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The old
toad sat in the mud decking out her
abode with grasses and the buds of the yellow
water lilies, so as to have it very nice for the new
daughter-in-law, and then she swam out with her
ugly son to the leaf where
Thumbelisa stood; they wanted to fetch her pretty
bed to place it in the
bridal chamber before they took her there. The old toad sat in the mud decking out her abode with grasses and the buds of the yellow water lilies, so as to have it very nice fore the new daughter-in-law, and then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf where Thumbelisa stood; they wanted to fetch her pretty bed to place it in the bridal chamber before they took her there. the old toad made
a deep curtsey in the water before her, and said, "Here is my son, who is to be your husband, and
you are to live together most comfortably down in the mud."
"
Koax, koax, brekke-ke-kex," that was all the son could say.
Then they took the pretty little bed and swam away with it, but Thumbelisa sat quite alone on the green leaf and
cried because she did not want to live with the
ugly toad, or have her horrid son for a
husband. The little
fish which swam about in the water had no doubt seen the toad and heard what she said, so they stuck their heads up,
wishing, I suppose, to see the little girl. As soon as they saw her, they were
delighted with her, and were quite
grieved to think that she was to go down to live with the ugly toad. No, that should never happen. They
flocked together down in the water round about the green stem which held the leaf she stood upon, and
gnawed at it with their teeth till it floated away down the stream carrying Thumbelisa away where the toad could not follow her.
Thumbelisa
sailed past place after place, and the little birds in the bushes saw her and sang, "
what a lovely little maid." The leaf with her on it floated
further and further away and in this manner reached
foreign lands.
A pretty little white
butterfly fluttered round and round her for some time and at last settled on the leaf, for it had taken quite a
fancy to Thumbelisa; she was so happy now, because the toad could not reach her and she was sailing through such
lovely scenes; the sun shone on the water and it looked like
liquid gold. Then she took her
sash and tied one end round the butterfly, and the other she made fast to the leaf which went
gliding on quicker and quicker, and she with it for she was standing on the leaf.
At this moment a big
cockchafer came flying along, he caught sight of her and
in an instant he fixed his claw round her slender
waist and flew off with her, up into a
tree, but the green leaf floated down the stream and the butterfly with it, for he was tied to it and could not get loose.
Heavens above! how frightened poor little thumbelisa was when the cockchafer carried her up into the tree, but she was most of all
grieved about the pretty white butterfly which she had fastened to the leaf; if he could not succeed in getting loose he would be
starved to death.
But the cockchafer cared nothing for that. He settled with her on the largest leaf on the tree, and fed her with honey from the flowers, and he said that she was
lovely although she was not a bit like a chafer. Presently all the other chafers which lived in the tree came to visit them; they looked at Thumbelisa and
the young lady chafers twitched their feelers and said, "she had also got
two legs, what a good effect it has." "She is so
slender in the waist,
fie, she looks like a human being." "How
ugly she is," said all the
mother chafers, and yet little Thumbelisa was so pretty. That was certainly also the opinion of the
cockchafer who had captured her, but when all the others said she was ugly, he at last began to believe it too, and would not have anything more to do with her, she might go wherever she liked! They flew down from the tree with her and
placed her on a daisy, where
she cried, because she was so ugly that the chafers would have nothing to do with her; and after all, she was more beautiful than anything you could imagine, as delicate and
transparent as the finest
rose-leaf.
On to Part Three