again and gave Nicko such a welcome that he quite forgot his home by the river and never returned. But this did not matter, as he was an orphan, but no one thought of him as being the cause of the ogre’s disappearance. The people in the river town knew the ogre had gone, and they cared not who brought it about. Nicko and the Princess lived happily ever after, and one day became the King and Queen in the country where they lived. [Pg 91] [Pg 91] THE GINGERBREAD ROCK Once there lived near a forest a little boy named Hans and his sister, whose name was Lisbeth. O Their parents had died when they were tiny and their uncle had taken them because he thought they could do all the work and so save the money he would have to pay for a servant. But this uncle was a miser and gave Hans and Lisbeth very little to eat, so very little that often they went to bed very hungry. One night when they were more hungry than usual, for they had worked hard all day, Hans whispered from his cot in one corner of the room: “Lisbeth, let us get up and go into the woods. It is bright moonlight and we may[Pg 92] be able to find some berries. I am so hungry I cannot go to sleep.” [Pg 92] So out of the house they went, making sure their uncle was sound asleep, and soon they were running along the path through the woods. Suddenly Hans stopped and drew Lisbeth back of a tree. “Look!” he said, in a whisper, “there is smoke coming from the side of that great rock.” Lisbeth looked and, sure enough, a tiny curling smoke was coming from a little opening in the rock. Very cautiously the children crept up to the rock and Hans stood on tiptoe and sniffed at the smoke. “It is a pipe,” he whispered into Lisbeth’s ear. “Some one is inside the rock, smoking.”
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