not dare sit idle and listen to the birds. But every time he had
looked longingly there and sent a whistle from a distance as greeting
to the birds.

From the old house on the hillside, from which one could look down at the
ash-trees and the wall, he had brought a little kettle to the tinker, and
was delighted at the thought of taking it back again, for then he could
look down there for a moment and perhaps hear the birds.

Two days had passed, and Sami hoped that on the following day the little
kettle would be ready. When he returned that evening to the fire with his
last collection, the tinker was sitting thoughtfully there, turning the
little kettle round and round in his hands. His wife was looking over his
shoulders and both were scrutinizing the old kettle as if it were
something unusual.

"It is as like the other as if it were its brother," said the wife. "You
know how the man said you must not spoil the pictures scratched on it,
and on that account he gave you so much more for it. Here are exactly the
same figures on this, and the nose in front has just the same curve as
the other, which he would not have mended for fear it would be spoiled."

"I see it all, surely," said the man, "but I don't know what can be done
about it. With the other one I could say, it couldn't be mended any
more, for it looked much worse than this, and the people didn't know
that the old stuff was worth anything, and I wouldn't have believed it
was myself."

"They won't know either. The boy brought the kettle from the old house
up there. They only know the ground they hoe, but not such a thing as