r and brass, iron, and
shining tin. But just as the maid-servant put out her hand to take one
of their best saucepans, the housewife whispered to her.

"Not that one!" she said. "Give him the old one that leaks, and hangs
there at the end. The Hillmen are tidy little folk and very nimble
with a job of tinkering. They'll have to mend it before they use it
and so it will come home whole. We can oblige the Fairy Folk and save
sixpence at the same time."

The maid-servant was sorry to do her mistress's bidding, for it was
the oldest and blackest saucepan of all, hung there to wait for the
next time when the tinker stopped at the house. She gave it to the
little Hillman, though, who thanked her and went off with the leaky
saucepan hung over his back.

One morning, not long after that, they found the saucepan, returned,
on the doorstep. It was neatly mended, ready for use.

When it was supper time, the maid-servant filled the pan with milk and
set it over the fire to heat it for the children's supper. She had
scarcely done this, though, when there was a great sizzling and
sputtering, and the milk was burned so badly that not even the pigs
would eat it.

"Look what you have done!" the housewife said, scolding the
maid-servant. "You have ruined a quart of rich milk with your
carelessness, a whole quart of milk with the cream, all gone at once!"

"And that's twopence!" said a shrill, whining voice that seemed to
come from the chimney.

They went to the door and looked up on the roof, and they looked up
the chimney, but they could see no one. At last they decided that it
must have been the wind they had heard; and the housewife, herself,
filled the saucepan with milk once more and set it over the fire. She
only turned around, though, when the milk boiled over. Again, it was
just as burned and spoiled as it had been before.

"Well, this is no fault of mine," the housewife said. "The saucepan
must be dirty; but now there are two quarts of rich milk with the
cream, all wasted."

"And that's fourpence!" said the strange voice, speaking again, and
this time it seemed to come from out of the fire itself.

They looked behind the bellows and back of the chimney, but they could
see no one. They made up their minds at last that it must have been
the creaking of the fire logs that they had heard. The housewife
washed, and scrubbed, and scoured the saucepan, and then she filled it
for a third time with all the milk that she had