And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Grethel got nothing but crab-shells.
Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried, “Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat.”
Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it; she thought it was Hansel's finger, and wondered why he grew no fatter. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still was thin, she could wait no longer.
“Come, Grethel,” she cried to the girl, “fly round and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, to-morrow I will kill him, and cook him.”
Ah, how sad was the poor little sister 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 eaten us, we should at any rate have died together.”
“Just keep your noise to yourself,” said the old woman; “all that won't help you at all.”
Early in the morning, Grethel had to go out and hang up the kettle with the water, and light the fire.
“We will bake first,” said the old woman. “I have already heated the oven, and got the dough ready.”
She pushed poor Grethel out to the oven, from which the flames of fire were already darting.