The Wolf and the Seven Young Kidspage 2 / 3
Now the villain went for a third time to the door, knocked at it, and said, "Open the door for me, children. Your dear little mother has come home, and has brought every one of you something from the woods."
The little kids cried out, "First show us your paw so we may know that you are our dear little mother."
So he put his paw inside the window, and when they saw that it was white, they believed that everything he said was true, and they opened the door. But who came in? It was the wolf. They were terrified and wanted to hide. One jumped under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the sixth under the washbasin, and the seventh into the clock case. But the wolf found them all, and with no further ado he swallowed them down his throat, one after the other. However, he did not find the youngest kid, the one who was in the clock case.
After satisfying his appetite he went outside and lay down under a tree in the green meadow and fell asleep.
Soon afterward the old goat came home from the woods. Oh, what a sight she saw there. The door stood wide open. Table, chairs, and benches were tipped over. The washbasin was in pieces. The covers and pillows had been pulled off the bed. She looked for her children, but they were nowhere to be found. She called them by name, one after the other, but no one answered. When she at last came to the youngest, a soft voice cried out, "Mother dear, I am hiding in the clock case. She took it out, and it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten up all the others. You can just imagine how she cried for her poor children.
Finally in her despair she went outside, and the youngest kid ran with her. They came to the meadow, and there lay the wolf by the tree, snoring so loudly that the branches shook. She looked at him from all sides and saw that something was moving and jiggling inside his full belly.
"Good gracious," she thought. "Is it possible that my poor children, whom he has swallowed down for his supper, can still be alive?"