*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69746 ***

The Book of Friendly Giants




[Illustration: “Good-by,” he roared. “And don’t forget the giant
Riverrath”]




[Illustration]

                               THE BOOK OF
                             FRIENDLY GIANTS
                             BY EUNICE FULLER
                         WITH INTRODUCTORY VERSES
                            BY SEYMOUR BARNARD
                             AND DRAWINGS BY
                           PAMELA COLMAN SMITH

                        “_Giants should always be
                     brotherly with giants, but only
                           with good giants._”

                                _Maxim of Pantagruel._

                                 NEW YORK
                           THE CENTURY COMPANY

                           Copyright, 1914, by
                             THE CENTURY CO.

                        _Published, October, 1914_

                           PRINTED IN U. S. A.




[Illustration]

In Defense of Giants


Somehow or other, the giants seem to have got a bad name. No sooner is
the word “giant” mentioned than some one is sure to shrug his shoulders
and speak in a meaning tone of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Now, this is
not only unkind, but, on the giants’ part, quite undeserved. For, as
everybody who is intimate with them knows, there are very few of the
Beanstalk variety.

No self-respecting giant would any more think of threatening a little
boy, or of grinding up people’s bones to make flour, than would a good
fairy godmother. Giants’ dispositions are in proportion to the size of
their bodies, and so when they are good, as most of them are, they are
the kindest-hearted folk in the world, and like nothing better than
helping human beings out of scrapes.

The trouble is that many of the stories were written by people who do not
really know the giants at all, but are so afraid of them as to suppose
that giants must be cruel just because they are big. Every one else has
taken it for granted that the giants were big enough to take care of
themselves, and so nobody has bothered to look into the facts of the
case. Mr. Andrew Lang has given us a whole rainbow of books about the
fairies, but no one seems ever to have written down the whole history of
the giants.

This is a pity, particularly since a great many people have had a chance
to know the giants intimately. For in the old days the giants used to
live all over the world—in Germany, and Ireland, and Norway, and even
here in our own country. And since they have moved back into a land of
their own, they have sometimes come into other countries on a visit and a
brave Englishman, as you will see, once went to visit them.

The history of the giants is as simple as their good-natured lives. All
the giants came originally from one big giant family. And wherever they
went, they kept the same giant ways, and enjoyed playing the same big,
clumsy jokes on each other.




[Illustration]

Contents


                                                                      PAGE

       I  THE GIANT AND THE HERDBOY                                      3

      II  THE GIANTS’ SHIP
            PART ONE:—HOW THE GIANTS WENT EXPLORING                     31
            PART TWO:—HOW THE GIANTS’ SHIP WAS STOLEN                   43

     III  HOW THE GIANTS GOT THE BEST OF THOR                           63

      IV  THE CUNNING OF FIN’S WIFE                                     87

       V  HOW JACK FOUND THE GIANT RIVERRATH                           109

      VI  THE GIANTS’ POT                                              147

     VII  THE GIANT WHO RODE ON THE ARK                                171

    VIII  THE WIGWAM GIANTS                                            191

      IX  THE GIANT WHO BECAME A SAINT                                 215

       X  GARGANTUA
            PART ONE:—HOW GARGANTUA LEARNED HIS LATIN                  235
            PART TWO:—HOW THE BAKERS WISHED THEY HADN’T                251

      XI  THE MAN WHO WENT TO THE GIANTS’ COUNTRY                      273

     XII  THE GIANT WHO CAME BACK                                      305




Full Page Illustrations


                                                                      PAGE

    “Good-by,” he roared. “And don’t forget the giant
      Riverrath”                                             _Frontispiece_

    A fountain that shot up in a silver torrent                         11

    A tremendous palace, all of ice                                     71

    “No,” said Granua, “I’m down in the valley, picking bilberries”     93

    The giants in the market-place                                     157

    The little man stood on the edge of the chimney                    181

    A tremendous canoe as high as a cliff, and filled with men who
      seemed to touch the sky                                          195

    “Good day,” said Offero. “Can you tell me the way to the king
      called Christ?”                                                  223

    He would make it trot or gallop                                    239

    She could not dine without me                                      289

    The trees brushed them                                             321




[Illustration: To All Believers]

To All Believers

    Boys and girls, of those who rate
    All things true if we believe them,
    Knocking at your fancy’s gate,
    Here are giants; pray receive them:

    Friendly folk from every clime,
    With an honest glee about them;
    (Ah, the once-upon-a-time!—
    What would it have been without them?)

    Shambling fellows gray and old,
    Mighty men of mighty merit;
    Giants from the frost and cold,
    And the land which we inherit:

    Boys and girls, we bid you hark
    While this genial host we rally;—
    Mad ones, glad ones laugh and lark;
    Big as fancied, true to tally.




I

The Giant and the Herdboy

    “Where is your shepherd,
    Little white sheep?
    The moon is at midnight,
    And sound is your sleep.
    Where is your shepherd,
    Little white band?”
    “With a great giant
    In Giantland.”

           _Seymour Barnard._




I

The Giant and the Herdboy


Ivan, the herdboy, lay on the hillside watching the King’s sheep. It was
growing dark, but he did not start for home. For in all the world he had
no home to go to. There was no one who belonged to him,—neither father
nor mother, nor brother nor sister, nor grandfather nor grandmother, nor
so much as a stepmother. Even his best friends, the sheep, belonged to
the King.

Ivan took good care of them nevertheless; and got his black bread and
white cheese to eat in return. Day and night he stayed with his flock
out in the open field; and only when the storm beat down very wet did he
crawl into the little hut he had built at the edge of the forest.

It was not so very lonely after all. For there were ninety-nine sheep to
keep out of bogs and briers. And besides, there were ever so many good
games he could play by himself, vaulting over the bushes with his crook
and playing little tunes on a reed.

It was only at the dead of night when he woke up to hear the wolves
howling, howling in the dark, and the icy shivers began to chase each
other along his back, that he couldn’t help wishing for a warm bed at
home, with a stout father sleeping nearby.

But the queer part was that whenever he thought what kind of father
he should like to have, he could think of nobody but the King himself
mounted on his charger. And as for a mother, who could be better than
the Queen with her nice, motherly arms that hugged the little Princess
Anastasia? When it came to a sister, Ivan could imagine no one more
satisfactory than the Princess herself with her whisking curls and her
blue eyes that were roguish and friendly both at the same time. But that,
of course, was out of the question. So he contented himself with naming
the softest, whitest, curliest lamb Anastasia, and let it go at that.

But to-night as he lay on the hillside he couldn’t help thinking what fun
it would be if the lamb Anastasia were really the Princess, and all the
other sheep were boys and girls so that they could play hide-and-seek
together among the rocks and bushes in the moonlight. But the sheep had
long since nestled down on the hill, and there was nothing for Ivan but
to watch the moon as it came up and up behind the black mountain across
the valley. His eyes began to blink, and he felt himself slipping,
slipping off to sleep.

[Illustration: Ivan listened]

A cry broke through the quiet pasture. Ivan started up. “Wolves!” said
his heart. “Wolves! Wolves again!” But it was not a fierce sound after
all. Again it came, loud like a roar of temper wailing off into a moan.

Ivan listened. “No sheep could bleat like that,” thought he. Nevertheless
he looked. There in the moonlight the nine-and-ninety woolly shapes shone
dimly, huddled safely against the hill.

Once more the sound came, fairly bursting through the air. Ivan held his
breath. It was not the cry of animals but of men, of several men perhaps,
shouting together. “A party of hunters,” thought Ivan, “lost in the
forest!” And he breathed again.

Picking up his crook, he dashed off up the hill, along the edge of the
wood. “I’m coming!” he shouted. “Coming!” But the hunters did not seem
to hear. The same cry kept ringing through the trees ahead, louder at
every step he ran. It seemed directly opposite him now, somewhere in the
forest. He turned in, feeling his way with his crook among the black
shadows of the branches.

There was a crashing and stirring. The trees before him trembled. Ivan
stopped and looked up. Full in the moonlight, half way to the treetops,
gleamed the gigantic shoulder of a man. His head was bent, and he seemed
to be sitting down, gazing intently at something near the ground. As he
moved his arm, the trees swayed and creaked.

Ivan crept nearer. Through an opening between the trees he could see the
giant’s great hands fumbling over his foot. With a piece of fur he was
trying to stop a small cataract of blood that was bursting out from it.
Every now and then, in his clumsy efforts, he seemed to hurt himself
more, for he would throw back his head and give the same deafening howl
Ivan had heard before.

Ivan shivered. In all his life he had never seen a giant; and terrified
as he was, he must have a good look at this one. Crouching, he stole
through the shadow to a little thicket at the giant’s side, and parting
the twigs, leaned eagerly forward. But he had reckoned too much on the
bushes. Under his weight they cracked and bent, and snapped altogether.
His foot slipped, and losing his balance, he crashed through the brush at
the giant’s very elbow.

With a swoop the giant grasped at him. But Ivan was too quick. He dodged
just out of reach, and ran as he had never run before.

“Little creature! Little creature!” called the giant, “don’t run away. I
won’t hurt you. Come back, do come back and help me. If you will bind up
my foot for me, I will give you a reward.”

Ivan’s heart thumped. The giant could crush him in one of his great
hands. But he was in pain, and he had a kindly face. It would be mean to
leave him there alone.

“Oh, little creature,” moaned the giant again, “don’t leave me. I promise
I won’t hurt you. Do come, do come.”

Ivan turned. Stanchly he walked over to the giant’s foot, and running his
hand gently along the sole, picked the rocks and pebbles out of the great
gash.

The giant sighed with relief. “Thank you!” he said. “I hurt it rooting up
an oak-tree, and then I walked on it.”

Ivan pulled off his blouse, and tore it into long pieces. Knotting them
together, he made a strip five or six yards long. He laid it against the
wound, and the giant drew it over the top of the foot where it was hard
for him to reach. Between them they made a neat, firm bandage of it, with
all the knots on top.

The giant beamed. “That feels better,” he said. “And now, little herdboy,
I will show you how a giant keeps his word. If you are not afraid to sit
upon my shoulder, I will take you where no little creature has ever been:
to see a giants’ merrymaking. We are holding a wedding-feast now, and
there will be plenty of fun, you may be sure. Come, I will take good care
of you.”

Ivan picked up his crook. This would be more fun than hide-and-seek on
the hill. He was not in the least afraid, and he felt on good terms with
the giant already. “I’d _like_ to go,” he said.

“Good! Good!” cried the giant, chuckling with the noise of a happy
waterfall. “Up with you, then. Lean against my neck, and take tight hold
of my long hair.” And with that, he picked Ivan gently up and tucked him
snugly just below his right ear.

[Illustration: The giants danced]

“Why, you’re too light! I can’t feel you at all!” he gurgled, as if it
were the best joke in the world. “And I must fix it so that my brothers
can’t _see_ you. Here is a belt for you. Put it on, and you will be quite
invisible.”

So he handed Ivan a long piece of gray gauze, so fine that in the
moonlight he could hardly see it at all. Ivan tied it about his waist.
And then although he pinched himself and knew quite well that he was all
there, he couldn’t so much as see his own toes.

As for the giant, now that he could neither see Ivan nor feel his weight,
he began to be a little nervous. “Once in a while,” he said, “I wish
you’d stand up and shout my name ‘Costan’ into my ear, so that I’ll know
you haven’t tumbled off. And now, are you ready? Hold tight, and we’ll go
on.”

Costan raised himself, and strode off with a long, limping step through
the forest. To Ivan it was like being on a great ship at sea, going up
a long wave, and down. He felt that he might fall asleep if it were not
such fun sitting there on Costan’s shoulder and watching the treetops
glide past the moon.

The trees grew fewer and fewer. Ivan swung around, and peered ahead,
clinging to Costan’s hair. They were coming to a great open space in the
midst of the forest, a meadow thronged with giants and giantesses. There
seemed to be hundreds of them, dressed not like Costan in skins but in
wonderful shimmering garments that blew about their shoulders like clouds
of mist in the moonlight. In the center of them all was a huge fountain
that shot up in a silver torrent far above their heads.

One of the giants came running to meet Costan. “Oh, here you are!” he
cried. “We were afraid you weren’t coming.” And with that, he gave him a
friendly pat on the shoulder that nearly sent Ivan spinning off a hundred
feet or more to the ground.

Costan explained about his hurt foot. “I’ll just sit and look on for
to-night,” he said, and chuckled to himself, thinking of Ivan.

[Illustration: A fountain that shot up in a silver torrent]

And so Ivan, safely nestled on Costan’s shoulder, watched till his eyes
stood out, as the giants danced and played giant games, chasing each
other through the fountain, with a shower of spray like a whirling
rainstorm. They wrestled, they leaped, they sang till all the trees
trembled.

[Illustration: She pulled up a fir-tree]

Just as the fun was at its liveliest, there was a mighty gurgle, and
the fountain, which had been casting itself so high into the air, sank
suddenly into the earth. The oldest giantess of all gathered her great
fluttering robes about her, and striding to the edge of the forest,
pulled up a fir-tree with one wrench of her wrist.

“Midnight!” whispered Costan.

Silently the giants crowded about the uprooted tree.

“_Este tennes!_” cried the giantess.

[Illustration: They cut into the ground like huge knives]

Instantly the giants seemed to flatten out. Their backs seemed to come
forward, and their fronts to shrink back. Their arms, their legs, their
heads, their bodies, grew thin as cardboard. They stood there like great
paper-dolls, taller than the trees. One by one, they stepped into the
hole where the tree had been, and cut their way down into the ground like
huge knives.

Costan bent his ear. “Are you there, little herdboy?” he whispered.

“Yes, Costan,” cried Ivan.

“Keep tight hold, then,” cautioned Costan, “and don’t be afraid. I’m
going to take you with me underground.”

As the last giant vanished, Costan got up slowly and walked toward the
hole. With every step, Ivan could feel him shrinking, until his shoulder
was nothing but a long, thin edge.

There was a quick moment of darkness, and suddenly they were in a hall
shining from floor to ceiling with gold, and so vast that Ivan could
not see to the end of it. Down the center, around a long table sat the
giants, all in their natural shapes again.

Costan slipped into the huge seat that was left for him, and the banquet
went merrily on. To Ivan, who never in all his life had had anything
but bread and cheese, with a little fruit sometimes and a sugar cake at
Christmas, it seemed an impossible dream. There were grapes as big as the
oranges above ground, pheasants the size of eagles, and cakes and tarts
and puddings as big around as the towers of the King’s palace.

But Costan sat silent and uneasy. Then Ivan realized what was the matter:
_Costan was not sure that Ivan was there_. Steadying himself with his
crook, Ivan scrambled up. Standing on tiptoe, he could almost reach the
giant’s ear.

“Costan!” he whispered, as loud as he dared, “I’m here,—all safe.”

Costan beamed with relief, and fell to joking and eating with the rest.
But every now and then he would poise a tiny piece of cake or meat
carelessly above his right shoulder, where Ivan would make it disappear
as completely as he had himself.

At last the oldest giantess rose in her place, to show that the banquet
had come to an end. Amid all the jollity and confusion Costan leaned over
and took from the table a giant roll, as big to Ivan as a whole loaf of
bread.

“Here!” he whispered, below the scraping of the giant chairs. “Tuck this
in your bag, little herdboy, as a reminder of a giant’s promise. And
don’t forget Costan in the world up above.”

As he spoke, everything was suddenly lost in a whirl of darkness,—the
giants, the hall and the feast, even Costan himself. The shouts and
laughter of the huge banqueters grew fainter and fainter till they faded
away into silence.

A sudden bleat made Ivan open his eyes. He was lying on the hillside near
his sheep, and the mountain across the valley glowed red in the sunrise.

“And so,” thought Ivan sadly, “it was a dream after all,—the giants, the
fountain, the banquet, and dear Costan as well.”

He reached for his crook, and started back in amazement. For though he
could feel the handle tightly grasped in his fingers, it seemed to his
startled eyes that the crook suddenly rose up of itself and stood clearly
outlined against the morning sky. As he stepped back, the crook sprang
after him. When he walked forward, the crook bobbed along by his side. He
could feel his hand upon it, but when he looked he could see plainly that
there was no hand there.

Ivan rubbed his eyes. Was he still dreaming then? But no, everything was
just as usual,—the sheep, the hillside and the morning sky. Was it he or
the crook that was bewitched? He looked down at himself in alarm,—and saw
nothing but the stones and grass of the pasture. _There was no Ivan to be
seen_: no arms nor hands nor legs nor feet.

A sudden thought came over him. He felt of his waist. Sure enough! It was
tied about with gauze.

“The invisible belt!” he cried, and pulled it off.

In a twinkling there he was, arms, legs, hands, feet, just the same
as ever. He folded up the long, wispy sash and stuck it into his bag.
Inside, his hand hit something hard and bulgy. It was the giant’s
roll,—the great loaf Costan had given him.

It was past Ivan’s breakfast time, and the sight of the tempting white
bread made him hungry. He tried to break off a piece, but the great roll
would not so much as bend. He drew out his knife, but the harder he cut,
the firmer and sounder the loaf seemed to be. He could not even dent it.

Provoked and impatient, he tried with his teeth. At the first bite, the
hard crust yielded. Something cold and slippery struck his tongue and
rolled out clinking on the ground.

Ivan stooped and stared. There at his feet lay a great round gold-piece
as big as a peppermint-drop. In amazement he looked at the loaf in his
hand. There was not a break anywhere. It was as smooth and whole as
before. He bit again and again. Another gold-piece, and another, fell
at his feet, as round and shining as the first. But the loaf remained
unbroken.

Ivan’s eyes almost started from his head. In all his life he had never
seen a gold-piece before; and whatever he should do with so many he had
not the least idea. He might, of course, build a palace and live like a
lord. But that would take him away from the sheep, and the King and Queen
and Anastasia. On the whole, he decided he was much better as he was,
where he could roll the gold-pieces down the hill and race after them to
the bottom.

Then a splendid idea struck him. To-morrow was the Princess’ birthday.
For a long time he had been wondering what he could give her. Here
was just the thing! What could be better than a heap of the pretty
gold-pieces to play with? He sat down at once, and bit and bit at the
loaf till he had enough of them to fill his bag to overflowing. Bag,
loaf, belt, and all, he hid in his hut at the edge of the forest. Then he
ate his black bread and cheese and went back to his sheep, bounding over
the boulders for sheer happiness.

As soon as the sheep were settled for the night, he ran to the hut again.
Tying the magic belt about his waist, he took up the bag of gold-pieces
and trudged off with them across the fields.

In the moonlight the palace towers rose straight and shining. Every
window gleamed, darkly outlined. Ivan did not hesitate. He knew quite
well which one he wanted. It was the window of the Birthday Room, where
once every year all the servants and the shepherds were allowed to come
to see Anastasia’s presents. To-morrow, he thought, with a catch of his
breath, would be the day.

The bulky form of a guard broke the bright wall of the palace ahead. For
an instant Ivan shrank back. Then with a smothered laugh he dashed across
the grass, underneath the man’s very nose. The guard turned sharply. But
there was no one to be seen. Palace and park lay bright and still in the
moonlight.

Ivan had gained the palace wall. Just as he had remembered, a stout
vine with the trunk of a small tree ran up the side to the very window
of the Birthday Room. He tried it with his foot. It would not have held
a man, but it could bear Ivan even with a bag of gold. Breathless, he
climbed,—so fast that the vine had barely time to tremble before he was
at the top. At his shoulder the casement of the Birthday Room stood ajar.
With one tug he swung it open, and leaned across the sill.

Ivan gazed. On broad chests all about the room glimmered jewels and toys
for the Princess; and in the doorway stood a guard, erect and silent,
watching over them. Underneath the window, deep in shadow, was a low,
cushioned seat.

[Illustration: Every window gleamed]

Something jangled on the floor; and the guard stooped to pick up a knife
fallen from his belt. Instantly, Ivan saw his chance. Holding his bag,
bottom up, on the window seat, he loosened the strings, letting the gold
fall in a heap in the black shadow. By the time the guard had adjusted
his belt again, Ivan was out of the window, climbing down the vine.

Next morning, everything was a-buzz at the palace. The servants
and shepherds, filing around the Birthday Room, barely glanced at
the gorgeous jewels. Every eye was fixed on a glittering pile of
gold-pieces in a glass case. They were worth a king’s fortune, people
said. The Princess could buy with them anything in the world her heart
desired,—castles or coaches, jewels or gowns. And the mystery of it was,
no one knew who had sent them. They had suddenly appeared in the middle
of the night. The whole court was alive with conjectures.

Ivan, filing by with the others, said never a word; but his heart thumped
with pride and happiness. Through a half-open door he could see Anastasia
herself using four of the great round gold-pieces as dishes for her
dolls. Ivan beamed. To-morrow, he decided, the Princess should have a
birthday as well as to-day.

As soon as it was dark, he hurried to his hut, drew out the magic
loaf from its hiding-place, and bit and bit till he had a bagful of
gold-pieces again. Then he put on his invisible belt and ran to the
palace. Everything happened almost as before; and he got away, down the
vine, and back to his sheep before any one was the wiser.

On the window-seat next morning the Princess found the shining heap.
And if the court had been excited before, now it was in an uproar of
astonishment. Hereafter, the King ordered, two guards should stand hidden
beside the window to discover who it was that brought the gold.

So night after night for a week Ivan left the gold-pieces. And morning
after morning the guards reported to the King that no one had been there.
The window, they said, had suddenly swung open; and a bag, jumping
unaided from the sill, had emptied itself on the seat below, disappearing
through the window as magically as it had come. At last the King, tired
of the mystery, declared that he would watch himself.

The eighth night was dark and rainy, and Ivan slipped over the soggy
ground. When he got to the entrance of the park, he realized with a
dreadful sinking of his heart that he had forgotten to put on the magic
belt. He turned to go back, but the thought of the dismal, stormy walk
made him suddenly bold. The palace-guards, he reflected, would be keeping
close to shelter, a night like this. He could easily escape them, and
crawl up the vine unsuspected. Once at the window, he had only to watch
his chance, pop in the gold, and fly back in the darkness to his sheep.

So Ivan kept on. He stole softly by the guard-house where the lazy
soldier lounged half asleep, and crept stealthily up the dripping vine.
The window swung open with a creak, and Ivan, frightened, crouched
breathless beneath the sill. Minutes passed. There was a stir behind one
of the great curtains. The guard was moving. Now perhaps would be the
best time.

Ivan reached over and began emptying his bag. A heavy hand seized his
collar and dragged him bodily into the room. By the light of a flickering
lantern Ivan found himself face to face with—the King!

“Ivan!” exclaimed the King.

There was a pause, Ivan blushing like a culprit, with the empty bag
trembling in his hands.

The King frowned. “To think that you,” he cried, “my best herdboy, whom I
have trusted, should come to steal the gold which a good fairy brings the
Princess! Well, you have given me good service before this, and I will
not treat you harshly now. But go, go at once, and never let me see your
face again.”

And with that, he led him down a staircase and thrust him out into the
dark.

Choking and wretched, Ivan ran back to his hut. Gathering up his loaf and
belt, he crammed them into his bag, and started off into the world.

“Good-by, my sheep!” he cried; and stooped to fondle the little lamb
Anastasia.

“I suppose now,” he reflected miserably, “I shall have to be a great lord
after all.”

By the time he got to the town, day was breaking. The rain had stopped,
and rosy clouds floated across the eastern sky. A sunbeam slanted over
the roof tops, and shone into Ivan’s face. He felt happier all of a
sudden; and taking his loaf, he bit a dozen great gold-pieces out of it.
Then wrapping it up in the magic belt so that no one could see it, he
knocked at a cottage door. Inside, he found a warm breakfast, and dried
himself off by the fire.

A dazzling scheme slowly unfolded in his mind. As soon as breakfast was
done, he went to the coachmaker and ordered a great gold coach; to the
tailor and ordered a golden suit; to the hatter for a hat with golden
plumes. And when the tradespeople heard the clink of his gold-pieces,
they were very glad to serve him, you may be sure.

Only the coachmaker demurred. “A gold coach is nothing,” said he,
“without a coat-of-arms on the door.”

“But I haven’t any,” said Ivan.

“Never mind!” replied the coachmaker, “I will make you one. How did your
good-luck begin?”

“From a loaf of bread,” said Ivan, “and a giant.”

So, the coachmaker painted and painted on the coach-door. When he had
finished, there was as fine a coat-of-arms as you would wish to see,—a
loaf of bread against a background of gold-pieces, and a giant standing
up above.

[Illustration: Ivan’s coat-of-arms]

Then six white horses with gold trappings were harnessed to the coach;
and six servants in golden livery took their places,—two riding ahead,
two riding behind, and two sitting up very straight on the box. Ivan
stepped inside, all dressed in his golden suit and the hat with the
golden plumes. Underneath his arm he carried the giant’s loaf wrapped up
in the magic belt. (But of course nobody could see that.)

“Drive to the King’s palace!” cried Ivan.

So they drove; and all the people along the way were so amazed at the
magnificence of the coach that they ran and told the King that some great
prince was coming to visit him. The King dashed to put on his crown; and
just as the coach drew up at the palace gate, he got seated on his throne
with all his court about him.

[Illustration: So they drove]

Ivan walked up the great hall and bowed low. And all the courtiers bowed
in return to the splendid young prince. Before the King could say a word,
Ivan threw back his head and told the story of the gold-pieces from
beginning to end.

For a moment the King was dumb with astonishment and remorse. Then he
spoke. “Ivan,” said he, “I have done you a wrong. If there is anything I
can do to make it right, you have only to tell me.”

Ivan beamed. “There is only one thing in all the world I want,” he
cried, “and that is to have you for my father, the Queen for my mother,
and Anastasia for my sister!”

“Where is your real father?” asked the King.

“And where is your real mother?” asked the Queen.

“Where is your real sister?” cried Anastasia.

But to all these questions the herdboy gave a satisfactory answer. “I
never had any,” he said.

“Very well then,” cried the King. “You are ADOPTED! I will be your
father; the Queen shall be your mother; Anastasia shall be your sister.
What is more, in five years and a day, when you are quite grown-up, you
shall marry the Princess!”

But by the time he got to that part Ivan and Anastasia were too much
excited to hear. The minute he finished they bowed and curtsied as
well-mannered children should, and ran into the courtyard to play
tiddledywinks with the gold-pieces, over the bread.

Nevertheless, it turned out as the King had said, and in five years and a
day, when they were quite grown-up, Ivan and the Princess were married.
And ever after in the palace-treasury instead of heaps of gold-pieces for
robbers to steal, there was nothing but a single loaf of bread.

                                        —_Based on a Hungarian Folk-tale._




II

The Giants’ Ship

    To The Giant Children

    Giant children of the Norseland,
    In a glad, tumultuous rally,
    Skimming ice-peaked mountain-course land,
    Crushing forests in the valley,—

    We who play in farm and town land,
    Crowded streets and city spaces,
    Envy you the Up-and-Down Land,
    While you seek the level places.

                            _Seymour Barnard._




II

The Giants’ Ship


Part One: How the Giants Went Exploring

After the earth was newly washed by the Flood, nearly all the land of
Europe lay flat and green under the sun. Except in one far corner there
was not a mountain nor a valley nor a hill nor a hollow, nor so much as
a little stream. The soft young grass stretched away and away, in a wide
meadow, as far as one could see.

