“Be not afraid, brothers; father and mother have left us here, but I will lead you home again, only follow me.”

They did so, and he brought them home by the very same way they came into the forest.  They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.

The very moment the fagot-maker and his wife reached home the lord of the manor sent them ten crowns, which he had owed them a long while, and which they never expected.  This gave them new life, for the poor people were almost famished.  The fagot-maker sent his wife immediately to the butcher’s.  As it was a long while since they had eaten a bit, she bought thrice as much meat as would sup two people.  When they had eaten, the woman said: 

“Alas! where are now our poor children? they would make a good feast of what we have left here; but it was you, William, who had a mind to lose them:  I told you we should repent of it.  What are they now doing in the forest?  Alas! dear God, the wolves have perhaps already eaten them up; thou art very inhuman thus to have lost thy children.”

The fagot-maker grew at last quite out of patience, for she repeated it above twenty times, that they should repent of it, and that she was in the right of it for so saying.  He threatened to beat her if she did not hold her tongue.  It was not that the fagot-maker was not, perhaps, more vexed than his wife, but that she teased him, and that he was of the humor of a great many others, who love wives to speak well, but think those very importunate who are continually doing so.  She was half-drowned in tears, crying out: 

“Alas! where are now my children, my poor children?”

She spoke this so very loud that the children, who were at the gate, began to cry out all together: 

“Here we are!  Here we are!”

She ran immediately to open the door, and said, hugging them: 

“I am glad to see you, my dear children; you are very hungry and weary; and my poor Peter, thou art horribly bemired; come in and let me clean thee.”

Now, you must know that Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved above all the rest, because he was somewhat carroty, as she herself was.  They sat down to supper, and ate with such a good appetite as pleased both father and mother, whom they acquainted how frightened they were in the forest, speaking almost always all together.  The good folks were extremely glad to see their children once more at home, and this joy continued while the ten crowns lasted; but, when the money was all gone, they fell again into their former uneasiness, and resolved to lose them again; and, that they might be the surer of doing it, to carry them to a much greater distance than before.

They could not talk of this so secretly but they were overheard by Little Thumb, who made account to get out of this difficulty as well as the former; but, though he got up very early in the morning to go and pick up some little pebbles, he was disappointed, for he found the house-door double-locked, and was at a stand what to do.  When their father had given each of them a piece of bread for their breakfast, Little Thumb fancied he might make use of this instead of the pebbles by throwing it in little bits all along the way they should pass; and so he put the bread in his pocket.