and keep some for the afternoon." Grethel took the bread, and carried it in her apron, because Hansel had his pocket full of stones; and they made their way into the wood.
After they had walked on for a time, Hansel stood still and looked towards home; and after a while he turned again, and so on several times. Then his father said, "Hansel, why do you keep turning and lagging about so? move on a little faster." "Ah, father," answered Hansel, "I am stopping to look at my white cat, that sits on the roof, and wants to say good-bye to me." "You little fool!" said his mother, "that is not your cat; it is the morning sun shining on the chimney-top." Now Hansel had not been looking at the cat, but had all the while been lingering behind, to drop from his pocket one white pebble after another along the road.
When they came into the midst of the wood the woodman said, "Run about, children, and pick up some wood, and I will make a fire to keep us all warm." So they piled up a little heap of brushwood, and set it on fire; and as the flames burnt bright, the mother said, "Now set yourselves by the fire, and go to sleep, while we go and cut wood in the forest; be sure you wait till we come again and fetch you." Hansel and Grethel sat by the fireside till the afternoon, and then each of them ate their piece of bread. They fancied the woodman was still in the wood, because they thought they heard the blows of his axe; but it was a bough, which he had cunningly hung upon a tree, in such a way that the wind blew it backwards and forwards against the other boughs; and so it sounded as the axe does in cutting. Thus they waited till evening: but the woodman and his wife kept away, and no one came to fetch them.
