THOSE THAT FOLLOWED THE PIPER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2425, 13 February 1909, Page 10 (Supplement)

THOSE THAT FOLLOWED THE PIPER.

Have you never wondered what became of the children of Hamelin after tho Pied Piper had lured them into the mountainside? And isn't it about time that tho rest of the story was told ? Everybody remembers bow it all happened, oven though it was Jive hundred years ago. How the town of Hamelin, on the River Wcsor, in Prussia, suffered from a terrific plague of rats, and how nothing availed to exterminate the troublesome creatures. How, finally, an odd, unearth-ly-looking old man in many colored clothing of a curious pattern came, before the Town Council and offered to charm away the rats from the town if they would pay him a thousand guilders for tlio service. How, the bargain being struck, bo lifted a pipe that ho wore .hung about his neck and played upon it in a soft, strange, magical way that sent every single rat scurrying out of the closets and cupboards of Hamelin and into the Wes or. How, when the dishonest mayor declined to pay the thousand guilders, the Pied .Piper, as ho has since-been called, played upon his pipe strains so mysterious and irresistible, that ibis time all tho children of Hamelin followed him—and followed him until they reached Koppenburg Hill, when tho side of the mountain opened and forever inclosed them. Now, so far as theAvretolled mothers and fathers and the remorseful mayor were concerned, this was the end of the hundred and thirty little children who were charmed away to pay the. town’s debt of a thousand guilders. Because they had been dishonest and faithless with the magician (for of course the Pied Piper was a magician), he exacted from them this fearful penalty. No sight or sound or rumor of the children ever reached Hamelin afterward. So that it was a long time before anything but grown-up voices was heard in the still little town, and nobody ran and danced on the street, and all tho toys got dusty and all the little, calces and tarts got dry and stale and had to be thrown away. And, worst of all, the mothers wept constantly for loneliness; it was so terrible to have nobody to pet or prepare supper for or tell -stories to or put lovingly to bedr And mothers ever since then have remembered the story and have had a special fear of magicians and have kept fast hold of their children’s hands when a strange man playing music came down the. street. Indeed, there are still mothers who are nervous about these little things, and it is always best to humor them..

But if the desolate mothers had known, what really became of their children, would they, have cared so much, or would they hate cared more? Read the story and see if you can ./toll. There was, of course, something in the music the Pied Piper played which was, different from any music you have over heard, and which made the children think of nothing but their desire to follow him. Without an instant’s delay they sprang from their games or their dinners or their mothers’ laps . and joined tho enchanted band. They would have gone to the

it'#'vffHs'ii'i/b Wscß seen, that wasn’t necessary, ior the earth opened and took them in. And when tlie, walls of f closed blMifil Hlifiln r, £hey ‘sllut out not only o£i•jbhji, chiklrenisbowti ct lini try. but! the''indmi>tybbp l it. | 11 0i’/( ra"lher o ‘thi&'ri : thb ! 'ff’ie'd Piper inhappened, that as the mountain' walls closed together the face of ono child was not turned toward the Piper, who strode ahead. Instead it was turned back, toward Hamelin, aud his last look was upon the little town itsolf, where ho knew his mother stood waiting for him in; return to her. And the result of this you shall see.

For tho other children, looking about them when they were onco in sido the mountain, experienced no great surprise, for they were altogether under the magician’s spell. And they asked no question when hundreds of other children, who were lightly dressed in rainbow colored clothes with no buttons on them, and who wore no shoes or stockings, and whose hair was long and tangled, came trooping toward them. For they had already forgotten Hamelin and their own homes. But the Boy that Remembered thought the new country very strange, and, coming up close to the Piper, he. pulled tho magician’s red and yellow scarf and whispered gently:

“Piper, where are we?” And the Piper smiled strangely and piped an answer on his pipe. And so strange was the influence of that country that the Boy ielt as though ho had received a real answer, and thanked tho Piper and fell behind him, blushing and ashamed because he had not understood. But how should lie have expected to understand the language of the pipe? And where they really were (which of course the Piper would never have told) was in the Laud oi Lost Children. Many of them were children, who had run away from their homes and never been found again. And some of them had been enticed by wicked elves and fairies. And none of them grew any older or any wiser, but played together with shouts and laughter from morning till night. And when night came no one came to lead them away and wash their faces and give them warm supper and put thorn to bed, but they fell asleep wherever exhaustion overtook them, like little savage things.

