getting; but all the best ones have been stolen away."

"Stolen away?" cried the old woman, shaking with rage. "And have you
lived all these years and not learned how to keep thieves from a
turnip bed, on the top of a dovecot, on the top of a tower, on the top
of a house? Out with you, and don't you dare to come back till you
have caught the thieves."

The old man did not dare to tell her that the door had been bolted,
although he knew it had, because he had bolted it himself. He hurried
away out of the house, more because he wanted to get out of earshot of
her scolding than because he had any hope of finding the thieves.
"They may be birds," thinks he, "or the little brown squirrels. Who
else could climb so high without using the stairs? And how is an old
man like me to get hold of them, flying through the tops of the high
trees and running up and down the branches?"

And so he wandered away without his dinner into the deep forest.

But God is good to old men. Hasn't He given me two little pigeons, who
nearly always are as merry as all little pigeons should be? And God
led the old man through the forest, though the old man thought he was
just wandering on, trying to lose himself and forget the scolding
voice of the old woman.

And after he had walked a long way through the dark green forest, he
saw a little hut standing under the pine trees. There was no smoke
coming from the chimney, but there was such a chattering in the hut
you could hear it far away. It was like coming near a rookery at
evening, or disturbing a lot of starlings. And as the old man came