under the sun--and how he would sing! Why, you used to laugh and
say it was enough to set the windmills dancing."

"So I did. Bless me! how the boy remembers! Gretel, child, take
that knitting needle from your father, quick; he'll get it in his
eyes maybe; and put the shoe on him. His poor feet are like ice
half the time, but I can't keep 'em covered, all I can do--" And
then, half wailing, half humming, Dame Brinker would sit down and
fill the low cottage with the whirr of her spinning wheel.

Nearly all the outdoor work, as well as the household labor, was
performed by Hans and Gretel. At certain seasons of the year the
children went out day after day to gather peat, which they would
stow away in square, bricklike pieces, for fuel. At other times,
when homework permitted, Hans rode the towing-horses on the
canals, earning a few stivers *{A stiver is worth about two
cents of our money.} a day, and Gretel tended geese for the
neighboring farmers.

Hans was clever at carving in wood, and both he and Gretel were
good gardeners. Gretel could sing and sew and run on great, high
homemade stilts better than any other girl for miles around. She
could learn a ballad in five minutes and find, in its season, any
weed or flower you could name; but she dreaded books, and often
the very sight of the figuring board in the old schoolhouse would
set her eyes swimming. Hans, on the contrary, was slow and
steady. The harder the task, whether in study or daily labor,
the better he liked it. Boys who sneered at him out of school,
on account of his patched clothes and scant leather breeches,
were forced to yield him the post of honor in nearly every class.