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adapted by Rick Walton
Last Sunday morning at six o'clock in the evening I was sailing over the tops of the mountains in my little boat. Just then I met two men on horseback riding a goat. I asked them, "Could you tell me if I drowned last Saturday in a shower of feathers?" They said they did not know, but if I went to see Sir Gammer Vans he could tell me all about it.
"How will I know where he lives?" I asked.
"That's easy," they said. "He lives in a brick house made of bread. The house is all by itself in the middle of sixty or seventy others just like it."
"Oh, nothing in the world is easier," I said.
"Nothing can be easier," they said, so I went on my way.
Now Sir Gammer Vans was a giant, and a bottlemaker. And like all giants who are bottlemakers Sir Gammer Vans lived in a thumb- sized bottle kept by his front door. He popped out of the bottle when I knocked on his window.
"How do you do?" he said.
"Very well, I thank you," I said.
"Have some breakfast with me?"
"With all my heart," I said.
So he gave me a slice of milk, and a cup of cold beef. A little dog under the table picked up all the crumbs.
"Sell him," I said.
"No, don't sell him," he said. "He killed a tomato yesterday. And if you don't believe me, I'll show you the tomato alive in a basket."
So he took me into his garden. In one corner there was a fox hatching eagle's eggs. In another corner there was an iron apple- tree. It was covered with pears and pennies. In the third corner there was the tomato which the dog killed yesterday, alive in the basket.
Then he took me into the park to show me his carrots. I remembered that the king had told me to shoot some carrots for his dinner. So I set fire to my bow, put my arrow in my pocket, and shot at the carrots. I broke seventeen carrots in half, and twenty-one and a half in quarters. But my arrow passed clean through them without ever touching them. And the worst was I lost my arrow. However, I found it again in a hollow tree. I felt it. It felt clammy. I smelled it. It smelled like honey. "Oh, ho," I said. "I've found a bees' nest."
But just then out flew a flock of potatoes. I shot at them. Some say I killed eighteen, but I'm sure I killed thirty-six. I also killed a dead fish which was flying over the bridge. I took the fish home and made him into the best apple-pie I ever tasted.
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