“He didn’t eat me,” said a little voice in the clock-case.
The mother goat opened the door of the clock-case and the littlest kid of all hopped out.
“But why were you in the clock-case? And what has happened?” asked the mother.
Then the little kid told her all about how the wolf had come there with his buttery voice and his whitened paws, and how they had let him in, and how he had swallowed all four of the other little kids, so that he alone was left.
After the mother goat had heard the story she went to the door and looked about. Then she heard the old wolf snoring where he lay asleep under the nut-trees in the shade of the rocks.
“That must be the old wolf snoring,” said the mother goat, “and he cannot be far away. Do not make a noise, my little kid, but come with me.”
The mother goat stole over to the heap of rocks, and the little kid followed her on tiptoes. She peeped and peered, and there lay the old wolf so fast asleep that nothing less than an earthquake would have wakened him.
“Now, my little kid,” whispered the mother, “run straight home again as fast as you can, and fetch me my shears and a needle and some stout thread.”
This the little kid did, and he ran so softly over the grass that not even a mouse could have heard him.
As soon as he returned the mother goat crept up to the old wolf, and with the sharp shears she slit his hide up just as though it had been a sack. Out popped one little kid, and out popped another little kid, and another, and another, and there they all were, just as safe and sound as though they had never been swallowed. And all this while the old wolf never stirred nor stopped snoring.