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Jill, “that isn’t quite so — so —

“So hor-rid as that ?” laughed un-
cle Ned. ‘“ Well, let me see; there
is the sto-ry of the Pi-per of Ham-
el-in.”

“Oh! do, do tell us a-bout it!”
cried both the chil-dren.

Then un-cle Ned be-gan to tell
them how, years a-go, the lit-tle Ger-
man cit-y of Ham-el-in was so 0-ver-
run with rats and mice that the peo-
ple could hard-ly hear them-selves
speak.

“But why didn't they have some
traps or some cats to catch the rats?”
asked Jill.

“Oh! there were too man-y of
them. ‘Rats! why, they fought the
dogs and killed the cats, and bit the