Old donkey Bhola can't haul the sacks anymore. “Useless donkey — off with you!” grumbles his master. Bhola's ears droop, his head sinks toward the dirt — then suddenly, ears up! “I'll go to Bremen and be a musician — my voice is my song! Hee-haw, hee-haw!”
On the dirt road an old dog pants, tongue out, tail dragging in the dust. “I can't hunt anymore, brother — my master's going to turn me out,” Lalu says, head low. Bhola grins. “Let him! Come to Bremen — I'll sing, you'll play — woof woof!”
Under the banyan sits glum cat Mini — whiskers drooping, too slow for mice now; and on the fence trembles rooster Rongila — tomorrow's feast, they say, will be HIM! Bhola calls out, “Come to Bremen — we'll be a band!” Four friends, four voices — hee-haw! woof woof! meow! cock-a-doodle-doo! Tell me — what do four voices sound like all at once?
Night fell, and no Bremen came. Lost deep in the forest, the four go quiet — empty bellies, cold fur; only the crickets call — chirr… chirr… chirr. Under an old banyan they press close together, and Rongila flutters up to a high branch, eyes open in the dark.
Suddenly from his branch Rongila crows, “Cock-a-doodle-doo! A light! Look — a light!” Through the bamboo grove, a little tin-roof house, its window glowing like gold. They peek in: steaming rice, fried fish, bhapa pitha, heaps of muri and gur… and robbers sitting all around it! Mini's whiskers snap straight. “That food isn't theirs tonight. It's ours.”
On tiptoe they crept up beneath the window. Lalu climbed onto Bhola's back, Mini onto Lalu, and Rongila fluttered on top of them all — one whole tower of animals! Bhola whispered, “Everybody together — one, two, three — PLAY!”
HEE-HAWWW! WOOF WOOF WOOF! MEEE-OWWW! COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOO! Four voices burst out at once, and the window rattled and shook. The robbers saw a sky-high monster's shadow filling the whole window! “Oh no — a gh-gh-ghost!” Dropping their rice, dropping their pitha, they bolted helter-skelter into the dark forest.
That night the four friends ate their fill — hot rice, pitha, crunchy muri and gur, every last bit! Then they curled up together on the kantha in the soft lamplight — ears up, bellies round. Bhola murmured, half asleep, “Who says we're useless? We're the Bremen town band!” And the robbers? They never dared come near even the shadow of that house again.