his way. Pick up your ball, Gretel, and let your sock grow as
I talk. Opening your ears needn't shut your fingers. Saint Nicholas, you
must know, is a wonderful saint. He keeps his eye open for the good of
sailors, but he cares most of all for boys and girls. Well, once upon a
time, when he was living on the earth, a merchant of Asia sent his three
sons to a great city, called Athens, to get learning."

"Is Athens in Holland, Mother?" asked Gretel.

"I don't know, child. Probably it is."

"Oh, no, Mother," said Hans respectfully. "I had that in my geography
lessons long ago. Athens is in Greece."

"Well," resumed the mother, "what matter? Greece may belong to the king,
for aught we know. Anyhow, this rich merchant sent his sons to Athens.
While they were on their way, they stopped one night at a shabby inn,
meaning to take up their journey in the morning. Well, they had very
fine clothes--velvet and silk, it may be, such as rich folks' children
all over the world think nothing of wearing--and their belts, likewise,
were full of money. What did the wicked landlord do but contrive a
plan to kill the children and take their money and all their beautiful
clothes himself. So that night, when all the world was asleep, he got up
and killed the three young gentlemen."

Gretel clasped her hands and shuddered, but Hans tried to look as if
killing and murder were everyday matters to him.

"That was not the worst of it," continued Dame Brinker, knitting slowly
and trying to keep count of her stitches as she talked. "That was not
near the worst of it. The dreadful landlord went and cut up the young
gentlemen's bodies into little pieces and threw them into a great tub of
brine, intending to sell them for pickled pork!"

"Oh!" cried Gretel, horror-stricken, though she had often heard the
story before. Hans was still unmoved and seemed to think that pickling
was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

"Yes, he pickled them, and one might think that would have been the
last of the young gentlemen. But no. That night Saint Nicholas had
a wonderful vision, and in it he saw the landlord cutting up the
merchant's children. There was no need of his hurrying, you know, for
he was a saint, but in the morning he went to the inn and charged
the landlord with murder. Then the wicked landlord confessed it from
beginning to end and fell down on his knees, begging forgiveness. He
felt so sorry for what he had done that he asked