Hansel and Grettel looked at each other with round eyes. "It is true,"

they replied in unison. "But to think it should have got about already! Who are you?"

Everychild addressed himself to Hansel--who, by the way, was a fat boy with wooden shoes and a tiny homespun jacket and trousers of the same stuff, the trousers being very floppy about the ankles. "I am Everychild," he said. "And if I were you I'd not try to go home to such a father and mother. You know, they still had half a loaf left."

"At least," said Hansel, "I'd like to go home until that half a loaf is gone!"

For a second Grettel looked at her brother as if she really could not think of a suitably severe rebuke. "Our poor father and mother!" she exclaimed. "No doubt they thought we should find food in the forest, or that we should encounter travelers who'd have a bite to spare."

"At any rate," said Everychild, "it's no use your searching any more.

You're looking for the crumbs you dropped, so you'd find the way home.

But I should think you could guess the birds had eaten them all up!"

Hansel turned to Grettel, his eyes more round than ever. "It must be true!" he exclaimed.

"Where you made your mistake was in not dropping pebbles, the way you did the first time--though I suppose you couldn't have got the pebbles, being locked up in your room the night before. Anyway, it's no use your trying to go back. Even if you found the way, the same thing would happen again. Your father made a great mistake when he agreed to lose you the first time, simply because your mother asked him to. You know what the book says: 'If a man yields once he's done for.' You'd much better go along with me."

Hansel became all curiosity at once. "Where to?" he asked.

Everychild undertook to reply quite frankly; but all of a sudden he became dumb. It had seemed to him that he knew very well where he was going. Even now he felt that the answer ought to be perfectly simple.

Just the same, he could not think of a single word!

Then he heard a voice behind him. "He has set forth on a quest of Truth!" said the voice.

That was it, of course! He turned gratefully--and there was the Masked Lady! She seemed to be smiling to herself, as if she had thought of something which amused her. But on the whole her manner was really friendly and serious.

Nevertheless, Everychild was not at all sure that he was glad to see her. The mask she wore really did give her a very strange appearance.

Still, he faced Hansel with a certain proud bearing. "That is it," he said.

And then he turned about again to look at the Masked Lady, for he had noted that there was something strange about her appearance. She had left her spinning wheel somewhere. Now she carried the crook of a shepherdess. One hand rested lightly on the limb of a tree. And there were sheep not far away. Some were lying on the gra.s.s resting; and some were moving about, their eyes and noses seemingly very much alive--and their tails. They wiggled their tails with the greatest energy.

"I didn't expect to see _you_ here," said Everychild.

The Masked Lady replied, again with that queer smile about her lips, "I am very often near when you think I am far away."

And then Everychild perceived another person standing not far from the Masked Lady: a little man wearing large spectacles and thread-bare clothes. He was looking at nothing whatever save a note-book which he carried in his hand, and he was scribbling intently. Occasionally he lifted his hand high and touched the note-book with his pencil, and drew the pencil away with a precise movement. This was when he was making a period.

"And the--the gentleman," said Everychild. "Is he somebody who belongs to you?"

The Masked Lady seemed surprised by this question, until she perceived the little man with the note-book. Then she replied lightly--"Oh--him!

That's Mr. Literal. No, he doesn't belong with me. Quite the contrary. Though I believe he likes to be seen in my company."

Everychild stared at the little man called Mr. Literal. "I don't like his looks at all," he admitted. "Maybe he'll go away after awhile?"

The Masked Lady aroused herself slightly. "I can tell you something about him," she said. "He's . . . you know the kind of boy who is forever tagging along--when you want to go anywhere, I mean? Who is forever disagreeing with you, and wanting things done in a different way? Who winds up by tattling? A tattle-tale I think perhaps you call it."

Everychild nodded his head. "You mean a snitch?" he asked.

The Masked Lady flinched a little, though she smiled too. "Is that the word?" she asked. "Well, I've no doubt it's as good as another. If you like you may think of Mr. Literal as a--a snitch."

