No one could imagine what it was. The stretching, ploughed fields on one side could hide nothing, the little path along the river-bank was clearly visible. As they approached the spot whence the crying had seemed to proceed, all was silent again. Gretel had heard of the magic flower Moly which screamed when it was pulled up by the roots; could there be screaming bushes as well? But the cries had seemed to come from the ploughed field, not from the river.
The sun had gone down, the air became darker and chillier. Suddenly the cry began again; this time it seemed to proceed directly from an empty tin lying near them on the ploughed field, broken and upside down. The children stared with wide-open eyes at this mysterious old tin: they could not make head or tail of it, of the tin I mean.
Then mother stooped and picked up a piece of egg-shell coloured a beautiful red, that lay on the path, and held it up triumphantly. "What do you say to that?" she asked the children.
"Why, it is a piece of a broken Easter egg, how queer," said the children, "such a long time before Easter too."
"Do you know what I think?" said mother, almost in a whisper. "I think the Easter Hare has been along here, perhaps he lives here, and that tin hides the entrance to his house."
"Let's go and see," said the children. But at this moment the cries broke out again, coming just from their very feet it seemed. They sounded so uncanny that the children did not dare to move, or to investigate the tin.
"If you disturb him now, you certainly will not get any Easter eggs this year," said mother. "He's sure to be very busy painting them just now, I dare say he cries like that to frighten you away from his home."
"I don't think so," said father, "he can hide and hold his tongue if he wants to; it is the little baby hares who make that noise; but just as we pass by, the mother hare manages to keep them quiet for a few minutes by giving them something to put in their little mouths, I expect."
"I would like to see them," said Barbara.
"No, come along, Barbara," said Gretel, "leave them alone, it would be horrid to get no Easter eggs wouldn't it?"