“But, your majesty,” began Nimble Jim, taking the shoe, which was no bigger than a bean, “I can’t sew such a little shoe; my fingers are ——­”

“There, there!  Stop!  I’m a queen, and people don’t say ‘can’t’ or ‘wont’ to me, sir,” interrupted her majesty, with much dignity.  “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.”

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,” interrupted Jim,—­for he had made no ceremony, even in the queen’s presence, about peeping into the package,—­and it must be confessed that they were very small indeed.

“Certainly they are, or I would not tell you so.  They are the magic melons of fairy-land.  As I was about to say when you rudely interrupted, plant——­”

“I beg your pardon, your majes——­”

[Illustration:  “BEFORE NIMBLE JIM COULD GET BACK TO THE HOUSE, THE YARD WAS FULL OF MELON-VINE.”]

“Will you keep still?  Was there ever such a chatterbox!” said she.  “I say, plant these melon-seeds to-morrow at sunrise, and you will have your wish, foolish boy.”  And, while Jim was thinking of melons and wealth, she skipped away up the moonbeam, singing: 

  “Nimble Jim is quite demented,—­
    Wants to be a melon-king! 
  Silly mortal! not contented
    With the riches home-joys bring! 
       Oh! ho! 
       Oh! ho! 
  He will be sorry to-morrow;
  To-morrow will bring only sorrow.”