But there was nobody there to look. For all the people there were, lived
in the Up-and-Down Country, on a great forked point in the Far North. And
that was a very different kind of place, with mountains that went up and
valleys that went down, cliffs that rose and cascades that fell, and not
so much flat land as a giant could cover with his pocket-handkerchief.

But the giant Wind-and-Weather, who lived there, did not mind that in the
least. He sat quite placidly on a mountain-top and looked through a kind
of glass that he had, out over the sea. As for his wife, the giantess
Sun-and-Sea, nothing bothered her. She sat on a cliff and wove on a kind
of loom that she had, back and forth, back and forth, with a noise like
the long ocean rollers on a fair day.

[Illustration: Playing Follow-the-Leader down the long row of peaks]

When it came to the children, they never sat at all. Like the country,
they were always going up or down,—sliding down the mountains, scrambling
up the waterfalls, or playing Follow-the-Leader, hoppety-skip,
skippety-hop, straight down the long row of peaks that made their home.

And when they all played together, it made rather a good game. For
there were fourteen of them, sturdy youngsters, each over a mile high,
and growing fifty feet or so every day. Then too, they happened in
the jolliest way, for they came in pairs so that every one had his
twin. There were Handsig and Grandsig, Kildarg and Hildarg, Besseld and
Hesseld, Holdwig and Voldwig, Grünweg and Brünweg, Bratzen and Gratzen,
Mutzen and Putzen,—a boy and a girl, a boy and a girl, a boy and a girl,
straight down through.

Now, one morning, with Handsig ahead and Putzen straggling somewhere
behind, they were all playing Follow-the-Leader, rather harder than
usual. Handsig had rolled down peaks, and wriggled up, hopped on one foot
and jumped on two, turned somersaults and splashed through waterfalls.
And the whole line of them had come rolling, wriggling, hopping, jumping,
tumbling, splashing after. Being put to it for something to do next,
Handsig started on the dead run from peak to peak, straight along the
mountain-tops.

All of a sudden he stopped short. Ahead of him were no more mountains,
only a straight drop thousands of feet to the sea. He had come, before
he knew it, to the end of the Up-and-Down Country. But that was not what
made Handsig stop so quickly. He had been to the end of the land before.
It was something beyond the water that attracted him,—another country so
different from his that at first it did not seem to be land at all. There
was no up or down in it. It stretched flat and green as far as he could
see.

Handsig waved his arms and shouted, “Oh, Kildarg, Hildarg, Besseld,
Hesseld, see the nice, green running-place!”

And all the other children, thinking it was still part of the game, waved
their arms and shouted, “Oh, Kildarg, Hildarg, Besseld, Hesseld, see the
nice, green running-place.”

By that time Handsig had no doubt any longer. Without another word he
plunged headforemost into the sea, and swam with all his might straight
for the wide meadow that was the rest of Europe.

Splash! Splash! Splash! The other children dived after, and puffing,
blowing, kicking, raced across the channel. Then hand in hand, fourteen
in a row, they scampered pell-mell down across the plain where Germany is
to-day.

But with swimming so hard and running so fast, poor Putzen was quite
out of breath. It was so strange, too, to be going along on a level. It
did not pitch one forward; it did not hold one back. It was just the
same—just the same, step after step after step. The twenty-six legs
beside Putzen did not stop for a minute; they beat along faster and
faster. Putzen hung on to Mutzen as best she could, but her legs would
not go and her breath would not come. And so, gasping and plunging, she
sprawled headlong, pulling Mutzen after her.

Mutzen dragged down Gratzen, and Gratzen dragged down Bratzen; and so
they all tumbled till the land for miles around was a mass of upturned
turf and sprawling giant children. Then Bratzen wailed, and Gratzen
wailed; and Mutzen and Putzen who were at the bottom of the whole pile,
wailed loudest of all; and the air was so full of large sounds that it
seemed likely to burst.

Now, Grandsig, who felt responsible as the oldest girl of the family,
started to scramble up to quiet Mutzen and Putzen. As she did so, her
hands dug into the soft, moist earth, and scratched up two good-sized
hills. A happy idea struck her. “Kildarg! Hildarg!” she cried. “Look!”
And she burrowed into the earth again, scooping up handful after handful.

Kildarg sat up and wiped his eyes. Hildarg sat up and wiped her eyes.
Then they both began to dig as if their lives depended on it. In a
twinkling, there were no more giant children piled on top of Mutzen and
Putzen; and twenty-eight giant hands were scooping out valleys and piling
up mountains of earth.

Handsig and Grandsig made big mountains; Mutzen and Putzen made little
ones. Every single giant child piled up a whole range higher than he was
himself. Then, when all of them were done, there was such a patting and
a pounding as never was heard before, as the valleys were smoothed, and
the mountains molded into shape. There were sharp peaks and blunt peaks,
smooth peaks and rough peaks, single peaks, double peaks, triple peaks.
As for the valleys, they were of all sorts,—straight and crooked, wide
and narrow, long and short.

Grandsig looked at it all, quite satisfied. “Oh, children,” she cried,
“we have made an Up-and-Down Country!”

The other children looked. Sure enough! It was nothing but hills and
hollows, hills and hollows, just as it was at home. And they all danced
about and cried, “Hooray! We have made an Up-and-Down Country.”

[Illustration: “There is your mast,” said Wind-and-Weather]

“And now,” said Handsig, “let’s run!”

So all the children stepped out from between the mountains they had made,
to run back again to the sea.

“But oh!” cried Kildarg, “where is our nice green running-place?”

The children gasped. Instead of their flat grass plot were miles and
miles of mudholes, hardening in the sun. As far as they could see, their
green meadow was scarred with row after row of great black hollows,—the
marks of their twenty-eight running feet.

That was too much for Putzen, and she sat down on one of her mountains
and wept a whole lake into a valley. As for the other giantesses, they
did very little better, and even Grandsig wept a few giant tears, as she
tried to think what they could ever do to get their running-place back
again.

“I know!” she cried at last. “We’ll go home and ask father to build us a
ship; and then we’ll sail till we find another running-place.”

When a giantess starts to weep, she has so many tears and such large
ones, that it is very hard to stop. So, although the children set off
at once for home, it was some time before Putzen, Gratzen, and Brünweg,
Hesseld, Hildarg and Voldwig were smiling again. And their tears, in a
great torrent, flowed after them, over the hubbles, around among the
hollows, and out toward the sea.

They cried, in fact, so hard and so much that even to-day their tears
are still flowing,—for they gathered and gathered until they became the
river Rhine. As for the mountains the giant children built, they too are
still there. They hardened until they became quite firm and rocky, so
that nowadays in Switzerland people are continually climbing up and over
them. And the place where the giant children made, so to speak, the first
mud-pies, has been called the Playground of Europe ever since.

[Illustration: With as many trees as they could drag]

When the children got home, there was old Wind-and-Weather sitting as
usual on a mountain-top and looking through a kind of glass that he had,
out to sea.

“Oh, father,” they cried, “we want a ship to sail the sea to find a
running-place again.”

Old Wind-and-Weather was not disturbed in the least. He got up, put his
glass into his pocket, and walked along the mountain-ridge. With one slow
wrench, he pulled up by the roots a tree taller than he was himself.

“There is your mast,” said Wind-and-Weather.

Then, Handsig and Grandsig pulled up big trees for beams to make the
sides and keel; Mutzen and Putzen pulled up little trees for oars. And
with as many trees as they could drag, they all trooped after their
father down to the seashore.

Half-way down there was the giantess Sun-and-Sea, sitting as usual on a
cliff and weaving on a kind of loom that she had.

“Oh, mother,” cried the children, “help us. We are building a ship to
sail the sea to find a running-place again.”

Sun-and-Sea was not disturbed in the least. She got up and took out of
her loom a sheet longer than she was herself.

“There is your sail,” said Sun-and-Sea.

Wind-and-Weather took the sail down to the shore, and the children began
such a hacking and planing and pounding as no shipyard has ever heard. In
just a few hours of giant time, there was the great ship with the mast
set and the sail rigged, ready to be launched.

Mutzen and Putzen climbed in and took their oars; and the others pushed
and pulled until the boat, slipping and grating, shot out into the water.
Mutzen and Putzen, having nothing to christen it with, beat on the sides
with their oars and cried, “We name you _Mannigfual_!”

“_Mannigfual!_” echoed the other children. “The giants’ good ship
_Mannigfual_!”

The children climbed in and took the oars. Wind-and-Weather took the
tiller. And there they were, skipping along over the sea. When the wind
blew against them, the children rowed and sang. When the wind blew with
them, they set the sail and strained their eyes to find a running-place
ahead across the water. As for Wind-and-Weather, no matter which way the
wind blew, he sat and steered.

Now, it must never be forgotten that giants’ time is as big as they are;
and half a year to them was scarcely more than a day. Our night and day
they did not bother about in the least, for their big eyes looked through
the dark as well as the light. Sunrise and sunset were no more to them
than the revolving of a lighthouse lamp to us. But the minute a half-year
was up, the giants’ night began, and giant children felt then very much
as ordinary children feel in the evening after eight o’clock has struck.

_Mannigfual_ had not sailed many hundred miles when the giants’ night
came on. Mutzen and Putzen knew that it was coming, because their heads
and their arms and their legs began to feel so very much in the way.
Soon they lost track of their oars altogether, their heads bumped,
their mouths dropped open, and there they were,—fast asleep. Then
Gratzen yawned, and Bratzen yawned,—all the rest even up to Handsig and
Grandsig. But somehow or other they managed to keep on rowing.

Wind-and-Weather took out his glass and scanned the sea ahead. In a
little while they all saw what he was steering for. It was land. A few
minutes more, and they had dropped overboard the great cliff they had
brought for an anchor.

Wind-and-Weather picked up Mutzen and Putzen. With one against each
shoulder, he stepped leisurely out and waded ashore. The children jumped
after, splashing and rubbing their eyes. Straight ahead was a wide
valley. Wind-and-Weather laid Mutzen and Putzen in that; and picking out
a convenient hill for a pillow, stretched himself across the landscape.

“Well,” said Handsig, looking around, “I don’t think much of this as a
running-place!”

And quite right he was. For there was nothing flat or broad about it.
The whole country was broken up into little hills, little valleys,
little fields, little forests. But Handsig might have spared his words,
for there was nobody to listen. So he fitted himself neatly between two
hills, and snored as loudly as the others.


Part Two: How the Giants’ Ship Was Stolen

Now, it happened that the giants had landed in the North of England,
which even in that early time was inhabited by the race of men. And
although there was only wilderness in the part where the giants had
stretched themselves, a few miles down the shore was the cave of the
pirates, Dare-and-Do, Catch-and-Kill, Fear-and-Fly.

[Illustration: Dare-and-Do, Catch-and-Kill, Fear-and-Fly]

The morning after the giants landed, Dare-and-Do was awakened unusually
early. Somewhere outside the dark of the cave, the air seemed full of
rumblings and the noise of great waves beating on the beach. Dare-and-Do
yawned irritably. He was wondering how their old long-boat was standing
it, tied under the cliff. Drawing his dirk, he reached over and pricked
his comrades awake, after the pleasant custom of the cave.

“Storm!” hissed Dare-and-Do.

Groping and growling, the three pirates got up to look after their boat,
and stumbled out—into as fair and innocent a day as ever dawned off
England. The thunderings kept on, but there was not a cloud in the sky.
The waves still pounded, but they burst white and glittering into the
sunlight.

Catch-and-Kill turned crossly. “The storm’s over,” he said.

But Fear-and-Fly stood where he was, pointing out to sea, and shaking
from head to foot. “Sea-serpent!” he gasped.

The others looked. There, a mile or so out at sea, stretched a great
monster, motionless and stiff. Was it after all a monster,—the long,
high, level wall, hiding the horizon, the great column in the center,
towering and towering until it was lost in the sky?

“Sea-serpent!” snorted Catch-and-Kill. “It’s an island, a magic island.”

Dare-and-Do peered, shading his eyes. Across that high column went a bar.
“You’re both wrong!” he shouted. “It’s all a ship,—a great ship.”

Now, there was this to be said for Dare-and-Do. There was never a ship
made that he was afraid of. No matter what the size, his one idea was
always to capture it; and the bigger the better, for him. So, instead of
cowering at the sight of the giants’ ship, he rushed back to the cave for
his oars and a whole set of dirks and pikes.

“It will make our fortune,” he cried, “—our everlasting fortune!”

Catch-and-Kill headed off Fear-and-Fly, who was already making for the
bushes, and dragged him down to untie the boat. Dare-and-Do took one oar,
Catch-and-Kill the other; and, with Fear-and-Fly huddling astern, they
set off at top speed. With every stroke of the oars the ship grew nearer
and bigger. To Fear-and-Fly it seemed an unending stretch of wooden cliff
ahead. As they drew toward it, he saw that the side was nothing less than
a mountain, towering a thousand feet into the air. The sight made him
dizzy. He threw himself down on the bottom and shut his eyes.

The others were rowing silently now. The boat slipped stealthily,
stealthily, alongside the steep ship. Dare-and-Do crept to the prow and
thrust his pike into one of the ship’s enormous beams. It held. He passed
a rope over, and the boat was tied.

Without a moment’s pause, he drew his knife, and began carving out
footholds in the massive wood,—up, up, up the ship’s side. As he carved,
he climbed, hand over hand, foot over foot, clinging like a fly to the
precipice.

Catch-and-Kill did not hesitate. He fastened the boat’s stern, as
Dare-and-Do had the prow. Stooping, he seized Fear-and-Fly by the collar,
and dragged him forward along the bottom. With his free hand he pulled
out his dirk and pointed with it, first at Dare-and-Do’s steps, then at
the water. “Up?” he growled through his teeth. “Or down?”

Shaking and shrinking, Fear-and-Fly made the best of his way up the
ship’s side. Catch-and-Kill followed at his heels, ready with a dirk to
encourage him at the slightest hesitation.

Finally Dare-and-Do reached the top. Leaning against the side, he could
look over into the great ship. Before him stretched, seemingly, a long,
wide deck. He scanned it closely. As far as he could see there was not
a single soul. He listened. Not a sound but Fear-and-Fly’s startled
breathing below.

“Crew’s asleep,” muttered Dare-and-Do.

He turned to the others. “Quiet now,” he warned, “and follow me.”

With dirks drawn the pirates clambered over the side and tiptoed
stealthily across the deck. Dare-and-Do headed for the stern. His idea
was to make way with the crew before taking possession of the ship.

[Illustration: “Up? Or down?”]

“Dirks and daggers!” he exclaimed. Before him opened a yawning abyss. The
deck had come abruptly to an end. Beyond the wide chasm began another
deck, made, seemingly, of a single, tremendous board.

Dare-and-Do turned and ran toward the prow. Again the deck stopped before
an abyss, beyond which another deck began. He understood now. There
was no true deck at all,—simply a succession of immense planks laid at
intervals from side to side.

Fear-and-Fly groaned. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” he screamed hoarsely. “It’s a giants’
ship, a giants’ ship, and the decks are their rowing-seats.”

Catch-and-Kill scratched his dirk remindingly across Fear-and-Fly’s
throat. “Silence!” he hissed.

But Dare-and-Do caught his hand. “Dirks and daggers!” he cried. “But the
coward’s right. It’s a giants’ ship. Look at the mast; look at the sail;
look at the tiller there, far above our heads! A giants’ ship, and not
one of the crew aboard! They won’t be back either, if _I_ know giants.
They’ve landed somewhere for their six months’ sleep. Here’s luck, luck,
luck at last. We don’t have to capture the ship. We’ve _got_ her!”

Catch-and-Kill looked up at the mammoth rigging. “Great luck!” he
sneered. “Great luck! A ship you can’t move! A ship you can’t steer! I
suppose _you’ll_ set the sail; I suppose _you’ll_ turn the tiller; I
suppose _you’ll_ sail her to the Gold Lands!”

Dare-and-Do came a step nearer. “_Who wants the Gold Lands most?_” he
asked meaningly.

Catch-and-Kill started. “You don’t mean the King?” he cried.

“Three hundred builders, three hundred sailors, two hundred days,” said
Dare-and-Do calmly, “and there’ll be enough gold for us all and a little
to spare; eh?”

“Daggers and dirks!” cried Catch-and-Kill, making for the ship’s side.
“Let’s be off to ask him!”

Dare-and-Do dashed after, but Fear-and-Fly (who was as anxious to be off
the ship as he was loth to climb on) was the first over the ship’s rail
and down into their boat.

[Illustration: Waste-and-Want]

Stroke! Stroke! Stroke! Their oars flew through the water. In just half
the time it had taken them to come, the pirates went back to their beach.
Without stopping for food they ran over hill and dale, field and fen,
brook and bog, till they reached the King’s castle.

Now the king of the country at that time was a spendthrift named
Waste-and-Want. Half his time he spent in running into debt, the other
half in imploring his councillors to get him out.

At last one day his councillors came to him. “Your Majesty,” said they
politely, “we have the honor to report that the hundred and one means of
escaping from debt which are recorded in history, have, in your case,
been exhausted.”

“What!” roared the King. “You mean to say that you can’t get me out this
time!”

“All methods,” replied the councillors delicately, “have been employed.”

Then the King was angry indeed. He vowed that the common people of his
kingdom could help him better than that, and he issued a proclamation
promising half his ships and half his kingdom to the person who should
find a new way to free him from debt. All who wished to try had but to
come to the castle and give the password, “Fortune favors Kings.” But any
one who spoke the password and failed of his errand, was doomed to exile
on the sea.

Now, exile of that kind did not frighten Dare-and-Do in the least. He
shouted the password at the top of his lungs, and strode by the guard
right into the King’s castle.

In the great hall the King sat on his throne, doing problems in
arithmetic. But the trouble with the examples was that they were all in
subtraction.

Dare-and-Do bowed low. The King looked up and hastily put on his crown.

“Your Majesty,” said Dare-and-Do, “may I make bold to ask you one
question: Why is it that no ship yet has reached the Gold Lands?”

Now, it happened that the King had been thinking of that very matter
himself. So he answered right off, “Why, we’ve never had one long enough,
we’ve never had one strong enough, to stand the storms.”

Dare-and-Do’s eyes gleamed. “Just so, Your Majesty,” he said.

Then he drew a step nearer the throne. “But what would you say,” he
asked, “if I could give you a ship long enough and strong enough to stand
any storm that ever blew?”

“What!” cried the King; and then: “Where?”

Dare-and-Do told him about the giants’ ship. Before he was half through,
Waste-and-Want rushed down his throne-steps, bawling, “Guards! Guards!
Guards! Call together all the builders. Call together all the sailors.
Get all the beams and boards in the kingdom!” And when the King spoke in
that voice, the guards were not slow in obeying.

By the next morning every sailor and every builder in the kingdom was
in line on the sea-beach. As for the piles of beams and boards, they
stretched for miles and miles. All day long every sailboat and rowboat
on the coast plied back and forth, loaded down with beams and boards,
sailors and builders. Then began a hammering and pounding, a planing and
joining, that kept up five months and a day.

[Illustration: In the pulley-blocks were little rooms]

When it was over, even Dare-and-Do opened his eyes wide. From one end of
the ship to the other ran a smooth deck, bridging the great gaps between
the rowing-seats. At the stern was a high platform on which a hundred men
could stand abreast to turn the tiller. Up the mast ran a ladder; and in
the pulley-blocks were carved out little rooms where the sailors could
rest from climbing, over night. To Dare-and-Do as captain, the King gave
his fastest horse, which could do the distance down the deck from stern
to prow in a few hours.

Finally everything was ready. The builders went ashore. The sailors
ranged themselves on board. A hundred hacked in turn at the anchor-rope.
A hundred began to set the sail. A hundred began to turn the tiller.
Dare-and-Do galloped up and down the deck, shouting orders.

At last the anchor rope was cut. The sail flapped slowly out. The tiller
creaked. The wind blew and the ship started forward. All the people
shouted, and as for King Waste-and-Want, he made a bonfire of all his
bills on the beach.

The ship moved along at a terrible rate. But had it not been for losing
sight of the shore, not a sailor on board would have known that it was
stirring at all. Dare-and-Do walked his horse. The crew, in three shifts,
took turns eating dinner and holding the tiller. Catch-and-Kill and
Fear-and-Fly began to plan how the gold should be divided. An open sea,
and the wind behind,—what better luck could be desired?

“Land ahoy!” the lookout’s voice came down. And again, “Land ahoy!”

Dare-and-Do galloped forward. On both sides cliffs began to appear.
Every minute they seemed to grow closer and closer together. Dare-and-Do
measured with his eye the width of the passage ahead. Then he thought
of his ship. A ghastly fright seized him. Suppose the ship should not
get through! It was too late to turn around. The channel was already too
narrow for that. But they must not go dashing on like this.

“Take in sail!” screamed Dare-and-Do. “Take in sail!”

Now, it had taken the crew a day and a night to set the sail; and
although they raced to their posts when Dare-and-Do shouted his order,
it was no easy task to pull the sail in. A hundred of them all together
tugged and hauled with all their strength. Dare-and-Do drew a long
breath. The ship’s prow was safely through the channel—

Smash! Shock! Shiver! Shake! The great ship stopped;—stuck fast between
the cliffs that line the straits of Dover!

It happened that at the very moment when the ship was stopped so
suddenly, the giant Wind-and-Weather awoke, a little early, from his six
months’ sleep. He stretched his big arms and his big legs, and looked
about him. Seeing his children still asleep, he got up softly; and
sitting down on a nearby hill, looked through a kind of glass that he
had, down across England.

[Illustration: Looked through a kind of glass that he had, down across
England]

Just then there was a great stirring among the giant children. They
began to wake up and stretch the sleep out of their cramped bodies.

“Oh, father,” wailed Mutzen and Putzen.

“Oh, father,” wailed all the others. “Oh, father, our ship is gone!”

Old Wind-and-Weather was not disturbed in the least.

“Indeed?” he said.—“_I_ see it.”

“Oh, where?” cried all the children.

“Over the little hills, over the little valleys, over the little fields,
over the little forests,” said Wind-and-Weather, “I see the mast against
the sky.”

“Oh, _there_!” cried Handsig, and “There!” cried Grandsig, and “_There!_”
they all cried together.

With one leap they started, plunging down across England. From hill to
hill, from valley to valley, over field, farm, and forest they raced,
stubbing their toes against towns and jumping over villages when they
happened to see them. Wind-and-Weather strode along after them, a mile at
a step; and was at the seashore as soon as they.

Now, the three hundred sailors aboard the giants’ ship were hardly over
their fright at having their big craft stuck between the cliffs when they
were thrown into a much greater panic at hearing the giants’ footsteps
beating down across England. They huddled in the stern; they hid behind
the mast; they scuttled this way and that. They tussled and scrambled and
scrimmaged and scratched, each one trying to get behind his neighbor.
Finally, as they saw Wind-and-Weather’s huge form bearing down upon them,
every mother’s son of them took a wild leap and plunged recklessly into
the sea.

Dare-and-Do and Catch-and-Kill did not jump. They had been in plenty of
panics before, and it was always their policy to stay by the ship. So,
they sat, one on Fear-and-Fly’s head, the other on his feet, and waited
the coming of the giants.

[Illustration: They plunged into the sea]

Wind-and-Weather’s great eyes made them out at once. He picked them all
up with one scoop of his big hand and stuffed them into his pocket. Then
he stepped into the ship. With a single kick he sent the platform under
the tiller flying a hundred miles across Europe. With a stamp of his foot
he smashed the decks between the rowing seats, one after the other.

“But oh!” cried Mutzen; and “Oh!” cried Putzen; “our ship is stuck
between the rocks! How shall we ever get it out again?”

“_I_ know!” cried Grandsig. And putting her hands into her apron-pockets,
she drew out two immense cakes of soap, which she had brought to wash the
children’s faces.

She took one. Handsig took the other. And they went to work with a will,
soaping _Mannigfual’s_ sides. Then Wind-and-Weather pulled and all the
children pushed. The ship creaked and scratched; then slipped and slid
straight out into the English Channel. But the soap, which they put on
rather thick, came off on the rocks, and that is why the cliffs of Dover
have ever since been white.

With a good wind it did not take long, I can tell you, for the giant
children to sail up around the British Isles, back to the Up-and-Down
Country. There sat Sun-and-Sea just as usual, weaving on a kind of loom
that she had.

“Oh, mother, mother!” cried the children. “See what father has brought
you.”

Wind-and-Weather held out the little men on the palm of his hand.

“They are just what I need,” said Sun-and-Sea, “to keep my threads
straight.” So she took the bold pirates Dare-and-Do and Catch-and-Kill,
and set them on her loom.

Wind-and-Weather put Fear-and-Fly back into his pocket. “For,” he said,
“he can polish my glass for me and keep it bright.”

Whether the giant children ever found another running-place I cannot say.
But I fear not. For, years afterward, the great-limbed men who followed
the giants in the Up-and-Down Country, were still sailing the seas in
search of new lands.

                                                —_Based on Norse legends._

[Illustration: The cliffs of Dover have ever since been white]

[Illustration]




III

How the Giants Got the Best of Thor

    Swift as the tempest comes terrible Thor,
    Heaving his hammer behind and before;
    Roaming folk, homing folk, careful be ye!
    Only the giants are stronger than he.

                            _Seymour Barnard._




III

How the Giants Got the Best of Thor


In the misty time when the gods walked about the earth, Thor, the
strongest of them all, set out one day for Giantland. In his hand he
carried his hammer which could batter down mountains; and around his
waist he wore his magic belt which made him twice as strong as before.
For he was going to humble the giants.

In spite of his wonderful strength, Thor was but little larger than a
man; and the giants, by their very size, annoyed him. When he hurled his
hammer through the clouds, the sky rocked, the sea shook, but the giants
did not tremble. And when his chariot-wheels struck out swift streaks of
fire across the sky, they only smiled in their big way as if it were some
game of fireflies. Now he was bound to show them that however big the
giants might be, Thor was stronger, and that a little trembling now and
then might not be out of place.

With Thor went the hungry god Loki, and the swift runner Thialfi. All
day long they walked together through sunny mists across the bare, green
uplands, and just at nightfall they came to a wide moor. As far as they
could see, there was not a house, nor a shed, nor any kind of shelter.
Not even a tree broke the soft horizon. Thialfi ran ahead; and Loki, who
was ravenous, walked furiously. Only Thor did not notice. He was planning
how he would put the giants in their place.

It grew darker and darker. The mist which had played about them all day
in gentle clouds, rose in a damp, gray fog. It filled their throats and
their eyes. They lost sight of Thialfi altogether. Loki stepped back,
groping to make sure that Thor was there behind him; and plunged on
again, sullen and dripping.

Somewhere through the fog there came a shout. It was Thialfi far ahead.
“Halloo!” he cried. “Halloo-oo-oo! Shelter!”

Thor and Loki answered, walking faster. Thialfi’s voice was louder now,
and plainer. “Here!” he cried. “Here! Here!”

It seemed as if they must be close upon him. But the fog ahead grew no
brighter. “Where is the house?” shouted Loki. “Hasn’t it a light?”

