`` Yes , and there 's no ferry-boat either , '' answered Grettel ; `` but look , there swims a white duck ; if I ask her she 'll help us over , '' and she called out : `` Here are two children , mournful very , Seeing neither bridge nor ferry ; Take us upon your white back , And row us over , quack , quack ! '' The duck swam toward them , and Hansel got on her back and bade his little sister sit beside him . `` No , '' answered Grettel , `` we should be too heavy a load for the duck : she shall carry us across separately . '' The good bird did this , and when they were landed safely on the other side , and had gone for a while , the wood became more and more familiar to them , and at length they saw their father 's house in the distance . Then they set off to run , and bounding into the room fell on their father 's neck . The man had not passed a happy hour since he left them in the wood , but the woman had died . Grettel shook out her apron so that the pearls and precious stones rolled about the room , and Hansel threw down one handful after the other out of his pocket . Thus all their troubles were ended , and they lived happily ever afterward . My story is done . See ! there runs a little mouse ; anyone who catches it may make himself a large fur cap out of it . -LRB- 1 -RRB- -LRB- 1 -RRB- Grimm . SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of it , in which grew two rose trees , one bearing white roses and the other red . She had two children , who were just like the two rose trees ; one was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red , and they were the sweetest and best children in the world , always diligent and always cheerful ; but Snow-white was quieter and more gentle than Rose-red . Rose-red loved to run about the fields and meadows , and to pick flowers and catch butterflies ; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother and helped her in the household , or read aloud to her when there was no work to do . The two children loved each other so dearly that they always walked about hand in hand whenever they went out together , and when Snow-white said , `` We will never desert each other , '' Rose-red answered : `` No , not as long as we live '' ; and the mother added : `` Whatever one gets she shall share with the other . '' They often roamed about in the woods gathering berries and no beast offered to hurt them ; on the contrary , they came up to them in the most confiding manner ; the little hare would eat a cabbage leaf from their hands , the deer grazed beside them , the stag would bound past them merrily , and the birds remained on the branches and sang to them with all their might . No evil ever befell them ; if they tarried late in the wood and night overtook them , they lay down together on the moss and slept till morning , and their mother knew they were quite safe , and never felt anxious about them . Once , when they had slept all night in the wood and had been wakened by the morning sun , they perceived a beautiful child in a shining white robe sitting close to their resting-place . The figure got up , looked at them kindly , but said nothing , and vanished into the wood .
And when they looked round XXXXX them they became aware that they had slept quite close to a precipice , over which they would certainly have fallen had they gone on a few steps further in the darkness .
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