he children
out. What shall we do? Do you know anything more about that awful
ogress?" she demanded of her husband, trembling fit to die.

An old witch within that wood doth dwell,
And she's in league with the powers of hell.
At midnight hour,
When nobody knows,
Away to the witches' dance she goes.

Up the chimney they fly,
On a broomstick they hie,
Over hill and dale,
O'er ravine and vale,
Through the midnight air
They gallop full tear,
On a broomstick, on a broomstick
Hop, hop, hop, hop, the witches!

And by day, they say,
She stalks around,
With a crinching, crunching, munching sound.
And children plump, and tender to eat,
She lures with magic gingerbread sweet.
On evil bent,
With fell intent,
She lures the children, poor little things,
In the oven hot,
She pops the lot.
She shuts the door down,
Until they're done brown--all those gingerbread children.

"Oh, my soul!" the poor woman shrieked. "Come! We must lose no time:
Haensel and Gretel may be baked to cinders by this time," and out she
ran, screaming, and followed by the father, to look for those poor
children.

ACT II

After wandering all the afternoon in the great forest, and filling
their basket with strawberries, Haensel and Gretel came to a beautiful
mossy tree-trunk where they concluded to sit down and rest before
going home. They had wandered so far that they really didn't know
that they were lost, but as a matter of fact they had no notion of
where they were. Without knowing it, they had gone as far as the
Ilsenstein, and that magic place was just behind them, and sunset had
already come. As usual, the gay little girl was singing while she
twined a garland of wild flowers. Haensel was still looking for berries
in the thicket near. Pretty soon they heard a cuckoo call, and they
answered the call gaily. The cuckoo answered, and the calls between
them became lively.

"There is the bird that eats up other birds' eggs," Gretel said,
poking a strawberry into Haensel's mouth; and Haensel sucked the berry
up as if it were an egg. Then in his turn, he poked a berry into
Gretel's mouth. This was very good fun, especially as yet they had had
nothing to eat. They began to feed each other with berries, till
before they knew it the full basket was empty.

Foolish children, who by their