[Illustration: With Thor went hungry Loki and swift Thialfi]

But even as he spoke, they stumbled across a wide threshold. Above them
through the thick grayness they could make out a low ceiling. They put
out their hands, groping for the door-arch, and met only empty air.
There seemed to be no doorway at all; or rather, there was nothing _but_
doorway,—a great entrance, like the mouth of a cave, as wide as the
building itself.

Thor struck his hammer on the floor. “Who’s here?” he thundered. But
there was no reply,—only soft echoes, “Here—here—here!”

Thialfi found them. “There is no one here,” he said. “I’ve shouted
before. It’s a ruined palace, I think, with all one side gone. This part
is a great hall; and beyond, there are five narrow wings. Come, I’ll
show you.”

But Thor and Loki yawned, tired out with their day’s journey. And
throwing themselves down on the floor, they all three fell fast asleep.

About midnight Thor started up. The floor trembled, and the whole palace
quaked. The wide roof above them shook till it seemed ready to fall. Thor
roused the others. “Run into one of the wings,” he cried. And picking
up his hammer, he himself went to sit in the great doorway to guard the
house.

All night long the strange rumblings continued. There would be a great
heaving sound, a silence, and then another sound louder than before. Thor
clutched his hammer and waited.

At dawn the noises suddenly ceased. The fog thinned, and Thor looked out
across the country. In the distance he could make out a bright hill, and
amid the shrubbery on the side, two lakes gleaming through the morning
mists. He started to walk toward them when all at once the whole hill
stirred.

Thor stopped, motionless with surprise. For a moment he could hardly
realize that what he had taken for a hill was a giant’s head, and that
the lakes fringed with shrubbery were his eyes gleaming beneath his
bushy brows. Even the rumblings were explained, for they were the
giant’s snores.

When the giant spied Thor, he laughed. “Well, well, my little fellow,
you’re an early riser!” he cried. “And perhaps you’ve seen something of
my glove. I had it yesterday, and I must have dropped it about here last
night. Oho! There it is now!” And with that, he stooped and picked up the
palace.

“Take care!” cried Thor, gasping. “Take care! People inside!”

He was just in time. Very gently, the giant took the glove by the fingers
and shook Loki and Thialfi out into his tremendous hand.

When the giant heard how they had mistaken his glove for a ruined palace,
and the finger places for wings, he roared till the ground rocked, and
Thor had to skip about to keep his balance.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” gasped the giant, wiping his eyes. “This is a rare meeting
indeed. And now what do you say to some breakfast with the giant Skrymir?”

Setting Loki and Thialfi carefully on the ground, he untied a huge wallet
which he had slung over his shoulder, and laid out small hills of bread
and cheese in a wide semi-circle about him. The gods sat down opposite
and opened their lunch-bag. A very merry breakfast they had of it. For
between his tremendous mouthfuls, Skrymir told the biggest jokes in the
world.

Finally he got up, and shaking out of his lap three or four crumbs, the
size of an ordinary loaf, said that he was ready to start along. “And
where are _you_ bound?” he asked.

Thor told him a little sheepishly.

“That’s my direction too,” said Skrymir good-naturedly. “Come along with
me; I’ll show you the road and carry your bag.”

And picking up their wallet with his thumb and forefinger he tucked it
into a corner of his big one, which he tied up securely and slung again
over his shoulder.

So they set off, Skrymir walking as slowly as he could, and the gods
running like terriers at his great heels in a desperate effort to keep up
with him.

At nightfall they stopped under a towering oak-tree, and Skrymir seeming
suddenly tired out, stretched himself full length upon the ground. But
Loki, who since breakfast had thought of nothing but supper, cried out to
him that he had their bag.

Sleepily, he took his big wallet from his back and laid it on the ground
beside them. “Take anything from it you wish,” said he; and, with that,
fell fast asleep.

In a minute Loki had climbed to the top of the sack and begun to tug at
the huge ropes that bound it. Thialfi sprang after him. But the harder
they pulled, and the redder and hotter they grew, the more firmly the
knots seemed to stay in place. Then Thor, tightening his magic belt,
leaped up and pulled too. But the knots remained as securely tied as
before.

“Skrymir! Skrymir!” shouted Loki.

A huge snore that nearly shook them off the sack was the only answer. By
that time the gods were desperate with hunger, and Thor, who had never
before failed in a trial of strength, was bursting with rage. Dashing
down off the wallet, he took up his hammer and hurled it with terrific
force at the giant’s forehead.

Skrymir turned a little in his sleep. “Did a leaf fall?” he murmured
drowsily. “I thought I felt something on my head.” In another minute he
was snoring again more loudly than ever.

Thor shrank back, astounded. Never before had his hammer failed to
kill. Trembling and exhausted, he lay down beside Loki and Thialfi on
the ground. But it was no more possible to sleep than it had been to
get something to eat. The oak-tree rocked as in a wild hurricane; the
leaves dashed together, and the ground quaked with the giant’s snores. It
sounded as if a hundred vast trumpets were blaring at once.

By midnight Thor could stand it no longer. He sprang up, determined to
put an end to Skrymir once and for all. Tightening his magic belt three
times, he swung his hammer about his head and dashed it straight and sure
into the giant’s temple.

Skrymir’s eyelashes flickered. “How troublesome!” he grumbled, raising
his head. “These acorns dropping on my face!”

Thor held his breath. Minute after minute passed, and Skrymir did not
begin again to snore. Would he never go to sleep? Thor clenched his fist
till his fingernails bit deep into his hand. Somehow he must get one more
chance with his hammer. It was maddening, unbelievable, that there was a
giant who could withstand it.

Finally, just at dawn, Skrymir’s wide bosom began to move up and down, up
and down, like the high waves at sea. At the first snore Thor was ready.
He gripped his hammer with both his mighty hands, and hurled it with a
force to kill a hundred men. With a thundering crash it sank deep into
the giant’s forehead.

Thor ran exultingly to drag it out. But Skrymir, brushing his hand
drowsily across his brow, swept it gently to the ground.

[Illustration: A tremendous palace, all of ice]

“Just as I got to sleep!” he growled. “To have a twig drop on me! There
must be birds building a nest in the branches above here. Are you awake,
my little gods? Well, Thor, you _are_ up early! What do you say to
starting on?”

And with that, Skrymir stretched his great arms and sprang up as if
nothing had happened. As for his forehead, it was as sound and firm as
ever.

Thor leaned back weakly against the oak. “Yes,” he gasped, “let us be
going.”

So Skrymir shouldered his great wallet again, and set off whistling
across the field, with the gods following limply after. At the meadow’s
edge Skrymir stopped and waited. Beyond a line of trees stretched a hard,
bright road, gleaming like a sea of white marble in the sun.

Skrymir pointed along it. “This road,” said he kindly, “takes you to the
palace of the giant king. My way lies over the hills so I must be saying
good-by. Many thanks for your pleasant company, my little friends. You
will be well received in Giantland. Only remember your size, and don’t
get to boasting, my tiny gods. Here’s your wallet now; and good luck go
with you.”

As he spoke, Skrymir took his great sack from his back and plucked it
open with one pull at the huge knot. Picking out the wallet of the gods,
he laid it on the ground; and flourishing his enormous cap about his
head, by way of good-by, he went leaping off toward the hills. The gods
watched him, speechless, till he was out of sight. One moment his huge
form rose clear against the blue sky as he jumped over a mountain range;
the next, it was lost to view on the other side.

Loki turned trembling to the other gods. “Let us turn back,” he cried. “I
am not going on to be laughed at in Giantland.” Then his eye caught the
wallet. Diving for it, he tore it open, and the starving gods fell to.
There was only a mouthful apiece, but it gave them new courage.

Thor brandished his hammer. “Go back? Never!” he cried. “On we travel to
Giantland. They shall yet learn to know the great god Thor!”

Thialfi sprinted ahead along the marvelous white road, and Loki, more
ravenous than ever, pelted after.

Suddenly, the road turned sharply upward. The gods climbed, panting.
There in the distance, beyond the hill-top, gleamed a tremendous palace,
all of ice. Immense icicles made its pillars, and its frosty pinnacles
glittered above the clouds. In the sunlight it shone with a thousand
rainbows.

Thialfi stopped. Straight before him flashed the palace gate, each great
icicle-bar blazing back the sun. For a moment he paused, dazzled. Then he
saw that wide as the huge bars were, wider still were the spaces between
them. He walked through, arms outstretched, without touching on either
side. Thor and Loki followed along the glittering ice-roadway to the
palace.

Up and down in front paced two giant sentinels, their heads erect and
their great eyes peering out through the upper air. The tiny gods slipped
unnoticed by their very feet, and into the great hall of the giant king.

Around the sides sat giant nobles on benches as high as hills, and at the
end the king himself on his towering throne. Blinding light flashed from
the floor, the ceiling, the walls. But the gods did not quail. Proud and
straight, they passed unremarked down the center of the hall.

Before the throne Thor stopped, and dashed his hammer on the floor. The
vast hall resounded and the giants rose to look.

Thor drew himself up. “I am the great god Thor,” he cried, “whose hammer
cleaves the clouds and shakes the sky. I come to demand the homage of the
giants.”

Like a burst from a hundred volcanoes at once, the giants’ laughter came
booming down the hall.

The giant king smiled. “The giants welcome the gods,” he said kindly,
“but we can bow only before proofs of greater power than our own.”

At that, Loki who was nearly starving, could stand it no longer. “Greater
power!” he shouted. “Greater power! Let any one here eat food faster than
I!”

The giants clapped their hands with a noise like waves smiting the beach.
“Hear! Hear!” they roared.

“Have my cook Logi bring a trough of meat,” called the giant king.

Setting the trough before the throne, Logi sat down at one end, and Loki
at the other.

“Ready!—Start!” cried the king.

Click-clack! Loki’s little jaws were at it before Logi got his great
mouth open. Click-clack, click-clack, they kept on while Logi’s great
tongue swept down the trough. Squarely in the middle, their heads bumped,
Loki’s little head against Logi’s big one.

“A tie!” cried Thor. And so it seemed. But while Loki had eaten every
morsel of meat from the bones, Logi had devoured meat, bones, trough and
all.

Thialfi stepped forward, flushing at Loki’s defeat. “Who will race with
me?” he cried.

“Hugi! Hugi!” shouted a dozen giant voices.

Hugi walked out, a slender young giant, and led Thialfi to a race-course
covered with marble-dust, just behind the palace.

The giant king gave the signal, and off they dashed. Thialfi smaller and
quicker, was off first; but Hugi, with his long legs, covered an immense
distance at a single bound. Before the course was half finished, Thialfi
was running like a tiny hound at the heels of a deer. As they drew nearer
the goal, Hugi with a sudden urge, sped forward and crossed the line
before Thialfi was three-quarters of the way around.

[Illustration: The contest between Loki and Logi]

“Bravo, Hugi! Well run, Thialfi!” cried the giants kindly.

But Thor blazed with wrath from head to foot. His muscles quivered and
his throat was dry. “Bring out your largest drinking-horn,” he thundered,
“and see how Thor will empty it.”

The giants trooped back into the hall, and Logi brought a horn as deep as
a well, filled with mead.

“With us, Thor,” said the king, “a giant is thought a good drinker if he
can empty the horn at a single draught; a moderate drinker does it in
two, and any giant can do it in three.”

Thor gave his magic belt a quick twist. Instantly his little form began
to expand; and he stood before them, a god of majestic size, half as big
as the giants themselves, and with muscles greater than their own. Taking
the horn in one of his mighty hands, he breathed with all his force and
drank till it seemed as if the vessel must have been emptied twice over.
Triumphantly he raised his head and looked within. But the mead still
brimmed to the horn’s edge.

Astonished and angry, he bent his lips again and drank till he thought
he should burst. But again the horn seemed as full as when he had begun.
With a last desperate straining, he lifted it a third time and buried
his face in its vast depth. He stopped, breathless and choking. The mead
had sunk below the rim, but the horn was still more than half full.

A great silence came over the hall. Loki and Thialfi cast down their
eyes. But Thor threw back his head, unbaffled. “Give me any weight,” he
cried, “and I will lift it. You shall yet see the matchless strength of
Thor.”

A gray cat larger than an elephant rubbed itself against the steps of the
throne. “Perhaps then, Thor,” said the giant king, “you will lift my cat
for me.”

Snorting with scorn, Thor took a swift step forward, and put one immense
arm around it. But the cat seemed bound to the floor with iron chains.
Thor tugged again. But the harder he pulled, the higher the cat arched
its back; and the best he could do was to make it lift one paw from the
floor.

Thor roared with rage. “Let me wrestle,” he cried. “I defy any giant of
you all to match his strength against mine. Let any one try to bring Thor
low, in fair and single combat!”

“Ask my old nurse Elli to come in,” ordered the giant king.

Thor’s eyes flashed. “Do not mock me,” he thundered. “At your risk you
taunt the great god Thor.”

“No offense is offered you,” said the giant king kindly. “Elli is no mean
opponent. Many a bold champion before now she has brought to his knees.”

As he spoke, there hobbled into the room a hag so bent, so wrinkled, so
infirm, that Thor drew back in anger and dismay.

“Elli,” said the giant king, “will you wrestle with the god Thor?”

The old dame nodded her head, and tottering up to the god, cackled
tauntingly in his face. “Throw me!” she quavered. “Throw me!”

Enraged beyond endurance, Thor seized her about the waist, meaning to lay
her gently upon the floor. But the harder he gripped her, the steadier
she stood. Bracing all his muscles Thor took a new hold, but the hag had
grasped him in her turn. Something in her slow embrace seemed to sink
into his very limbs. His arms loosened. His legs weakened. Before he knew
it, he dropped kneeling before her.

“Enough, Elli!” cried the giant king. “Let Thor go. We must give him
better entertainment. Come, minstrels. Come, cooks; deck out our board
and feast our guests like gods.”

In a twinkling a magnificent repast was spread, and giant jokes sped
about the hall. The minstrels played great, sounding tunes upon their
mammoth harps, and the giants did their best to make their guests
forget the outcome of all their boasting. But the gods, humbled and
downcast, took little part in the merrymaking. Even Thor, who had resumed
his natural size, had no more pride left in him. They sat silent and
dejected, and went off early to bed.

[Illustration: The cat was none other than the terrible serpent]

Next morning they rose before daybreak, hoping to escape from the palace
without seeing the giants again. But the giant king was up before them,
and in the great hall a breakfast stood ready. After they had finished,
the king himself led them down the gleaming roadway, and out through the
great ice gate, rosy with the light of dawn.

The giant king paused. “Before I leave you, my small friends,” he said,
“I must in honesty tell you that the giants admire while they do not
yield to the power of the gods. For had it not been for the magic we
used, we, and not you, would have been humbled.

“I myself was that giant Skrymir in whose glove you slept. I tied up
the wallet with the enchanted rope. It was I whom Thor struck with his
unconquerable hammer. Any one of the blows would have killed me had I not
each time brought a mountain in between. There in the distance you can
see in the peak the three great clefts his hammer made.

“Yesterday Loki could not win his eating wager. But it was because he was
matched against Logi who is none other than _Fire_ itself, which could
devour meat, bones, trough and all. Thialfi lost his race. But we giants
marveled at his speed, for he ran against Hugi who is _Thought_, the
swiftest thing in the world.

“When Thor drank, then indeed we wondered; for his drinking-horn was
connected with the ocean, and his great draughts made the waters ebb from
shore to shore. My cat which he tried to lift was none other than the
terrible serpent which lies around the world with its tail in its mouth.
When Thor tugged, he lifted it up till its back arched against the sky,
and it seemed likely to slip altogether out of the sea.

“When he wrestled with my nurse Elli, we saw the greatest marvel of all.
For she is _Old Age_, whom no one has ever withstood.

“But strong as you are, do not boast again, my tiny gods. For remember,
the giants’ magic is as great as the giants themselves, and can never be
conquered.”

Overcome with rage, Thor raised his hammer to shatter the giant and his
palace forever. But a sudden mist blinded his eyes. When it cleared, he
found himself, with Loki and Thialfi, alone on a wide moor glowing in the
sunrise.

                                                     —_From a Norse myth._

[Illustration]




IV

The Cunning of Fin’s Wife

    From the stories we have told,
    One may learn what giants’ lives are;
    Here’s a tale of giants bold
    Which will show what giants’ wives are:

    How the doughty Fin M’Coul
    Fled Cucullin, who was stouter;
    Sought his faithful wife; and who’ll
    Say he could have done without her?

    How she put her spouse to bed,
    Planning that Cucullin, maybe,
    Would her husband learn to dread
    If he took Fin for their baby:

    If the babe be strong as this,
    Thought Cucullin, I would rather
    Hesitate to meet with his
    Proud, perhaps pugnacious father.

    So from out the house of Fin
    See the hulking fellow hustle:
    Thus a woman’s wit may win
    Over bulk and brawn and muscle.

                  _Seymour Barnard._




IV

The Cunning of Fin’s Wife


[Illustration: The giants were building a causeway]

The giants were building a causeway from Ireland over to Scotland. A
great bridge it was to be: thousands of piles sunk in the sea, and over
them such a road as would take ten giants abreast. All the giants in
Ulster were working to make it, and Fin M’Coul was the head of them all.
Whack, whack, whack! went their sledges pounding the piles; and roar,
roar, roar! came Fin’s big voice telling how to place them.

Up came a little lad running. “Fin M’Coul! Fin M’Coul!” cried he. “The
great Scotch giant Cucullin’s looking for you. He says he’s come to beat
you; he says he’s come to treat you as he’s done every other giant in
Ireland!”

At that there was not a giant but dropped his sledge. Some felt of their
heads, some felt of their jaws, some felt of their backs, and some, of
their ribs. Every one put his hand to the spot where Cucullin had touched
him last. For the truth of it was, Cucullin was a terror and there was
not a giant could stand before him. When he stamped his foot, he shook
the whole county. In his pocket he carried a thunderbolt which he had
flattened to a pancake with one blow of his fist. Many were the times he
had come before, looking for Fin; but always it had happened that Fin was
away, seeing after his affairs in some distant part of the country.

But Fin was the best fighter in Ireland and not the man to be frightened
before his friends. So, though his knees set up a kind of swaying beneath
him, he called out to the little lad in a voice to shake the whole
township.

“And what is the Scotchman waiting for?” roared he. “Tell him here is
Fin, ready this long time to thrash him,—although,” he added easily, “if
it’s not hurrying he is, he may not find me _here_. For the truth of it
is, I was just about to be starting to see my wife Oonagh on the top of
Knockmany Hill. And fight or no fight, it’s there I must be going, for
she’ll be ailing, poor woman, and low in her spirits, all for the want of
her Fin.”

Now, Fin was not one to be slow in anything he had made up his mind
to. So hardly were the words from his mouth when it was down with his
sledge, up with his heels and off with him over the hills to Knockmany.
At first it was a long, swinging step he took, with a stout fir-tree as a
walking-stick. But the farther and farther from the Causeway he went, the
faster and faster his legs began to move, until after all he was going
not so much at a walk as a run.

Of all the hills in Ireland, the chilliest and windiest was Knockmany
where Fin lived. Day or night, winter or summer, it was never without a
breeze; and besides that, from top to bottom was never a drop of water.
But little did that trouble Fin. “Why,” he would say, “ever since I was
the height of a round tower, I was fond of a good prospect of my own. And
where should I find a better than the top of Knockmany Hill?”

There were some who said though, that it was not so much the view itself
that Fin liked as it was to be able to see when Cucullin was coming to
visit him. For then he could be off in time on his distant travels across
the country.

Be that as it may have been, there was no doubt now but Fin was glad to
be at home again. There was his darling Oonagh waiting for him at the
tiptop of the hill; and the smack they gave each other made the waters of
the lake below curl with kindness and sympathy.

“But what brought you home so soon?” said Oonagh.

“And what should it have been,” cried Fin, “but affection for yourself?”

But Oonagh, who always had her wits about her, soon saw that something
was troubling her good man. For it was nothing but into the house and out
again, across the hill and back, looking and peering, looking and peering
for something he didn’t seem altogether wishful to see.

Oonagh watched him for a while. Then, “Is there some one you’re
expecting, Fin?” said she.

Now, Fin knew very well that Oonagh would have it out of him sooner
or later. So he lost no time. “It’s that Cucullin,” roared he, “that
earthquaker, that thunderbolt-flattener! He’ll be coming here to beat me;
he’ll be coming here to treat me as—”

A pause came on Fin. Not a word more did he say; but into his mouth went
his great thumb. It was a rare quality Fin’s thumb had that when he stuck
it between his teeth it could tell him of the future.

“Thundering pancakes!” howled Fin. “He’s coming _now_! He’s down below
Dungannon. My thumb tells me.”

“Well,” said Oonagh, keeping on with some knitting she had, “what if he
is?”

“What if he is!” echoed Fin. “What if he is! So you’d sit there, would
you, and never raise your eyes to see your good man made pulp before you!
Cucullin’s coming, I tell you, that can knock a thunderbolt flat as a
pancake; and I can’t be running away.”

“Well, well,” said Oonagh, “we might be stopping him a bit.” So she got
up and turned toward Cullamore.

Now, Cullamore was where her sister Granua lived,—a hill, four miles
across the valley, the twin of Knockmany. Many a pleasant chat Oonagh
and Granua had together of summer evenings, one sitting outside her door
on Knockmany, the other on Cullamore. For Granua was as ready-witted as
Oonagh herself, and something of a fairy as well.

“Granua,” called Oonagh, “are you at home?”

“No,” answered Granua, “I’m down in the valley picking bilberries.”

“Well, go up on top of Cullamore,” said Oonagh, “and tell me what you
see.”

“Now I’m up,” said Granua; “and down below Dungannon I see a giant, the
biggest I ever saw.”

“That’s what I was expecting,” said Oonagh. “That’s Cucullin on his way
to Knockmany, coming up to beat Fin.”

“Would you want me to be keeping him a while?” asked Granua. “I’ll be
having a party of giants and giantesses this evening, and we could give
him some entertainment maybe that would keep him over night, and quite
away from your house till the morning.”

“If you would,” said Oonagh, “I’d thank you kindly.”

So Granua made a high smoke on her hill and whistled three times to show
Cucullin that he was invited to Cullamore. For it was in that way the
giants of old times told a traveler that he was welcome to come in and
eat with them.

As for Oonagh, when she turned around, there was Fin shivering and
shaking behind her.

“Thundering pancakes, Oonagh!” said he. “And what have you done but made
everything ten times worse than it was before? If Cucullin is coming, I’d
wish it would be now while I have some heart left to fight him. What with
thinking it over all day and dreaming it over all night, I’ll have no
more courage by morning than a boiled rabbit.”

[Illustration: “No,” said Granua, “I’m down in the valley, picking
bilberries”]

“If I were you, Fin,” said Oonagh, “I’d not be saying much about courage.
The best thing for you is to do as I tell you, and trust me to get you
out of this scrape as I’ve pulled you through many before.”

So Fin said no word more, but sat down on the hill and pitched cliffs
into the valley to steady his quaking limbs.

Oonagh went about her plans. First she worked a charm by drawing nine
threads of nine different colors. For this she always did when she wanted
to know how to succeed in anything important. Next she braided them in
three braids of three colors each. One she put around her right arm; one
around her right ankle; and one around her heart, for then she knew that
she could not fail in anything she tried to do.

“Now, Fin,” said she, “will you kindly go to the neighbors’ for me and
borrow one-and-twenty iron griddles, the largest and strongest you can
get?”

Fin was glad enough of something to do, and hardly were the words from
her mouth when off he was, down the hill and over the valley.

Oonagh went into the house and began kneading a great mountain of
dough. Into two-and-twenty parts she divided it, each a great round
cake the size of a mill-wheel. Scarcely was she done when back came Fin
again, clattering and clanking loud enough to be heard ten miles beyond
Cullamore. Seven griddles he had in one hand, seven in the other, and
seven strung about him in a noisy necklace.

Oonagh took them all, and each she kneaded into the heart of one of her
great dough-cakes. Over the fire she baked them and set them all upon the
shelf,—two-and-twenty fine loaves of bread, one-and-twenty with griddles
inside and one with no griddle at all.

Next morning she was up before daylight; and so for that matter was Fin,
fidgeting and fuming, and keeping a sharp lookout down the valley. As for
Oonagh, she went about smiling and humming to herself as if it were a May
morning.

First she took a great pot of milk and made it into curds and whey.
“Fin,” said she, “when Cucullin comes—.” And she told him what he must do
with the curds.

“And now,” she said, “help me while I pull out the old cradle.”

With that she put her hand to a cradle the size of an ark, and taking
two quilts an acre square began spreading them out and tucking them up
inside.

“Don’t be standing about, Fin,” said she, “but go and dress yourself up
like a bit of a boy.”

By that time Fin decided that she was daft entirely. But he did as she
bid nevertheless, for the fact was he was at his wits’ end, and thought
that since Cucullin was to make pulp of him at any rate, it did not much
matter how he was dressed.

Up the valley came a roar like thunder. Fin’s house on the top of
Knockmany trembled and the cradle inside rocked to and fro.

“That’ll be Cucullin singing to himself on his way up from Granua’s to
beat Fin,” said Oonagh.

As for Fin, he turned as white as the childish clothes he was wearing,
and trembled from top to toe.

“Not a minute to waste quaking and shaking!” cried Oonagh. “Into the
cradle with you, Fin, and a stout heart inside you! Lie quiet now; never
forget you’re but a child; and not a word out of you till you see it’s
the time.”

Into the cradle clambered Fin, stumbling and grumbling and barking his
shins. Oonagh tucked him in.

“Fold up your knees under your chin,” cautioned she. “Not a move now, or
you’ll burst the cradle! Close up your eyes; put your thumb in your mouth
like an innocent babe fast asleep. Quiet now, and leave Cucullin to me.”

Oonagh smoothed out her apron and patted her hair. Down on the doorstep
she sat and began to knit, as cool and airy as the dawn on Knockmany.

Up the hill in three leaps came Cucullin. Such a giant Oonagh had never
seen. Half again as tall as Fin he was, with muscles that stood out
like small hills. But Oonagh was not one to let herself be surprised.
So, while she saw all this beneath her eyelashes, she kept on with her
knitting and pretended not to have noticed Cucullin at all.

“A fine morning!” roared Cucullin. “And might this be where Fin M’Coul
lives?”

Oonagh looked up. “Indeed it is, my good man,” said she. “Won’t you be
sitting?”

“Thank you kindly,” said Cucullin. “Is Fin at home?”

“The pity of it is, he’s not,” said Oonagh. “The fact is, he heard there
was a big Scotch giant named Cucullin down at the Causeway looking for
him; and nothing would do but off he must be over the hills to meet him.
Indeed, for the poor giant’s sake, I hope Fin won’t find him. For with
the temper Fin’s in, he’d make paste of him in no time.”

At that Cucullin threw back his great head as if it were some joke Oonagh
had made. “Ho, ho, ho!” roared he. “Ho, ho, ho! Make paste of Cucullin,
would he? Make paste of Cucullin! Why, why, why, my good woman, _I’m_
Cucullin!”

Oonagh put down her knitting. “Can it be?” cried she. “_You_, Cucullin!”
And with that she gave a clear laugh, as if he were but a wee bit of a
man, hardly worth considering.

“Have you ever seen Fin?” asked she, all at once sobering down.

“Why, no,” said Cucullin, “thanks to all the trouble he’s taken to keep
himself out of my way.”

