“Oh, sir,” cried the maiden, “I can never thank you! I am the only child of my parents, and no one would have been left to care for them if I had been the monster's victim.”
“Do not thank me,” answered the lad. “Thank the brave Shippeitaro. It was he who sprang upon the great Tomcat and chased away the Phantom Creatures.”
HANSEL AND GRETHEL
BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM (ADAPTED)
Hard-by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his two children and his wife who was their stepmother. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Grethel. The wood-cutter had little to bite and to break, and once when a great famine fell on the land he could no longer get daily bread. Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his trouble, he groaned, and said to his wife:—
“What is to become of us? How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves?”
“I'll tell you what, husband,” answered the woman; “early to-morrow morning we will take the children out into the woods where it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one piece of bread more, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them.”
“No, wife,” said the man, “I will not do that; how can I bear to leave my children alone in the woods?—the wild beasts would soon come and tear them to pieces.”
“Oh, you fool!” said she. “Then we must all four die of hunger; you may as well plane the planks for our coffins.” And she left him no peace until he said he would do as she wished.