If you should ever meet with another bear, just say to him
this--which I shall whisper to you--and he won't touch you."
Father Bear whispered a word or two into the boy's ear and hurried away,
for he thought he heard hounds and hunters pursuing him.
The boy stood in the forest, free and unharmed, and could hardly
understand how it was possible.
The wild geese had been flying back and forth the whole evening, peering
and calling, but they had been unable to find Thumbietot. They searched
long after the sun had set, and, finally, when it had grown so dark that
they were forced to alight somewhere for the night, they were very
downhearted. There was not one among them but thought the boy had been
killed by the fall and was lying dead in the forest, where they could
not see him.
But the next morning, when the sun peeped over the hills and awakened
the wild geese, the boy lay sleeping, as usual, in their midst. When he
woke and heard them shrieking and cackling their astonishment, he could
not help laughing.
They were so eager to know what had happened to him that they did not
care to go to breakfast until he had told them the whole story. The boy
soon narrated his entire adventure with the bears, but after that he
seemed reluctant to continue.
"How I got back to you perhaps you already know?" he said.
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