Oonagh shook her head. “I thought as much,” said she. “I judged you could
never have seen him, to speak as you did. And if you’re fond of your own
skin, you’ll pray you may never. Not but what you’re a sturdy fellow of
your size, but Fin—”

“Well, well,” cried Cucullin good-naturedly enough, “there’s been never a
giant in Ireland could beat me yet. So, now I’ll be off to the Causeway
to give Fin his chance.” And with that, up he got, laughing, and took one
of his great strides down the hill.

Oonagh rose up too. “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, “might I ask
one favor before you go? The wind’s blowing in at the door, you see, and
would you mind turning the house around for me?”

Cucullin stopped where he stood. “Turn the house!” cried he.

“Why, yes,” said Oonagh. “Turn it about, you know, so the wind won’t be
blowing in at the door. It’s always what Fin does when he’s at home.”

“Indeed!” thought Cucullin to himself. “This Fin must be more of a lad
than they’ve been telling me.” But never a word more did he say. Instead
he pulled the middle finger of his right hand till it cracked three
times. For it was from that finger all his strength came.

Up the hill he stepped, and putting his great arms around the house,
gave a tug and a twist,—and there it was, faced about completely. Fin’s
cradle, inside, banged back and forth; Oonagh’s great bread loaves
bounced about; the dishes clattered. As for Fin himself, his breath left
him entirely, and there he lay, tight squeezed in the cradle, gasping and
spluttering, and quite blue with terror.

Cucullin turned to go down the hill again as if he had done nothing
unusual at all. But Oonagh curtsied before him.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said she. “And since you’re so obliging, maybe
you’d do another civil turn for me. You see it’s a dry stretch of weather
we’ve been having, and there’s scarcely a drop of water from here
to Cullamore. But under the rocks hereabout, Fin says there’s a good
spring-well; and he was just about to pull them apart to find it when
along came the news that you were at the Causeway, and off he dashed. So
here we are, still without water; and indeed if you’d take a minute to
pull the rocks open for me, truly, I’d feel it a kindness.”

So, she led him to a place, all solid rock for a mile or so. “Now, here’s
the spot,” said she.

Cucullin looked at it for a while without speaking. Then he cracked his
middle finger nine times, and bending down, tore a cleft a quarter-mile
long and four hundred feet deep.

When Oonagh saw that, her courage oozed down to the soles of her shoes.
But she was never one to give up anything she had once decided. So, after
a moment she said, “I’m much obliged to you, sir. And now, you’ll be
coming back to the house with me to take a bite of such humble fare as I
can give you.”

“Indeed,” replied Cucullin, mopping his large red brow, “that’s an
invitation I’ll not be refusing. It’s warm work tearing up landscapes and
moving houses, and I can’t say that I’m not hungry either.”

So into the house they went; and down before him Oonagh set a side or
two of bacon, a mountain of cabbage, and ten or twelve loaves of the
bread she had baked the day before.

Cucullin fell to with a will. He finished the bacon and cabbage, picked
up a loaf of the bread, and took a huge bite of it. Down came his teeth
on the griddle inside.

“Thundering pancakes!” roared he. “What’s this? Here are two of my best
teeth out! You call that bread, do you? You call that bread!” And he
stamped about the room, howling with fury.

“Indeed, I’m sorry, sir,” said Oonagh. “I should have told you. That’s
Fin’s bread that nobody else can manage but himself and the child in the
cradle there. I’d not have given it to you, but you seemed a stout little
fellow; and indeed since you’re bound to fight Fin, I thought you’d be
scorning anything but his own food, too. Here, try this loaf. Perhaps
it’ll be softer.”

Cucullin was still hungry, and besides, he was a little touched in his
pride by Oonagh’s remarks about Fin’s bread. So he took the new loaf she
handed him, and jammed it into his mouth, meaning this time at any rate
to get a good bite out of it. Down crashed his jaw on the iron again, and
up he jumped roaring.

“Take it away! Take it away!” he bellowed, twice as loud as before. “I’ll
not be losing my teeth for Fin’s bread or any other. What kind of jaw
has Fin got to crack—”

“Hush! Hush!” cried Oonagh. “Whatever you do, don’t be waking the child
in the cradle there.... Oh, indeed, it’s too bad! There he is awake now.”

All this time Fin had been lying cramped up in the cradle. Never a move
did he make, except now and then a flicker of his eyelashes just to be
peering out at Cucullin sitting and eating up his bacon at the table.
A terrible sight it was too: Cucullin’s great fingers as big as trees,
reaching, reaching; Cucullin’s great jaws as big as millstones, crushing,
crushing. Fin shut his eyes in a hurry, and his heart froze up inside
him to think of fighting a giant like that. But when he heard Cucullin
howling over Oonagh’s griddle-bread, he couldn’t, even for the terror
in him, help a kind of smile creeping across his face. And so, when
Oonagh spoke of the baby’s waking, he let out a yell almost as loud as
Cucullin’s own.

Cucullin himself stopped his dancing, and turned to see what kind of
child it might be that could make a noise like that.

“Boohoo! Boohoo!” howled Fin. “I’m hungry.”

“There, there!” said Oonagh. “Quiet now, my little man. Here’s some bread
for you.”

And with that she handed him the one loaf that had no griddle in it. And
Fin, grasping it in both hands, ate it down greedily.

Cucullin stared and stared. He forgot his lost teeth entirely, for wonder
that such a youngster could devour bread he himself could not even bite.
“If the son that’s yet in the cradle can eat bread like that,” thought
he, “what must the father be? It’s perhaps as well for me after all that
Fin’s at the Causeway.”

“I’d like,” said he to Oonagh, “to have a glimpse of that lad in the
cradle. A boy that can manage that bread must be something to look at,
too.”

“Indeed you may see him,” said Oonagh. “Get up, darling, and show this
good man something that’ll be worthy of your father, Fin M’Coul.”

At that Fin, who was cramped and aching from lying so long bent double,
gave a leap, and bounced out, nearly bursting his cradle. Up to Cucullin
he went, and seizing him by the hand, started out the door.

“Are you strong?” bellowed he. “Are you as strong as my daddy?”

“Thundering pancakes!” exclaimed Cucullin. “What a voice for a little
chap!”

Fin picked up a big white stone. “Are you strong enough,” said he, “to
squeeze water out of this?”

Cucullin clenched his hand over it. He squeezed and pressed, and pressed
and squeezed till his face grew black and his eyes stood out. But never a
drop of water fell from the great white stone. He might rip up rocks and
turn houses but to squeeze water from a stone was quite beyond him.

“Would you let me try?” asked Fin.

Cucullin handed it to him. Turning a little, Fin exchanged it for the
curds Oonagh had made for him. Then holding them up, he squeezed till the
whey, as clear as water, showered down upon the ground.

Cucullin’s face turned white. His knees were knocking; his hands were
shaking. “If the son’s like this, what must the father be! And suppose
Fin should be coming home!” thought he.

Over to Oonagh he went. “Indeed, indeed, ma’am,” said he, “I thank you
kindly for your welcome. It’s a fine, strong son you have. And it’s sorry
I am I can’t be waiting to see Fin. But I’ve out-stayed my time already,
and it’s back to Scotland I must be going before the tide rises in the
Channel.”

And with never a good-by more, the terrible giant Cucullin turned and ran
over hill, over dale, through wood, through wave. And never again did he
show his face in Ireland.

As for Fin and Oonagh, they never got over laughing in their little house
turned wrongside foremost on the top of Knockmany Hill.

                                               —_From a Celtic Folk-tale._

_Based on Wm. Carleton’s “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.”_

[Illustration: The terrible giant Cucullin turned and ran over hill, over
dale]

[Illustration]




V

How Jack Found the Giant Riverrath

    Here’s a tale of Genius Jack,
    Light of foot and quick as whack!—
    Jack o’ mountains, Jack o’ plains,
    Jack o’ cuteness, Jack o’ brains.

                    _Seymour Barnard._




V

How Jack Found the Giant Riverrath


[Illustration: The king of Ireland was troubled in his mind]

The king of Ireland was troubled in his mind. And that was something
unusual. For he had as handsome a palace as you would wish to see, a
queen as good as she was beautiful, and a fine, strapping son named
Jack. The only thing that bothered him was that he could not drive to
town without getting his gilt coach wheels spattered.

[Illustration: The horses would plunge spluttering in]

Down below the palace, straight across the king’s highway, ran a little
river. In the fall when it was almost dry, splashing through it was a
nice adventure. The royal coach would roll down the hill with a splendid
thud, and dash gurgling through the water. But in the spring it was
quite another matter. Going down the hill the coachman would pull on
his gilt reins, the coachboys would tuck up their gilt boots, the king
would slam down the coach window, and the queen would be ready to faint
with excitement. (Only the footmen did not care, for they sat up so
high behind, that the water could not reach them no matter how much it
splashed.)

Then the horses would plunge spluttering in up to their gilt harnesses,
the coach would slip and reel, and the water would come pounding up
against the gilt-edged window-panes. Worst of all, when they reached
the other side, there would be little black mud spots all over the gilt
wheels, all over the gilt sides, all over the shiny door. And that was a
sorry way for the king of Ireland to drive down among his subjects.

The king was sitting on his throne, turning it over in his mind when in
came his son Jack.

“Good morning, father,” said Jack, bowing with all his might.

But the king was so melancholy and disturbed that he never said a word,
but just nodded his head to show that he knew Jack was there.

“Is something troubling you, father?” asked Jack respectfully.

“It’s that river again!” cried the king, puckering his brow till his
crown slipped down over his left eye. “What’s the use of having the
finest coach in three kingdoms if every time you drive abroad it’s
bespotted and bespattered like a common gipsy wagon?”

“Can nothing be done?” asked Jack.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to think,” said the king.

So Jack sat down quietly on the steps of the throne and thought with his
father. Just as the clock struck ten, the king had an idea.

“We might put something over the coach,” he said.

“We might put something over the _river_!” cried Jack. “Why couldn’t we
build a bridge?”

“Gilded Shamrocks!” cried the king. “That’s the very idea. We could ride
across as dry and fine as you please.”

So he called the master mason. And that very hour all the masons from
far and near began stirring about in great troughs of mortar and lugging
building-stones as big as the coach wheels. By sunset there was as neat
and stout a little bridge as you would wish to see. And the king and the
queen and Jack walked up and down before it, beaming to think how spick
and span and shiny they’d be next day, rumbling across it down to the
town.

[Illustration: Lugging building stones]

In the morning before he got his crown on, the king called for his
coach; and the minute breakfast was done, around it drove to the palace
door, glittering like a million gold-pieces. Then the queen stepped
in, dressed in her shiniest gown, and the king in his best crown, and
last of all, Jack, with a fine green feather in his hat. The footmen
clambered carefully up on top so as not to rub their bright gilt boots,
the coachman touched up the horses, and off they all whirled, as splendid
a sight as the sun ever shone on.

Down the hill they rolled with a fine dash, when the horses reared and
stopped.

“Dear me! Dear me!” fluttered the queen. “I hope the harness hasn’t
broken.”

[Illustration: As big as the coach wheels]

The king put his head out the window. “What’s the matter?” he roared.

The two footmen climbed cautiously down, and stood at attention beside
the door.

“Begging your Majesty’s pardon,” said the first, “the bridge is down.”

“Thundering waterfalls!” shouted the king. “It can’t be.” And he burst
out of the coach, with Jack at his heels.

Sure enough, there was no bridge at all,—just a line of gray stones
heaped higgeldy-piggeldy from bank to bank, with the stream running
saucily over them as much as to say, “You can’t bridge me! You can’t
bridge me!”

“Well,” cried the king, “I’ll be splashed!” And he sent the two footmen
off for the master mason as fast as their gilt legs could carry them.

The master mason scratched his head.

“You see your work,” said the king with a great sneer, “—a bridge so
strong it has taken the stream a whole night to wash it away!”

The master mason flushed. “Asking your Majesty’s pardon,” he said
stolidly, “it couldn’t have been the river. The bridge I built should
have stood a hundred years, barring earthquakes.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense!” cried the king irritably. “Build me a bridge that
will stand earthquakes, then, and be quick about it too.” And he climbed
back into the coach, and drove off home in a very bad humor indeed.

The master mason and his men worked till long past sunset. When they had
finished, there was a bridge twice as high, twice as wide, and twice as
solid as before.

The next morning the king was up at daybreak calling for his coach and
his crown; and before the dewdrops were off the grass, he was driving
off with the queen and Jack down the hill toward town. But just as they
got to the river, back lunged the horses again, down clambered the gilt
footmen, and out burst the king all a-tremble.

Sure enough, the bridge the master mason had built so solid and so
strong was nothing but a jagged pile of stones, with the stream gushing
impudently between them as if it were the best joke in the world.

The king called for the master mason in a tone that made the gilt footmen
scamper; and back they came with him as red and flustered as the king
himself.

“Just one more chance for you,” raged the king, shaking his scepter, “to
build me a bridge that will last over night. If by to-morrow morning I
don’t find as good a bridge here as ever was built in Ireland, I’ll—I’ll
have you buried beneath your own stones and mortar.”

“Your Majesty,” cried the master mason tensely, “it can’t be done. There
is some enchantment. The bridges I built here were the best in Ireland.
The river could never have washed them away. It can’t be done, I say. It
can’t—”

But the king had already slammed the coach door and driven violently
away. So there was nothing for the master mason to do but to call his men
and get to work harder than ever. All day long they drilled great holes
in the bed of the stream and set huge rocks in them, one on top of the
other. And over those piers from bank to bank they laid a bridge so bulky
and so solid that the like of it was never seen before or since.

[Illustration: The master mason and his men worked harder than ever]

It was full moonlight by the time the last stone was heaved into place,
and the great bridge loomed like an elephant wading in a brook. The
workmen picked up their trowels and troughs, and plunged wearily along
the road toward home. The master mason stopped for a last look. “Let any
magic throw that down!” he cried defiantly, and shook his fist. Then he
trudged after the workmen down the road.

There was a creaking of branches beside the river, and a figure, dirk in
hand, crawled to the bridge, paused, looked about, then settled itself,
leaning back against the bulky stonework. The figure was lost in the
shadow of the bank, but every now and again it raised its head into the
clear moonlight. It was Jack!

All the time the bridges had been breaking and the king had been fuming
and the master mason had been protesting, Jack had been thinking. For
Jack had a couple of eyes in his head, and he saw how small and weak
the river was, compared to the bridges. So he thought to himself that
it would be no wonder after all if the master mason were right, and it
was not the river that kicked the bridges down, but some magic or other.
Anyway it would do no harm to watch for a night and see what might happen.

So Jack sat there with the moon shining into his eyes, and not a sound
anywhere to keep him company but the palace clock now and then counting
off the hours into the quiet. But Jack did not mind, for the moonlight
had a kind of friendly feeling in it; and in spite of being alone it was
more drowsy he felt than frightened.

He might in fact have gone to sleep entirely if all of a sudden there
hadn’t come a strange, low gurgle, as if beyond the hills all the rivers
were brimming, brimming, brimming. Then it rose with a rush as if they
had burst over the hills and were racing, dashing, flooding down to Jack.

The moon went out as if a great black blot had fallen across the sky, and
Jack sprang up, all a-tremble, to see if he could make out what was going
on. Something swept by him in the dark, showering him with drops like a
moist whirlwind. There was a shaking and a shock, and the bridge which
had stood so solid and so firm, crumbled with a crash, stone after stone,
into the water.

The moon flashed out again into Jack’s eyes, and black beside it against
the sky towered a tremendous giant figure. For a moment Jack caught his
breath; then suddenly he understood: It was the _giant_ who had made the
darkness by stepping in front of the moon; it was the _giant_ who had
rushed splashing by him up the river; it was without a doubt the _giant_
who had pulled his father’s bridges down! And there Jack stood in the
moonlight at the foot of the giant, gazing up at the top of him, never
daring to say a word.

The giant kicked the building stones with his toe, like so many pebbles.
Jack got up his courage.

“Oh, giant,” he shouted, “giant!” But not a syllable more could he get
out.

The giant stopped his kicking and scanned the ground with his great eyes.
Finally he spied Jack.

“Bursting bridges!” he gurgled. “Who are you?”

Jack stood up as tall as he could. “I’m Jack, the king of Ireland’s son,”
he cried; “and it’s my father owns this bridge you’ve broken and this
river you’ve splashed up.”

“Rippledy-row!” cried the giant, stepping a-straddle of the stream. “So
he owned this bridge, did he? But he never owned this river. No, indeed.
That’s mine, you know. Always has been, always will be, and I won’t have
it bridged. Do you hear?”

“But you can’t say that,” shouted Jack, “for my father rules the whole of
Ireland.”

“He may rule Ireland,” granted the giant pleasantly enough, “but he
doesn’t rule the rivers. _They_ belong to me, and I won’t have them
crossed. All day long I sit in my castle at the ends of the earth,
watching the rivers come and go; and every bridge or dam I see, I go at
night to tear it down, so that all my rivers can be free, free,—free as I
am!”

“But who are _you_?” cried Jack.

“Oho!” bellowed the giant, “if that’s what you want to know, come here
where I can tell you.” And with that he scooped Jack up in one of his
mighty fists and held him there just opposite his eyes.

“Now!” he cried. “Listen:

    He who frees the streams I am,
    Bursting bridge and splint’ring dam;
    For the floods I plow the path,—
    Raging, roaring, Riverrath!”

And as he said that, the giant’s voice grew deeper and fuller till it
seemed to flood out and fill the air. Jack braced himself against it, but
it swept and swirled around him till he drooped limp over Riverrath’s
great thumb. But he didn’t lose his wits for all that, and every other
minute he kept saying to himself, “I mustn’t let him down me, I mustn’t
let him drown me.” Only “down” and “drown” were somehow mixed up in his
mind, and which it was he meant he couldn’t himself be quite sure.

“But, but, but,” he gasped as soon as he was able to straighten up again,
“you’ve only said your name. You haven’t told me where you come from,
where you live, or anything.”

The giant threw back his head with a roar. “That’s just it!” he gurgled.
“You’re to come and find out. Anybody else whose father had tried to
bridge my river I’d have felt it my duty to drown. But I like you, Jack.
You have a steady head on your shoulders. You’re not afraid even of me.
And I’ll give you a year and a day to find my castle. It’s a weary walk,
but if you get there you’ll never want any good thing more,—that I’ll
promise you. But if you don’t,”—and here the giant’s voice grew deep and
troubled,—“if you don’t, why then

    Your father’s castle, coach, and crown,
    Queen and country I will _drown_!”

There was a sudden brightening in the sky, and Jack felt himself set down
with a bump upon the grassy bank. The next moment a chilly spray beat
in his face and trickled down his neck. He looked up to see the giant
Riverrath with his garments dripping and fluttering, dashing up the river
and off toward the pale moon.

“Which way is your castle?” shouted Jack.

“At the ends of the earth,” called the giant. And Jack could hear his
mighty laughter gurgling up among the hills.

[Illustration: He drooped limp over Riverrath’s great thumb]

For some minutes Jack sat gazing at the sunrise, thinking it all over.
Then he picked himself up, and ran pell-mell to the palace. There was the
king already up, standing before the mirror putting on his crown. And
there was the queen ready to go out with him in the coach.

“Father! Mother!” cried Jack. “I must go upon a journey.”

“Of course, of course,” said the king. “You’re going to drive with us to
town.”

“Oh, not that!” cried Jack. “I have to go to the ends of the earth to
find the giant Riverrath.”

“And who is he?” asked the king.

“The giant who pulls your bridges down,” said Jack; and he told them all
about it.

“It’s nonsense,” said the king decidedly. “Here the palace has stood
three hundred years, and here it will stand for all your giants.
However,” he added a little nervously, “if you’re determined, Jack, I
suppose you may as well go to find him.”

As for the queen, as soon as she saw how things were turning out, she ran
to the pantry and set the four-and-twenty dairy maids to putting up a
lunch for Jack. “For,” said she, “he may be gone a year and a day, and I
don’t want my son to go hungry.”

So Jack chose a good stout staff for a walking stick, slung his lunch
across his back, and set off for the ends of the earth. His father and
mother watched from the palace tower till his green feather was lost to
sight behind the hills.

All day long Jack walked up hill and down, in and out, by field and farm,
through market and town, past castle and cottage. And everywhere he
stopped to ask his way. But the queer part was that though every one had
heard of the ends of the earth, no one could tell him just where they
lay. There was no scholar who had ever seen them on a map and no traveler
who had been so far.

[Illustration: Jack set off for the ends of the earth]

“Oh, yes,” people would say wisely and nod their heads, “the ends of the
earth! Every one has heard of them, of course, but just where they are or
how you would go to get there, that I can’t say.”

So Jack kept on for a week and a month, knocking and knocking at all the
house doors, without finding any one to tell him the way. And every day
his lunch grew smaller, his shoes grew thinner, and his feather which
had stood up so fine and straight, drooped more and more. But his heart
inside him beat as happy and as high as on the morning he said good-by
to his father and his mother. And he whistled so cheerily that the
housewives would smile as he passed, and say, “There’s a brave lad coming
home from a journey.”

[Illustration: Everywhere he stopped to ask his way]

Late one afternoon Jack found himself on a wide, sandy plain that
stretched as far as he could see. There were no house doors at which to
knock and no travelers of whom to inquire the way. It was quite lonely
and still. Ahead on the far horizon inky turrets appeared against the
setting sun. They belonged to a castle standing alone upon a high rock.
Beyond it was only sky. The sand seemed to reach the cliff, and stop in a
sudden firm line. The hope and joy in Jack almost choked him. What could
this be but the ends of the earth and the castle of the giant Riverrath?

[Illustration: “Oh, yes,” they said, “the ends of the earth!”]

The dark began to come, and it was the last edge of twilight when Jack
reached the great black cliff where the castle stood. He felt about, but
the rock was steep and jagged whichever way he turned. So he scrambled
up on his hands and knees. At the end of an hour or so he found himself,
scratched and breathless, under the huge wall of the castle. In the dim
starlight a few feet away he could make out an iron grating with bars as
thick as tree trunks.

[Illustration: Inky turrets]

“That is the castle gate,” thought Jack. So he beat upon it with his
staff. The massive iron resounded through the dark. But when the noise
died down, the castle loomed as silent as before. Jack whacked at the
bars again, blow after blow, till he could hear the echoes go booming
down the hall inside. There was the loud, slow grating of a lock, the
opening of a great door, and a light as big and bright as the moon came
swinging down the corridor, far above Jack’s head.

As soon as his eyes got through blinking, Jack looked up. The other side
of the tall grating towered a man as high and wide as the palace at home;
but it was _not_ the giant Riverrath. This giant had black hair and black
mustaches, and he looked down at Jack by the light of his huge lantern
without saying a word.

“Good evening,” said Jack politely, doffing his hat. “Could you tell me
the way to the ends of the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

At that the giant’s face broke into dimples as deep as teacups. He
rattled the gate open with a noise like thunder, and cried out:

    “Flip-flap, flip-flap,
    Here’s a cheery, chary chap!
    By the map I’ll point the path
    To the home of Riverrath.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” gasped Jack. But he didn’t have breath left
to say more, for the giant bent down and carried him off through the tall
corridor to a vast room all of iron. The ceiling and the walls were iron,
and so were the chairs, the table, and the great spits over the fire.
The giant set Jack and his lantern both on the table.

“Well, Jack,” he said, “I’m glad to see you, for I haven’t seen a man
before for three hundred years.

“As for the ends of the earth,” went on the giant, “wherever they are,
I’m sure to find them for you. For I have a map of the whole world
hanging on the wall. Only if I get that out, you’ll have to stay all
night, for it will take me that long to look it over.”

Jack said that he would like to. So the giant took four or five fine
roast pigs from a spit and piled them up on a platter. He and Jack had
a very merry supper. After it was done, the giant put on his great
iron-bowed spectacles, and spread the map out on the table. Jack walked
around on it, all over the pink countries and the yellow, across the blue
seas, to the green spot that was Ireland. There he stopped, and showed
the giant where his father’s palace was, and the stream where Riverrath
had pulled down the bridges. Then he went and lay down in the inglenook
while the giant traced out all the names with his great finger.

In the morning when Jack woke up, the giant was just hanging the map up
again on the wall.

“Oh, Jack,” said he, “to think that I should have to disappoint you after
all! But I’ve been over every word and every letter, and there’s no
mention of the ends of the earth on the map at all.”

[Illustration: Jack walked to the green spot that was Ireland]

“Never mind,” said Jack, “and thank you kindly.” But he couldn’t help
looking a bit downhearted for all he spoke so bravely.

“I’ll tell you what,” cried the giant, “there’s still a chance some one
might know how to get there. And if any one does, it will be my brother,
who lives nine hundred miles from here. For he has a book with the
history of the whole world written down in it.”

So the giant took Jack down the steep precipice the other side of the
castle, that had seemed to him like the ends of the earth the night
before. “Now, Jack,” said the giant, “when I whistle, you start forward,
and then you’ll get there all the quicker.”

The giant whistled loud enough to be heard nine hundred miles, and then
at every step Jack took, he went the length of ten. And so in scarcely
a week’s time, Jack found himself before a great bronze castle shining
red in the sunset. He beat with his staff on the tall bronze gate; and a
giant, big and ruddy, with glowing hair, came to see who was there.

“Good afternoon,” said Jack. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of
the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

The giant beamed all over his great red face, and his eyes shone like
coals of fire. He swung open the gate with a glorious clang, and cried:

    “Flip-flap, flip-flap,
    Here’s a cheery, chary chap;
    By the book I’ll point the path
    To the home of Riverrath!”

And with that the giant picked Jack up and carried him down a corridor
echoing like deep chimes, into a vast room all of bronze. The ceiling,
the walls, the table, the chairs, flashed back the firelight like a
hundred sunsets. The giant set Jack on the bronze table.

“I’m glad to see you, Jack,” he said, “for I haven’t seen a man before
for three hundred years.”

“Why,” cried Jack, “that’s just what your brother said.” And he told the
giant all about his visit to the great iron castle.

When he had finished, the giant’s good-natured face grew sober.
“Strange,” he said, “that the ends of the earth weren’t down on my
brother’s map, when you hear of them every day or so. But I’ll tell you
what, Jack: if any one has ever been there, my book will say so, for that
has the whole history of the world written down in it. Only if I get that
out, you’ll have to stay all night, for it will take me that long to read
it through.”

Jack thanked him, and the giant took four or five fine brown pigs from a
spit and piled them up on a platter. He and Jack had a merry supper. When
the giant talked, his voice echoed about the bronze room as if a hundred
great bells were ringing; and when Jack answered, it was like a hundred
little bells tinkling back again.

After supper, the giant put on his big bronze-bowed spectacles, and
opened his tremendous book at page one. For a while Jack stood on the
table beside him and tried to read too. But the lines were so long and
so big that before he had finished the first one he had fallen fast
asleep.

In the morning when Jack woke up, the giant was just putting the book
away again on its shelf. “Jack,” said he, “I’m afraid I’m no more help to
you than my brother. For I’ve read through every line and every word of
the whole book, and I can’t find that anybody has ever been to the ends
of the earth. There is plenty of talk about going, but no one seems ever
to get there at all.”

“Never mind,” said Jack, “and thank you kindly.” But he couldn’t help
looking a bit downhearted for all he spoke so bravely.

