But if they were afraid of him that night, they had a very different story to tell about him before a week had passed. Whatever he was or wherever he came from, he was the most wonderful little worker that these people had ever known. And the strange thing was that he did most of the work at night. Village folk came from all parts of the countryside to catch a glimpse of this queer little worker, but they were never successful, for he was never to be seen when one looked for him. They might have gone to the miller’s barn twenty times a day, and twenty times a day they would have found nothing but a heap of straw and an empty broth bowl.
But whenever there was work to be done, whether it was a tired child to be sung to, or a house to be made tidy, or a batch of bread to be worked up, or a flock of sheep to be gathered together on a stormy night, Aiken-Drum always knew of it and appeared ready to help just at the right time.
Many a time some poor mother who had been up all night with a crying child would sit down with it on her lap in front of the fire in the morning and fall asleep. When she awoke she would find that Aiken-Drum had made a visit to her house; for the floor would be scrubbed and the dishes washed, the fire made up and the kettle put on to boil. But the little Brownie would have slipped away as if he were afraid of being thanked.
The little children were the only ones who ever saw him when he was not working, and, oh, how they loved him! When school was out you could see them away down by the stream crowding around the little dark brown figure, and you could hear the sound of low, sweet singing; for Aiken-Drum knew all the songs that children love well.
By and by the name of Aiken-Drum came to be a household word among the good people of the village, for, although they seldom saw him near at hand, they loved him like one of their own people.
And he would never have gone away if every one in the village had remembered what good Grannie Duncan told them about Brownies. “A Brownie works for love,” she had said to them over and over again. “He will not work for pay. If anyone tries to pay him, the wee creature’s feelings will be hurt, and he will vanish in the night.”
But a good man of the village and his wife forgot all that had been said, and one day they planned to make something for Aiken-Drum.
“He should not work for nothing,” said the good man.
“He has already worn out his coat and trousers slaving for us,” said his wife.
So one day they made him a little pair of green trousers and a little brown coat. That night the two good people laid a parcel by the side of the bowl of broth in the miller’s barn.