Page 120 [120]
08 GRIMM S FAIRY TALES.
go out and get more flint stones, as he did before, but the wife
had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out ; but he
comforted his little sister, and said,
“Don’t cry, Grethel, and go to sleep quietly, and God will
help us."
Early the next morning the wife came and pulled the
children out of bed. She gave them each a little piece of bread
—less than before; and on the way to the wood Hansel
crumbled the bread in his pocket, and often stopped to throw
a crumb on the ground.
‘Hansel, what are you stopping behind and staring for?”
said the father.
‘“T am looking at my little pigeon sitting on the roof, to say
good-bye to me, answered Hansel.
“You fool,” said the wife, “that is no pigeon, but the
morning sun shining on the chimney pots.”
Hansel went on as before, and strewed bread crumbs all
along the road.
The woman led the children far into the wood, where they
had never been before in all their lives. And again there was
a large fire made, and the mother said,
c Sit still there, you children, and when you are tired you
can go to sleep ; we are going into the forest to cut wood, and
in the evening, when we are ready to go home we will come
and fetch you.”
So when noon came Grethel shared her bread with
Hansel, who had strewed his along the road. ‘Then they went
to sleep, and the evening passed, and no one came for the
poor children. When they awoke it was dark night, and
Hansel comforted his little sister, and said,
“Wait a little, Grethel, until the moon gets up, then we
shall be able to see the way home by the crumbs of bread
that I have scattered along it.”
So when the moon rose they got up, but they could find
no crumbs of bread, for the birds of the woods and of the
fields had come and picked them up. Hansel thought they
might find the way all the same, but they could not. ‘They
went on all that night, and the next day from the morning until
the evening, but they could not find the way out of the wood,
and they were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but the
esis