t he paid the Miller double, promising to call
again very soon. So now the Miller had money to buy bread for his
children; and a fine supper they enjoyed that night, you may be sure.

Best of it all was that their good luck had come to stay. The children
gave up their flutes, trombones, trumpets, bugles, fifes, horns, oboes,
cornets, bassoons, and piccolos, because they had decided not to be
musicians, but mill-blowers instead,--which was a blow to music. After
all, they said, their new profession was a more distinguished one. For
with practice any one can blow a blast on a trombone, but few families
of ten have lungs so mighty that they can blow a windmill when it wants
to stand still.

They practiced and they practiced, before and after school. And they
grew so skillful that the Miller declared them to be better than any
breeze, for they were always ready when he wanted them. On days when no
breeze was blowing and all the other windmills in the land were as quiet
as the market on Sunday,--then the neighbors flocked to the Miller of
the wonderful blowing family, and at his mill they were sure of having
their grain ground quickly and well. The Miller was fast growing rich.
He charged double price, always; and, indeed, folk thought it was worth
paying a double price to see the Miller's Ten Blowers at their work.

They had neat little uniforms of blue and white, like figures on a
tile,--blue trousers and white millers' smocks, and wooden shoes. And
they were trained to stand in an orderly row, with big Hans at the head
and chubby baby Tod at the foot, all puff-cheeked, ruddy, and
broad-chested from much blowing. And they blew all together,--one--_two!_
one--_two!_ one--_two!_--with a sound like a great wind in the chimney
on a January night, while the windmill whirled around like a mad thing
and seemed ready to blow to pieces. But the on-lookers had to be careful
to put a rock in their pockets, or to hold on to something steady, lest
they be blown from their feet by the blast which the children blew.

Stories of the Miller's wonderful family spread far and wide, and many
folk came to see the little Blowers at their work. They were often asked
to show their skill in various ways. Hans might easily have earned his
living as a blacksmith's bellows, could his father have spared him from
the mill. The village children often coaxed the younger Blowers to blow
their kites up into the sky or their sailboats down the canals. Eve