had for his crown;
His jacket was woven of thistle-down.
His shirt was a web by spiders spun;
His breeches of softest feathers were done.
His stockings of red-apple rind were tyne
With an eyelash plucked from his mother's eyne.
His shoes were made of a mouse's skin,
Tanned with the soft furry hair within.

Dressed in this guise he looked the prettiest little fellow ever seen,
and the Fairy Queen kissed him over and over again, and gave him the
name of Tom Thumb.

Now as he grew older--though, mind you, he never grew bigger--he was so
full of antics and tricks that he was for ever getting into trouble.
Once his mother was making a batter pudding, and Tom, wanting to see how
it was made, climbed up to the edge of the bowl. His mother was so busy
beating the batter that she didn't notice him; and when his foot
slipped, and he plumped head and ears into the bowl, she just went on
beating until the batter was light enough. Then she put it into the
pudding-cloth and set it on the fire to boil.

Now the batter had so filled poor Tom's mouth that he couldn't cry; but
no sooner did he feel the hot water than he began to struggle and kick
so much that the pudding bobbed up and down, and jumped about in such
strange fashion that the ploughman's wife thought it was bewitched, and
in a great fright flung it to the door.

Here a poor tinker passing by picked it up and put it in his wallet. But
by this time Tom had got his mouth clear of the batter, and he began
holloaing, and making such a to-do, that the tinker, even more
frightened than Tom's mother had been, threw the pudding in the road,
and ran away as fast as he could run. Luckily for Tom, this second fall
broke the pudding string and he was able to creep out, all covered with
half-cooked batter, and make his way home, where his mother, distressed
to see her little dear in such a woeful state, put him into a teacup of
water to clean him, and then tucked him up in bed.

Another time Tom's mother went to milk her red cow in the meadow and
took Tom with her, for she was ever afraid lest he should fall into
mischief when left alone. Now the wind was high, and fearful lest he
should be blown away, she tied him to a thistle-head with one of her own
long hairs, and then began to milk. But the red cow, nosing about for
something to do while she was being milked, as all cows will, spied
Tom's oak-leaf hat, and thinking it looked good, curled its tongue round
the t