Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/114

100 While the good man was at work in the fields his son used regularly to bring him his breakfast. But it was a laughable sight to see our tiny Grain-o'-Maize trudging along with the basket on the top of him, for it covered him entirely, and you could not see what made it move as it came tilting and dancing merrily down the road.

The father was in constant fear lest some accident should happen to his tiny son, and repeatedly cautioned him not to go too near the oxen that were working in the fields. But the droll little fellow was always full of tricks and games, and heeded not his father's warnings.

One day, after he had brought the breakfast to his father and was more than usually frolicsome, he climbed up a stalk of Indian corn that grew in the field, and which still had some of its long leaves upon it. An ox that stood near took the tiny little fellow for a grain of Indian corn, and ate him up. When the time drew near for the good man to leave off work for the day, he looked about for his little son, and not seeing him anywhere near, he called out several times, but no answer came to his repeated calls. This so alarmed him that he made a thorough search for him under every leaf and blade of grass in the field, and not finding him he began to fear some accident had befallen him. At last, happening to come near the ox that had swallowed the child,