“I am with you,” John replied.  “Come Ralph, we’ll go together now and hereafter.  We need never be afraid to go where a Daniel leads.”

Little Redcap.[3]

BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM.

There was once a sweet little maid, much beloved by everybody, but most of all by her grandmother, who never knew how to make enough of her.  Once she sent her a little cap of red velvet, and as it was very becoming to her, and she never wore anything else, people called her Little Redcap.  One day her mother said to her: 

“Come, Little Redcap, here are some cakes and a flask of milk for you to take to your grandmother; she is weak and ill, and they will do her good.  Make haste and start before it grows hot, and walk properly and nicely, and don’t run, or you might fall and break the flask of milk and there would be none left for grandmother.  And when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, ‘Good morning’ instead of staring about you.”

“I will be sure to take care,” said Little Redcap to her mother, and gave her hand upon it.  Now the grandmother lived away in the wood, half an hour’s walk from the village, and when Little Redcap had reached the wood, she met the wolf; but as she did not know what a bad sort of animal he was, she did not feel frightened.

“Good day, Little Redcap,” said he.

“Thank you kindly, Wolf,” answered she.

“Where are you going so early, Little Redcap?”

“To my grandmother’s.”

“What are you carrying under your apron?”

“Cakes and milk; we baked yesterday; and my grandmother is very weak and ill, so they will do her good, and strengthen her.”

“Where does your grandmother live, Little Redcap?”

“A quarter of an hour’s walk from here; her house stands beneath the three oak trees, and you may know it by the hazel bushes,” said Little Redcap.  The wolf thought to himself: 

“That tender young thing would be a delicious morsel, and would taste better than the old one; I must manage somehow to get both of them.”

Then he walked beside little Redcap for a little while, and said to her softly and sweetly: 

“Little Redcap, just look at the pretty flowers that are growing all round you, and I don’t think you are listening to the song of the birds; you are posting along just as if you were going to school, and it is so delightful out here in the wood.”

Little Redcap glanced round her, and when she saw the sunbeams darting here and there through the trees, and lovely flowers everywhere, she thought to herself: 

“If I were to take a fresh nosegay to my grandmother, she would be very pleased, and it is so early in the day that I shall reach her in plenty of time;” and so she ran about in the wood, looking for flowers.  And as she picked one she saw a still prettier one a little farther off, and so she went farther and farther into the wood.  But the wolf went straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked at the door.