for an afternoon walk in the fields with
their father and mother. It was getting late when they returned; white
mists were rising over the River Nidda, until the trees in the distance
looked like ghosts. There was a strange feeling in the air, as if
something were going to happen; the children felt excited without
knowing why. Then they suddenly saw a bright light not far off from
them, along the path by the river. It seemed to revolve, then to change
its position, then it went out altogether. They thought they saw the
crouching form of a man beside the light; indeed father said that it was
probably a labourer lighting his pipe; but, when they looked again, it
was unmistakably a bush that had taken a human form in the twilight. The
children instinctively fell back nearer the grown-ups. There was
something creepy about that bush.

Suddenly a weird cry, shrill and piercing, broke the silence. It seemed
to come from just in front of them, and sounded awful; as if a baby were
being murdered. The children clutched hold of father's hand. "It was all
right as long as father and mother were there," they thought with the
touching confidence of children.

No one could imagine what it was. The stretching, ploughed fields on one
side could hide nothing, the little path along the river-bank was
clearly visible. As they approached the spot whence the crying had
seemed to proceed, all was silent again. Gretel had heard of the magic
flower Moly which screamed when it was pulled up by the roots; could
there be screaming bushes as well? But the cries had seemed to come from
the ploughed field, not from the river.

The sun had gone down, the air became darker and chillier. Suddenly the
cry began again; this time it seemed to proceed directly from an empty
tin lying near them on the ploughed field, broken and upside down. The
children stared with wide-open eyes at this mysterious old tin: they
could not make head or tail of it, of the tin I mean.

Then mother stooped and picked up a piece of egg-shell coloured a
beautiful red, that lay on the path, and held it up triumphantly. "What
do you say to that?" she asked the children.

"Why, it is a piece of a broken Easter egg, how queer," said the
children, "such a long time before Easter too."

"Do you know what I think?" said mother, almost in a whisper. "I think
the Easter Hare has been along here, perhaps he lives here, and that tin
hides the entrance to his house."

"Let's go and s