” he replied. There the thieves at length found him, and lifted him up.

“Thou little imp, how wilt thou help us?” they said.

“A great deal,” said he, “I will creep into the pastor’s room through the iron bars, and will reach out to you whatever you want to have.”

“Come then,” they said, “and we will see what thou canst do.”

When they got to the pastor’s house, Thumbling crept into the room, but instantly cried out with all his might, “Do you want to have everything that is here?”

The thieves were alarmed, and said, “But do speak softly, so as not to waken anyone!”

Thumbling however, behaved as if he had not understood this, and cried again, “What do you want? Do you want to have everything that is here?” The cook, who slept in the next room, heard this and sat up in bed, and listened.

The thieves, however, had in their fright run some distance away, but at last they took courage, and thought, “The little rascal wants to mock us.” They came back and whispered to him, “Come, be serious, and reach something out to us.”

Then Thumbling again cried as loudly as he could, “I really will give you everything, just put your hands in.” The maid who was listening, heard this quite distinctly, and jumped out of bed and rushed to the door. The thieves took flight, and ran as if the Wild Huntsman were behind them, but as the maid could not see anything, she went to strike a light. When she came to the place with it, Thumbling, unperceived, betook himself to the granary, and the maid, after she had examined every corner and found nothing, lay down in her bed again, and believed that, after all, she had only been dreaming with open eyes and ears.

Thumbling had climbed up among the hay and found a beautiful place to sleep in; there he intended to rest until day, and then go home again to his parents. But he had other things to go through. Truly, there is much affliction and misery in this world! When day dawned, the maid arose from her bed to feed the cows. Her first walk was into the barn, where she laid hold of an armful of hay, and precisely that very one in which poor Thumbling was lying asleep. He, however, was sleeping so soundly that he was aware of nothing, and did not awake until he was in the mouth of the cow, who had picked him up with the hay. “Ah, heavens!” cried he, “how have I got into