At last, when she came to the youngest, a tiny voice cried:
‘I am here, dear mother, hidden in the clock-case.’
She brought him out, and he told her that the Wolf had come and devoured all the others.
You may imagine how she wept over her children.
At last, in her grief, she went out, and the youngest Kid ran by her side. When they went into the meadow, there lay the Wolf under a tree, making the branches shake with his snores. They examined him from every side, and they could plainly see movements within his distended body.
‘Ah, heavens!’ thought the Goat, ‘is it possible that my poor children whom he ate for his supper, should be still alive?’
She sent the Kid running to the house to fetch scissors, needles, and thread. Then she cut a hole in the monster’s side, and, hardly had she begun, when a Kid popped out its head, and as soon as the hole was big enough, all six jumped out, one after the other, all alive, and without having suffered the least injury, for, in his greed, the monster had swallowed them whole. You may imagine the mother’s joy. She hugged them, and skipped about like a tailor on his wedding day. At last she said:
‘Go and fetch some big stones, children, and we will fill up the brute’s body while he is asleep.’
Then the seven Kids brought a lot of stones, as fast as they could carry them, and stuffed the Wolf with them till he could hold no more. The old mother quickly sewed him up, without his having noticed anything, or even moved.
At last, when the Wolf had had his sleep out, he got up, and, as the stones made him feel very thirsty, he wanted to go to a spring to drink. But as soon as he moved the stones began to roll about and rattle inside him. Then he cried—
That sets my stomach grumbling?
I thought ’twas six Kids, flesh and bones,
Now find it’s nought but rolling stones.’
