t one ever so little, no bigger than my thumb, how happy I should be!
It would, indeed, be having our heart's desire."

Now, it happened that after a while the woman had a child who was
perfect in all his limbs, but no bigger than a thumb. Then the parents
said,

"He is just what we wished for, and we will love him very much," and
they named him according to his stature, "Tom Thumb." And though they
gave him plenty of nourishment, he grew no bigger, but remained exactly
the same size as when he was first born; and he had very good faculties,
and was very quick and prudent, so that all he did prospered.

One day his father made ready to go into the forest to cut wood, and he
said, as if to himself,

"Now, I wish there was some one to bring the cart to meet me."

"O father," cried Tom Thumb, "I can bring the cart, let me alone for
that, and in proper time, too!"

Then the father laughed, and said,

"How will you manage that? You are much too little to hold the reins."

"That has nothing to do with it, father; while my mother goes on with
her spinning I will sit in the horse's ear and tell him where to go."

"Well," answered the father, "we will try it for once."

When it was time to set off, the mother went on spinning, after setting
Tom Thumb in the horse's ear; and so he drove off, crying,

"Gee-up, gee-wo!"

So the horse went on quite as if his master were driving him, and drew
the waggon along the right road to the wood.

Now it happened just as they turned a corner, and the little fellow was
calling out "Gee-up!" that two strange men passed by.

"Look," said one of them, "how is this? There goes a waggon, and the
driver is calling to the horse, and yet he is nowhere to be seen."

"It is very strange," said the other; "we will follow the waggon, and
see where it belongs."

And the waggon went right through the wood, up to the place where the
wood had been hewed. When Tom Thumb caught sight of his father, he cried
out,

"Look, father, here am I with the waggon; now, take me down."

The father held the horse with his left hand, and with the right he
lifted down his little son out of the horse's ear, and Tom Thumb sat
down on a stump, quite happy and content. When the two strangers saw him
they were struck dumb with wonder. At last one of them, taking the other
aside, said to him, "Look here, the little chap would make our fortune
if we were to show him in the town for money. Suppose we buy him."