"Take
the shoe, and find a way to mend it. I will come for it to-morrow
night at this same place and hour," and off she went up the moonbeam,
half skipping, half flying, while Jim stood stupidly staring until
she had entirely disappeared. Then he began, slowly: "Well,--I--never
--in--all--my--life--saw--such--a----"
He said no more, but went in, and sat up all night, thinking how and
where he could find needle and thread fine enough to do such a piece
of cobbling as this. About dawn a thought struck him. His mother
thought he had gone crazy when she saw him chasing bees and pulling
down spider-webs. Hours and hours he worked, and though his fingers
were big, they were nimble, like his name; so, by and by, with a
needle made of a bee's sting and thread drawn from a spider-web, he
sewed up the rip in her fairy majesty's dainty shoe.
He hardly could wait for the hour of meeting, but went into the
garden, with the shoe in his hand, long before the time. At length,
the queen came sliding down the moonbeam, laughing and singing:
"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"
But he was not angry now; he only laughed respectfully, made a
profound bow, and said:
"May it please your majesty, I have mended your majesty's shoe.
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