s family, who seldom tasted
such a good dish.

But by-and-by, as he was climbing over a stile, he happened to squeeze
it, and Tom, who had made quite an arch over his own head in the dry
pudding by this time, cried out from the middle of it, "Hallo, Pickens!"
which so terrified the tinker that he let the pudding drop in the field
and scampered off as fast as he could. The pudding fell to pieces in the
fall, and Tom, creeping out, went home to his mother, whom he found in
great trouble, because she could not find him.

After this accident, Tom's mother never let him stay near her while she
was cooking, but she was obliged to take him with her when she went out
milking, for she dared not trust the little man in the house alone.

A few days after his escape from the pudding, Tom went, with his mother,
into the fields to milk the cows, and for fear he should be blown away
by the wind, she tied him to a thistle with a small piece of thread.

[Illustration: THE COW EATS TOM.]

Very soon after, a cow eat up the thistle and swallowed Tom Thumb. His
mother was in sad grief again; but Tom scratched and kicked in the cow's
throat till she was glad to throw him out of her mouth again, and he was
not at all hurt; but his mother became very anxious about her small son,
who now gave her a great deal of trouble. Sometimes he fell into the
milk-pail and was nearly drowned in the milk; once he was nearly killed
by an angry chicken, and another time had a narrow escape from a cat.

[Illustration: THE EAGLE FLIES AWAY WITH TOM.]

One day Tom went ploughing with his father, who gave him a whip made of
a barley straw, to drive the oxen with; but an eagle, flying by, caught
him up in his beak, and carried him to the top of a great giant's
castle, and dropped him on the leads. The giant was walking on the
battlements and thought at first that it was a foreign bird which lay at
his feet, but soon seeing that it was a small man, he picked Tom up with
his finger and thumb, and put the poor little creature into his great
mouth, but the fairy dwarf scratched the roof of the giant's mouth, and
bit his great tongue, and held on by his teeth till the ogre, in a
passion, took him out again and threw him over into the sea, which ran
beneath the castle walls. Here a very large fish swallowed him up
directly.

Tom did not at all like swimming about in the fish, but by-and-by he
felt it drawn upwards, and guessed at once that it was caught. And so