“Well for crying out loud,” said the one, “will you get a load of that? There’s a cart rolling along, and the carter’s calling out to the horse, but he’s nowhere in sight.”
“There’s something funny going on here,” said the other. “Let’s follow the cart and see where it leads.”
But the cart rolled right into the woods and straight to the place where the felled wood lay. No sooner did Tom Thumb see his father than he called out to him, “See, Father, here I am with the cart. Now take me down.”
The father took hold of the horse with his left hand and with his right pulled his little son out of the horse’s ear and put him down on a stalk of straw, where he sat cheerfully.
When the two strangers set eyes on Tom Thumb, they were struck dumb with amazement. Then the one said to the other, “Hey, that little fellow could make our fortune if we took him to a big city and had people pay for a peek – we’ll buy him.” So they approached the plowman and said, “Sell us the little man. He’ll have it good with us.”
“No,” said the father, “he’s my dear heart and I wouldn’t sell him for all the money in the world.”
But upon hearing the proposition, Tom Thumb climbed the folds of his father’s coat, hoisted himself up to his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Father, go ahead and sell me. I’ll be back in no time.”
So the father sold him to the two men for a handsome sum.
“Where do you want to sit?” they said to him.
“Oh, just set me on the rim of your hat so I can go walking around and get the lay of the land without falling off. They did as he wished, and as soon as Tom Thumb took leave of his father they set out on their way. They kept on walking until dusk, then the little one spoke up: “Let me down a moment, nature calls.”
“Just stay up there,” replied the man on whose head he sat. “Don’t worry about it, the birds also sometimes let drop on my hat.”
“No,” said Tom Thumb, “good manners matter to me – hurry up and let me down.”
The man took his hat off and set the little fellow on the ground, whereupon he jumped off and crept among the clumps of earth, then suddenly slipped into a mouse hole he’d been looking for. “Good evening, kind sirs, be on your way without me!” he cried out and laughed. They came running over and poked around the mouse hole with their walking sticks, but it was no use. Tom Thumb crawled ever deeper in, and since it was soon pitch-black out they were obliged to return home, grumbling and with an empty purse.
When Tom Thumb saw that they were gone, he crawled back out of that handy little grotto. “It’s so dangerous fumbling around a farm field in the dark,” said he. “A body might easily break a leg or worse!” Fortunately he happened upon an empty snail shell. “Thank God,” said he, “it’s just the place to find shelter for the night,” and promptly slipped in.
Not long thereafter, when he was just about to fall asleep, he heard two men passing overhead, one of whom said to the other, “How shall we go about relieving the rich pastor of his silver and gold?”
“It’s as easy as pie!” cried out Tom Thumb.
“What was that?” The one thief took fright. “I heard someone say something.”
They stopped dead in their tracks and listened. Then Tom Thumb spoke up again: “Take me along, and I’ll help you.”
“Where are you hiding?”
“Just search on the ground and take heed of where the voice is coming from,” he replied.
The thieves finally found him and lifted him up in the air. “You little twerp, what good would you do us?”
“Easy does it,” he replied. “I’ll crawl through the iron bars into the pastor’s room and hand you everything you like.”
“Very well,” they said, “let’s see what you can do.”
When they reached the rectory, Tom Thumb crept into the pastor’s room and promptly cried out at the top of his lungs, “Do you want everything?”
The thieves took fright and said, “Speak in a whisper, so you don’t wake everyone up.”
But Tom Thumb pretended not to understand, and cried out again, “What do you want? Do you want everything?”
Which roused the cook who, sleeping in the room next door, sat up in bed and cocked an ear.
In their terror the thieves had run back a bit, but finally they pulled themselves together and thought, The little fellow is kidding us. They came back and whispered to him, “Up and at ’em now. Pass something to us.”
Whereupon Tom Thumb cried out again at the top of his lungs, “I’ll give you everything, just reach your hands in for it!”