Grimms' Fairy Tales

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already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so
pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself: 'That
will be a dainty mouthful!' Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled
hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a
grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to
Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: 'Get up, lazy thing, fetch
some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the
stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.'
Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was
forced to do what the wicked witch commanded.

And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing
but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and
cried: 'Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon
be fat.' Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and
the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was
Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening