Early in the morning she woke the old man.

“Get up, you lazy fellow,” says she; “you would lie all day and let all the thieves in the world come in and steal my turnips.  Up with you to the dovecot and see how my turnips are getting on.”

The old man got up and rubbed his eyes, and climbed up the rickety stairs, creak, creak, creak, holding on with both hands, till he came to the top of the house, to the top of the tower, to the top of the dovecot, and looked at the turnips.

He was afraid to come down, for there were hardly any turnips left at all.

And when he did come down, the scolding the old woman gave him was worse than the other two scoldings rolled into one.  She was so angry that she shook like a rag in the high wind, and the old man put both hands to his ears and hobbled away into the forest.

He hobbled along as fast as he could hobble, until he came to the hut under the pine trees.  This time the little queer children were not hiding under the blankets or in the stove, or chattering in the hut.  They were all over the roof of the hut, dancing and crawling about.  Some of them were even sitting on the chimney.  And everyone of the little queer children was playing with a turnip.  As soon as they saw the old man they all came tumbling off the roof, one after another, head over heels, like a lot of peas rolling off a shovel.

“We stole the turnips!” they shouted, before the old man could say anything at all.

“I know you did,” says the old man; “but that does not make it any better for me.  And it is I who get the scolding when the turnips fly away in the night.”

“Never again!” shouted the children.

“I’m glad to hear that,” says the old man.

“And we’ll pay for the turnips.”

“Thank you kindly,” says the old man.  He hadn’t the heart to be angry with those little queer children.

Three or four of them ran into the hut and came out again with a wooden whistle, a regular whistle-pipe, such as shepherds use.  They gave it to the old man.

“I can never play that,” says the old man.  “I don’t know one tune from another; and if I did, my old fingers are as stiff as oak twigs.”

“Blow in it,” cried the children; and all the others came crowding round, laughing and chattering and whispering to each other.  “Is he going to blow in it?” they asked.  “He is going to blow in it.”  How they laughed!

The old man took the whistle, and gathered his breath and puffed out his cheeks, and blew in the whistle-pipe as hard as he could.  And before he could take the whistle from his lips, three lively whips had slipped out of it, and were beating him as hard as they could go, although there was nobody to hold them.  Phew! phew! phew!  The three whips came down on him one after the other.

“Blow again!” the children shouted, laughing as if they were mad.  “Blow again—­quick, quick, quick!—­and tell the whips to get into the whistle.”