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
tha