“You children!” said the Bear, before he entered, “come and knock the snow off my coat.” And they fetched their brooms and swept him clean. Then he stretched himself before the fire and grumbled out his satisfaction, and in a little while the children became familiar enough to play tricks with the unwieldy animal. They pulled his long shaggy skin, set their feet upon his back and rolled him to and fro, and even ventured to beat him with a hazel-stick, laughing when he grumbled. The Bear bore all their tricks good-temperedly, and if they hit too hard he cried out,—
“Leave me my life, you children,
Snow-White and Rose-Red,
Or you’ll never wed.”
When bedtime came and the others were gone, the Mother said to the Bear, “You may sleep here on the hearth if you like, and then you will be safely protected from the cold and bad weather.”
As soon as day broke the two children let the Bear out again, and he trotted away over the snow, and ever afterward he came every evening at a certain hour. He would lie down on the hearth and allow the children to play with him as much as they liked, till by degrees they became so accustomed to him that the door was left unbolted till their black friend arrived.
But as soon as spring returned, and everything out of doors was green again, the Bear one morning told Snow-White that he must leave her, and could not return during the whole summer. “Where are you going, then, dear Bear?” asked Snow-White. “I am obliged to go into the forest and guard my treasures from the evil Dwarfs; for in winter, when the ground is hard, they are obliged to keep in their holes and cannot work through; but now, since the sun has thawed the earth and warmed it, the Dwarfs pierce through and steal all they can find; and what has once passed into their hands, and gets concealed by them in their caves, is not easily brought to light.”
Snow-White, however, was very sad at the departure of the Bear, and opened the door so hesitatingly, that when he pressed through it he left behind on the latch a piece of his hairy coat; and through the hole which was made in his coat Snow-White fancied she saw the glittering of gold, but she was not quite certain of it. The Bear, however, ran hastily away, and was soon hidden behind the trees.
Some time afterward the Mother sent the children into the woods to gather sticks, and while doing so they came to a tree which was lying across the path, on the trunk of which something kept bobbing up and down from the grass, and they could not imagine what it was. When they came nearer they saw a Dwarf, with an old wrinkled face and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of this beard was fixed in a split of the tree, and the little man kept jumping about like a dog tied by a chain, for he did not know how to free himself. He glared at the Maidens with his red, fiery eyes, and exclaimed, “Why do you stand there? Are you going to pass without offering me any assistance?”
“What have you done, little man?” asked Rose-Red.
“You stupid, gazing goose!” exclaimed he, “I wanted to have split the tree in order to get a little wood for my kitchen, for the little food which we use is soon burnt up with great faggots, not like what you rough greedy people devour! I had driven the wedge in properly, and everything was going on well, when the smooth wood flew upward, and the tree closed so suddenly together, that I could not draw my beautiful beard out; and here it sticks, and I cannot get away. There, don’t laugh, you milk-faced things! Are you dumbfounded?”
The children took all the pains they could to pull the Dwarf’s beard out, but without success. “I will run and fetch some help,” cried Rose-Red at length.