"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.
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