n which they lived
with the ease and comfort they had enjoyed in years gone by.

Once upon a time they were well off. They had enough to eat every day;
they lived in a comfortable house, surrounded by a nice garden, and
with plenty of kind neighbours around them. Then came a change. Their
father lost his money and was forced to leave this pleasant home, and
to earn bread for his family by becoming a charcoal-burner. Everything
now became different. Their house was a poor hut, composed of a few
logs of wood knocked roughly together. Dry black bread with,
occasionally, a few potatoes and lentils, and now and then, as a great
treat, a little porridge, formed their food. And to secure even this
they had to work hard from morning till night at their grimy trade.
But their father was brave and patient, and, while he was alive, the
wolf was kept some distance from the door. Besides, he could always
put some heart into the boys when they began to flag, by a joke or a
pleasant story. But he had died a year ago, owing to an accident he
met with while chopping wood for the furnace, and since his death
matters had been going from bad to worse with the family.

Fritz and Franz were, unfortunately, selfish, ill-conditioned lads,
who made the worst instead of the best of their troubles, and who
even grudged their mother and brother their share of the food. Hans,
on the other hand, was a capital fellow. He always had a cheerful
smile or word, and did all in his power to help his mother to keep in
good spirits. One day, at dinner time, they were startled by a knock
at the door. A knock at the door does not seem to us, perhaps, to be a
very startling thing, but they, as I said, so seldom saw a strange
face near their home that this knock at the door quite took away their
breath. When it came, Fritz and Franz were sitting over the fire
munching their last piece of black bread, and grumbling to each other
as was their custom, while Hans, seated on the bed beside his mother,
was telling her about what he saw and what he fancied when he was in
the forest. Fritz was the first to recover himself, and he growled
out, in his usual surly tone, "Come in." The door opened, and a
gentleman entered. From his green dress, the gun that he carried in
his hand, and the game-bag slung by his side, they saw that he was a
huntsman, who had been amusing himself with shooting the game with
which the forest abounded.

"Good morning, good friends," he said,