No.

AXEL'S WIFE
[to her child]
Then run along.
And ask the Piper if he'll play again
The tune that charmed the rats.

ANOTHER
They might come back!

OLD URSULA
[calling from her window]
Piper! I want the tune that charmed the rats!
If they come back, I'll have my grandson play it.

PIPER
I pipe but for the children.

ILSE
[dropping her doll and picking it up]
Oh, do pipe
Something for Fridolin!

HANSEL
Oh, pipe at me!
Now I'm a mouse! I'll eat you up! Rr--rr!--

CHILDREN
Oh, pipe! Oh, play! Oh, play and make us dance!
Oh, play, and make us run away from school!

PIPER
Why, what are these?

CHILDREN
[scampering round him]
We're mice, we're mice, we're mice! . . .
We're mice, we're mice! We'll eat up everything!

MARTIN'S WIFE
[calling]
'T is church-time. La, what will the neighbors say?

ILSE
[Waving her doll]
Oh, please do play something for Fridolin!

AXEL'S WIFE
Do hear the child. She's quite the little mother!

PIPER
A little mother? Ugh! How horrible.
That fairy thing, that princess,--no, that Child!
A little mother?
[To her]
Drop the ugly thing!

MARTIN'S WIFE
Now, on my word! and what's amiss with mothers?
Are mothers horrible?
[The PIPER is struck with painful memories.]

PIPER
No, no. But--care
And want and pain and age. . .
[Turns back to them with a bitter change of voice]
And penny-wealth,--
And penny-counting.--Penny prides and fears--
Of what the neighbors say the neighbors say!--

MARTIN'S WIFE
And were you born without a mother, then?

ALL
Yes, you there! Ah, I told you! He's no man.
He's of the devil.

MARTIN'S WIFE
Who was your mother, then?

PIPER
[fiercely]
Mine!--Nay, I do not know. For when I saw her,
She was a thing so trodden, lost and sad,
I cannot think that she was ever young,
Save in the cherishing voice.--She was a stroller;
My father was a stroller.--So, you have it!
And since she clave to him, and hunger too,
The Church's ban was on her.--Either live,
Mewed up forever,--she! to be a nun;
Or keep her life-long wandering with the wind;
The very name of wife stript from her troth.
That was my mother.--And she starved and sang;
And like the wind, she roved and lurked and shuddered
Outside your lighted windows, and fled by,
Storm-hunted, trying to outstrip the snow,
South, south, and homeless as a broken bird,--
Limping and hiding!--And she fled, and laughed,
And kept me warm; and died! To you, a Not