d finished
his piping, he took his stout staff and went down the hill to the
village to receive the money for his month's work. The path seemed a
great deal steeper and more difficult than it used to be; and Old
Pipes thought that it must have been washed by the rains and greatly
damaged. He remembered it as a path that was quite easy to traverse
either up or down. But Old Pipes had been a very active man, and as
his mother was so much older than he was, he never thought of himself
as aged and infirm.

When the Chief Villager had paid him, and he had talked a little with
some of his friends, Old Pipes started to go home. But when he had
crossed the bridge over the brook, and gone a short distance up the
hill-side, he became very tired, and sat down upon a stone. He had
not been sitting there half a minute, when along came two boys and a
girl.

"Children," said Old Pipes, "I'm very tired tonight, and I don't
believe I can climb up this steep path to my home. I think I shall
have to ask you to help me."

"We will do that," said the boys and the girl, quite cheerfully; and
one boy took him by the right hand, and the other by the left, while
the girl pushed him in the back. In this way he went up the hill
quite easily, and soon reached his cottage door. Old Pipes gave each
of the three children a copper coin, and then they sat down for a few
minutes' rest before starting back to the village.

"I'm sorry that I tired you so much," said Old Pipes.

"Oh, that would not have tired us," said one of the boys, "if we had
not been so far to-day after the cows, the sheep, and the goats. They
rambled high up on the mountain, and we never before had such a time
in finding them."

"Had to go after the cows, the sheep, and the goats!" exclaimed Old
Pipes. "What do you mean by that?"

The girl, who stood behind the old man, shook her head, put her hand
on her mouth, and made all sorts of signs to the boy to stop talking
on this subject; but he did not notice her, and promptly answered Old
Pipes.

"Why, you see, good sir," said he, "that as the cattle can't hear
your pipes now, somebody has to go after them every evening to drive
them down from the mountain, and the Chief Villager has hired us
three to do it. Generally it is not very hard work, but to-night the
cattle had wandered far."

"How long have you been doing this?" asked the old man.

The girl shook her head and clapped her hand on her mouth more
vigorously than be