Pipes asleep in his chair, she slipped
the little bag into his coat-pocket, and silently sped away.

The next day, Old Pipes told his mother that he would go up the
mountain and cut some wood. He had a right to get wood from the
mountain, but for a long time he had been content to pick up the dead
branches which lay about his cottage. To-day, however, he felt so
strong and vigorous that he thought he would go and cut some fuel
that would be better than this. He worked all the morning, and when
he came back he did not feel at all tired, and he had a very good
appetite for his dinner.

Now, Old Pipes knew a good deal about Dryads, but there was one thing
which, although he had heard, he had forgotten. This was, that a kiss
from a Dryad made a person ten years younger. The people of the
village knew this, and they were very careful not to let any child of
ten years or younger, go into the woods where the Dryads were
supposed to be; for, if they should chance to be kissed by one of
these tree-nymphs, they would be set back so far that they would
cease to exist. A story was told in the village that a very bad boy
of eleven once ran away into the woods, and had an adventure of this
kind; and when his mother found him he was a little baby of one year
old. Taking advantage of her opportunity, she brought him up more
carefully than she had done before; and he grew to be a very good boy
indeed.

Now, Old Pipes had been kissed twice by the Dryad, once on each
cheek, and he therefore felt as vigorous and active as when he was a
hale man of fifty. His mother noticed how much work he was doing, and
told him that he need not try in that way to make up for the loss of
his piping wages; for he would only tire himself out, and get sick.
But her son answered that he had not felt so well for years, and that
he was quite able to work. In the course of the afternoon, Old Pipes,
for the first time that day, put his hand in his coat-pocket, and
there, to his amazement, he found the little bag of money. "Well,
well!" he exclaimed, "I am stupid, indeed! I really thought that I
had seen a Dryad; but when I sat down by that big oak-tree I must
have gone to sleep and dreamed it all; and then I came home thinking
I had given the money to a Dryad, when it was in my pocket all the
time. But the Chief Villager shall have the money. I shall not take
it to him to-day, but to-morrow I wish to go to the village to see
some of my old friends; and then