But now, for a year or more, Old Pipes had not piped the cattle home.  It is true that every afternoon he sat upon the rock and played upon his familiar instrument; but the cattle did not hear him.  He had grown old, and his breath was feeble.  The echoes of his cheerful notes, which used to come from the rocky hill on the other side of the valley, were heard no more; and twenty yards from Old Pipes one could scarcely tell what tune he was playing.  He had become somewhat deaf, and did not know that the sound of his pipes was so thin and weak, and that the cattle did not hear him.  The cows, the sheep, and the goats came down every afternoon as before, but this was because two boys and a girl were sent up after them.  The villagers did not wish the good old man to know that his piping was no longer of any use, so they paid him his little salary every month, and said nothing about the two boys and the girl.

Old Pipes’s mother was, of course, a great deal older then he was, and was as deaf as a gate,—­posts, latch, hinges, and all,—­and she never knew that the sound of her son’s pipe did not spread over all the mountainside, and echo back strong and clear from the opposite hills.  She was very fond of Old Pipes, and proud of his piping; and as he was so much younger than she was, she never thought of him as being very old.  She cooked for him, and made his bed, and mended his clothes; and they lived very comfortably on his little salary.

One afternoon, at the end of the month, when Old Pipes had 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.