“I’ll tell you what,” cried the giant; “there’s still a chance some one
might know how to get there. And if any one does, it will be my brother
who lives nine hundred miles from here. For he is master of all the birds
of the air.”

So the giant took Jack outside, and whistled loud enough to be heard nine
hundred miles. And then at every step Jack took he went the length of
ten. So in scarcely a week’s time Jack found himself at noonday before a
great golden castle glittering in the sunshine. He knocked with his staff
on the high gate; and a giant with golden hair and eyes as blue and
gleaming as the noonday sky, came to see who was there.

“Good day,” said Jack politely. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of
the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

The giant beamed all over his great happy face, till his eyes and his
cheeks and his wide mouth were full of sunny smiles. He swung open the
gate, and cried:

    “Flip-flap, flip-flap,
    Here’s a cheery, chary chap;
    From the birds I’ll ask the path
    To the home of Riverrath!”

And with that he picked Jack up and carried him through a shining
corridor, up hundreds and hundreds of high golden stairs till they came
out on a dazzling turret far up against the sky. The giant set Jack down
on the wide parapet. “I’m glad to see you, Jack,” he said, “for I haven’t
seen a man before for three hundred years.”

“Why,” cried Jack, “that’s just what your brothers said.” And he told the
giant all about his visits to the iron castle and the bronze.

“Never mind,” cried the giant cheerily, when Jack had finished. “Birds
fly farther than men ever go; and perhaps some of them will have been to
the ends of the earth. Anyway we shall soon find out, for I am master of
all the birds of the air.”

Jack thanked him, and the giant took from his pocket a great golden
whistle and blew it with the sweetest sound, that seemed to pierce the
air in all directions. In just a minute the sky was full of flying
birds. The eagles and the hawks came first, the gulls and all the birds
with long, strong wings; then the swallows, the robins, the blue jays
and the doves, and last the parrots and macaws and all the gay birds of
the jungle. They lit on the giant’s shoulders, and Jack’s, all over the
turret and the castle towers, chattering and cheeping till Jack had to
put his fingers in his ears.

When the giant thought they were all there, he blew his whistle for
silence.

“Which of you has been to the ends of the earth?” he cried.

But all the birds kept still, for none of them had ever been so far.

And if Jack had been downhearted before, now he was ten times more so,
for where to turn next he didn’t know.

As for the giant, he said never a word, but began counting the birds, one
by one. “There’s one missing!” he cried at last.

As he spoke there was a loud beating of wings, and Jack looked up to see
an eagle ten times larger than any of the others, flying toward them.

“You’re late,” called the giant sternly.

“And a good reason why,” screamed the eagle. “I’ve had twenty times as
far to come as any other bird here.”

“Where have you been then?” asked the giant.

“At the ends of the earth,” screeched the eagle, “visiting the giant
Riverrath.”

When Jack heard that, he was ready to jump up and hug the eagle; but the
giant seemed to have forgotten about Jack’s errand entirely.

“Well, eagle,” he said, “if you have come so far, you must be hungry.
Come in and have some lunch.”

So the giant and the eagle went into the castle, and left Jack with all
the other birds outside. One by one, they flew away, and Jack was there
alone. After a while he heard the giant’s steps again coming up the
stairs.

“Now, Jack,” said the giant, “I’ve found out from the eagle about the
ends of the earth, and they’re farther than I thought. You never could
get there by walking. The only way will be for the eagle to take you. But
if he knows it’s you he’s carrying, I’m afraid he might get hungry and
eat you. So here’s a bag to put you in, so that he won’t see you at all.”

The giant took out of his pocket a great golden bag, big enough to hold
Jack twice over. Jack stepped in and sat down, and the giant drew up the
string. “Quiet now,” he said; “don’t let the eagle hear you stirring.”

When the eagle had finished his lunch, he came up on the turret to say
good-by. “Oh, eagle,” said the giant, “I wonder if you’d do me a bit
of a favor. There’s a bag over there I’m anxious to get to the giant
Riverrath; and since you know the way, I thought you’d be good enough to
take it for me.”

The eagle grumbled a little about its being so far. But he didn’t dare
refuse the giant. So he took the bag in his beak, and flew with it up
into the sky.

Jack cut a little hole in the side to look out of. But the eagle flew so
fast and so high he could hardly see the earth at all. So they flew for
a week or more before Jack felt the eagle going slower. He looked out
of the hole again; and sure enough, straight ahead was a great crystal
castle with waterfalls tumbling over the walls. Wherever he looked he
could see rainbows gleaming through it in the morning sunshine. Beyond it
there was nothing at all. So Jack knew he was at the ends of the earth at
the castle of the giant Riverrath.

The eagle gave a hoarse scream, and Riverrath himself came out of the
castle door. “Here’s a bag for you,” said the eagle shortly, setting it
down; and flew away again.

[Illustration: So they flew for a week or more]

Jack ripped the bag open with his sword, and stepped out at Riverrath’s
feet. “Good morning,” he said, and couldn’t help smiling just to think
that he had gotten there at last.

“Bursting bridges!” roared Riverrath, “if it isn’t Jack!” And he couldn’t
help smiling too, just to think that Jack had found the way. So he gave
a kind of yawn behind his hand that ended in a great gurgling laugh. “I
knew I liked you, Jack,” said he, “and you’ll find that I’ll keep my word
with you too. Now come and see the castle.”

So he took Jack up into the highest tower where he could see the rivers
coming and going, and then down to the great middle court where was a
fountain fed by all the rivers of the earth. And by that time Jack and
the giant were joking together like the best friends in the world.

But the thing Jack liked best in all the castle was not the high fountain
nor the wide view but the little slip of a girl who was Riverrath’s
daughter. For she was as small as Riverrath was big, and as calm as he
was boisterous. When Riverrath walked abroad, the rivers always rose
up and roared to greet him; but before the girl, even the wildest and
angriest of them would lie down quietly to let her pass over. And because
she was so placid and at the same time so joyous, they called her the
Daughter of the Fountain.

She had pale pink cheeks and flying hair, and a silver gown with rainbow
lights in the folds. And when it came to a race she could usually beat
Jack. For he would be so taken up with looking at her that he never could
bear to get ahead. So all day long they played together, and at the end
they would climb up on Riverrath’s high shoulders and make him take them
for a walk. And Jack thought he never in all his life had had so good a
time.

But one morning Riverrath came to him. “Jack,” said he, quite soberly,
“do you know what to-day is?”

“Why, no,” answered Jack, not much caring.

“Well,” said Riverrath, “to-day your time is up. It’s a year and a day
since you started out to find me, and now you must be going back to your
father and your mother.”

Then Jack looked sober too, for though he knew quite well that the giant
was right, he couldn’t bear to think of going.

“Come, come, Jack,” cried Riverrath kindly. “Don’t be downhearted. If you
must go, you must, and that’s the end of it. Come down to the court in
just an hour’s time, and you’ll find a boat waiting to take you home. And
because I like you, Jack, I’ll give you a guide besides.”

So Jack went and said good-by to the Daughter of the Fountain, got his
hat and his staff, and came down to the court just as the giant had told
him. Sure enough, there in the pool at the edge of the fountain, was a
boat made of a great scallop shell, with a gossamer sail shining silver
in the morning sunshine. But there was something silvery _in_ the boat
too. Jack looked, but he couldn’t believe his eyes, for there sat the
Daughter of the Fountain, looking as roguish and contented as if she were
there to stay.

Riverrath beamed all over his great joyous face. “There is your guide
in the boat,” said he. And he gathered Jack up with a hug of his big
fingers, and put him down in the shell right beside the Daughter of the
Fountain.

“And now,” said Riverrath, feeling around in his huge pockets, “here
are three presents I want you to leave for me with the three giants who
helped you to find me.” So he handed Jack three neat white parcels tied
with water-lilies.

“Good-by,” he roared, “good-by. And don’t forget the giant Riverrath.
Sometimes I’ll come to visit you, and sometimes you’ll come to visit me.”

[Illustration: Inside was a tiny fountain.]

And with that he blew against the sail, and the shell moved quietly
out of the pool, through the green grottoes underneath the castle, and
out down the rivers of the earth. When the rivers saw that it was the
Daughter of the Fountain coming, they lay down and let the shell skim
over them faster than any bird could fly.

In a little while Jack saw the great gold castle of the bird giant. He
beat with his staff on the gate, and the giant came out to meet them.
“Here is a present from the giant Riverrath,” cried Jack.

So the giant untied the water-lilies, and there inside was a tiny
fountain which grew and grew until it was a mile wide,—big enough for all
the birds of the air to bathe in.

“Thank you, thank you,” called the bird giant. “And good luck to you,
Jack!”

In just a few minutes more the shell floated up to the bronze castle. And
there was the history giant outside, waiting for them. Jack gave him his
present from the giant Riverrath. As he untied it, a nice, wet spring
bubbled out, and beside it was a card which read:

               “A spring—to make history less dry reading.”

The history giant beamed. “Thank you,” he cried gratefully. “And good
luck to you, Jack!”

In scarcely half an hour they came to the map giant sitting on one of the
towers of his iron castle. Jack handed Riverrath’s present up to him.
Hardly had he begun to open it when the clearest stream Jack had ever
seen trickled down over the castle wall. With it was a card which read:

              “A crystal brook,—to make geography clearer.”

“Thank you, thank you!” cried the map giant. “And all the school children
will thank you too.”

After that Jack and the Daughter of the Fountain skimmed down the rivers
for an hour or more before they saw the King of Ireland’s palace. On the
bank stood Jack’s father and mother waiting to welcome them. Jack got
out and kissed them both; then he gave his hand to the Daughter of the
Fountain.

When the king and queen saw what a fine lady Jack’s guide was, they
thought they would like to have her for a daughter. “How would you like
to marry Jack?” asked the king.

The Daughter of the Fountain said she would not mind in the least. So
the king called for his gilt coach, and they all got in and drove toward
town. And when the river saw that the Daughter of the Fountain was in the
coach, it lay right down, and let them drive over as dry and fine as you
please.

Jack and the Daughter of the Fountain went into the church and were
married. And all the people cried, “What a fine bride Jack has!”

But the king was so taken up with looking at his coach that he forgot the
bride entirely. For on all the gilt wheels, on all the gilt sides, on
both the shiny doors was not a single spot of mud! And ever after when
the king of Ireland drove down among his subjects, his coach was just as
bright and fine as the day it first was gilded.

                                             —_Based on Celtic folk-lore._

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




VI

The Giants’ Pot

    Giants, just as oft as not,
    Eat their porridge from a pot;
    Which is proper and polite,
    If the pot is clean and bright:
    But the giants we shall mention
    Failed to give their pot attention:—
    Oh, a daily little rub’ll
    Often save a sight of trouble.

                      _Seymour Barnard._




VI

The Giants’ Pot


[Illustration]

In the days when the world was jollier than it is now, there were three
giants in Germany. Their names were Grosskopf, Grossmund, and Grosshand,
and they lived on the top of a mountain.

No more contented family could be imagined. Their home was airy; yet only
one giant-step below, there flowed the good water of the river Rhine.
When it came to food, their wants were simple, for from one year’s end
to the other they ate nothing but oatmeal porridge. As for the work,
they had it so well arranged that each one did for the others what he
best could. Grosshand did the cooking; Grossmund did the talking; and
Grosskopf did the thinking. What more could be desired? When they were
hungry, there was Grosshand to stir up the porridge; when they were dull
there was Grossmund to tell stories and make them merry; when they were
in a scrape, there was Grosskopf to find a way out.

[Illustration: Pots with handles, pots with covers, pots with legs]

Even the mountain did its share. For besides giving the giants a home, it
kept up a fire that never went out over which they cooked their porridge.
It was at any rate a rather unusual mountain. Instead of being rough and
craggy and rising to a sharp, uncomfortable point, it was smooth and
green, and the top was hollowed out in a wide, deep bowl. Right in the
middle of the bowl was the spot, some forty feet across, that served as
the giants’ stove. No matter how it snowed, no matter how it rained, no
matter how the wind blew, that spot was always red hot, glowing with the
great fire shut up inside the mountain.

[Illustration: Pots for boiling, pots for stewing]

Many a cook might have envied Grosshand. All he had to do was to set the
porridge on the stove and turn peacefully over to snore the night out. In
the morning, the minute the giants blinked their eyes open, there would
be their porridge steaming up into the sunlight ready to be eaten. After
breakfast his task was no harder. He had but to put on more porridge, and
be off with his brothers for the fun of the day. At night when they came
wading wearily back, down the river Rhine, they would see, miles off, the
gust of smoke against the sunset that meant a hot supper at home. And so
they were soon fed when they were hungry, and no one could ever complain
that the meals were late.

[Illustration: Pots for frying]

In fact there would have been nothing at all to grumble about had it not
been for the pots. Now, any one who had looked into the giants’ cupboard
would have thought it well equipped indeed. There were big pots and
little pots, deep pots and shallow pots, wide pots and narrow pots, iron
pots and brass pots, pots with handles, pots with covers, pots with legs,
pots for boiling, pots for frying, pots for stewing, and just plain pots.

The trouble was that all the pots, big and little, wide and narrow, deep
and shallow, spread out on the stove together, held scarcely enough
porridge for the giants’ breakfast. Then too, the pots were getting old.
They had been handed down for generations in the giants’ family, and as
every one of them had been used every day for more years than you could
count, they began gradually from sheer old age to wear out.

Grosshand puttered and patched. He mended a hole here and added a handle
there. He stopped up cracks and soldered edges. But finally, in spite
of all his care, two or three of the weaker ones dropped completely
to pieces. Then matters were desperate indeed. Grosshand filled the
remaining pots to overflowing; and the giants stuck in their spoons with
great deliberation so that it should seem as if there were quite as much
porridge as usual. Nevertheless, they were worried. It began to look as
if they would soon be unable to cook all their porridge at once.

Every evening after supper they sat on their mountain top, around the
rim of the wide bowl above their stove, and talked things over. That is,
Grossmund talked; as for the others, they sat gravely by and listened.
For, since Grossmund was sure to say everything they could possibly have
said themselves, there seemed no need of wearying their tongues. But,
no matter how long or how late the talk went on, it seemed that they
never came to any conclusion. The pots were going, that was clear; and
something must be done, that was still clearer. But what that something
was, no one of the giants, and least of all Grossmund, could say.

[Illustration: Just plain pots]

The day the fourth pot gave out, the giants’ faces were longer than ever.
To-morrow one of them would have to do without part of his porridge.
Grossmund’s words came slowly after supper. Grosskopf bent his head on
his hands, trying to think. Grosshand sprawled his long body down the
mountain-side and absently snapped off the smaller trees with his thumb
and forefinger.

“If only we had something else to cook in!” cried Grossmund for the
twentieth time.

“If only we had something else to cook in!” echoed Grosshand sleepily.

Grosskopf said nothing whatever. He was enveloped in that remote and
august air he always assumed when using his mind. Finally he held up his
hand for silence.

“Let me think,” he said.

Grossmund scrambled up and stretched his arms and his legs and his great
mouth in one tremendous yawn. Grosshand clattered among his pots getting
ready the morning’s porridge. But Grosskopf towered motionless into the
twilight.

Grossmund and Grosshand settled themselves for the night. They sprawled
flat on their backs down the mountain side, and began promptly and
lustily to snore. The moon came up from the valley and glistened in the
dewdrops that covered Grosskopf’s hair. The stars blinked faintly.
There was not a sound but the slow rumbling of his brothers’ snores. But
Grosskopf did not move. He sat, cheek on hand, still thinking.

The moon went high and bright, and slowly pale and paler. The whole sky
became light and the stars went out. Down in the farmyards the cocks
began to stir. Then the sun looked up and shone red on the great tufts of
Grosskopf’s hair till it glowed like a forest-fire. But Grosskopf did not
raise his eyes.

It was morning in good earnest. The porridge steamed up in a savory,
white cloud straight to Grosskopf’s nose. But he did not turn his head.
He gazed steadily through it down into the wide abyss that held the
stove. It was still dark in there, and for steam and shadow not even
Grosskopf’s big eyes could make out the hundreds of pots marshaled at the
bottom. It seemed as if the great bowl itself were one steaming pot of
porridge.

Suddenly, Grosskopf sprang up. With one leap he cleared the abyss, steam
and all, and came down on the other side. He capered, he shouted, he
shook his snoring brothers. He had an idea at last.

“Grosshand! Grossmund!” he cried. “I have it. We must have a big pot. No
more little pots. A big pot that will cover our stove!”

Grosshand rubbed his eyes and stared. But Grossmund was never at a loss,
and could talk even in his sleep.

“Why, yes,” he said. “A big pot. A pot to fit our stove. A pot to hold
all our porridge.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Grosskopf. “We must plan. We must measure. We must get
some one to make it.”

“But first,” said Grossmund, “we must eat.”

Grosshand scrambled over to the stove and began to hand up the porridge.
And as they ate, they talked so fast of the new pot that no one had time
to notice that there was less porridge than usual.

“It must be as wide as the stove,” said Grosshand.

“It must be as deep as the bowl,” said Grosskopf.

“It must be as big as our appetites,” said Grossmund.

And then after some consideration they came to the satisfactory
conclusion that a pot as wide as the stove and as deep as the bowl would
be just the right size to a spoonful to satisfy their hunger.

The minute breakfast was over, the measuring began. Grosshand did the
reaching around. Grossmund did the calling off. Grosskopf did the
writing down. There was not a tape-measure on the whole mountain, and so
Grosshand used his belt instead. He clambered down into the bowl and laid
his belt once, twice, nearly three times along the edge of the stove.

“Two and a half,” called Grossmund, peering down.

And Grosskopf, sitting crosslegged near by, scratched “two and a half”
with a sharpened tree trunk on his spoon.

Measuring as he came, Grosshand climbed the bowl. Grossmund counted,
Grosskopf wrote, and the measuring was done.

“But who will make the pot?” asked Grossmund.

“A blacksmith,” said Grosshand.

“Herr Klinkerklanker,” said Grosskopf.

Grosshand put on his belt; Grosskopf took his spoon; Grossmund cut a
walking-stick. And they stepped off gaily, arm in arm, across the river
Rhine.

Eisenburg, where Herr Klinkerklanker lived, was but a step from the
river, and when the giants got there, they walked carefully, single file.
They were kindly fellows at heart and went out of their way, through
roads and over gardens, to avoid crushing the houses. Nevertheless when
the townsfolk saw the huge shapes making for their very dooryards, they
scurried in alarm. Horses shied, drivers ran, dogs dodged, geese flapped,
mothers called, doors slammed. Every chick and child scampered indoors as
fast as its legs could run.

It was not that they had never seen the giants before. Every day the
great figures went splashing by up the Rhine, and they hardly turned
to look. And many an evening when more smoke than usual came from the
mountain, the housewives would glance up from their knitting to remark
that the giants’ porridge was burning. They were used to the giants and
had a kind of distant affection for them, as they had for the hills and
the river. But it is one thing to love a river when it is still, and
quite another when it comes sweeping down over your house. And so when
the giants, colossal-limbed and thunder-voiced, came tramping through the
town, it was an entirely different matter. For years such a thing had not
occurred. The oldest grandfather of all could not remember when they had
come before.

As for the giants themselves, they had not the least idea of the
commotion they were causing. They plodded along, talking and singing
in their big bass voices, and took not the slightest notice of all
the screaming and scrambling going on about their feet. Grosskopf was
ahead, and when he came to the market-place, he stepped in and stopped.
Grosshand stepped in too; but when it came Grossmund’s turn, there was
not room enough left for him; so he had to stand a-straddle, one foot in
and one foot out in the field behind the guild-hall.

“And now,” said Grossmund, “which is Herr Klinkerklanker’s house?”

[Illustration: The giants in the market-place]

The giants looked around. There were hundreds of roofs, but they were
all just alike,—some larger, to be sure, and some smaller, but all
steep, red-tiled, and peaked, with a great chimney-pot above. Herr
Klinkerklanker’s might be one, and it might be another. There was not the
least way of telling.

“We must ask some one,” said Grossmund.

But there was no one to ask. Every soul was safely locked indoors.

So the giants considered. They thought and thought, and looked and looked
here and there among the silent streets of the town. Suddenly Grosshand
pointed. Not a step away, a small bright flame shot up between two
houses. It seemed to come from an iron table. Grossmund was nearest. He
bent down, picked up the iron with his thumb and forefinger and blew out
the fire.

Then Grosskopf had a thought. “Herr Klinkerklanker’s forge!” he said.

Grossmund put the thing down. Then he bent over the red-roofed house
beside it. He put his lips to the chimney and whistled.

“Herr Klinkerklanker! Herr Klinkerklanker!” he called as softly as he
knew how.

The windows rattled and the door quivered; but there was no answer.

“Herr Klinkerklanker! Herr Klinkerklanker!” he called again.

That time the door opened, and a little figure in a leather apron came
slowly down the steps.

“At your service, gentlemen,” he said, and doffed his cap. But he
trembled very hard indeed.

Now the giants had been brought up to be polite; and at that they bowed,
all together, so low that their heads bumped.

“We want you to make us a pot,” said Grossmund, “a pot to hold all our
porridge.”

Herr Klinkerklanker stopped trembling. But he spoke not a word though he
opened his mouth wide and wider.

Grosshand held up his belt. “The pot must be as big around as this,” he
said, “twice and a half over.”

Herr Klinkerklanker considered. Then he turned toward the house and
clapped his hands smartly together.

Out of the door and down the steps, three at once, four at once, five at
once, dashed his apprentices, helter-skelter,—some with hammers, some
with horseshoes, some with hoes, some with shovels, some with pots,—with
everything in all Eisenburg to be made or mended with iron. And so,
clattering and stumbling, they came and stood, five-and-twenty strong,
before Herr Klinkerklanker.

“Measuring rods, quills, inkhorns,” said he. “And all to the
market-place.”

[Illustration: Three at once]

Hoes, hammers, horseshoes, shovels, pots, rattled down in one
clanging pile. And the apprentices, two by two, fell in behind Herr
Klinkerklanker. And so the giants, all in a hurry, stepped out of the
market-place to let them in.

Then there was a bustling indeed. Those who were good at measuring
started in on Grosshand’s belt. Those who were good at writing copied the
numbers on Grosskopf’s spoon. Those who were good at figuring scribbled
and scratched With all their might to find out how much two and a half
times Grosshand’s belt might be. As for the rest, Herr Klinkerklanker
sent them to knock at all the house doors until they got every bit of
iron in town and a hundred lusty men to hammer it.

[Illustration: Four at once]

Not even the giants remained idle. Grosskopf and Grossmund tore wide,
flat boulders out of the mountain and set them up for a forge and an
anvil in the market-place. Grosshand came rattling back with all his pots
swinging in his hands and strung clattering about his neck.

And then giants, hammerers, apprentices, set up such a clinking and a
clanking and a puffing and a blowing as never was heard in all Germany
before. All day long the great forge flame swept skywards. All day
long the five-and-twenty apprentices swung their sledges while Herr
Klinkerklanker shouted orders. All day long the hundred hammerers beat
and pounded at the glowing iron that was to be the giants’ pot.

All day long Grossmund puffed out his great cheeks and blew to keep up
the forge flame. All day long Grosshand lifted the pot from forge to
anvil, and back again from anvil to forge. All day long Grosskopf stood
quietly by ready to think in case of emergency.

[Illustration: Five at once]

As for the housewives of Eisenburg, they were busy too, with every kettle
in all the town a-steam and a-stew with porridge to feed the giants until
their own pot should be done. But the children had the most fun, for
they had nothing whatever to do but dance about the market-place and
watch the hammers swinging and the sparks skyrocketing and the big, slow
giants lifting and blowing and thinking.

What with heating and beating, and hammering inside and out, the great
iron mass grew gradually taller and taller and bulgier and bulgier,
until one day in the middle of the square there stood a black, shiny
mountain of a pot. Then there was a holiday, you may be sure. The hundred
hammerers, the five-and-twenty apprentices, and even Herr Klinkerklanker
himself went dancing about the pot in a jubilant circle. And every man
and woman and child in all Eisenburg climbed the high scaffolding and
walked round and round the top of the pot, peering down into the black,
slippery abyss inside.

Now, the giants were as generous as they were big; and standing in the
streets and gardens behind the square, they looked down benevolently at
the merrymaking. Then Grossmund called to Herr Klinkerklanker to hold out
his apron, and Grosshand who was a good shot, poured into it a continuous
stream of gold-pieces,—for the apprentices and the hammerers and all
the good housewives who had kept them in porridge. Then when the women
had curtsied and the men had bowed and the bells had clanged, and all
the people together had shouted, “Huzza for the giants!” Grosshand and
Grosskopf picked up the big pot and went swinging off with it across the
Rhine, while Grossmund followed, calling good-bys to Eisenburg.

The very first thing the giants did when they got back to their
mountain-top was to fill their new pot full of porridge and put it on the
stove. Sure enough, it was just a fit! So, they sat around and watched
the porridge bubble and steam; and the minute it was done, they dipped
their spoons in all at once, shut their eyes, opened their mouths, and
swallowed very hard, all together. They ate and ate until they had to
let out their belts; and then when there was no more porridge left, they
licked their spoons and lay back and looked at the new pot.

“It is as wide as the stove,” cried Grosshand.

“It is as deep as the bowl,” said Grosskopf.

“It is as big as our appetites!” cried Grossmund, smacking his lips.

So, meal after meal went joyously by. The giants would put in their
spoons, shut their eyes, open their mouths, and swallow all together till
the porridge was gone. Then they would lick their spoons, smack their
lips, and remark for the hundredth time on the satisfactory size of the
pot.

[Illustration: The apprentices scampered to the market-place.]

But one day, long before it came time to let out belts, the giants’
spoons brought up no more porridge. They felt here, and they felt there;
but _the porridge was all gone_.

“But I’m still hungry,” cried Grosshand angrily.

“And I’m still hungry,” cried Grosskopf, still angrier.

“And _I’m_ still hungry,” cried Grossmund, angriest of all.

The giants looked at one another. When they began, the pot had been full
to overflowing, and now before they were half through, there was no more
porridge.

Then Grosskopf had an idea. “Look for a hole,” he said.

Grosshand seized the pot and turned it over. He felt here and he felt
there. He twisted it this way and that. But the more he examined, the
better he saw that the pot was as firm and sound as the day it was made.

Grosskopf thought again. “The pot has shrunk,” he said.

The giants looked.

“It is as wide as the stove,” said Grosshand.

“It is as deep as the bowl,” said Grosskopf.

“But it’s not as big as our appetites,” wailed Grossmund.

The next day it was just the same. The pot looked as big as ever, and the
giants were no hungrier than usual, and yet there was not half enough
porridge to go around.

On the third day Grosskopf came to a conclusion. “The thing is
bewitched,” he said.

“Herr Klinkerklanker! Herr Klinkerklanker!” roared Grossmund. “Our pot is
bewitched.”

And with that Grosshand and Grosskopf seized it and went tearing down
the mountain, through the Rhine, and straight to Eisenburg. And all the
housewives, all the children, the hundred hammerers, the five-and-twenty
apprentices, and Herr Klinkerklanker himself heard Grossmund’s
roars, dropped their work and their playthings, and scampered to the
market-place as fast as their legs could carry them.

