The first son nodded, but kept his eyes fixed anxiously on the Old Woman.  She was glaring at a girl ascending the ladder.  “Look sharp where you put those things, now,” she was saying.  “I’ll be inside in a minute, and if you haven’t put them away properly I’ll know the reason why!”

Everychild felt that he was fully justified in saying (to the first son) “She seems to be pretty bad, doesn’t she!”

The first son fairly jumped.  “Not so loud!” he whispered.  “She might hear you.”

The Old Woman really had heard.  She stared at her first son in a terrible manner.  “So you’ve come, have you?” she exclaimed.  “And I suppose you’ll tell me you’ve been working hard all day?”

“Yes, mother,” replied the first son, “We’ve carried more fagots than you ever saw.  Such fine fagots!  Didn’t we?” He turned to the second son to have his report verified.

“You wouldn’t believe how many fine fagots we carried,” declared the second son.

The other sons began to appear one by one, now that the first shock of battle was over.  They all stared up at the Old Woman as if they were prepared to run if she so much as sneezed.

“Well, you know what’s coming to you now,” said the Old Woman.  “Come on, all of you!”

They all began to make wry faces.  “If we could only have some bread with it, mother!” pleaded the first son.

“You’ll take what’s offered you!” exclaimed the Old Woman grimly.

“And if you wouldn’t whip us to-night, mother—­anyway, not so soundly,” said the second son.

To this the Old Woman retorted:  “Who does the whipping around here, I’d like to know?  Come here this instant!”

It seemed that there was to be a brief respite, however; for the Old Woman turned to the steaming pot and began testing its contents with great seriousness, lifting the ladle to her lips again and again, and looking abstractedly far away into the forest.

In the meantime more of the children gathered around Everychild.  A few of the girls now joined their brothers.  They looked at Everychild with unconcealed admiration.

“What do you suppose she is going to do to you?” asked Everychild of the group about him.

The first son replied to this:  “I should think you’d know.  Haven’t you been told how she whips us something terrible?”

Everychild inquired in amazement:  “All of you?”

The first daughter now spoke.  “All of us,” she said.  “Every last one of us.  That’s just before she puts us to bed, you know.”

“Of course—­I remember now,” said Everychild.  “She ’whips you all soundly.’”

“That’s no word for it,” declared the first son.  “You know she’s had an awful lot of experience all these years.  And there’s so many of us.”

He concluded this sentence in so meek a manner that Everychild exclaimed indignantly, “I think it ought to be stopped.  If I were you . . . did you ever try hiding her whip?”