were so much the more beautiful. And if Curdie worked hard to get her
a
petticoat, she worked hard every day to get him comforts which he
would
have missed much more than she would a new petticoat even in winter.
Not
that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each
other:
that would have spoiled everything.
When left alone in the mine, Curdie always worked on for an hour or
two
first, following the lode which, according to Glump, would lead at last
into the deserted habitation. After that, he would set out on a
reconnoitering expedition. In order to manage this, or rather the
return
from it, better than the first time, he had bought a huge ball of fine
string, having learned the trick from Hop-o'-my-Thumb, whose
history his
mother had often told him. Not that Hop-o'-my-Thumb had ever used
a ball
of string--I should be sorry to be supposed so far out in my
classics--but the principle was the same as that of the pebbles. The end
of this string he fastened to his pickaxe, which figured no bad anchor,
Madhuri Noah
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