Water baby Tom (17 完)

Water baby Tom (17 完)

There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of ; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of ; an a great many things too, which nobody will ever hear of.

But at all events, so it happened to Tom.

And, therefore, the keeper, and the groom, an Sir John, made a great mistake, and were very unhappy(Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom and that he had been drowned.

They were utterly mistaken.

Tom was quite alive ; and cleaner, an merrier, than he ever had been.

The fairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly that not only his dirt, but his whole husk an shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away.



But goo Sir John did not understand all this, and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned.

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as likely as a grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon.

(１７/１７ 完)