Part 89

All winter the swallow stayed there, and Thumbelina was often in the long passage, with her little torch of tinder-wood. But the mole and the field-mouse did not know how Thumbelina tended and cared for the swallow.

At last spring came, and the sun sent its warmth down where the swallow lay in the underground passage.

Little Thumbelina opened the hole which the mole had made in the ceiling, and the sunshine streamed down on the swallow and the little girl.

How the swallow longed to soar away, up and up, to be lost to sight in the blue, blue sky!

"Come with me, little Thumbelina," said the swallow, "come with me to the blue skies and the green woods."

But Thumbelina remembered how kind the field-mouse had been to her when she was cold and hungry, and she would not leave her.

"Farewell! farewell! then, little maiden," twittered the swallow as he flew out and up, up into the sunshine.

Thumbelina loved the swallow dearly. Her eyes were full of tears as she watched the bird disappearing till he was only a tiny speck of black.

And now sad days came to little Thumbelina.

The golden corn was once more waving in the sunshine above the house of the field-mouse, but Thumbelina must not go out lest she lose herself among the corn.

Not go out in the bright sunshine! Oh, poor little Thumbelina!

"You must get your wedding clothes ready this summer," said the field-mouse. "You must be well provided with linen and worsted. My neighbor the mole will wish a well-dressed bride."

The mole had said he wished to marry little Thumbelina before the cold winter came again.

So Thumbelina sat at the spinning-wheel through the long summer days, spinning and weaving with four little spiders to help her.

In the evening the mole came to visit her. "Summer will soon be over," he said, "and we shall be married."

But oh! little Thumbelina did not wish the summer to end.

Live with the dull old mole, who hated the sunshine, who would not listen to the song of the birds--live underground with him! Little Thumbelina wished the summer would never end.

The spinning and weaving were over now. All the wedding clothes were ready. Autumn was come.

"Only four weeks and the wedding-day will have come," said the field-mouse.

And little Thumbelina wept.

"I will not marry the tiresome old mole," she said.

"I shall bite you with my white tooth if you talk such nonsense," said the field-mouse. "Among all my friends not one of them has such a fine velvet coat as the mole. His cellars are full and his rooms are large. You ought to be glad to marry so well," she ended.

"Was there no escape from the underground home?" little Thumbelina wondered.

The wedding-day came. The mole arrived to fetch his little bride.

How could she say good-by forever to the beautiful sunshine?

"Farewell, farewell!" she cried, and waved her little hands toward the glorious sun.

"Farewell, farewell!" she cried, and threw her tiny arms round a little red flower growing at her feet.

"Tell the dear swallow, when he comes again," she whispered to the flower, "tell him I will never forget him."