en the parents had gone to sleep he got up, put on his
little coat, opened the back door, and slipped out. The moon was shining
brightly, and the white flints that lay in front of the house glistened
like pieces of silver. Hansel stooped and filled the little pocket of
his coat as full as it would hold. Then he went back again, and said to
Grethel,

"Be easy, dear little sister, and go to sleep quietly; God will not
forsake us," and laid himself down again in his bed.

When the day was breaking, and before the sun had risen, the wife came
and awakened the two children, saying,

"Get up, you lazy bones; we are going into the forest to cut wood."

Then she gave each of them a piece of bread, and said,

"That is for dinner, and you must not eat it before then, for you will
get no more."

Grethel carried the bread under her apron, for Hansel had his pockets
full of the flints. Then they set off all together on their way to the
forest. When they had gone a little way Hansel stood still and looked
back towards the house, and this he did again and again, till his father
said to him,

"Hansel, what are you looking at? take care not to forget your legs."

"O father," said Hansel, "I am looking at my little white kitten, who is
sitting up on the roof to bid me good-bye."

"You young fool," said the woman, "that is not your kitten, but the
sunshine on the chimney-pot."

Of course Hansel had not been looking at his kitten, but had been taking
every now and then a flint from his pocket and dropping it on the road.

When they reached the middle of the forest the father told the children
to collect wood to make a fire to keep them warm; and Hansel and Grethel
gathered brushwood enough for a little mountain; and it was set on fire,
and when the flame was burning quite high the wife said,

"Now lie down by the fire and rest yourselves, you children, and we will
go and cut wood; and when we are ready we will come and fetch you."

So Hansel and Grethel sat by the fire, and at noon they each ate their
pieces of bread. They thought their father was in the wood all the time,
as they seemed to hear the strokes of the axe: but really it was only a
dry branch hanging to a withered tree that the wind moved to and fro. So
when they had stayed there a long time their eyelids closed with
weariness, and they fell fast asleep. When at last they woke it was
night, and Grethel began to cry, and said,

"How shall we ever get out of this