Why does the piper not go into the house when his brother's wife invites him? What does he mean when he says, "My brother's hearth is mine own"? Why does he say that the sheep are his? What does he mean when he says, "I will give ye my right," etc.? Why are his brothers not his kin? Who are the people that "rush across the plain"? Explain the fourteenth stanza. Why did the piper go forth to find his kin? Whom would he claim as his kindred? Why? Does the poem have a deeper meaning than that which first appears? What kind of person is represented by the youngest son? What are meant by his pipe and the music? Who are those who cast him out? Re-read the whole poem with the deeper meaning in mind. COLLATERAL READINGS The Prophet Josephine Preston Peabody The Piper: Act I " " " The Shepherd of King Admetus James Russell Lowell The Shoes that Danced Anna Hempstead Branch The Heart of the Road and Other Poems " " " Rose of the Wind and Other Poems " " " TENNESSEE'S PARTNER BRET HARTE I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in 1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such Cliffords!" He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened to be really Clifford, as "Jaybird Charley,"--an unhallowed inspiration of the moment that clung to him ever after.