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The crumbs on the table
This is the Brothers Grimm version of the story and translated into English by Margarate Hunt.
The approximate narration time is 2 minutes
A countryman one day said to his little puppies: "Come into the parlour and enjoy yourselves, and pick up the bread-crumbs on the table; your mistress has gone out to pay some visits."
Then the little dogs said: "No, no, we will not go. If the mistress gets to know it, she will beat us." The countryman said: "She will know nothing about it. Do come; after all, she never gives you anything good." Then the little dogs again said: "Nay, nay, we must let it alone; we must not go." But the countryman let them have no peace until at last they went, and got on the table, and ate up the bread-crumbs with all their might. But at that very moment the mistress came, and seized the stick in great haste, and beat them and treated them very hardly . And when they were outside the house, the little dogs said to the countryman: "Dost, dost, dost, dost, dost thou see?" Then the countryman laughed and said: "Didn't, didn't, didn't, you expect it?" So they just had to run away.
KHM: Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales)
the mistress beat them hardly: one of those English quirks. Today, 'hard' and 'hardly' are different adverbs, often with opposite meanings ('the mistress beat them very hard' = 'the mistress beat them severely', 'the mistress hardly beat them' = 'the mistress beat them only a little bit') However, when this story was translated, 'the mistress beat them hardly' meant 'the mistress beat them severely'.
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