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 ear