wood?" But Hansel comforted her,
saying,

"Wait a little while longer, until the moon rises, and then we can
easily find the way home."

And when the full moon got up Hansel took his little sister by the hand,
and followed the way where the flint stones shone like silver, and
showed them the road. They walked on the whole night through, and at the
break of day they came to their father's house. They knocked at the
door, and when the wife opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Grethel
she said,

"You naughty children, why did you sleep so long in the wood? we thought
you were never coming home again!"

But the father was glad, for it had gone to his heart to leave them both
in the woods alone.

Not very long after that there was again great scarcity in those parts,
and the children heard their mother say at night in bed to their father,

"Everything is finished up; we have only half a loaf, and after that the
tale comes to an end. The children must be off; we will take them
farther into the wood this time, so that they shall not be able to find
the way back again; there is no other way to manage."

The man felt sad at heart, and he thought,

"It would better to share one's last morsel with one's children."

But the wife would listen to nothing that he said, but scolded and
reproached him. He who says A must say B too, and when a man has given
in once he has to do it a second time.

But the children were not asleep, and had heard all the talk. When the
parents had gone to sleep Hansel got up to go out and get more flint
stones, as he did before, but the wife had locked the door, and Hansel
could not get out; but he comforted his little sister, and said,

"Don't cry, Grethel, and go to sleep quietly, and God will help us."

Early the next morning the wife came and pulled the children out of bed.
She gave them each a little piece of bread--less than before; and on the
way to the wood Hansel crumbled the bread in his pocket, and often
stopped to throw a crumb on the ground.

"Hansel, what are you stopping behind and staring for?" said the father.

"I am looking at my little pigeon sitting on the roof, to say good-bye
to me," answered Hansel.

"You fool," said the wife, "that is no pigeon, but the morning sun
shining on the chimney pots."

Hansel went on as before, and strewed bread crumbs all along the road.

The woman led the children far into the wood, where they had never been
before in all their li