The old man did not wait to be told twice.  He blew for all he was worth, and instantly the three whips stopped beating him.  “Into the whistle!” he cried; and the three lively whips shot up into the whistle, like three snakes going into a hole.  He could hardly have believed they had been out at all if it had not been for the soreness of his back.

“You take that home,” cried the children.  “That’ll pay for the turnips, and put everything right.”

“Who knows?” said the old man; and he thanked the children, and set off home through the green forest.

“Good-bye,” cried the little queer children.  But as soon as he had started they forgot all about him.  When he looked round to wave his hand to them, not one of them was thinking of him.  They were up again on the roof of the hut, jumping over each other and dancing and crawling about, and rolling each other down the roof and climbing up again, as if they had been doing nothing else all day, and were going to do nothing else till the end of the world.

The old man hobbled home through the green forest with the whistle stuck safely away into his shirt.  As soon as he came to the door of the hut, the old woman, who was sitting inside counting the gold pieces, jumped up and started her scolding.

“What have the children tricked you with this time?” she screamed at him.

“They gave me a whistle-pipe,” says the old man, “and they are not going to steal the turnips any more.”

“A whistle-pipe!” she screamed.  “What’s the good of that?  It’s worse than the tablecloth and the skinny old goat.”

The old man said nothing.

“Give it to me!” screamed the old woman.  “They were my turnips, so it is my whistle-pipe.”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t blow in it,” says the old man, and he hands over the whistle-pipe.

She wouldn’t listen to him.

“What?” says she; “I must not blow my own whistle-pipe?”

And with that she put the whistle-pipe to her lips and blew.

Out jumped the three lively whips, flew up in the air, and began to beat her—­phew! phew! phew!—­one after another.  If they made the old man sore, it was nothing to what they did to the cross old woman.

“Stop them!  Stop them!” she screamed, running this way and that in the hut, with the whips flying after her beating her all the time.  “I’ll never scold again.  I am to blame.  I stole the magic tablecloth, and put an old one instead of it.  I hid it in the iron chest.”  She ran to the iron chest and opened it, and pulled out the tablecloth.  “Stop them!  Stop them!” she screamed, while the whips laid it on hard and fast, one after the other.  “I am to blame.  The goat that sneezes gold pieces is hidden in the bushes.  The goat by the door is one of the old ones.  I wanted all the gold for myself.”

All this time the old man was trying to get hold of the whistle-pipe.  But the old woman was running about the hut so fast, with the whips flying after her and beating her, that he could not get it out of her hands.  At last he grabbed it.  “Into the whistle,” says he, and put it to his lips and blew.