Of course, the Lost Children were very eager to play with tho large band of new recruits that the Piper had brought, but the. Piper would not allow this at first, for the Hamelin children were too neatly and soberly dressed to live in this country. So taking them with him into -a little wood, he made them all take off their heavy little shoes and their thick garments and sober caps, and bade them clothe themselves in gay strips of red and green and blue and yellow that he gave them, so that soon they were ah as pied as he. And to all of them this seemed pleasant, except to the Boy that Remembered, for night was coining on, and night is no time for children to bo out play’ing alone in the woods.

And what these woods were like I can not describe, for it seemed as if they shifted constantly, as things do in a dream. That is to say, if one of the children cried, “Let’s play snowballs!” immediately a few yards away tile ground would bo heavily covered with snow, and the trees thick and soft and white, as in midwinter. While if another said, “Oh, no; I think it would be nicer to hunt birds’, nests!” you could easily turn away and run to a place where it was all green aud pink and warm and springlike.

The best thing about it all, of course, was that everybody could do exactly what he wanted; but nobody wanted to do anything long, so that everything shifted constantly and there wasn’t any comfort or coziness, as the children would have discovered if they had ever stopped to think. 01 course, not only were there no mothers to talk wisely - to them and kiss them and no nurses to see that they were cleanly dressed —which they decidedly were not—but there were no schools or teachers, so that they knew no more one week than they had known the week before. They seemed happy, or at least they were very gay and hilarious all the time, but they were really more like puppies and kittens, or colts and heifers, than like hoys and girls; and, after all, it-is more desirable to bo a boy than a And tho pitiful thing was that they -all missed their mothers and fathers and the people they had loved, but without knowing that they did. For tho magician had in some way blindfolded their little hearts, so that they did not know why they beat or what they yearned for. Or rather this was the case with all of them excejrt ono —the Boy that Remembered. . And at first the Boy that Remembered used to go to the Piper and says: “Piper, why do we stay ? Won t you lead us home again?” And always the Piper would smile and play strangely on-his pipe and the boy would go away mystified with an ache in his heart. So finally he did not go to the Piper any more, but every now and then he would take aside one of his own companions and put his arm about the other s lieck and ask him: “Don’t you remember the dear school-master and what a saint the pastor was, and the beautiful woman

who sold cakes, and don’t you want to Jsee your own dear mother, and how, ] lo w can wo get to them all p-' ’ But the other boy would shake himself free and look very troubled and v- answered: •

“You make mo unhappy, but I do not remember. Come and play. It is easier to play than to remember.” So the years went on. And in thetown of Hamelin the mothers walked slowly and wore black dresses and

looked constantly toward the Koppen- , berg, while in the Land of Lost Childreu those that had come from HameYvw grew 110 older and no wiser, but pyed always and laughed and sang. But tlio Pied Piper was not easy in bis mind. For ho remembered the laws of this magic country, and one of them stipulated that if at the micl of ten years one of the children of Hamclin remembered whence he had come all the children were to be lorfcited. And at last the ten years were spent, and on tire last day the v Boy that Remembered looked at tne piper and said once more: •■Piper, why do we stay?” Which meant, of course, according to the law, that all the children of Hamclin must be freed. So, assembling them, the Piper turned to the Boy that Remembered and said: ‘•'The time has come for you to go. In which direction shall I send you And if the boy could have known the v direction in which Hamclin lay they ' might all Rave gone back to comfort their mothers’ hearts, but in his ignorance he pointed instead to the wrong side of the mountain, which opened and the children -passed through. Ad they found thonisoV.es in a strange country, where there were men and women and grandmo-

tliers and grandfathers ad where peo-

plo worked and took thought. And a soberness came to them, and after a little they learned to till the land and to reap harvests. And they married and children were born to them, and they learned to build cottages to shelter the women and the children. But they never came to he like the other people of the earth. And to this day they wear strange pie-cl garments and there is a look of wildness in their eyes, and when-

ever, of evenings, a group of them are gathered together, the laughter If 1 that rings out is not the laughter of us simple-, human folk.