Left, sits a group of three forlorn Strollers. One nurses a lame
knee; one, evidently dumb, talks in signs to the others; one is
munching bread and cheese out of a wallet. All have the look of
hunted and hungry men. They speak only in whispers to each other
throughout the scene; but their hoarse laughter breaks out now and
then over the bird-like ignorance of the children.
A shaft of sunlight steals through the hole in the roof. JAN, who
lies nearest the PIPER, wakes up.
JAN
Oh!
[The PIPER turns]
Oh, I thought. . . I had a dream!
PIPER
[softly]
Ahe?
JAN
I thought. . . I dreamed. . . somebody wanted me.
PIPER
Soho!
JAN
[earnestly]
I thought. . . Somebody Wanted me.
PIPER
How then?
[With watchful tenderness.]
JAN
I thought I heard Somebody crying.
PIPER
Pfui!--What a dream.--Don't make me cry again.
JAN
Oh, was it you?--Oh, yes!
PIPER
[apart, tensely]
No Michael yet!
[JAN begins to laugh softly, in a bewildered way; then grows
quite happy and forgetful. While the other children waken, he
reaches for the pipe and tries to blow upon it, to the PIPER'S
amusement. ILSE and HANSEL, the Butcher's children, wake.
ILSE
Oh!
HANSEL
--Oh!
PIPER
Ahe?
ILSE
I thought I had a dream.
PIPER
Again?
ILSE
. . . It was some lady, calling me.
HANSEL
Yes, and a fat man called us to come quick;
A fat man, he was crying--about me!
That same fat man I dreamt of, yesterday.
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