Brick Fairy Tales: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, and More (45 page)

There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.

“Oh! grandmother,” she said, “what big ears you have!”

“The better to see you with, my dear.”

“But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!” she said.

“The better to hear you with, my child,” was the reply.

“But, grandmother, what large hands you have!”

“The better to hug you with.”

“Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!”

“The better to eat you with!”

And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Red-Cap.

When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again near the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud.

The huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself, “How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she wants anything.”

So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying near it. “Do I find thee here, thou old sinner!” said he. “I have long sought thee!”

Then just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did not fire,