Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOP-O'-MY-THUMB. There once lived in a village a faggot- maker and his wife, who had seven Children, all boys; the eldest was no more than ten years old, and the youngest was only seven. It was odd enough, to be sure, that they should have had so many children in such a short tinft $ but the truth is, the wife often brought him two at a time. This made him very poor, Joe not one of these boys was old enough to get his living: and what was still worse, the youngest was a puny littlefellow, who hardly ever spoke a word. Now this indeed was a mark of bis good sense; but it made his father ami mother suppose him to be silly, and they thought tbat at last he would turn out quite a fool. This boy was of the least size ever seen; for when he was born he was no bigger than a man's thumb, which made him be christened by the name of Hop-o'-my- Thumb. The poor child was the drudge of(he whole house, and always bore the blame of every thing that was done wrong. For all this, Hop-o'-my-Thumb was far more clever than any of his brothers; and though he spoke but little, he heajriand knew more than people thought. It happened just at this time, that for want of ram the fields had grown but half as much corn and potatoes as they, used togrow; so that the faggot-maker and his wife could not give the boys the food they had before, which was always either bread or potatoes. After the father and mother had grieved some time for this sad affair, which gave tfiem more concern than any thing had ever done yet, they thought that as they could contdil no other way, they must somehow get rid of their children. One night when the children were gone to bed, and the faggot-maker and his wife were sitting over a few lighjed slicks, to warm themselves, the husband sighed deeply, and said, You see, my...