st, the father told the children
to collect wood, and he would make them a fire, so that they should not
be cold. So Hansel and Grethel gathered together quite a little mountain
of twigs. Then they set fire to them; and as the flame burnt up high,
the wife said, "Now, you children, lie down near the fire, and rest
yourselves, while we go into the forest and chop wood; when we are
ready, I will come and call you."

Hansel and Grethel sat down by the fire, and when it was noon, each ate
the piece of bread; and because they could hear the blows of an axe,
they thought their father was near: but it was not an axe, but a branch
which he had bound to a withered tree, so as to be blown to and fro by
the wind. They waited so long that at last their eyes closed from
weariness, and they fell fast asleep. When they awoke, it was quite
dark, and Grethel began to cry, "How shall we get out of the wood?" But
Hansel tried to comfort her by saying, "Wait a little while till the
moon rises, and then we will quickly find the way." The moon soon shone
forth, and Hansel, taking his sister's hand, followed the pebbles, which
glittered like new-coined silver pieces, and showed them the path. All
night long they walked on, and as day broke they came to their father's
house. They knocked at the door, and when the wife opened it, and saw
Hansel and Grethel, she exclaimed, "You wicked children! why did you
sleep so long in the wood? We thought you were never coming home again."
But their father was very glad, for it had grieved his heart to leave
them all alone.

Not long afterward there was again great scarcity in every corner of the
land; and one night the children overheard their stepmother saying to
their father, "Everything is again consumed; we have only half a loaf
left, and then the song is ended: the children must be sent away. We
will take them deeper into the wood, so that they may not find the way
out again; it is the only means of escape for us."

But her husband felt heavy at heart, and thought, "It were better to
share the last crust with the children." His wife, however, would listen
to nothing that he said, and scolded and reproached him without end.

He who says A must say B too; and he who consents the first time must
also the second.

The children, however, had heard the conversation as they lay awake, and
as soon as the old people went to sleep Hansel got up, intending to pick
up some pebbles as before; but the wife had