rward the Mother sent the children into the woods to
gather sticks, and while doing so they came to a tree which was lying
across the path, on the trunk of which something kept bobbing up and
down from the grass, and they could not imagine what it was. When
they came nearer they saw a Dwarf, with an old wrinkled face and a
snow-white beard a yard long. The end of this beard was fixed in a
split of the tree, and the little man kept jumping about like a dog
tied by a chain, for he did not know how to free himself. He glared at
the Maidens with his red, fiery eyes, and exclaimed, "Why do you stand
there? Are you going to pass without offering me any assistance?"

"What have you done, little man?" asked Rose-Red.

"You stupid, gazing goose!" exclaimed he, "I wanted to have split the
tree in order to get a little wood for my kitchen, for the little food
which we use is soon burnt up with great faggots, not like what you
rough greedy people devour! I had driven the wedge in properly, and
everything was going on well, when the smooth wood flew upward, and the
tree closed so suddenly together, that I could not draw my beautiful
beard out; and here it sticks, and I cannot get away. There, don't
laugh, you milk-faced things! Are you dumbfounded?"

The children took all the pains they could to pull the Dwarf's beard
out, but without success. "I will run and fetch some help," cried
Rose-Red at length.

"Crack-brained sheep's-head that you are!" snarled the Dwarf; "what are
you going to call other people for? You are two too many now for me;
can you think of nothing else?"

"Don't be impatient," replied Snow-White: "I have thought of
something;" and pulling her scissors out of her pocket, she cut off the
end of the beard. As soon as the Dwarf found himself at liberty he
snatched up his sack, which laid between the roots of the tree filled
with gold, and, throwing it over his shoulder, marched off, grumbling,
and groaning, and crying "Stupid people! to cut off a piece of my
beautiful beard. Plague take you!" And away he went without once
looking at the children.

Some time afterward Snow-White and Rose-Red went a-fishing and as they
neared the pond they saw something like a great locust hopping about
on the bank, as if going to jump into the water. They ran up and
recognized the Dwarf; "What are you after?" asked Rose-Red; "you will
fall into the water."

"I am not quite such a simpleton as that," replied the Dwarf; "but do