Then the weather turned very hot—so hot that no one could endure it—and all the grass was dried up, and the cows had nothing to eat, so that there was no milk to be had; and then the wells and streams began to dry up, and the people began to fear there would soon be no water either. The rains did not come, and then, worst of all, a bad fever broke out in the village, and many persons fell sick. Still, no one thought that all these misfortunes had anything to do with the old shoemaker, who still sat by the roadside, selling his shoes and singing his queer rhymes. At last, one day, one of the men remembered the old saying, that the people of that village should always be prosperous as long as they were honest and industrious, and neither cruel nor greedy.
“But it is not our conduct,” said they, “which has brought all this trouble on us, for we have been neither cruel, nor dishonest, nor greedy.”
But little Handa shook her head and said, “You are very cruel, you are letting poor Ralph starve, because you will all buy your boots and shoes of the new old man. Ralph has worked well for you all his life, and now you all leave him and buy boots from the old man, just because he is new, though you know they are not half as good as Ralph’s.”
“You are talking of what you don’t understand, Handa,” said her father, the miller, angrily. “Of course it is right for us to buy everything as cheaply as we can. Be quiet, child!” And everyone was angry with Handa for speaking; but she thought just the same, and she cried when she saw Ralph, or his wife, or Siegfrid.
The fever in the village spread, and Ralph caught it, and was very ill, and had to lie in bed all day. He could not now have made boots, if anyone had come to buy them of him. At last he and his wife grew so poor that she had to sell all their furniture, to buy bread for them to eat. When that was gone she began to sell all the clothes they could do without, even to the boots from their feet, so that little Siegfrid and she had to go about barefoot. The famine in the village grew worse, and the men began to trap and kill the animals in the forest to eat. At last there came a worse misfortune than all. A little girl named Frieda, the daughter of a farmer, disappeared, and could not be found anywhere. They sought for her far and near, in the village and in the forest, but she was nowhere to be found, and everyone made up their minds that she had been stolen. But next day another little girl was missing, and it was vain to search for either. The next day another went, and then another, and another, till five little girls had disappeared; and on the sixth day little Handa went also. Then the people all sallied forth in a body, with swords and sticks; and they walked for miles around the village, and sought in every corner of the forest, but no trace of the children could be seen. Still, Handa’s father would not rest, but walked about looking for her both day and night, whilst poor Siegfrid sought till his feet were blistered, and cut, and he was so weary that he could go no farther.
No one, who had known it in its old days, would have recognized the little village again. Instead of the villagers looking healthy, and happy, and rosy, they were worn, and sad, and pale, whilst the women’s eyes were red with crying for the lost children. The houses were tumbling down, and none of the people seemed to have strength or care to build them up again.
Over all the place hung a hot thick mist, and each day the fever grew worse, and more were ill.
The second evening after Handa had disappeared, Siegfrid wandered into the forest to cry by himself. Even that was changed; no birds sang sweetly in the branches as of yore. The leaves on the trees were turning brown, and falling before their time, and the animals darted away at the sound of footsteps, afraid lest they might be caught and killed.
As Siegfrid walked along he kicked something with his foot, and found it was a trap in which a poor little Hare had been caught, and was held by one leg.
“Poor Hare,” said Siegfrid, “perhaps you used to play about us when I walked here with Handa, I will let you go, and then another time you will be careful not to be caught;” so he undid the trap, and the Hare sprang from it, but instead of running away, as Siegfrid had expected, it sat quite still in front of him, looking into his face.
“I saw Handa last night,” it said at last, in a wheezy voice.
Siegfrid stared, but he was so overjoyed at hearing again of Handa, that he quite got over his surprise at hearing a Hare speak.
“Saw Handa!” he cried. “Oh, where? Is she alive? Oh, tell me.”
“She is in a cavern underground,” said the Hare. “She and all the other little girls are sitting there in a row, and they cannot move or speak, because on their feet are magic shoes that the old shoemaker made for them, which hold them as still as marble. He waited for them one by one near the village, and gave to each a pair of pretty yellow shoes, and when she had put them on, they ran away with her, and she could not stop try
