ACT I
Once upon a time, in a far-off forest of Germany, there lived two little children, Haensel and Gretel, with their father and mother. The father and mother made brooms for a living, and the children helped them by doing the finishing of the brooms.
The broom business had been very, very bad for a long time, and the poor father and mother were nearly discouraged. The father, however, was a happy-go-lucky man who usually accepted his misfortunes easily. It was fair-time in a village near the broom-makers' hut, and one morning the parents started off to see if their luck wouldn't change. They left the children at home, charging them to be industrious and orderly in behaviour till they returned, and Haensel in particular was to spend his time finishing off some brooms.
Now it is the hardest thing in the world for little children to stick to a long task, so that which might have been expected happened: Haensel and Gretel ceased after a little to work, and began to think how hungry they were. Haensel was seated in the doorway, working at the brooms; brooms were hanging up on the walls of the poor little cottage; and Gretel sat knitting a stocking near the fire. Being a gay little girl, she sang to pass the time:
[Music:
Susy little Susy, pray what is the news? The geese are running bare foot because they've no shoes! The cobbler has leather and plenty to spare, Why can't he make the poor goose a new pair?]
This sounded rather gay, and, before he knew it, Haensel had joined in:
Eia popeia, pray what's to be done? Who'll give me milk and sugar, for bread I have none? I'll go back to bed and I'll lie there all day, Where there's naught to eat, then there's nothing to pay.
"Speaking of something to eat--I'm as hungry as a wolf, Gretel. We haven't had anything but bread in weeks."
"Well, it does no good to complain, does it? Why don't you do as father does--laugh and make the best of it?" Gretel answered, letting her knitting fall in her lap. "If you will stop grumbling, Haensel, I'll tell you a secret--it's a fine one too." She got up and tiptoed over to the table. "Come here and look in this jug," she called, and Haensel in his turn tiptoed over, as if something very serious indeed would happen should any one hear him.
"Look in that jug--a neighbour gave us some milk to-day, and that is likely to mean rice blanc-mange."
"Oh, gracious goodness! I'll be found near when rice blanc-mange is going on; be sure of that. How thick is the cream?" the greedy fellow asked, dipping his finger into the jug.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself! Take your fingers out of that jug, Haensel, and get back to your work. You'll get a good pounding if mother comes home and finds you cutting up tricks."
"No, I'm not going to work any more--I'm going to dance."
"Well, I admit dancing is good fun," Gretel answered him reluctantly. "We can dance a little, and sing to keep us in time, and then we can go back to work."
Brother, come and dance with me, Both my hands I offer thee, Right foot first, Left foot then, Round about and back again,
she sang, holding out her hands.
"I don't know how, or I would," Haensel declared, watching her as she spun about.
"Then I'll teach you. Just keep your eyes on me and I'll teach you just how to do it," she cried, and then she began to dance. Gretel told him precisely how to do it, and Haensel learned very well and very quickly. Then they danced together, and in half a minute had forgotten all about going back to their work. They twirled and laughed and sang and shouted in the wildest sort of glee, and at last, perfectly exhausted with so much fun, they tumbled over one another upon the floor, and were laughing too hard to get up. Just at this moment, when they had actually forgotten all about hunger and work, home came their mother. She opened the door and looked in.
"For mercy's sake! what goings on are these?" she cried.
"Why, it was Haensel, he----"
"Gretel wanted to----" they both began, scrambling to their feet.
"That will do. I want to hear nothing from you. You are the most ill-behaved children in the world. Here are your father and I slaving ourselves to death for you, and not a thing do you do but dance and sing from morning till night----"
"It would be awfully nice to eat, too," Haensel replied reflectively.
"What's that you say, you ungrateful child? Don't you eat whenever the rest of us do?" However harsh she seemed, the mother was only angry at the thought of there being nothing in the house to eat, and she felt so badly to think the children were hungry that she made a dive at Haensel to slap him, when--horrors! she knocked the milk off the table, broke the jug, and all the milk went streaming over the floor. This was indeed a misfortune. There they stood, all three looking at their lost supper.
"_Now_ see what you have done?" she screamed angrily at the children. "Get yourselves out of here. If you want any supper you'll have to work for it. Take that basket and go into the wood and fill it with strawberries, and don't either of you come home till it is full. Dear me, it does seem as if I had trouble enough without such actions as yours," the distracted mother cried; and quite unjustly she hustled the children and their basket outside the hut and off into the wood.
They had no sooner gone out than the poor, distracted woman, exhausted with the day's tramping and unsuccessful effort to sell her brooms, sat at the table weeping over the lost milk; and finally she fell asleep. After a while a merry song was heard in the wood, and the father presently appeared singing, at the very threshold. Really, for a hungry man with a hungry family and nothing for supper, he was in a remarkably merry mood.
"Ho, there, wife!" he called, and then entered with a great basket over his shoulder. He saw the mother asleep and stopped singing. Then he laughed and went over to her.
"Hey, wake up, old lady, hustle yourself and get us a supper. Where are the children?"
"What are you talking about," the mother asked, waking up and looking confused at the noise her husband was making. "I can't get any supper when there is nothing to get."
"Nothing to get?--well, that is nice talk, I'm sure. We'll see if there is nothing to get," he answered, roaring with laughter--and he began to take things out of his basket. First he took out a ham, then some butter. Flour and sausages followed, and then a dozen eggs; turnips, and onions, and finally some tea. Then at last the good fellow turned the basket upside down, and out rolled a lot of potatoes.
"Where in the world did all of these things come from?" she cried.
"I had good luck with my brooms, when all seemed lost, and here we are with a feast before us. Now call the children and let us begin."
"I was so angry because the milk got spilt that I sent them off to the woods for berries and told them not to come home till they had a basket full. I really thought that was all we should have for supper." At this the father looked frightened.
"What if they have gone to the Ilsenstein?" he cried, jumping up and taking a broom from the wall.
"Well, what harm?" the wife inquired, "and why do you take the broom?"
"What harm? Do you not know that it is the awful magic mountain where the old witch who eats little children dwells?--and do you not know that she rides on a broomstick. I may need one to follow her, in case she has got the children."
"Oh, heavens above! What a wicked woman I was to send the children out. What shall we do? Do you know anything more about that awful ogress?" she demanded of her husband, trembling fit to die.
An old witch within that wood doth dwell, And she's in league with the powers of hell. At midnight hour, When nobody knows, Away to the witches' dance she goes.
Up the chimney they fly, On a broomstick they hie, Over hill and dale, O'er ravine and vale, Through the midnight air They gallop full tear, On a broomstick, on a broomstick Hop, hop, hop, hop, the witches!
And by day, they say, She stalks around, With a crinching, crunching, munching sound. And children plump, and tender to eat, She lures with magic gingerbread sweet. On evil bent, With fell intent, She lures the children, poor little things, In the oven hot, She pops the lot. She shuts the door down, Until they're done brown--all those gingerbread children.
"Oh, my soul!" the poor woman shrieked. "Come! We must lose no time: Haensel and Gretel may be baked to cinders by this time," and out she ran, screaming, and followed by the father, to look for those poor children.