THE CHILDREN
their place in the world. Not all the gods, however. The greater gods would not live there, and they had gone to a place that children might not go to.
And the Pied Piper, who was Mercury, and who at first had been called Hermes, went on through the wood, not playing on his pipes now, and the children followed him. They came to where there was a white-thorn tree and a spring well. There was a house before the spring and the white-thorn tree, a little house that was covered, walls and roof, with thick creepers. The Piper stood before the little house, and he called out, "Baucis, art thou at home?" And then he called out, "Philemon, come out to us." An old goose came from behind the house; it stretched out its neck and looked at all of them. Then the goose stepped into the house, and in a while afterward an old woman came out to them.
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