This child was very small indeed, and when he was born he was no bigger than a thumb, which made them call him Tom Thumb.

This poor child took the blame for everything that went wrong in the house; guilty or not, he was always in the wrong. However, he was more cunning and far wiser than his six brothers put together, and if he said little he heard and thought all the more.

One very bad year, there was such a bad famine that the poor woodcutter and his wife decided that they would have to get rid of their children. One night, when they were all in bed and the woodcutter was sitting with his wife by the fire, he said to her, his heart fit to burst with grief,

“You can see that we cannot keep our children and I cannot see them starve to death before my eyes. I am determined to lose them in the woods tomorrow, which we can do very easily, for while they are busy tying up the bundles of wood we can run away and leave them, without their noticing.”

“Oh!” cried his wife, “And how can you have the heart to take your children out with you with the intention of losing them?”

In vain did her husband drive home to her their extreme poverty – she would not agree to it. She was poor, but she was their mother. However, having considered how dreadful it would be to see them die from hunger, she consented at last and went to bed in tears.

Tom Thumb had heard every word that was spoken. Observing, as he lay in bed, that they were talking a great deal, he got up quietly and hid himself under his father’s stool, so that he could hear what was being said without being seen. He went to bed again, but did not sleep a wink for the rest of the night, thinking about what he should do. He got up early in the morning and went to the river, where he filled his pockets full of small white pebbles and then returned home.

The family went out later that morning, but Tom Thumb didn’t tell his brothers a word of what he knew. They went into a very thick forest, where they could not see one another from 10 paces away. The woodcutter began to cut wood, and the children to gather up sticks to make bundles. Their father and mother, seeing the children busy at their work, moved away from them by degrees, and then ran away from them along a byway, through the winding bushes.

When the children saw that they had been left alone, they began to cry as loudly as they could. Tom Thumb let them cry, because he knew very well how to get home again. As he came he had dropped all along the way the little white pebbles he had in his pockets. Then he said to them, “Don’t be afraid, brothers, father and mother have left us here, but I will lead you home again if you follow me.

They followed him, and he brought them home by the very same way they had come into the forest. They did not dare go inside, but sat down beside the door of the house, listening to what their father and mother were saying.

“HE BROUGHT THEM HOME BY THE VERY SAME WAY THEY CAME”

The very moment that the woodcutter and his wife had got home, the lord of the manor sent them 10 crowns that he had owed them for a long time, which they never expected to receive. This gave them new life, for they were almost starving. The woodcutter sent his wife at once to the butcher, and as it was a long time since they had eaten anything, she bought three times as much meat as would feed two people. When they had eaten their fill the woman said,

“Alas! Where are our poor children now? They would make a good meal of what we have left here. But then it was you, William, who wanted to lose them. I told you we would regret it. What are they doing now in the forest? Alas! Dear God, the wolves have perhaps already eaten them up. You are very inhuman to have lost your children.”

In the end the woodcutter lost patience with her, for she had said more than 20 times that they would repent of what they had done, and she had been right. He threatened to beat her if she did not hold her tongue. It was not that the woodcutter was not, perhaps, even more upset than his wife, but that she nagged him, and he was like a great many other men who love wives who speak the truth, but are irritated by those who are always in the right. The poor woman was half drowned in tears, crying out,

“Alas! Where are my children now, my poor children?”

She said this so loudly that the children at the door began to call out, all at the same time, “Here we are, here we are!”

She ran at once to open the door and said, hugging them,

“I am so glad to see you, my dear children – you are very hungry and tired. And my poor Peter, you are dreadfully dirty; come in and let me clean you.”

Now, Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved more than the others, because he had red hair, just like her own.

The children sat down to supper and ate so hungrily that their mother and father were pleased. All speaking at the same time, the boys told their parents how frightened they had been in the forest.

The good people were extremely happy to have their children at home again, and their joy continued as long as the 10 crowns lasted. When the money had gone their former anxiety returned and they decided to lose the children again, and to carry them further away so that they would be more likely to succeed. Even though they tried to keep it secret, they were once again overheard by Tom Thumb, who thought that he would get out of this difficulty in the same way that he had before.