There she sat and wept , because she was so ugly that the cockchafer would have nothing to do with her ; and yet she was the most beautiful creature imaginable , so soft and delicate , like the loveliest rose-leaf . The whole summer poor little Thumbelina lived alone in the great wood . She plaited a bed for herself of blades of grass , and hung it up under a clover-leaf , so that she was protected from the rain ; she gathered honey from the flowers for food , and drank the dew on the leaves every morning . Thus the summer and autumn passed , but then came winter -- the long , cold winter . All the birds who had sung so sweetly about her had flown away ; the trees shed their leaves , the flowers died ; the great clover-leaf under which she had lived curled up , and nothing remained of it but the withered stalk . She was terribly cold , for her clothes were ragged , and she herself was so small and thin . Poor little Thumbelina ! she would surely be frozen to death . It began to snow , and every snow-flake that fell on her was to her as a whole shovelful thrown on one of us , for we are so big , and she was only an inch high . She wrapt herself round in a dead leaf , but it was torn in the middle and gave her no warmth ; she was trembling with cold . Just outside the wood where she was now living lay a great corn-field . But the corn had been gone a long time ; only the dry , bare stubble was left standing in the frozen ground . This made a forest for her to wander about in . All at once she came across the door of a field-mouse , who had a little hole under a corn-stalk . There the mouse lived warm and snug , with a store-room full of corn , a splendid kitchen and dining-room . Poor little Thumbelina went up to the door and begged for a little piece of barley , for she had not had anything to eat for the last two days . ` Poor little creature ! ' said the field-mouse , for she was a kind-hearted old thing at the bottom . ` Come into my warm room and have some dinner with me . ' As Thumbelina pleased her , she said : ` As far as I am concerned you may spend the winter with me ; but you must keep my room clean and tidy , and tell me stories , for I like that very much . '
And XXXXX did all that the kind old field-mouse asked , and did it remarkably well too .
Thumbelina clover-leaf cockchafer corn-stalk left morning rose-leaf shovelful stalk store-room