Grosshand laid the pot on its side in the very center of the square.
“Herr Klinkerklanker,” he said, “the pot is still as wide as the stove—”

“And as deep as the bowl,” put in Grosskopf.

“And yet we go hungry to bed,” finished Grossmund.

The hundred hammerers shook, the five-and-twenty apprentices trembled;
and all the people stood breathless while Herr Klinkerklanker walked
slowly all the way around the pot, and then stepped inside. The giants
wrinkled their great brows and waited.

Suddenly something echoed and reëchoed inside the pot. The people
listened. It was a sound that chuckled and stopped and went on again, and
somehow reminded one for all the world—of a _laugh_.

Then Herr Klinkerklanker stepped to the mouth of the pot and clapped his
hands. The apprentices ran to him.

“Hoes!” cried Herr Klinkerklanker.

In a twinkling the five-and-twenty apprentices with their five-and-twenty
hoes were in the pot. Then there arose such a scratching and scraping,
and a scraping and scratching as never was heard before; and suddenly out
of the pot, into the square burst a whole snowstorm of dried porridge.

Herr Klinkerklanker stepped out and bowed to the giants. “Friends,” he
said, “if you will wash your pot clean, it will always be the same size.”

And with that hammerers and housewives, apprentices and children broke
into a peal of laughter. As for the giants, they were so much relieved,
and so good-natured at any rate, that they liked nothing better than a
joke on themselves. Grosskopf capered, Grossmund shouted, and Grosshand
let fall such a shower of gold-pieces that the Eisenburgers were still
scrambling for them a week later.

Every day after that, as soon as a meal was over, the giants gave their
pot such a swishing and a swashing in the river Rhine as made the boats
take good care to keep out of their way. And so the pot stayed the same
satisfactory size, inside as well as out. And the giants, having nothing
to trouble them and plenty to eat, grew very fat and contented indeed.

What finally became of Grosshand, Grossmund, and Grosskopf, I cannot
tell. For a number of years the Eisenburgers have not seen them. Their
pot too seems to have vanished completely. Only the water of the Rhine
has never been quite so clear since the giants took to washing out their
pot there. And sometimes on a clear evening when the Eisenburgers look
up at the mountain and see a trail of smoke against the sunset, they nod
wisely, for they know that the faithful fire is still burning, waiting
for the giants to come back and cook their porridge.

                                           —_Adapted from a Rhine legend._

[Illustration]




VII

The Giant Who Rode on the Ark

    The wiry wasp, the bumble bee,
    The loon, the linnet and the lark,
    The kangaroo and chimpanzee
    Were shown a place within the Ark:

    The gnawing gnu, the restive roe,
    The armadillo none denied;
    No one asked the giants, though,
    And poor Hurtali rode outside.

                    _Seymour Barnard._




VII

The Giant Who Rode on the Ark


[Illustration]

Ever since the beginning of things there have been giants. But the first
ones of all we know little about. For, oddly enough, they were so big
that no one ever really saw them.

Back in Adam and Eve’s time, and even for many years after, there were
very few people; and instead of being all over the earth as people are
now, they lived quite close together in a very small country. Among them
lived the giants, tremendous fellows, bigger than the highest mountains,
and so tall that if you leaned back until your neck ached you could not
see to the top of one of them. Half the time, at any rate, their heads
were hidden above the clouds, so it would have done you but little good
to look. It was almost never that you could see the whole of a giant at
once.

But even if one of Adam’s grandchildren had seen all of a giant, it
would have caused him little surprise. For everything was new in those
days, and one thing seemed no stranger than another. As it was, people
scrambled about over the giants’ feet every day and thought only that
they were climbing some new kind of hill. As for the giants themselves,
going about with their heads above the clouds, and their eyes fixed on
the stars and sun, they had not the slightest idea of the little people
crawling about at their feet. Even when unknowingly they stepped on a
whole house, they were none the wiser.

And so it might have gone on, the people knowing nothing of the giants,
and the giants knowing nothing of the people until this day, had it not
been for the Flood.

The first giant, and the biggest of all, was called Chalbroth. Mountains
were but hummocks to him. When he was thirsty he stooped and drank from
the clouds. When he was hungry he caught a whale and held it up before
the sun to toast. And he strode about the world three thousand years
without so much as dreaming of the tiny race of men. No more did his son
or grandson. That was left for his great-grandson, Hurtali.

[Illustration: People thought they were climbing some new kind of hill]

Hurtali was not so tall as his great-grandfather, but he was a fairly
good-sized giant, a mile or so high, and quite big enough to take care
of himself. And that was fortunate, for Hurtali was an orphan, without
brothers or sisters. However, he did not mind that much, for there were
plenty of good games he could play alone. In the morning, when he got
up, he would take a little run across country, playing leapfrog with the
smaller mountains on the way. Then he would wade out into the middle
of the ocean till he found a place deep enough for him, and swim a few
thousand miles before breakfast. When he wanted a quicker bath, all he
had to do was to step into a thick cloud, and out into the dry sunlight
on the other side. There was endless fun to be had with the clouds,
anyhow: blowing the little ones about, and cutting up the thin ones with
his fingers into all kinds of shapes,—whales and mountains and trees and
giants. Then when he got tired of them, he would run and wave his arms
and blow, and scatter the whole lot of them helter-skelter.

The nice part was, that no matter how thick the clouds got, Hurtali was
always able to climb a mountain and stick his head through into the
pleasant weather above. But every position has its disadvantages, and it
must be confessed that when a sizeable thunderstorm came snapping about
his ears, he was quite as glad to lie down in a valley and go to sleep.
As for the rain, he seldom felt it at all, although sometimes when it
came down in sheets it would seem to him that there was a heavy mist.

And that was why, when the Flood came, it lasted for a week or so before
Hurtali took the slightest notice of it. It had rained for days and days.
The rivers rose and rose until finally in one great torrent they went
sweeping over all the land, and drowned every man and woman and child and
bird and beast in the whole world, except those that were lucky enough
to be with Noah in his Ark. Even the eagles came dropping through the
air last of all, beaten down by the rain, and fell like sparrows about
Hurtali’s feet. But Hurtali regarded it not at all. He sat on a high
mountain, head and shoulders in the bright sunlight above the clouds, and
whistled serenely.

Going across country, to be sure, it was a little sloppy. But Hurtali
liked that, and ran splashing along with the greatest glee in the world.
One day, when he got to the place where the ocean used to begin, all the
water suddenly rolled up before him in a wave as high as he was, and cast
itself back again with a roar and a rush that swept the land clear of
trees for miles and miles. Hurtali laughed aloud, and plunged into the
foam. He shouted, he dived, he turned somersaults. He swam and swam, and
then, quite tired out, turned to start for home.

Then he looked about puzzled. _There was no land in sight._ Not an
island, not a hill,—nothing but water as far as he could see. He swam
harder. Finally a sharp point appeared on the horizon. He made for
it, and as he drew nearer he saw it clearly. It was a single, jagged
mountain-peak. He put one foot down and touched bottom. He could walk
now, although the water was above his waist. Uprooted forests tripped his
toes, and he slipped desperately over slimy hills onto scratchy cliffs.

All in all, it was not a pleasant walk, and when Hurtali finally settled
himself on his rather uncomfortable mountain and began to pick the crags
out of his feet, he was in anything but a happy frame of mind. He was
tired and hungry and he had not seen a whale all day. Worse still, how
was he going to sleep at night? There was not a plain in the whole world
where he could lie down without drowning; and as for the mountain-top, it
was much too small.

Hurtali bent down, picked a handful of trees and ate them moodily. Then
an ingenious idea struck him. If he could not lie flat why not go to
sleep reclining? He could stretch himself along the mountain, with his
head at the top and his feet in the water below. He scrambled half way
down to try it, and leaned carelessly back. In an instant he was up
again, howling with pain. Hundreds of precipices had stuck into his back,
and he had laid his head squarely on an ice-field.

Hurtali was infuriated. He was not so easily to be foiled. He plucked out
cliff after cliff in his rage and hurled them splashing into the water.
With one of them he pounded madly on the glacier, sending ice-splinters
in a bright fountain skywards. By nightfall he had cleared the mountain.
He lay back, propping himself with a cliff or two on either side to keep
from rolling over into the water. Then wearily he opened his mouth and
snored to high heaven.

[Illustration: There, stuck on the rocks, was a tremendous wooden box]

All of a sudden, Hurtali awoke. Somewhere there was a noise that
disturbed him. It was the queerest noise anyway. It seemed to be made up
of a hundred small sounds. It was a twittering, a rustling, a chirping,
and a tiny screaming all at once.

“Just my luck!” thought Hurtali sleepily. “I’ve gone and laid my head in
a whole colony of eagles’ nests.”

Then he rubbed his eyes open. It was morning, and what felt so cold
around his neck was water. It had risen until it had covered him up in
the night.

But the noise kept on. It did not seem to have the slightest intention of
stopping. The wider awake Hurtali grew, the louder it seemed to become.
It did not sound at all like eagles any more, and it seemed to come from
somewhere very near his left ear. Hurtali turned over on his side. There,
stuck on the rocks he had piled up, was a tremendous wooden box, almost
as long as he was himself. The ends floated in the water, but the middle
was wedged firmly on the rocky shelf. It was from that the noises came.

Hurtali raised himself on one elbow and put his ear against the box.
Inside, hundreds of little creatures seemed to be moving about. There
were steps and stampings, small roars and tiny shrieks, flutterings and
callings, barkings and bleatings innumerable. It was Noah’s Ark waking
up for the day, but of course Hurtali did not know that. He listened,
fascinated.

Just then a window in the side shot open, and four men with four poles,
leaning out, began to push against the rock with all their strength.
Hurtali gasped. Never in all his life had he seen such tiny creatures.
He watched breathlessly as they braced themselves and struggled. But the
harder they pushed, the firmer the Ark seemed to stick.

Now, Hurtali was a kind-hearted giant, and while he could not but
chuckle to see the little people struggling at a task so much too big
for them, his first thought was to help them out. So he put out both
his great hands and pushed against the side of the Ark. But the Ark was
stuck too fast even for that, and instead of sliding off into the water
with Hurtali’s shoves, it tossed first on one side and then on the other,
and so rocked violently back and forth. And with that there arose such
a scrambling and scratching as never was heard before, as the animals
rolled about inside. Elephants trumpeted, cows mooed, donkeys brayed,
eagles screamed, dogs barked, lions roared, pigs squealed, wolves howled,
orangoutangs chattered.

As for Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who had been pushing, their eyes had
been so fast fixed on their poles that they did not see the giant’s arms
at all, and thought the whole commotion due to their own efforts.

But when Hurtali saw that he could not budge the Ark that way, he
scrambled up out of the water with splashes that set the craft seesawing.
Then, throwing one leg across, he jumped on top, as a man mounts a
horse. And sitting there a-straddle, he pushed with his foot against the
cliff,—once, twice, three times. And with the third push the Ark sailed
off suddenly, with Hurtali sitting atop.

It was a new experience for Hurtali, and he laughed with his whole
voice. In all his life he had never been on any kind of boat before, and
this one was so jolly. It went wabbling about over the waves with queer
splashes and gurgles. Hurtali swung his legs and roared out a giant-song.
Once in a while his toes would strike against a half drowned mountain,
and then he would push with all his might to keep his big craft off the
rocks.

All at once, Hurtali was conscious of a change. Inside the Ark everything
was strangely quiet. Not a roar, not a bark, not even a squeal disturbed
the stillness. Just in front of him on the roof was a chimney. He put his
ear down. There was a sound, but it was faint and different. It rose and
fell with contented regularity. It was a low, munching, crunching sound,
as if the hundreds of little creatures were moving their jaws up and down
all at once.

A sympathetic twinge shot through Hurtali. He remembered suddenly and
definitely that he had had no breakfast. He sat up and scanned the water
for whales. Just then a noise came up the chimney as if some of the
little beings were gathered there shouting and stamping. Hurtali looked.
At the bottom stood the men he had seen before at the window. With them
was a curious four-legged beast with a long neck that stretched up the
chimney to the very top. The men spoke to the creature. Slowly it bent
its head, and one of the men clambered up on it. Then with infinite
deliberation it stretched its neck out again, carrying the man to the
very top of the chimney.

[Illustration: The little man stood on the edge of the chimney.]

Hurtali straightened up in surprise. But the little man did not seem
in the least alarmed or afraid. He grasped the edge of the chimney and
cautiously climbed out on it. Then he turned toward Hurtali and bowed
low. He was an old man with a thin white beard that reached nearly to his
feet, and he wore a tremendous turban wound and re-wound about his head.

Noah sharply clapped his hands. The giraffe’s nose appeared again in the
chimney, stacked up with bowls of food. One by one, Noah removed them and
set them down, with a bow, on the roof before Hurtali. Then, with the
same slow gravity, he mounted himself again on the giraffe’s head and
started to descend as he had come.

Hurtali was dumb with surprise. But he had been brought up to be polite.
So, just as Noah disappeared through the chimney, he gasped out a “Thank
you,” which was pretty weak for a giant, but which boomed through the
Ark, and set all the animals to squealing, nevertheless.

Then he turned to the food. There were two sheep and a cow, with a bowl
of pottage and a dish of honey for dessert. Hurtali disposed of them all
in just three mouthfuls, and looked about for more.

Then it occurred to him that the little people were not used to a giant’s
appetite; and, being a polite giant as we have said, he determined to get
along without telling them. He turned his eyes to the water again, and
before dinner he caught twenty-five good-sized whales which he fastened
up behind him on the roof where Noah could not see them.

Days went by, and still the waters rose. There was not a dry
mountain-peak on the whole earth. Hurtali could not even feel one with
his toes. Sometimes, when the water was clear, he could dimly see one,
hundreds of feet below. Usually, however, the water was ruffled. The wind
blew, and the waves dashed up over the Ark, often to Hurtali’s waist.
Streams of mist seemed to be trickling through his hair and down his
cheeks, and for the first time in his life he got the idea that it was
raining. His legs were cold and numb, and he felt uncommonly stiff in
every joint.

By day things were not so bad. For Hurtali could hear the little
creatures racing about inside the ark, screaming and scolding, jumping
and playing, lowing and howling and squeaking. But at night when they
were all asleep, it was more than lonesome. It was black with a blackness
Hurtali had never known before; and the wind whistled through his hair
and chilled his arms, and sometimes beat against him till he nearly fell
over into the water. Somehow he managed to keep his seat, and the gray
morning comforted him. Three times every day the giraffe reached up food
to him, and three times Hurtali would send back by it the dishes of the
meal before, and then reach cautiously behind him for a whale.

[Illustration: Bears bounded]

So, time went on, until one day Hurtali noticed a brightness in the sky.
The mist no longer streamed over his face. The waters were still. Up
in the brightest cloud, he could make out a round, shining disk. Then
Hurtali knew that it was clearing off, and he shouted down the chimney
with almost all his voice, “The sun! The sun!”

[Illustration: Mice scampered]

A few days later he felt something hard and jagged with his foot. It
was a mountain, and he knew that the waters were going down. Soon peaks
began to appear like sharp teeth all about them on the horizon; and one
day, far off, Hurtali saw one that was soft and green. Then he put forth
all his strength. He paddled with his feet like a duck and sent the Ark
straight and sure for that mountain. Hurtali put out his foot and touched
the land. Then, very gently, he set the Ark safe and dry upon the top of
Mount Ararat.

Hurtali stood up and stretched his tired, cramped limbs. He capered
stiffly. He flung his arms about. He shouted with all his lungs.

And still the waters fell. By night the whole mountain was dry, and
Hurtali lay back and slept as he had not since the Flood. The next day,
Noah himself came out on the Ark roof to ask Hurtali if the Flood was
over and if he might safely let his creatures free.

[Illustration: Shem, Ham, and Japheth with their wives]

Hurtali stood upon the mountain-peak and overlooked the whole world. As
far as he could see were dry hills and green meadows, and the seas and
rivers were back again in their beds.

So, Noah went back into the Ark; and Hurtali with one sweep of his mighty
hand ripped off the whole roof from end to end. And from the Ark, in a
bright flutter, went up all the birds of the air into the sunlight. Red,
green, blue, white, and gold they glittered,—parrots and eagles, robins
and doves, hawks and geese, blue-jays and tanagers, crows and flamingoes,
all together in one feathery swarm, out into the blue sky.

Then Hurtali went to the end of the Ark, where all the animals were
gathered about the door, bleating aloud to heaven. With one tug he
snatched away the door; and, scurrying, scuffling, scratching, burrowing
under, scrambling over, the beasts burst out. Bears bounded, squirrels
frisked, pigs bolted, hyenas leaped, horses galloped, mice scampered,
camels loped, cats whisked, all in one wild stampede out of the Ark into
the free air. After them rushed Shem and Ham and Japheth with their
wives; and, last of all, Mr. and Mrs. Noah, who being quite old and
grown-up, tried to go as sedately as if they had been walking on dry land
every day.

[Illustration: Last of all, Mr. and Mrs. Noah]

Flinging up his arms to the high clouds, Hurtali went leaping across the
fair earth, taking the valleys at a bound, and racing over the mountains
as if they had not been.—All at once, he paused! The sky seemed suddenly
radiant with a soft brightness. Across a cloud, directly before him,
glowed an arch of lovely colors. It was more beautiful than anything
he had ever seen, and it made him feel happy and elated without quite
knowing why. Somehow it seemed to him that now his dear mountains and
valleys would always be safe and green as they had been before. And
so, bending his head, Hurtali ran out across the world, underneath the
Rainbow.

                                             —_Based on an Oriental myth._

[Illustration]




VIII

The Wigwam Giants

    Children, by this story we
    Learn how kind the red men be;
    Though the things related of them
    Made it difficult to love them,
    Here we see that, as with white men,
    Some are amiable, polite men;
    No one wicked and defiant
    _Could_ have been a wigwam giant.

                       _Seymour Barnard._




VIII

The Wigwam Giants


[Illustration: He had a wife and ten children]

Once upon a time, in the not-so-very-long-ago, an Indian had his wigwam
on the shore of a cold north sea. The Indian’s name was Pulowech, and
he had a wife and ten children. But for all his big family, Pulowech
might have lived there as snugly and happily as you please, had it not
been for the unkind fact that, in that north country, it is very hard to
get enough to eat. Pulowech found it hard indeed, for no sooner was the
tenth child fed, than the first one was hungry again; and the bigger and
hungrier the children got, the less food there seemed to be.

This spring it was worse than ever. Not even a bear had shown its furry
nose within sight of the wigwam. As for the crops, there was hardly a
green shoot in all the field Pulowech’s wife had planted. There was
nothing left to do but to fish. And fish Pulowech did. Every morning long
before sunrise, his canoe was a far gray spot on the horizon. But alas
for all his hard work! the more he set his nets, the fewer fish he seemed
to catch; and he might trail his line in the water all day without so
much as a nibble.

Finally, in despair one day, Pulowech and his wife got into their canoe,
and set out for the far fishing-grounds, beyond any part of the sea where
they had been before. They paddled and paddled until they could no longer
see their wigwam or any land at all. Time after time they stopped and
let down their lines, but that day again there seemed to be no fish in
the sea. The squaw’s arm grew tired, but still they kept on, hoping to
find some magic spot where the fish would come crowding about the canoe,
eager to be caught.

Suddenly, up from the sea and down from the sky and around them from
every side, swept clouds of fog. In long, quick puffs it came, as if the
whole world had begun very quietly to steam. The air was full of it, and
as for the sea, it seemed to have vanished in an instant. Pulowech could
see the shine of the little waves as he dipped his paddle, but beyond was
only grayness. He began to paddle faster, first in one direction, then
in another; but no matter which way he turned, the fog seemed to pursue
them. There was no end to it at all.

By this time, Pulowech was quite lost. He could not make the smallest
guess where his wigwam lay or how to go to get back there. There was
nothing to do but to paddle fiercely on, deeper and deeper into the fog.
As for Pulowech’s poor, tired wife, she began to cry, which made things
very little better.

All at once she stopped paddling. “Listen!” she cried. “Thunder!”

Pulowech stopped too. Over the sea came long, continuous roars. There
was no pause in them, and they grew louder and louder, as if the thunder
were coming straight—straight—straight at them through the fog. There
was something very strange about it too. The nearer, the more deafening
it became, the more _alive_ it seemed, the more it sounded as if it were
_thundering in words_. There was another noise too, regular, but not so
loud, as if a thousand paddles at once were cutting steadily through the
water.

The fog grew dark ahead. Right upon them loomed the thundering monster.
Pulowech and his wife shouted with all their voices. The great shape
stopped. There above them in the fog towered a tremendous canoe as high
as a cliff, and filled with men who seemed to touch the sky.

The giants looked at Pulowech and laughed,—a roar that shook the waves
and made the little canoe bob up and down as on a stormy sea. “Ho! Ho!”
cried one at last. “And where are you going, my little brother?”

Pulowech took his hands from his ears. “I wish I knew,” he answered
bravely. “We are lost in the fog.”

At that the giants laughed ten times harder than ever. “Lost in the fog!”
they cried, and wiped their eyes, as if it were the best joke in the
world.

“Well, well, well!” said the leader at last, “if that is the case, why
don’t you come home with us? You will be well treated. That I can promise
you, for my father is the chief. And in spite of your great size, my
friends, I warrant there will be plenty of room.”

[Illustration: A tremendous canoe as high as a cliff, and filled with men
who seemed to touch the sky]

With that, two of the giants put the ends of their paddles under the
Indians’ canoe and lifted it into their own, as easily as if it had
been a chip. Then very carefully they handed it around from giant to
giant, as pleased over the little folk as boys would be who had found a
flying-squirrel. As for Pulowech and his wife, if they shook with fear
before, now they sat still and speechless at such gentleness from beings
so immense.

The giants again took up their paddles as big as trees. With a single
stroke, they sent the canoe a clean hundred yards through the water. As
for the fog, their eyes seemed to bore straight through it, as though it
had been so much air.

Then swiftly, with a tremendous grating, the canoe stopped. They had
beached it upon a wide sandy shore. One of the giants jumped out, and,
taking Pulowech’s canoe in his hand, ran shouting up the bank. There
ahead rose three wigwams as high as mountains. And from the largest came
the chief to meet them, a giant taller than all the rest.

“Well, well, my son!” he cried, “what have you there?”

“Oh, Father, only see,” called the young giant, in gasps that shook the
trees. “See—a little brother!—We found him—on the water—lost in the fog!”

And at this shouting came giants running from all sides, to see what the
noise might be about. They crowded about the chief’s son and peered into
the small canoe until the poor Indians, finding themselves surrounded by
great eyes like so many suns, sank down in terror.

“_Noo_, then,” cried the chief in anger, “you have scared the little
people!” And taking the Indians, canoe and all, he gently carried them to
his own wigwam.

Inside sat a pleasant-faced woman, no bigger than a good-sized hill.
“Look, wife,” said the chief. “See what I have brought you!”

The giantess was delighted. Very deftly she picked the Indians up with
her thumb and forefinger without crushing out their breath. She laid them
in the hollow of her hand as in a cradle, and rocked them to and fro,
softly thundering a lullaby, while with the end of her little finger she
tenderly stroked their hair.

As for the chief, he hung up the Indians’ canoe where it could not
be stepped on. Then he bent down to the Indians and told them in a
confidential whisper that could hardly have been heard a hundred miles
away, that he was their friend, and that his name was Oscoon.

“And now, wife,” he cried, “our little people must be hungry! Is there
enough in the house for them to eat?”

The good woman gave a housewifely chuckle, like the dry roar of a forest
fire, and looked into a great steaming pot. In the bottom were a dozen or
more whales. But remembering the small size of her guests, she picked out
a little one about forty feet long, and put it before them in a wooden
bowl. The poor Indians did their best, but by the time they had made a
little hole in the whale’s side, they were fast asleep from so much food.

Then it was that the giants were troubled, for they had no place to put
the little people for the night. For there was no part of the wigwam
where a giant might not step on them or roll over them in the dark.
Finally the giantess had a happy idea. She took down the Indians’ own
canoe and put some little skins in the bottom. Then very gently she laid
Pulowech in one end and his wife in the other, tucked them snugly in, and
swung the canoe up again at the top of the wigwam.

Days went by, and the giants delighted in nothing so much as in their
little people. For hours at a time Oscoon would sit quite still while his
small guests ran about his hand or explored the long gullies between his
fingers. As for the giantess, she never left the wigwam without bringing
them great handfuls of apples, which were to her, to be sure, no bigger
than so many currants. But when the giants went hunting, then it was
that Pulowech and his wife feasted. For always they brought back two or
three moose swinging in their hands like rabbits, and two or three dozen
caribou hanging in their belts, as an Indian would carry a string of
squirrels.

So it happened that Pulowech and his wife lived among the giants as happy
and as care-free as two children. From the first morning when they awoke,
high in their canoe-cradle, they seemed to have forgotten everything; not
only the fog and terror of the day before, but all their past life as
well. They had no memory of their home nor even of their hungry children
waiting for them in the wigwam beside the sea. It seemed to them that
they had always lived in this warm, happy Giantland where deer swarmed in
the forests, and fish in the sea.

Every day they ate a little out of their whale, and every night they went
peacefully to sleep in their high canoe. When they were neither eating
nor sleeping, they romped about like children. They slid down the back of
Oscoon’s hand as down a hillock; they played hide-and-seek in one of his
moccasins; and they ran about in the wigwam till the good giantess would
have to put them in one of her big baskets for fear they might be stepped
on.

But good times do not last forever, even in Giantland. One day, Oscoon
picked up his Indians with a grave face. “My little people,” said he,
“to-day the great Chenoo, the dreadful ice-giant of the North, is coming
to fight us. It will be a hard battle, but, most of all, I fear for you.
For no one less than a giant could hear the Chenoo’s war-scream and live.
We will wrap you up the best we can, and no matter what happens, you must
not uncover your ears until I come for you.”

[Illustration: Oscoon picked up his Indians with a grave face]

The Indians promised that they would do as he said, and entered into
all the plans for the battle as gleefully as though it had been a new
game. They tore little pieces of fur from a rabbit-skin and stuffed them
so tightly into their ears that they could scarcely hear Oscoon when
he whispered to them. Then the giantess bound up their heads with many
strips of deerskin, and, laying them in their canoe, fairly smothered
them with fold after fold of wrappings.

When she had finished, Oscoon took them, canoe and all, and put them in
the bottom of a great stone pot. Beside them he laid a ton or so of deer
meat and nine or ten bushels of apples, so that they should have enough
to eat in case the battle lasted over night. Then, over the pot he spread
a robe made of thousands of bearskins, which covered all the top.

After that, though Oscoon shouted with all his voice, the Indians could
not hear a sound. It was dark in the pot, and, under all their coverings,
rather warm. And so, since they could neither move nor hear each other if
they spoke, they sensibly fell asleep.

After a very long time, Pulowech opened his eyes. Everywhere was
blackness. For a moment, he thought that he must have gone blind. Then
faintly, far above somewhere, he made out a tiny crack of light, and
he remembered: they were in the stone pot, and the light was creeping
in at the edge of the bearskin. He touched his wife. She stirred and
rubbed her eyes. And there in the dark they shouted at each other,—and
the stillness was unbroken. Pulowech started up, and sank suddenly back
again, pulled down by the weight of his coverings. Then angrily he tried
to pull them off, and could not so much as lift one of them. For they
were made of hundreds of skins. There was nothing for it but to lie still.

