With a bound Doris left the door-step and followed after, running and
fluttering, skipping and skurrying, sometimes like a little girl and
sometimes like a big leaf,--she had n't time to ask herself which she
really was; for all the while she was listening to that wonderful fife
as it whistled and wailed, shrieked and sighed, and seemed to coax them
on all the while.
She followed blindly after the rest of the whirling crowd.
Away they went, always more and more,--away they went, clear out of
town and into the bare country,--away they went; and the Piper behind
them made his fife-notes shriller and louder, so that all could hear,
and they seemed to be carried along in spite of themselves.
It was like a race in a dream. Their feet seemed not to touch the
ground. The leaves rustled--no, the children chattered as they
fluttered--no, hurried along. Doris could catch little sentences here
and there; but they seemed to be in a strange tongue, and she did not
understand. But by and by she grew very familiar with the sounds, and,
strangely enough, she found she could make out the meaning of the queer
words.
"It 's German," she thought; "I know they're talking German;" and so
she listened very attentively.
"Sie ist eine Fremde," she heard one say to another; "sie gehoert nicht
zu uns,"--which she immediately knew meant: "She is a stranger; she
doesn't belong to us."
"Nein," replied the other; "aber sie scheint gut und brav zu sein." At
which Doris smiled; she liked to be thought "good and sweet."
On and on they went; and after a time things began to have a very
foreign look, and this startled Doris considerably.
"We can't have crossed the ocean," she thought. But when she asked her
nearest neighbor where they were and whether they had crossed the
Atlantic, he smiled and said,--
"Ja, gewiss; wir sind in Deutschland. Wir gehen, schon, nach
Hamelin,"--which rather puzzled Doris; for she found they had crossed
the sea and were in Germany and going to Hamelin.
"It must be the Piper's wonderful way," she thought.
But she did not feel at all homesick nor tired nor afraid; for the
Piper's fife seemed to keep them all in excellent spirits, and she
found herself wondering what she would do when they came to the fabled
hill-side,--for she never doubted they would go there. On they went,
faster and faster, the Piper behind them playing all the while.