he Wandering Minstrel

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

One Saturday morning, at the Lilliland farmers' market, a pleasant, new voice was heard. It seems that a minstrel player had just wandered into town and was playing his guitar and singing his happy songs for the citizens in the market. He seemed agreeable in disposition, but was bent over with a long gray beard, and walked with the use of a cane. He looked old and weary from life's hardships. He sang of better days ahead for everyone. His songs brightened everyone's day.

The Baron was in the marketplace that particular morning and enjoyed the songs of the minstrel man. He felt sorry for the wandering minstrel man and invited him to the castle for lunch.

The minstrel player introduced himself as Philip, from France. During the luncheon with the Baron, Philip said that he enjoyed singing songs and making people happy. Just last year, as the Great War was ending, he had been stationed in the French army as an infantry rifleman in the center of the battlefield. Unfortunately, most of the soldiers in his regiment had been shot and would not be returning home. He was injured in the leg and that is why he needed a cane to help him walk around. He was a man of only 25 years of age under that long beard. In the middle of a battle, when everything was not going well, Philip promised himself that if he ever got out of this alive, he would devote the next several years traveling around, singing and making people happy.

After the war, Philip visited some of his distant relatives in Germany and they were very sad about all of the young men who lost their lives. Philip lived up to the promise that he made to himself and traveled about singing and making people happy again.

The Baron liked Philip and invited him to stay at the castle as long as he liked. Philip continued to sing at many events and made the citizens of Lilliland smile.