After the father and mother had grieved some time, they thought that
as they could contrive no other way to live, they must somehow get rid
of their children. One night when the boys were gone to bed, and the
faggot-maker and his wife were sitting over a few lighted sticks, to
warm themselves, the husband sighed deeply, and said, "You see, my
dear, we cannot maintain our children any longer, and to see them die
of hunger before my eyes is what I could never bear. I will,
therefore, to-morrow morning take them to the forest, and leave them
in the thickest part of it, so that they will not be able to find
their way back: this will be very easy; for while they amuse
themselves with tying up the faggots, we need only slip away when they
are looking some other way."
"Ah! husband," cried the poor wife, "you cannot, no, you never can
consent to be the death of your own children."
The husband in vain told her to think how very poor they were.
The wife replied "that this was true, to be sure; but if she was poor,
she was still their mother;" and then she cried as if her heart would
break. At last she thought how shocking it would be to see them
starved to death before their eyes; so she agreed to what her husband
had said, and then went sobbing to bed.
Hop-o'-my-thumb had been awake all the time; and when he heard his
father talk very seriously, he slipped away from his brothers' side,
and crept under his father's bed, to hear all that was said without
being seen.
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