The little man made a period on his note-book and drew his pencil away with a precise movement. He looked at the Masked Lady with a smug smile. "That word _snitch_," he said. "It's entirely out of place, you know--after you've once introduced Aladdin and Hansel and Grettel in your story. And a giant. It's slang, and it came into use long after the race of giants became extinct."

The Masked Lady replied calmly: "The race of giants has never become extinct."

Mr. Literal had not ceased to smile in his smug fashion. "Ah, well,"

he said; and he began to scribble again, and while he did so he wandered away. You'd have said he had not the slightest idea where he was. He had not even seen Hansel and Grettel!

Everychild looked after the retreating Mr. Literal until he remembered suddenly that he had asked Hansel and Grettel to go along with him.

Then he heard Grettel say in a really eager voice: "A quest of Truth!

That sounds very interesting to me!"

But Hansel had to spoil it all by saying: "It would sound more interesting to me if he said he was looking for something to eat."

Grettel said, "Oh, Hansel!" in such a tone that Everychild regarded her more closely. She was really quite charming in her wooden shoes, and her ample blue skirt, somewhat short, and her waist of terra-cotta color, with white sleeves. She had on a linen cap shaped somewhat like a sunbonnet. She turned to her brother and spoke with a good deal of emphasis. "Anyway, it's plain you'll not find any sausages growing on the trees. For my part, I'd rather go somewhere. Especially since we've got a nice boy to go with us. Anything would be better than spending another night in the woods. I simply don't believe I could bear it. The noises . . . there's something dreadful about the noises, when you can't bar a door between you and them."

Hansel grunted very inelegantly. "Noises!" he retorted. "That's just like a girl. The only noise that bothers me is the rumbling of my insides. I'm _hungry_."

Grettel closed her eyes as if this were really too much. She seemed unable to think of a word to say.

Then Hansel said to Everychild: "I don't mind going with you. Only, you'll have to let Grettel go along too and you can't go very far with a girl without something happening."

"Of course, she'd go along," said Everychild. "As for something happening, it might be something nice more likely than not."

At this Grettel clasped her hands in ecstacy. "What a nice boy!" she exclaimed.

But Hansel only gave her a lofty look. "I haven't seen him do anything great," he said. "Now, if he could show us something to eat . . ."

"At least," said Grettel, "he wants to keep on going, while you're all for turning back. I think he speaks very sensibly." And she came forward with a pretty blush on her cheeks and took a seat demurely by Everychild's side.

She was really startled when Hansel, in his most offensive voice, exclaimed--"Grettel! Don't you know you're not allowed to sit on the ground in your best dress?"

But she managed to say, with a certain amount of independence, "Oh, Hansel--as if anything mattered now! Don't you see that if we're not going back we'll have to make rules for ourselves from now on? I've always wanted to do whatever I pleased in my best dress, and I'm not going to miss the chance now!"

Hansel looked knowingly at Everychild, and jerked his head toward Grettel. "Females!" he said. "That's why you have to sit on them.

They're like kites. Once you let them go they're over in the next field standing on their heads."

But Everychild thought he should rather talk to Grettel. He looked at her with a smile, and immediately she began to pluck at her skirt and pat her hair and look at him out of a corner of her eye. He said: "It was good of your parents, wasn't it, to put your best clothes on you when they meant to lose you?"

She replied promptly: "I should have thought it very mean of them if they hadn't."

Hansel seemed to agree with his sister for once; and he added to what she had said, "And you'll notice they didn't put any bread and cheese in the pockets, so far as anybody can find out."

But Grettel threw her hands up and permitted her head to wilt over on one side. "There! We might just as well be going," she said. "Hansel never has a decent word to say. When he's hungry he growls; and when he's eaten he nods. For my part, it would be a relief to see him nod awhile. Come, let's be getting along!"

CHAPTER V