Brick Fairy Tales: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, and More (31 page)

Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, she was forced to do what the wicked witch ordered her.

And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing but crab-shells.

Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried, “Hansel, stretch out thy finger that I may feel if thou wilt soon be fat.”

Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel’s finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him.

When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still continued thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. “Hola, Gretel,” she cried to the girl, “be active, and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, to-morrow I will kill him, and cook him.”

Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down over her cheeks!

“Dear God, do help us,” she cried. “If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together.”

“Just keep thy noise to thyself,” said the old woman, “all that won’t help thee at all.”

Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water, and light the fire.

“We will bake first,” said the old woman, “I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.”

She pushed poor Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. “Creep in,” said the witch, “and see if it is properly heated, so that we can shut the bread in.”

And when once Gretel was inside, she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too.

But Gretel saw what she had in her mind, and said, “I do not know how I am to do it; how do you get in?”