The boy almost slapped himself on the forehead and gave himself away when he realized what had punctured the giant’s thumb for the fourth time today; Mudferthing had gone short of thread for his scarf, reached (clumsily, as he did most things) for the spindle on the side of the loom, and poked himself.<\/i>
\n“It makes all kinds of sense,” thought the boy. “Spindles are always the secret to things like this — that’s what mother always told me,” and he dashed away a tear. “That’s how to hurt Mudferthing — I just have to get that spindle!”<\/i>
\nYou’ll notice that somewhere in the middle of that thought, the boy had decided to get the spindle himself.<\/i>
\nOf course, it wasn’t going to be easy.<\/i>
\n-=-=-=-
\nThe giant wove and sniffled, sniffled and wove, for most of the day, and the boy saw him prick himself no less than three other times while he watched.<\/i>
\n“It’s too bad he doesn’t work as a tailor,” he thought, “he’d have bled to death years ago and everyone would be happier.”<\/i>
\nFinally, the scarf was long enough for Mudferthing’s needs and the giant got to his feet and shuffled out of the room to his bed, each step bouncing the boy off the floor almost a foot (by this time, he had moved to hide behind the coal broom next to the fireplace, which was lucky).<\/i>
\nAfter Mudferthing had left, the boy waited. Waited some more. Counted to two hundred and, finally, started toward the loom.<\/i>
\nFirst, he climbed up to the top of the stool (which was still warm from the giant sitting on it all day and, unfortunately, still <\/i>smelled like a giant had sat on it all day).<\/i>
\nFrom there, he got hold of a piece of yarn dangling from the loom — there were quite a few of these, since Mudferthing hadn’t bothered cleaning up any of his mess — and used it to swing to the leg of the loom, where he could stand on one of the cross-pieces, just a few feet below the spindle.<\/i>
\nIt was the most beautiful thing the boy had ever seen (which was quite an accomplishment, considering all the treasures in the giant’s house), it looked like pure silver and shone like a full moon, coming to a sharp, giant-hide-piercing point at one end and a thicker, safer end where it was tied to the loom with a strip of rawhide.<\/i>
\nIt was this strip of rawhide that the boy started to work on, so he could get the spindle free and get out of the giant’s house.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The boy almost slapped himself on the forehead and gave himself away when he realized what had punctured the giant’s thumb for the fourth time today; Mudferthing had gone short of thread for his scarf, reached (clumsily, as he did most things) for the spindle on the side of the loom, and poked himself. “It … <\/p>\n