A slow, familiar pain seized Pulowech’s insides. Greedily he remembered
the apples and the deer meat, and put out his hand. There they were,
close beside him. He clutched great handfuls of them, and ate eagerly. He
touched his wife and made her understand too. For some time, they forgot
the dark and even the silence. But gradually, as Pulowech began to care
less and less about eating, his head seemed to feel extraordinarily hot
and uncomfortable. His hands fumbled the wrappings and twitched at the
knots. If only he could get one of them off, it might be more bearable.

Then he remembered his promise to Oscoon. But surely, he thought, the
battle must be over by now. And even if it were not, what difference
would one deerskin, more or less, make to hearing the ice-giant’s scream?
Oscoon was too careful.

Nevertheless the promise held him. He took down his hands and lay for
some time quite still. A dreadful terror came over him: suppose the
battle _was_ over, and Oscoon had forgotten them. Worse still, suppose
Oscoon should never come at all; suppose he had been killed! Then they
might die there, for even if they could get free of their coverings, they
could never climb up the steep walls of the stone pot.

Pulowech’s wife moved. She began to pull fiercely at the bandages about
her ears. It was too much for Pulowech. He put up his hands again and
tore wildly at the deerskin strips. If Oscoon _was_ dead, he decided,
then they must talk together; they must plan some way of escape. They
must not be found there helpless by the dreadful Chenoo.

Suddenly, something swifter, keener, shriller than the sharpest spear
seemed to pierce through Pulowech. His hands dropped limp. His breath
went. His whole body seemed divided, and his ears shattered by the wild,
high, cruel sound of it. It was the Chenoo’s war-scream. Again it came,
lower and less intense, shooting through Pulowech’s numb body like pain
let loose; and then a third time, faint and far away, no longer cutting,
but chill as the wind from icebergs.

When Pulowech came to himself, he was startled by the light all about
him. Then dimly he made out the great face of the giantess bending over
him. He was no longer in the pot. He was lying beside his wife in the
hollow of the giantess’s hand, and she was rubbing them vigorously with
her little finger.

“There, there, my little people,” she said. “You’re all safe, so you
are. And the wicked Chenoo shall never scream again to hurt you. For he
is dead, so he is. Killed, by my Oscoon and our sons. There, there, my
little people, open your eyes.”

Pulowech blinked, and looked around the wigwam. All about sat the giants,
binding up their cuts, and picking out the pine-trees that were stuck in
their legs like splinters. For the fight had been in a forest, and the
poor giants were bothered with the trees, as men would be with thistles.

All at once the door-flap moved, and Oscoon’s youngest son fell down in
the doorway, quite dead. Now, in some families this would have caused a
commotion. But the giants went on talking of the battle as if nothing
unusual had happened. Finally Oscoon, who was smoking his pipe in a
corner, looked over at his boy upon the ground.

“Well, my son,” he said, “why are you lying there?”

“It is because I am dead, Father,” answered the young giant. “The Chenoo
has killed me.”

“If that is all,” said Oscoon, quietly, “get up at once. It is
supper-time.”

The young giant opened his eyes and sat up. He did not seem to be any the
worse for having been dead. And at supper, certainly, he ate none the
less for it.

So the days passed as before. The giants never tired of petting their
small guests. Every day the young giants would bring them new treasures,
and every day Oscoon would contrive some new game for them. The youngest
giant, who was quick with his hands, caught some small live deer, which
the giantess kept for them in a basket, as a boy might keep pet mice.

But in spite of these new playthings, Pulowech’s wife became less and
less lively. She did not play as she used to, and she would sit quietly
for hours at a time as if she were trying to think out something that
troubled her. Finally a thoughtfulness settled over Pulowech as well.
They gave up hide-and-seek entirely. Instead, they talked and talked
together, sometimes far into the night. Little by little they seemed to
be remembering something, and the more they remembered, the more worried
they grew.

The giantess became anxious. The little people got on more and more
slowly with their whale, and as for the deer meat, they no longer seemed
to care for it at all. The giantess racked her brains for some way to
tempt them. So, with long patience she made for Oscoon a tiny net which
would catch the sharks that wriggled through his whale-net like minnows.
And when he caught some, she broiled three fine ones for dinner. But the
Indians, who had been so pleased with new dishes before, seemed hardly to
notice the change.

At last, one day when Oscoon had taken them to the beach, he spoke to
them. “My little people,” he said, “it worries me to see you so quiet and
sad. Tell me what troubles you. For we will cheerfully do anything that
will make you happy again.”

“Oh, dear Oscoon!” cried Pulowech, “we could not be happier than in your
wigwam. It is something we partly remember that makes us sad. Ever since
we heard the ice-giant’s scream, it has seemed to us that we have not
always been in this Giantland. Once we seem to have lived in a different
country, where we were cold, and often hungry. But there our wigwam was,
and our children. It is they that worry us. For we do not know what they
can do without us. They must be hungry—” Pulowech caught his breath, and
his poor wife began to sob.

Now, Oscoon was a good giant if there ever was one, and it grieved his
big heart through and through to see his small friends so unhappy.

“Oh, my little people!” he cried, heaving a little himself, “I would
rather give you anything than to have you leave us. But you must go back
to your children—_right away_.”

And with that he sneezed so violently that the rocks were jounced around
in their places, and the Indians had to cling tight to his thumb for
fear of falling off. Then they all laughed,—which made them feel so much
better that everybody’s sobs got swallowed.

And so, grasping his little people, Oscoon ran leaping back to the
wigwam, calling the giantess at the top of his big lungs. “Oh, wife!
wife!” he bellowed, “our little people have a voyage to take. We must
give them the little dog, and some food to take along with them.”

When the giantess heard about the children at home, she kissed her little
Indians very hard indeed, and then she set all the young giants at work
piling up furs and dried meat for them to take home to their wigwam. And
so, as they all worked with a will, in about two minutes and a half there
were enough furs and meat stacked up to sink three or four hundred canoes
the size of Pulowech’s.

When Oscoon saw that, he took the Indians’ canoe down from the top of the
wigwam, and filled it as full as it could hold. Then he set Pulowech in
the stern, and his wife in the bow, and holding the canoe high over his
head, roared out to the whole camp that they were ready to start.

So they set out, Oscoon ahead, carrying his little people in their canoe
in one hand, and in the other a tiny, sharp-nosed gray dog. All the
giants followed in a great procession, leaping up and down and singing,
as though it were a very gala occasion indeed. When they came to the
shore, Oscoon gently slipped the canoe into the water, and gave Pulowech
the little gray dog.

“Paddle,” he said, “just as the little dog points. He will take you home.”

The little dog ran to the middle of the canoe, and stood with his paws
resting on the edge. He barked, and pointed with his nose straight out to
sea. Pulowech dipped his paddle, but he could scarcely see to steer for
the tears in his eyes.

“Good-by!” shouted the giants.

“Good-by!” called the Indians.

And Oscoon cried out, last of all: “Do not forget us, little people!
Come back to visit us, and send your children. Sometime we will send the
little dog for you.”

The Indians paddled, and the little dog pointed. They seemed to glide
over the smooth sea at a wonderful rate. In a few minutes, they were out
of sight of the giants, who stood on the beach, still waving and shouting
good-by. In no time at all, it seemed, they came straight to their own
home. There stood their wigwam just as it was the day they left it; and
as the canoe grazed the shore, their own children came running to meet
them, rosy and well.

The little dog jumped out of the canoe, barking and wagging his tail. He
ran about on the sand, and licked the children’s hands. Then he turned
and trotted home again over the top of the sea, as if it had been made of
hard ice. Pulowech caught up his two youngest children, and set them on
his shoulders. And so, carrying the giants’ gifts, they came into their
own wigwam.

After that, whenever Pulowech set his nets, they came up bursting with
fish. When he went hunting, his arrows brought down all the deer he could
possibly need. As for the children, they grew so tall and hearty that
the old wigwam would not begin to hold them, and they had to build a new
one—the biggest in all the country.

So Pulowech knew that the giants had not forgotten him. And his heart
was glad when, a year and a day after they had come home, the little dog
came again trotting over the water. The children ran to meet him, and he
bounded up to them and licked their hands, just as he had done before.

Pulowech smiled to himself, for he knew quite well why the little dog
was there. Then he launched one of his canoes (for now he had many), and
calling his two oldest children, told them to get in. The little dog
jumped in too, and pointed with his nose the way they were to go. The
children paddled safely over the smooth sea, and so they, too, went to
Giantland.

In three months the little dog brought them back again, with their canoe
full of furs and meat enough to keep them all warm and happy for years to
come.

So every year the little dog came, barking and wagging his tail, and
every year two of Pulowech’s family went to visit the giants. And none of
them were ever cold or hungry again,—of that you may be sure.

                                                  —_From a Micmac legend._

_Based on C. G. Leland’s Algonquin Legends of New England._

[Illustration]




IX

The Giant Who Became a Saint

Offero

    We have laughed at giants quaint,
    Roaring rascals, bound to please us;
    Hush! For now we have a saint,
    One who served the infant Jesus.

                       _Seymour Barnard._




IX

The Giant Who Became a Saint


[Illustration: Sometimes he would hold them at arm’s length]

Among the smooth, blue hills of an eastern country lived a simple-hearted
giant lad named Offero. And though he was four times as high and four
times as wide as the other boys, that did not make him proud in the
least. He played with them as good-naturedly as if he had been no bigger
than they. Sometimes he would hold them at arm’s length, one in each
great hand. Sometimes he would toss them gently into the air. And when he
was particularly good-humored he would stand still for hours at a time
while they clambered up on his high shoulders.

One evening, tired from these boisterous games, they all lay sprawled
along the hillside, watching the stars come out and talking about the
great men they were going to be.

“I shall be a shepherd,” cried one, “and roam the hills all day.”

“And I shall be a barber, like my father,” shouted another.

“As for me,” cried a third, “I shall be a wine merchant, and sit at my
ease.”

But Offero said never a word.

“Offero! Offero!” cried the boys, scrambling up and swarming over him.
“What are you going to be?” And they tweaked his long hair.

But Offero held his peace. Then suddenly he sprang up, shaking them off
like so many puppies.

“I shall serve,” he thundered. “I shall serve the greatest king in the
world.”

The boys stared. “But how will you find him?” they cried.

“I shall walk till I find him,” said Offero, “and I shall know him
because he will be afraid of no one.”

Next morning at daybreak, Offero set out across the hills to seek his
king. For months he walked, from one proud palace to another, and past
the miles of poor men’s houses in between. Many a fine, glittering
court he saw, and many a king. But none of them was the one for whom he
searched. For no matter how broad their kingdoms might be, they were all
afraid of some king beyond, who had more men or more ships than they.

But Offero kept on, undismayed. And after a year and a day he came to
the king whom the others feared. When Offero saw the mighty look of this
king, his great heart thumped with joy. “At last,” thought he, “I have
found the greatest king of all!” For when the courtiers spoke of war,
the king did not cringe as the others had, but raised his head more
majestically than before.

So Offero went towering down the hall, and bent his huge height before
the throne.

“Oh, king,” he cried, “behold your servant, Offero!”

The king’s eyes gleamed. For proud and powerful as he was, with a giant
like this his name would be more terrible still.

“Rise, Offero,” he said. “The king accepts your service. In battle you
shall march at our army’s head; and in peace you shall stand behind our
throne.”

But when Offero marched before the king’s army, wars ceased. For at sight
of him the enemy turned and ran away as fast and far as their legs would
go. So there was little for him to do but stand behind the king’s throne
in the palace hall. And that was rather dull sometimes for a great,
strapping giant like Offero.

[Illustration: When Offero marched, wars ceased]

“But,” he would remind himself, “I am serving the greatest king of
all,—the only one who is unafraid.” And then he would straighten his big,
stiff shoulders, and look as proud and fierce as should the servant of
such a king.

One stormy night as Offero stood behind the throne, a minstrel came
to play his harp before the king. He sang of war, of dangers and
temptations; and Offero stood drinking in with all his heart the music
and the story. But the king fidgeted in his great chair, and Offero could
see his gold crown tremble. One hand would grip the carved, gilt lion by
his side, while the other made a nervous sign upon his forehead.

Offero watched, troubled. It was when the minstrel sang of Satan that the
king shuddered. It was at that name he made the sign upon his forehead.

When the minstrel had done, and the courtiers had taken their leave,
Offero knelt before the throne. “Oh, king,” he cried, “why did you shake
at Satan’s name?—you who are afraid of no one!”

The king smiled sadly. “Ah, Offero,” he said, “the mightiest monarch of
the earth must fear Satan. For he is more powerful than any king of us
all; and only that sign of the cross can save us from him.”

Offero sprang up, his huge shadow darkening the throne.

“Then you are not the greatest king!” he thundered. “Farewell. I go to
serve him whom you fear,—King Satan!”

And like a cyclone Offero was gone through the palace gate.

All night he strode through the storm; and when day cleared, he found
himself on a wide, pleasant road thronged with people all going down a
hill.

“Ho, there!” shouted Offero from his height. “Can any of you tell me the
way to King Satan?”

“Follow us,” cried the foremost; “we are bound that way.”

Now, the leaders, who went so fast ahead, looked mean and crafty; and
those who shuffled along behind were pale and wild, with restless eyes.
But Offero, towering so far above, could not see their faces. He was only
glad in his great, honest heart to be with such a large, gay company.

“For,” he said to himself, “does it not show that Satan is the greatest
king of all when so many people willingly leave other kings, to serve
him?”

The road went down steeper and steeper. And the faster it fell, the gayer
and more reckless the travelers became. They shouted and danced along so
riotously that even Offero’s huge strides hardly kept up with them.

Suddenly there was a shriek. In an instant all the gay cries were changed
to rasping screams. Offero stopped in bewilderment. Directly before him
the road was swallowed up in a vast, smoking cavern. It was into that his
companions had gone.

The shrieks grew fainter, and above them came a hoarse, sneering laugh.

“A cruel king, this Satan!” thought Offero. “But I have vowed to serve
the greatest, and I must go on.”

He stepped to the cavern’s mouth. A blast of black smoke choked him; and
as it cleared, he saw coming toward him, a haughty figure with a crown of
flames.

Offero bowed low.

“A handsome recruit!” snarled Satan. “Well, friends, a fellow like this
will be useful on our errand in the world up there.” And without a word
to the giant, Satan beckoned him to fall behind.

Offero followed sadly while Satan and his train swept jeering up the
hill. All along the way people cringed and shook at Satan’s coming. Dukes
and princes, ladies and laborers, all scurried at his glance. A whole
army marching to battle turned in terror at sight of him. Satan went on,
haughty and regardless.

Little by little, Offero began to forget his cruelty in admiration for
his boldness. “At last,” thought the honest giant, “I have found the
greatest king, who is afraid of no one.” And he stepped along proudly to
think that his search was done.

The road gave a sudden turn. Over the heads of Satan and his train Offero
could see a rough cross of wood against the sky, and at its foot a child
placing a handful of wild flowers.

The giant’s kind heart was troubled. “Such a baby!” he muttered. “If only
Satan would not frighten her!”

As he spoke there was a snort of fear. But it was not the child who gave
it. Satan, cowering, burst through his followers, and back along the
road. Offero’s great form barred the way.

“Let me by!” shrieked Satan. “Let me by, I say!”

Offero’s mighty hand tightened on his shoulder. “Tell me first,” said the
giant calmly, “of what you are afraid.”

“The cross!” screamed Satan. “The cross! The cross of Christ, my enemy!”

“This Christ,” said Offero, “is a greater king than you, then, or you
would not fear his cross.”

“Let me go!” cried Satan, beating with his fists on Offero’s massive arm.
“Save me!”

Offero loosened his grip. “Go,” he said scornfully, and stood aside while
Satan and his train rushed by him down the hill.

The little girl stood wondering beneath the cross. “Good day,” said
Offero. “Can you tell me the way to the king called Christ?”

“You must ask the hermit,” answered the child. “He knows the way. But the
path to his hut is steep and jagged, up a high hill.”

“Thank you,” said Offero. “The path does not matter, if he can tell me
how to find the greatest king.”

[Illustration: “Good day,” said Offero. “Can you tell me the way to the
king called Christ?”]

So the child pointed the way. All day long Offero climbed. The stones
were so big and sharp that they cut even his huge, hardy feet; and it was
sunset before he came to the hut on the mountain top.

The hermit was beginning his evening meal. “Welcome, friend,” he cried.
“Come in and sup with me.”

As they ate, Offero told the hermit of his errand. “I would find this
king called Christ,” he said. “For I have vowed to serve the greatest
king, who is afraid of no one. My arms are strong. I can fight for him
and make him more powerful than before.”

The hermit smiled. “To find Christ,” he said, “you must first serve him.
And to serve him you must not kill your fellowmen, but help them.”

“What can I do then?” asked Offero ruefully. “I am strong to fight. How
can I help?”

The hermit looked at him. “Good giant,” he said, “your shoulders are
broad and sturdy. They should be able to carry great weights.”

“They can indeed,” cried Offero happily. “It is from them I have my
name,—Offero,—the carrier.”

“Then, Offero,” said the hermit quietly, “why not use your shoulders to
serve King Christ? There is a river not far from here, which runs deep
and wild; and there are many people who come night and day to cross it
over. The strongest and hardiest pass through safely, but the old and
weak are often swept away by the flood.”

Offero’s eyes flamed with sudden pride. “I can carry them all safely
across!” he cried. Then his face darkened. “But how shall I find King
Christ?” he asked.

The hermit’s eyes looked far away. “You will not have to search,” he said
gently. “If you serve him well, he will come to you.”

Next morning Offero and the hermit set out for the river. But hardly were
they down the mountain when every traveler called out to them to turn
back. “The river is in a fury,” they cried. “No man could reach the other
side alive.”

The hermit shook his head. “Come and see,” he said. “For I have a trusty
ferryman here who can weather any flood.” So Offero and the hermit kept
on; and the travelers followed, wondering.

The river beat against its banks, and the waves rushed white with foam.
Offero pulled up a stout green tree to steady himself, and waded in till
he could feel the cruel whirlpools sweeping around his ankles. Then
lifting the hermit to his broad, firm shoulder, he plunged fearlessly
into the raging stream. The water swirled and hissed about him. It rose
to his great chest, and wet the edge of the hermit’s robe. But it was of
no avail against the giant. He towered through it as solid as a cliff,
and set the hermit safely on the other side.

A great “bravo” went up from the watching people; and when Offero came
back, they gathered about him, clamoring to be carried. So Offero began
his service of the king whom he had never seen.

Day and night he kept at it,—in the spring when the river was high and
surly, in the winter when it was chilling and swift. To be within call
always, he built himself a hut on the bank; and there was no one who
knocked, however haughty or humble, that Offero did not take upon his
shoulder and carry safely through the river.

So every day Offero’s great face grew more kindly and his shoulders more
patient. But always in his heart there was a kind of longing wonder
whether the King would really seek him out, as the hermit had said; and
whether Christ was indeed the greatest king, afraid of no one. “If Christ
would only come!” he thought; and sometimes in the depths of night he
would start up and unbar the door, thinking that he heard the knock of
the King. But it was only the wind, or now and again some belated pilgrim
begging to be carried across the river.

One black night when the rain lashed the hut, and the river ran high and
wild, Offero awoke to a sound that was not the storm. “A knock!” said his
listening heart. “A knock!” Or was it after all a dream? No pilgrim, not
even the fearless King would travel a night like this.

Nevertheless Offero sprang up, lit his great, rude lantern, and threw
open the door. A drenching blast blew away his breath, but there on the
threshold, in the gusty light was a pilgrim indeed,—a little child with
his cloak running with rain.

[Illustration: A little child, with his cloak running with rain]

Offero caught him up with one grasp of his great arm. “Poor little one!”
he cried. “Come in from the storm.”

“No, no, kind giant,” pleaded the child. “I cannot stay. I must cross
the river to-night. It runs deep and wild for my small strength, and I
come to ask if you will carry me through.”

So Offero took his staff, and settling the child gently on his shoulder,
plunged out into the pelting storm.

Above the wind they could hear the river roaring through the dark.
Offero strode to the edge and stepped in. At the very bank the water was
knee-deep, and the waves washed high on his great body. The child clung
closer to his neck, and Offero stopped and steadied himself. The bottom
was slippery at best; and to-night, with the waves rushing against him,
it was harder than ever to stand upright.

At every step the river grew deeper and more savage. The rapids snarled
about his neck, and his eyes were blinded with foam. The child, who had
been but a featherweight, seemed suddenly to become heavier than a man.
Offero’s mighty shoulder bent under the load. The waves plunged into
his face, choking him. And still the child pressed him down. The water
was smothering him, and he felt the current sweeping him off his feet.
Firmly as he held to his staff, he could not go on. The child was like a
mountain, bearing him down. His limbs were numb and cramped, and all his
strength seemed gone. A daze came over him, and the water surged in above
his head.

With one last struggle, he straightened himself, raising the child above
the foam. Offero gasped, staggered forward, and stopped, trembling and
weak. But he had passed the channel and stepped into the shallower water
on the other side. No matter how heavily the child bore upon him now,
he could keep his head above the waves. So he stood, bowed and panting,
beaten by the river and the rain.

Then slowly he felt his way through the blackness out of the torrent and
up the solid bank. Gently he set the child down and stooped beside it.
“Are you quite safe and well, little one?” asked he.

“Quite safe, good Offero,” said the child, “thanks to your kind care. For
you have served me bravely, carrying me and my great burden through the
raging river.”

“I saw no burden,” said Offero, wondering; “I only felt it.”

And as he spoke, the sky brightened, the storming of the wind and river
ceased, and the rain fell in gentle, shining drops.

“My burden,” said the child gravely, “is the greatest any man has ever
borne. For I have taken on my shoulders all the sins and sorrows of the
world.”

Offero fell back, dumb with wonder. For before him stood no longer the
child, but a stately figure, serene, triumphant, with a crowning light
about his head.

“For I,” said the kind, deep voice, “am Christ, the king whom you have
served. And because you have borne me faithfully, you shall be called not
Offero, the carrier, but Christoffero, the Christ-carrier. So all men
shall know that you are my brave and loyal servant.”

The giant dropped on his knees, but for wonder and joy he could not find
his voice. He could only gaze with grateful eyes. And as he looked, the
King turned, and walked majestically over the hills toward the sunrise.

But Christoffero knelt on, lost in ecstasy. For he knew that he had found
the greatest king, who was afraid of nothing, not even the sins and
sorrows of the whole world.

So Offero, by serving, became the giant saint,—Christopher.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




X

Gargantua

    The giant Grangousier, of feasters the first,
    Hated that any should hunger or thirst;
    To all at his table, the low or the high,
    “Eat, eat,” said Grangousier, “and drink ere you’re dry!”

    When the babe of this generous giant was yet
    But a lusty young guzzler of all he could get,
    He made his convivial father rejoice
    By shouting “Drink, drink!” at the top of his voice.

    Now, one would have thought that for eating, indeed,
    The babe and his father had perished of greed;
    But kindness as keen as his hunger was then
    Made baby Gargantua greatest of men.

                                       _Seymour Barnard._




X

Gargantua


Part One: How Gargantua Learned His Latin

[Illustration]

Of all the giants that ever lived, the fattest and the jolliest was good
old King Grangousier. From morning till night, and around again from
night till morning, there was nothing but one continual banquet at his
palace. Whenever you might happen in, there were always pigs roasting,
puddings steaming, spits turning, pies baking, chickens broiling, jellies
hardening, cakes frying, cooks stirring, butlers pouring, and pages
running to and fro with platters. There was always, in fact, such a cloud
of savory odors streaming out of the palace that the people for miles
around did nothing but eat the air.

In the midst of all the bustle sat King Grangousier at the head of his
table, singing and laughing, and letting out his belt at the end of each
course. And the best of it was that there was no one so rich and no one
so poor that he was not invited to sit down too and eat and drink and
laugh and sing as much as he was able. Prince and pauper, beggar and
baron, all flocked together about Grangousier’s board.

“Eat, eat, my good people,” Grangousier would cry, beaming down at
his small guests. “Here, boy, bring puddings, pheasants, capons,—and
chitterlings for the lady. Fill up the glasses. Fall to, comrades! Eat
before you’re hungry; drink before you’re thirsty,—that’s the palace
rule.”

And it must be said for Grangousier that he followed his own rule very
well. Every day he grew broader and rounder and bulgier; and as for his
chins, some said there were nine, and some that there were ten, but
anyway there was a cascade of them that fell down over the royal shirt
frills.

And so, when one day the hearty old king was blessed with a son, no one
was in the least surprised that the youngster was the biggest, lustiest,
thirstiest baby that ever was born. His baby carriage was a great wooden
cart as big as a house, drawn by a hundred oxen. And it took seven
thousand, nine hundred and thirteen cows to supply him with milk.

The very moment he was born, in fact, instead of crying, “Mie, mie, mie!”
like other babies, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Drink, drink,
drink!”

When father Grangousier heard _that_, his joy nearly choked him so that
he could just gasp out in his queer old French, “Que grand tu as!”—by
which he meant, “What a big throat you have!”

And all the lords and neighbors who were feasting with him, clapped their
flagons on the table and vowed that the baby could not have a better name.

“Here’s to Prince Que-grand-tu-as!” they cried.

Now, the very oldest of the king’s old neighbors, who I am afraid was a
little tipsy, shouted the toast out after the others, and in his haste,
slurred the four words together. So it happened that the young giant was
named for all time: GARGANTUA.

Up to the time he was five years old, Gargantua was educated much like
the other children of the kingdom, in

    Drinking, eating, and sleeping;
    Eating, sleeping, and drinking;
    Sleeping, drinking, and eating.

From dawn till dark he was continually full of frolic. He would roll
about in the mud; slide down the palace towers; run after hawks and
eagles with a net, as other children chase butterflies. When his
playmates ran about with their paper whirligigs, he would pick up a
convenient windmill and go charging down with it across the kingdom.

Best of all he liked his horses. To make a good rider of him, his father
had built a great horse of wood as high as a church. Across its back
Gargantua would throw himself, and make it trot, jump, amble, gallop, or
pace just as he liked. Of a huge post he made himself a hunting-nag; and
of a beam, a work-horse. Besides these he had ten or twelve poles that
did for race-horses, and seven great boards that were horses for his
coach. All of them he kept in his own room, tied securely to his bed.

[Illustration: He would make it trot or gallop]

One day Lord Breadinbag, the Duke of Free-meal, and the Earl of
Dry-throat, with all their followers, came to visit King Grangousier.
With so many guests all at once, the palace was crowded, and in the
stables for the visitors’ horses there was not a stall to be had.

Lord Breadinbag’s steward and his first gentleman-of-horse came on
Gargantua just as he was sliding down off the palace roof. “Aha!” thought
they, “we can find out from _him_ where the king’s own stables are.”

“Good prince,” said the steward, “can you show us where the giant horses
are kept?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Gargantua, “come with me.”

And taking them both by the hand, he dragged them after him up the great
staircase of the palace. Through a long hall he led them up into a tower.

“This is some trick!” gasped the gentleman-of-horse. “The stables are
never at the top of the house.”

