very famous people. A sweet singer
came with his lute and sang to the King of all the princesses and
queens that had listened to his tunes. But at the end the King was
still weak and sorrowful. A harpist from a far country came and played
music that sounded like the mighty wind on high mountain tops and the
rushing flow of great mountain streams. But the King only thanked the
harpist and requested that he be paid for his pains and his journey
and go back to his home. Later, there came a trumpeter who gave great
battle calls on his trumpet, but the King covered his ears to shut out
the sound and looked more sad than ever because the sound of the
trumpet gave him a headache.

So it seemed as if not even music would make the King well, and no one
knew what to do.

Gladheart was the little boy who tended sheep in the valley. He was
the youngest of five brothers, and there was little room and less food
for them in their father's house. But Gladheart had been given his
name because he always smiled over a crust of bread, even when he was
a baby. Now that he was a little lad of ten with a great flock of ewes
and lambs to tend and drive through sun and storm, he had smiles and
kind words for all, and he played his fiddle all day long until its
sweet tunes filled the valley.

"I must go and play before the King," Gladheart said one day.

"They will only laugh at your small fiddle," said his brothers, but
the eldest said he would tend the sheep for a day, and Gladheart set
out for the palace.

"The King will have naught to do with a shepherd lad dressed in
goatskin and bearing an old fiddle," the guards at the door said. But
Gladheart touched the strings with the bow and such a blithe tune
came forth that the guards opened the door, and Gladheart went inside
to play before the King.

At first the sight of the King sitting so bent and sorrowful on the
throne with a face as frowning and sad as a storm frightened
Gladheart. But he took courage and stood as straight as he could in
front of the throne, and began to play on the fiddle a tune that he
had learned while he was in the fields with his sheep.

It was a lovable tune, like a dozen birds and a little wandering wind
and the voice of a rippling brook all joined with the sounds of the
little earth singers, the bees, the katydids, and the crickets. As the
King listened, his bent shoulders straightened and his face became
bright with smiles. He reached out his hands to Gla