an to cut wood, and the
children to gather up sticks to make fagots. Their father and mother,
seeing them busy at their work, got away from them unbeknown and then
all at once ran as fast as they could through a winding by-path.

When the children found they were alone, they began to cry with all
their might. Little Thumb let them cry on, knowing very well how to get
home again; for, as he came, he had dropped the little white pebbles he
had in his pockets all along the way. Then he said to them, "Do not be
afraid, my brothers,--father and mother have left us here, but I will
lead you home again; only follow me."

They followed, and he brought them home by the very same way they had
come into the forest. They dared not go in at first, but stood outside
the door to listen to what their father and mother were saying.

The very moment the fagot-maker and his wife reached home the lord of
the manor sent them ten crowns, which he had long owed them, and which
they never hoped to see. This gave them new life, for the poor people
were dying of hunger. The fagot-maker sent his wife to the butcher's at
once. As it was a long while since they had eaten, she bought thrice as
much meat as was needed for supper for two people. When they had eaten,
the woman said:--

"Alas! where are our poor children now? They would make a good feast of
what we have left here; it was you, William, who wished to lose them. I
told you we should repent of it. What are they now doing in the forest?
Alas! perhaps the wolves have already eaten them up; you are very
inhuman thus to have lost your children."

The fagot-maker grew at last quite out of patience, for she repeated
twenty times that he would repent of it, and that she was in the right.
He threatened to beat her if she did not hold her tongue. The
fagot-maker was, perhaps, more sorry than his wife, but she teased him
so he could not endure it. She wept bitterly, saying:--

"Alas! where are my children now, my poor children?"

She said this once so very loud that the children, who were at the door,
heard her and cried out all together:--

"Here we are! Here we are!"

She ran immediately to let them in, and said as she embraced them:--

"How happy I am to see you again, my dear children; you are very tired
and very hungry, and, my poor Peter, you are covered with mud. Come in
and let me clean you."

Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved more than all the rest, because
he was red hai