It happened that the ground was damp and the uncle saw the prints of their feet from the door to the road and along the road to the path in the woods, and then the soft leaves and moss did not show where they went.
Thinking they had run away and gone into the woods, their uncle hurried along, calling their names at the top of his voice.
As he came near the Gingerbread Rock the children heard him and began to tremble. “It is uncle,” said Hans. “He will be very angry because we have not done our work.”
“Sit still,” said the old man as the children started to leave the table, and, taking his pipe, the old man sat down under a little opening like a tiny window and began to smoke.
Soon the children could hear their uncle climbing up outside, and they knew he had seen the smoke just as they had the night before, and was trying to look in.
Then they heard him tumble just as Lisbeth had when the Gingerbread Rock broke off in her hands, and they knew he had discovered it was good to eat, for all was still for a few minutes.
Nothing was heard again for a long time, and then the sound of some one breaking off big pieces was heard, and when Hans and Lisbeth climbed up, as the old man told them to do, and looked out of the opening they saw their uncle with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
He was breaking off big pieces of gingerbread and filling the barrow as fast as he could.
But when he had filled it he could not move it, for it was no longer gingerbread, but stone he had to carry.
The old man motioned to the children to keep quiet, and he opened a door they had not noticed and went out.