Tales of Giants from Brazil | Page 7

orange
trees. The boy gave the dog away to a neighbour and sold the land and
the orange trees. Every bit of money he obtained from the sale he
invested in a violin. He had longed for a violin all his life and now he
wanted one more than ever. While his father had lived he could tell his
thoughts to his father, but now there was none to tell them to except the
violin. What his violin said back to him made the very sweetest music
in the world.
The boy went to hire out as shepherd to care for the sheep of the king,
but he was told that the king already had plenty of shepherds and had
no need of another. The boy took his violin which he had brought with
him and hid himself in the deep forest. There he made sweet music
with the violin. The shepherds who were near by guarding the king's
sheep heard the sweet strains, but they could not find out who was
playing. The sheep, too, heard the music. Several of them left the flock
and followed the sound of the music into the forest. They followed it
until they reached the boy and the cat and the violin.
The shepherds were greatly disturbed when they found out how their
sheep were straying away into the forest. They went after them to bring
them back, but they could find no trace of them. Sometimes it would
seem that they were quite near to the place from which the music came,
but when they hurried in that direction they would hear the strains of

music coming from a distant point in the opposite direction. They were
afraid of getting lost themselves so they gave up in despair.
When the boy saw how the sheep came to hear his music he was very
happy. His music was no longer the sad sweet sound it had been when
he was lonely. It became gayer and gayer. After a while it became so
gay that the cat began to dance. When the sheep saw the cat dancing
they began to dance, too.
Soon a company of monkeys passed that way and heard the sound of
the music. They began dancing immediately. They made such a
chattering that they almost drowned the music. The boy threatened to
stop playing if they could not be happy without being so noisy. After
that the monkeys chattered less.
After a while a tapir heard the jolly sound. Immediately his threetoed
hind feet and fourtoed front feet began to dance. He just couldn't keep
them from dancing; so he, too, joined the procession of boy, cat, sheep,
and monkeys.
Next the armadillo heard the music. In spite of his heavy armour he had
to dance too. Then a herd of small deer joined the company. Then the
anteater danced along with them. The wild cat and the tiger came, too.
The sheep and the deer were terribly frightened, but they kept dancing
on just the same. The tiger and wild cat were so happy dancing that
they never noticed them at all. The big snakes curled their huge bodies
about the tree trunks and wished that they, too, had feet with which to
dance. The birds tried to dance, but they could not use their feet well
enough and had to give it up and keep flying. Every beast of the forests
and jungles which had feet with which to dance came and joined the
gay procession.
The jolly company wandered on and on until finally they came to the
high wall which surrounds the land of the giants. The enormous giant
who stood on the wall as guard laughed so hard that he almost fell off
the wall. He took them to the king at once. The king laughed so hard
that he almost fell off his throne. His laugh shook the earth. The earth
had never before been shaken at the laugh of the king of the giants,

though it had often heard his angry voice in the thunder. The people did
not know what to make of it.
Now it happened that the king of the land of giants had a beautiful
giantess daughter who never laughed. She remained sad all the time.
The king had offered half his kingdom to the one who could make her
laugh, and all the giants had done their very funniest tricks for her.
Never once had they brought even a tiny little smile to her lovely face.
"If my daughter can keep from laughing when she sees this funny sight
I'll give up in despair and eat my hat," said the king of the land of
giants, as he saw the jolly little figure playing upon the violin and the
assembly