So now the wretch went for the third time to the house-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 back from the
forest with her.” The little kids cried, “First show us thy paws that
we may know if thou art our dear little mother.” Then he put his paws
in through the window, and when the kids saw that they were white, they
believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should
come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide
themselves. One sprang 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 washing-bowl, and the seventh into the
clock-case. But the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony;
one after the other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest,
who was in the clock-case, was the only one he did not find. When the
wolf had satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down
under a tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon
afterwards the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! What a
sight she saw there! The house-door stood wide open. The table, chairs,
and benches were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces,
and the quilts and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her
children, but they were nowhere to be found. She called them one after
another by name, but no one answered. At last, when she came to the
youngest, a soft voice cried, “Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.”
She took the kid out, and it told her that the wolf had come and had
eaten all the others. Then you may imagine how she wept over her poor
children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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