"Oh, yes, I suppose it is wiser to be neighborly with them," the housewife replied.
So the maid-servant went over to the side of the kitchen where the pots hung on the wall to get a saucepan down. There was a fine supply to choose from, large and small, polished copper 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."