"Not long ago," said Zoe, for the other children were listening with rapt interest, "some shepherds were tending their flocks on the hills and one of them dug a hole in the ground to make a fire that they might cook their food. As he placed the stones to make his oven, he saw something sticking out of the ground and leaned down to see what it was. It looked like a queer kettle of some kind and he dug it out and examined it. He cleaned the dirt from it and it turned out to be an old helmet, rusted and tarnished, but still good. He took it and showed it to the teacher in the village and he said it was very, very old and might have belonged to one of Leonidas' men. So the master sent it to Athens and there they said that it was very valuable, and that the writing upon it showed that it had been at Thermopylæ. They put it in the great museum at Athens, and paid the shepherd a great many _drachmas_[7] for it, so many that he could have for himself a house and need not herd sheep for another man, but have his own flocks." "Wish I could find one," said Georgios. "I heard my father say we needed money very badly. There are so many of us! I wish I was big!" and the boy's face grew dark. Zoe's clouded too. "I am but another mouth to feed," she thought; but Aunt Anna's voice, calling them to come to the midday meal, put her thoughts to flight. It was not until after the little siesta they all took after luncheon that she thought of what Georgios had said. "How I wish I could find something of value," she thought to herself. "I am not of much use except that I try to help with the children. Oh, I wonder what Georgios is doing now!" she thought suddenly. She could not hear him and when Georgios was quiet he was generally naughty. "Where is Georgios?" she asked the children, but they did not know. Only little Anna had seen him and she said that he had run quickly down the road a little while before. "You must stay with the babycoula here on the door step," Zoe said to the little girls, calling to her aunt within the house, "Aunt Anna, I am going to find Georgios, he is not here." "Very well," said her aunt, and Zoe set off down the road. "Georgios!" she called. There was no answer, but she thought she saw the tracks of his feet in the dust of the road. "Perhaps he has gone to the river," she said to herself, "to try to fish," and hastily she ran to the bank but there was no little boy in a red tasselled cap in sight. She hurried back to the road. "I am afraid he has tried to go and see the Pass," she thought. "It would be just like him, for he said he would not wait for Marco. Oh, dear! I must find him. Aunt Anna will think it my fault if he is lost or anything happens to him." She hurried onward, calling and looking everywhere but found not a trace of the naughty little boy. It seemed as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth, and she murmured to herself, [Illustration: "SOMETHING LAY THERE HALF COVERED WITH EARTH."]