This is the story of the heartless mother whose burdens are such that she would be rid of her two children. The henpecked father is compelled to take them to the woods and there lose them. Gretel drops bread-crumbs to find her way home, but wild-fowl eat the crumbs and they are truly lost. The babes wander to the home of a witch, who would fatten them up to make ginger-bread of them. As they are about to be thrown into the blazing furnace Peggy outwits the witch, and, in turn, the witch is thrust into the roaring flames, as the mother, repentant, heads the neighbors in the work of rescue.