She could almost see the funny, tall man playing on his pipes. She could imagine the rats scampering after him. She could hear the voices of the children as they followed his music. For, when the Piper had charmed the terrible rats out of Hamelin, the people refused to pay him what they had promised. So the tall stranger piped the children away, in order to punish the ungrateful villagers.
Robert Browning has written a poem about it.
Hamelin is a quiet little town. Mitzi came upon an old fountain named after the rat catcher. She saw an inn called the Rat Jug. Altogether it was too magical and story-like to be true. So Mitzi became the Pied Piper.
| PIPED UPON HER SAUSAGE |
She began to lift her feet up high. She straightened out her plump little shoulders. Then she raised the sausage to her lips. But she did not eat it. The sausage became her pipe. Marching along with Frank at her heels, she piped upon her sausage and lived the old story. A few people looked at her and smiled.
Through a narrow lane she went. It was the same lane through which the Piper had led the children. Even today it is unlawful to play a pipe in this lane. But Mitzi's pipe could only be heard by Mitzi herself. She followed the pathway out of town and upon a country road.
The lines of the poem came to her mind:
"And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed."
She led her make-believe children up the mountain side—a long line of children, but really, only a long dog! They reached a cave in the hillside. The sun beat down upon them and the little dog's tongue swept the ground. This was not strange, since Frank was so close to the ground, anyway.