here and has brought something back with her for each of you.”  But the wolf had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them and cried, “We will not open the door; our mother has not black feet like thee; thou art the wolf!” Then the wolf ran to a baker and said, “I have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.”  And when the baker had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said, “Strew some white meal over my feet for me.”  The miller thought to himself, “The wolf wants to deceive some one,” and refused; but the wolf said, “If thou wilt not do it, I will devour thee.”  Then the miller was afraid, and made his paws white for him.  Truly men are like that.

So now the wretch went for the third time to the house door, knocked at it, and said, “Open the door for me, children; your dear little mother has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the forest with her.”  The little kids cried, “First show us thy paws that we may know if thou art our dear little mother.”  Then he put his paws in through the window, and when the kids saw that they were white, they believed that all he said was true, and opened the door.  But who should come in but the wolf!  They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves.  One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the sixth under the washing-bowl, and the seventh into the clock-case.  But the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony; one after the other he swallowed them down his throat.  The youngest in the clock-case was the only one he did not find.  When the wolf had satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a tree in the green meadow outside, and went to sleep.  Soon afterward the old goat came home again from the forest.  Ah! what a sight she saw there!  The house door stood wide open.  The table, chairs, and benches were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts and pillows were pulled off the bed.  She sought her children, but they were nowhere to be found.  She called them one after another by name, but no one answered.  At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice cried, “Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.”  She took the kid out, and it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others.  Then you may imagine how she wept over her poor children.

At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her.  When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree snoring so loud that the branches shook.  She looked at him on every side and saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged body.  “Ah, heavens!” said she, “is it possible that my poor children, whom he has swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?” Then the kid had to run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut open the monster’s stomach.  Hardly had she