doll's dress and made much of him; and he learnt to talk, but he never grew any bigger than their thumbs; and so they called him Thumbkin.
One day the man had to go down into the field, and he said to his wife:
"'My dear, I am going to get ready the horse and cart, and then I am going down to the field to reap, and just at eleven o'clock I want you to drive the cart down for me."
"Isn't that just like a man?" said his wife. "I suppose you'll want your dinner at twelve, and how do you expect me to get it ready if I have to drive your horse and cart down to the field and then have to trudge back on my ten toes and get your dinner ready? What do you think I am made of?"
"Well, it has to be done," said the man, "even if dinner has to be late."
So they commenced quarrelling, till Thumbkin called out:
"Leave it to me, Father; leave it to me."
"Why, what can you do?" asked the man.
"Well," said Thumbkin, "if mother will only put me in Dobbin's ear, I can guide him down to the field as well as she could."
At first they laughed, but then they thought they would try. So the man went off to the field, and at eleven o'clock the woman put Thumbkin into the horse's right ear; and he immediately called out, "Gee!"
