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."

The merry little queen took it from him, looked at it closely, saying
to herself: "Humph! I didn't think he could, but he did,"--and,
turning to Jim, said, much more graciously than before: "I suppose you
think yourself quite a cobbler; and so you are--for a mortal. Since
you have done your work so well, I will do as I said. Now," she
continued, handing him a little package about as big as a baby's
thumb, "plant these melon-seeds, and----"

"Are these little things melon seeds? They look too small,"