As for the poor steward, he was too breathless
to reply. “You—never—can—tell,” he panted.
“Things—so—odd—in—these—giants’—countries.”

But Gargantua kept on dodging around corners and dashing up staircases,
and there was nothing for it but to stumble after. Finally he flung open
his bedroom door.

“Here are my great horses!” he cried. “Here is my roan, here is my bay,
here is my race horse!” And with that he gave a lash at the beams and
poles.

As soon as the steward and the gentleman-of-horse got their breath, they
laughed indeed, and fairly tripped over each other in rushing downstairs
to tell the joke in the banquet hall.

When Grangousier heard it, he roared till his chins shook again. “The
young rogue!” he bellowed. “The rascal! If he is old enough to be up to
mischief, he is old enough to go to SCHOOL!”

From that moment Gargantua’s fate was sealed. The next day an old
schoolmaster named Tubal Holofernes came to teach him his letters. Now,
Master Holofernes was a little, wizened man whom Gargantua could have
lifted up in one of his big hands. Standing on the ground he had to
shout through a trumpet to reach Gargantua’s ears. So, in order to get
on faster with the teaching, Grangousier had him lifted up on one of the
wooden horses, and ordered Gargantua to stand quietly alongside.

“A, B, C,” Holofernes would shout into his pupil’s tremendous ear. And
Gargantua, who thought the whole thing a fine new game, would roar the
letters out gaily after him.

So well did he learn them, in fact, that by the time he was ten years
old, he could say the whole alphabet by heart backwards, to the immense
delight of his father and all the banqueters.

[Illustration: Master Holofernes]

“And now,” cried Grangousier, fairly bursting with pride and pudding, “he
must be at his Latin.” For the truth of it was Grangousier did not know a
word of Latin himself, and so he was determined that his son should be a
great scholar.

Gargantua did not mind in the least. It meant new playthings for him.
For, since there were no printed books in those days, Gargantua had first
of all to learn to write books of his own. So Grangousier had made for
him a great blank book about an acre square, a pen-holder as long as the
pillar of Enay, and a horn that would hold a whole black lake of ink.

Master Holofernes would stand on the writing-desk and make his little,
correct letters down in one corner of the book. Then Gargantua would
take his pen and splash and scrawl and scratch in great lines and arcs
all over the huge pages. Each letter Gargantua made, in fact, was so
big that poor Holofernes had to look at it through a reducing glass to
see the whole of it at once. All this took some time of course, but
Grangousier was hugely pleased when, in thirteen years, six months and
two weeks after he began, Gargantua could make any letter in the alphabet.

Then began the Latin. For thirty-four years Master Holofernes read to
him out of the most learned books, and Gargantua was supposed to write
down, in his own, every word that he heard. But by this time, I am sorry
to say, Gargantua was a little tired of study, and though he scribbled
busily enough, instead of writing Latin words, he drew pictures of
elephants and camels and lions and tigers. And old Master Holofernes, who
did not look over the work with the glass till long after, was none the
wiser. As for King Grangousier and his friends, Gargantua had one Latin
piece that he could recite either backwards or forwards for them, and
they all vowed that his learning was wonderful.

Everything was going happily enough when one day there came a guest to
Grangousier’s table who knew something about Latin. When he saw how much
Gargantua had learned in all his years of study, his eyes twinkled.

“How would it be,” said he to Grangousier, “if to-night I should bring
Eudemon, a young neighbor of mine, to talk Latin with Gargantua?”

Grangousier laid down his fork and vowed that it was the very best plan
he ever had heard.

So, that evening Eudemon came,—an ordinary-sized boy about twelve years
old. Pulling off his cap and bowing politely to all the company, he began
immediately in the best Latin to thank Grangousier for allowing him to
come to the palace, and then to tell Gargantua how glad he was to have
the chance of talking with him.

When Gargantua heard that torrent of Latin of which he could not
understand a single word, he grew so red that he had to hide his face in
his cap, and stood there as dumb as a cow. As for Master Holofernes, he
sneaked quietly out of the back door of the palace, and ran away as fast
and as far as his legs would carry him.

For the first time in his life Grangousier was angry.

“_What!_” he bellowed, glaring at Gargantua and trembling in all his
chins. “Not a word to say for yourself! Well then, well then, _well
then_, not a minute longer do you stay here! Off to Paris with you, and
get some sense put into your great, stupid head!”

The very next day Gargantua, with Eudemon and several other boys of
the neighborhood, set out for Paris in charge of a new tutor named
Ponocrates. Now, Ponocrates was not so very big, but somehow or other
Gargantua knew by looking at him that it would not be wise to be drawing
lions and tigers while _he_ was reading Latin.

And partly because Ponocrates was that kind of man, and partly because
Gargantua was thoroughly ashamed of himself, he went to his new master as
soon as they got to Paris. “How do you wish me to begin?” he asked quite
humbly.

Wise old Ponocrates looked at him kindly. “Suppose, at first,” he said,
“you do just as you used to at home.”

Nothing could have pleased Gargantua better. The next morning he began
as usual, by getting up about nine o’clock. He never bothered much about
dressing, for his one idea was to get to breakfast as soon as possible.
So, he scrambled into a shabby old suit lined with fox skins which was
easy to put on, and smoothed his hair with a “German comb,”—which meant,
that he ran his fingers through his great, tousled locks. Then yawning
and stretching his arms, he jumped down over a whole staircase in his
eagerness to get to breakfast.

Once there, he made short work of seven or eight hams, a dozen rashers
of bacon, a huge bowl of chopped meat, and an acre of bread and gravy.
After that he was ready for a walk through Paris to get up an appetite
for dinner. Coming home a little early, he sat down for half an hour to
study, to satisfy his conscience. But, while his eyes were on his book,
his mind was down in the kitchen, peeping into the great steaming pots.

Even at that, he was at the table playing tunes on the glasses with his
knife and fork long before dinner was served. When it did begin, four of
his servants took their places on the table in front of him. And while
Gargantua ate his usual number of steaks, hams, roasts, tongues, and
sausages, they shoveled mustard down his great throat.

When every platter was clean, Gargantua leaned back in his chair and
cried, “Spread the carpet!”

Down climbed the four servants from the table. Three of them unrolled
a huge rug, while the other brought in trays piled high with checkers,
chessmen, cards, and dice. Then the fun began. Gargantua and his friends
started in on the two hundred and fifteen games they liked best. That
afternoon they played:

    Flaying the Fox,
    Charming the Hare,
    Trudge, Pig,
    Pinch without Laughing,
    Riding the Wild Mare,
    The Whirligig,
    Rogue and Ruffian,
    I Take you Napping,
    The Hobgoblin,
    Climb the Ladder, Billy,
    and
    Gunshot Crack.

By that time Gargantua’s great head was nodding, and before the cards
were shuffled again, he was stretched out on the floor fast asleep. About
five o’clock he rubbed his great eyes open, and calling his friends,
dashed out, mounted his horse and rode away to see a rabbit-catching just
outside of Paris.

By supper-time, Gargantua had forgotten entirely about his Latin, his new
tutor, and the reason why he had been sent to Paris. His mind was on the
good supper and all the games they could play before midnight. His great
fork flew from plate to mouth, and back again from mouth to plate. And
between gulps he roared out his favorite song, while all his friends beat
time on the table with their knives:

    “One, two, three, four!
    Much to eat and maybe more:
    Five, six, seven, eight!
    Polish platter, polish plate:—”

Just an instant Gargantua paused for breath, when suddenly a new voice,
brisk and decisive, took up the refrain:

    “Nine, ten!—Finish then!
    Now for knowledge, gentlemen.”

Gargantua stopped, mouth agape, with a whole pudding poised on his fork.
That was a new ending to the song, and there just inside the opened
door, stood the singer,—Master Ponocrates!

But Ponocrates did not hesitate. He poured out a black liquid from a
bottle into a great spoon, and striding up the table to Gargantua, dashed
it into his open mouth.

For all the time Gargantua had been eating and playing, Ponocrates had
been looking on. And when he saw what Gargantua’s habits were, he knew
that it would take more than a new course of study to change them. So he
had gone to Doctor Theodore, a famous physician of Paris, and got from
him a medicine which should make Gargantua forget his old ways entirely.

So well did it work, that hardly had Gargantua swallowed it when he laid
down his fork and looked wonderingly at the table as if he were trying to
make out what all the puddings and pastries were there for.

“And now,” said Ponocrates, “you will oblige me, young gentlemen, by
starting off to bed. I want clear heads for to-morrow’s study.”

Gargantua was the first one up from the table; and before eight o’clock
had struck, he was asleep for the first time in his life without dreaming
of banquets.

Early next morning a new kind of life began for him. For Ponocrates had
laid out such a course of study that he should not lose a single hour
of the day. At four o’clock he was called; and while he was being rubbed
down after his bath, a page read the Latin lesson aloud to him. As he
dressed, Ponocrates would come in to explain the hard points; and after
a day or two Gargantua himself could repeat the lessons off by heart.
And all the time he would be carefully parting his hair with a real comb
instead of a German one, and never thinking of breakfast at all. Indeed
after a few more doses of the black medicine, Ponocrates had to remind
him that it was time to be eating or he would rush off to the schoolroom
as soon as he was dressed.

[Illustration: Even when he swam down the river Seine]

After breakfast Ponocrates talked for three hours in Latin, and then,
as the boys began to look a trifle sleepy, sent them out for a game of
tennis till dinner-time. After dinner they would sing for a while, and
then get at their Latin books again for three hours more. And after six
months of _that_, Eudemon himself could not outdo Gargantua in talking
Latin. He thought in it, dreamed in it, and was as anxious to be at his
book as he was before to be at his dinner.

Even when he swam, of an afternoon, down the river Seine, he took a book
in one hand, and holding it up dry out of the water, read aloud from it,
all the way, in a voice to split your ear-drums. Coming out of the water,
he laid the book on the bank and dried himself off by leaping over trees
and houses, and vaulting over churches, pricking his hand on the steeples.

But that was not the end of his day. For then came his lessons with
Squire Gymnast, who taught him to leap nimbly from one great galloping
horse to another; to shatter a thick stone tower with one thrust of his
huge lance; and to hold two lead weights each weighing eight hundred and
seventy thousand pounds above his head for three-quarters of an hour.
Last of all he would stand with his arms folded, in an open field, and
dare the whole French army to move him with crowbars.

But one day as the soldiers ranged themselves, ten to a bar, ready to
pry at Gargantua’s great boots, there came a pelting of hoofs across the
turf. Another moment, and a rider, shouting and spurring, burst in among
them to Gargantua’s very feet.

“Your Royal Highness,” he cried, “your father, King Grangousier, sends
for you!”

That was enough for Gargantua. The French crowbars rattled to the ground
like toothpicks, as he sprang leaping over the army to saddle his great
mare.


Part Two: How The Bakers Wished They Hadn’t

Now, the reason Grangousier sent for Gargantua so hastily was because he
had had the ill luck to get mixed up in a war. And all because he praised
a cake!

Next to Grangousier’s kingdom was the country of Lerné, famous far and
near for its delicious little cakes. Twice a week, for years and years,
the proud cake-bakers of Lerné had driven in along the king’s highway
with ten cartloads of cakes,—five for the palace, and five to sell in
town. From the hilltops beside the road Grangousier’s shepherds watched
for them to come, and rushed down to buy a few cakes to go with their
midday meal.

[Illustration]

Now, it happened one day that King Grangousier in his usual kindly mood
praised especially one of the little cakes from Lerné, which was made by
a man named Marquet. At that, Marquet, who was already the proudest of
the proud cake-bakers, marked all his cakes with a huge “M” and a little
crown above, to show that he was baker to the King. And the next time he
drove into Grangousier’s kingdom he held his nose higher than ever. Down
the hill as usual came the shepherds for their cakes, but Marquet drove
straight along.

[Illustration]

“Hey, hey, hey,” cried the shepherds good-naturedly, “where are our cakes
to-day?”

Marquet gave them one scornful glance. “I’m not selling to country
folk,” said he. “_My_ cakes are for the King.”

[Illustration]

“Come, come, Marquet,” said one of the shepherds named Forgier, taking
the horse’s bridle. “We’ve bought your cakes too many years to be treated
this way. Here’s your money; now give us our cakes.”

Marquet rose up insolently. “_Take_ your cakes!” he cried. “_Take_ your
cakes!” And with that he gave Forgier two great lashes across the face.

Out came Forgier’s stout oak cudgel. One blow, and Marquet reeled back
senseless.

By that time the other bakers had driven up, and seeing Marquet fall,
they set on the shepherds with their whips.

“Bumpkins! Boobies!” they shouted. “We’ll teach you to strike a
cake-baker!”

But the shepherds replied so sturdily with their crooks and cudgels that
it was not long before the bakers were glad to jump into their carts
again, and drive as fast as they could back toward Lerné.

[Illustration]

“Stop, stop, stop,” cried the hungry shepherds, “we want our cakes.” And
giving chase, they seized four or five dozen of the cakes, throwing their
money into the carts, in payment.

Then they bound up Forgier’s bleeding face; and made merry over their
meal, laughing at the proud cake-bakers who had lost a day’s trade by
their insolence.

As for the bakers, they drove furiously, straight to the palace of their
king, Picrochole, and dashed, disheveled and breathless, into the throne
room.

“Your Majesty,” they cried, “we have been set upon by the shepherds of
old King Grangousier,—our heads broken, our coats torn, our cakes stolen,
our trade ruined, and Marquet nearly killed.” And with that, two of them
brought in Marquet himself, groaning horribly.

Now, Picrochole was as proud and passionate as any cake-baker of them all.

“What!” he roared, turning purple in the face. “Killing our subjects!
Spoiling our trade! Well, we’ll teach them to eat our cakes indeed!
Marshals, sound the call to arms. Get out the cannon, double cannon,
serpentines. Every vassal, rich and poor, noble and peasant, to arms! And
all in the square by the hour of noon. For to-day we teach Grangousier’s
scoundrels to eat our cakes!”

[Illustration]

Then there was a bustle indeed. By noon the great square was swarming
with soldiers,—glittering officers, solid infantry, dashing cavalry,
bold cannoneers, all gathered under the royal standard. Around the edges
were the common people, without uniforms, but armed with pikes and
broadswords and eager to be at the fighting. In the center of things
was Marquet, fully recovered, and the cake-bakers around him, all very
important-looking and armed up to their eyes. The cannon shone in the
sun; the royal standard waved; the officers dashed to and fro; and all
the people cheered.

Finally King Picrochole called his captains about him. “The army is to
march in two divisions,” he said. “Half go east with me to Rock Clermond;
half go west under Earl Swashbuckler to the Ford of Vede.”

Then detailing the captains, he commanded the army to advance
immediately. So, all in disorder, the soldiers poured out of the square
in two great streams, half by the east gate under Picrochole, half by the
west gate under Earl Swashbuckler.

But no matter which way they went, as soon as they got to Grangousier’s
country, they took to the fields, trampling crops, tearing hedges,
shaking fruit trees, picking grapes, beating down nuts. Before them, in
an uproar of fright, they drove cows, oxen, sheep, lambs, goats, pigs,
hens, chickens and geese. Grangousier’s poor shepherds and farmers,
hearing the bleats and the bellowings mingled with the songs and shouts
of the soldiers, took to the woods; but many were captured nevertheless.

“Alas!” they cried, “we have always been good neighbors to you. We are
unarmed and at peace, and you come on us like this! Spare us! Spare us!”

“Humph!” said Picrochole’s men grimly. “You are learning to eat our
cakes.”

So that night, just as he had planned, Picrochole surprised and took the
town of Rock Clermond, and Earl Swashbuckler quartered his army in the
castle at the Ford of Vede.

Meanwhile the shepherd Forgier was posting with all speed to tell
Grangousier. He arrived at a pause in the banquet, when the chestnuts
were roasting over the fire. And Grangousier, with his chair turned
about, was drawing pictures with a burnt stick in the ashes of the hearth
and telling stories of the old times.

“Bravo! Bravo!” cried all the guests, smacking their lips over the hot
chestnuts.

As for Queen Gargamelle on the other side of the fireplace, she smiled
across at Grangousier, and thought that however good the old times might
have been, they did not compare with the cozy present, with a warm blaze
and the chestnuts roasting on the hearth.

Just then Forgier came, breathless, pulling off his cap. “Your Majesty,”
he cried, “King Picrochole’s men swarm through the country. They trample
the crops. They take our cattle and our sheep. Earl Swashbuckler plunders
the Ford of Vede, and King Picrochole himself holds Rock Clermond.”

“What! What!” gasped Grangousier, turning from his story, all a-tremble.
“Picrochole, you say!—Our old neighbor, with whom we have lived so many
years in kindness and peace! What is it starts him against us? Is he mad,
to turn so on his old friend, Grangousier?”

Forgier told the story of the cakes; and as he spoke, the good giant’s
face which had been so troubled, became as bland and beaming as before.

“If it is only a matter of a few cakes,” he cried joyously, “we shall
soon satisfy them. For Grangousier’s cooks can make cakes too. And this
week the bakers of Lerné need not send cakes to the King; but the King
himself will send cakes to the bakers of Lerné. And Marquet shall have a
special cartload, all marked with my crown and scepter, to make up for
those he lost. Hey, hey, hey, cooks and bakers! Grangousier calls.”

So all the cooks and bakers of the palace scurried up from the kitchen,
spoons in hand and caps askew, and stood bowing before Grangousier’s
chair.

“Good cooks,” said Grangousier kindly, “can we make here in our kitchen
as fine cakes as those of Lerné?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” roared the cooks, bowing as low as they could.

“Well, then,” cried Grangousier, “take all the butter, all the sugar,
all the spice in the palace. Spare nothing; but bake me cakes hot and
fresh and fragrant enough to make friends again of the proud cake-bakers
of Lerné. Five cartloads I would send them by dawn to-morrow, to comfort
them for the five dozen the shepherds took.”

The cooks and bakers scuttled out again to be at their mixing and their
stirring. And Grangousier rubbed his great hands in glee.

“Nothing like good cakes to end a war!” he chuckled.

But Forgier stood there, waiting and unhappy. “Your Majesty,” he burst
out, “you do not know this Picrochole and his bakers. Once get them
aroused, and there will have to be fighting before it is done. Picrochole
will not give up Rock Clermond for all the cakes in the kingdom.”

Grangousier’s great face, which had been as jolly and round as a dinner
plate, grew as solemn and long as a platter. “Can it be?” he asked sadly.
“Can it be?” and sank into patient gloom.

Queen Gargamelle rustled anxiously in her chair. “Why not send for
Gargantua?” she suggested timidly.

Grangousier beamed again. “The very thing!” he cried. “With all the
reading and the fighting he’s been taught in Paris he’ll know in a minute
what’s best to be done. Forgier, mount the fastest little horse in our
stables. Post to Paris, and say to Gargantua that his old father needs
him.”

Forgier dashed out of the banquet hall; and Grangousier, turning his
chair again, sat all night, marking with his stick among the ashes and
quite forgetting about his chestnuts.

At the very first gleam of dawn he raised his head, and his great
nostrils puffed out like balloons. Up from the kitchen came wave on wave
of warm, delicious baking. “The clever rascals!” muttered Grangousier.
“The cakes are done!”

The oldest and trustiest cook of all rushed respectfully in. “Your
Majesty,” he said, “the cakes are being piled on the carts. Who shall go
with them to Rock Clermond?”

“You, Ulrich Gallet!” cried Grangousier happily. “Drive, yourself, the
cart of cakes for Marquet; and say to him that he shall have not only the
cakes, but these seven hundred thousand gold crowns besides, and one of
our best apple orchards for him and his family forever.

“Say to Picrochole that we are full of grief at this trouble between his
subjects and ours; give him the cakes, and tell him that we will make any
other return he wishes. Only ask him to leave our town in peace. And to
show him that you come as a friend, deck your carts with willow boughs.”

Trusty Ulrich bowed, and after he had gone, Grangousier himself lumbered
out to the terrace to watch the carts with their nodding branches creep
slowly over the hill.

The captain of Picrochole’s guard on the ramparts of Rock Clermond
snuffed the morning air. “A good breakfast somewhere!” he muttered, and
paced greedily around the wall, sniffing down the chimneys. But the
savory odor did not come from any house of them all.

The captain turned, and gazed about the desolate country beyond the
town. Suddenly his astonished eye caught four or five carts waving with
willows, drawing up to the great gate.

“Ho, there!” he cried sharply. “Who comes to Rock Clermond?”

Honest Ulrich started. “It is I,—Ulrich Gallet,—” he shouted, “on an
errand of peace from King Grangousier to King Picrochole and to Marquet.”

Just then the captain spied the cakes. It was those, then, that made the
air so appetizing. He gave a long, loud whistle, and sprang down the
embankment into the town. In another instant he burst out the gate, with
the soldiers of the guard at his heels. Without a word they clambered
over the carts and began seizing the cakes.

“Hold! Hold!” cried Ulrich stoutly, raising his whip. “The cakes are
meant for you at any rate. Only let me give them with my message to King
Picrochole and Marquet. Wait! Wait!”

The captain laughed insolently. “We will give your message,—never fear,”
he shouted; and with a sudden grasp pulled the bag of gold-pieces for
Marquet from Ulrich’s clenched hand.

“We ourselves,” he taunted, “will drive the carts to King Picrochole.”
And with that two of the soldiers, climbing up treacherously from behind,
threw Ulrich down into the dust. The next moment the poor cook heard the
carts rumbling off through the gate. He scrambled up and shouted as loud
as he could, but for reply there were only the sneering jibes of the
captain and his men, as they closed the gates behind them.

So Ulrich turned sadly, and limped back down the road to the palace. It
was twilight when he got there, but Grangousier was still watching from
the terrace. Ulrich snatched off his cap with its dusty willow twig, and
told his story. As he went on, all the jolly curves and dimples in the
good giant’s face changed to stern, straight lines.

“The curs!” he cried. “Perhaps they will understand our cannon better
than our cakes.” And he peered anxiously down the road toward Paris. “If
only Gargantua would come!” he sighed.

Meanwhile Gargantua had left Paris, listening to Forgier’s story on the
road. “My good old father!” he cried hotly. “To think that they should
dare abuse his peaceful country! Well, Forgier, we pass the Ford of Vede,
and we may as well look in on Earl Swashbuckler on our way.”

[Illustration: The young giant spurred ahead]

And with that the young giant spurred ahead so furiously that the ground
for miles around rocked with the hoof beats of his great mare. Straight
ahead over hill and dale lay the castle at the Ford of Vede. Gargantua
cleared the distance like a cyclone till he could see the castle towers.
Then reining in his steed, he measured their height and breadth with
his practised eye. Turning to the roadside, he pulled up a pine tree
as sturdy and as straight as a bar of iron, and held it upright like a
lance.

“Hail, cake-bakers of Lerné!” he cried grimly, and rode on to the castle.

But there was not a man to be seen. For at the jar of Gargantua’s coming,
every plunderer of them all had hidden himself safely inside.

“Ho, there, bakers!” called Gargantua. “Come out, as you value your
miserable lives.”

There was no reply, only a furious burst of cannon balls from the towers.
Up into Gargantua’s eyes they flew,—over his head and shoulders in a
vicious shower. But they struck the giant as harmlessly as so many grape
seeds.

“Stop your pesky shot-guns!” cried Gargantua, annoyed. “Listen to me.”

But the cannon balls came faster and thicker than ever. Gargantua brushed
them from his eyes, raised his great tree in a fury, and rode full tilt
against the castle.

There was a shock and a crash. The towers shuddered and splashed, stone
after stone, into the water beyond. As for Earl Swashbuckler and his
bakers, there was not one of them left for Gargantua’s great eyes to spy
out.

The young giant turned with a sorry shrug of his shoulders, and rode
toward his father’s palace. It was nearly midnight when he got there,
but Grangousier was still on the terrace, watching through the shadows
for his big son to come looming up against the moon.

“My boy!” cried Grangousier gladly, and went lumbering down to meet him.

“Father!” shouted Gargantua. But when he heard how Ulrich Gallet had
fared, his big eyes blazed. “They shall soon learn,” he cried, “how to
treat your servants, sire. Call out the army. Send them post haste along
the road to Rock Clermond, and leave the rest to me!” And Gargantua
sprang again to his horse’s back.

“Not so fast! Not so fast, my son!” said Grangousier. “Get your sword.
Get your lance. Refresh yourself with supper. Even then you will soon
overtake the army.”

Gargantua yielded. He himself sounded the war alarm, and watched the
soldiers scramble, musket in hand, to their ranks.

“March on to Rock Clermond,” he said to the general. “Fight fearlessly,
for I shall come behind to help you.”

So the army set out along the dark road, and Gargantua sped to his room.
He took out his great sword and lance shining like flashes of lightning.
Then with his huge comb, each tooth of which was an elephant’s tusk, he
began smoothing his tousled hair. As he did so, there was a bump on the
floor,—another, another and another.

A servant knocked upon the door. “Prince Gargantua,” he cried, “sounds
like thunder come from your room. The ceiling below trembles. Is
something amiss?”

“Why, no,” laughed Gargantua, “I am but combing some small shot out of my
hair.”

The servant gaped, with round eyes. “They are cannon balls, your
Highness!” he cried in alarm.

“So they fired their cannon at me at the Ford of Vede,” muttered
Gargantua in surprise.

Then taking up his arms, he went down for a bite of supper with his
father; and just at dawn galloped off down the road.

Meanwhile the army drew near Rock Clermond. Picrochole’s captain of the
guard saw them coming, and dashed to tell his king.

Picrochole roused up angrily. “Is Grangousier with them?” he snapped.

“No, sire, I saw no giants,” said the captain of the guard.

Picrochole reflected. “Of course not, of course not,” he cried testily.
“Grangousier is too old after all; and that son of his is off at school
in Paris. A mere handful of shepherds coming to surprise us, no doubt!
Well, then, sound the charge; and follow me, every mother’s son. We shall
teach these blockheads once again to eat the cakes of Lerné.”

So, in a vain fury of boldness, Picrochole led his men helter-skelter
through the gate and down the hill upon Grangousier’s army. He drew
his sword to charge, when suddenly against the morning sky, he saw
Gargantua’s great figure looking down.

Picrochole staggered; then turned and scurried like a rabbit across the
dewy grass. “The giant!” he shrieked. “The giant!” And his men scampered
breathlessly after.

Gargantua stooped, and scooped up four or five of them in each of his
great hands. As for the rest, his army chased them so hard that every
baker of them was caught. Only Picrochole got away; but perhaps it was
just as well, for the kingdom was rid of him, as he was never seen or
heard of afterward.

When every captive was brought back, Gargantua called them all about
him. “Cake-bakers of Lerné,” he boomed, “my father, Grangousier, is the
mildest king in all the world, and the first friend of cooks.”

“Aye, aye,” cried all the bakers, waving their caps.

“And because you have served him with good cakes these many years,”
went on Gargantua, “he will not throw you into prison as you deserve,
but he will let you all go free and forgiven to your homes _on one
condition_,”—and here the giant’s voice grew stern,—“that you and your
families forever give his shepherds as many good cakes as they wish to
buy. As for Marquet and the captain of the guard, Grangousier orders them
to his palace kitchen. There they shall bake every day six cakes for
every one he sent by Ulrich Gallet.”

“Long live good King Grangousier, and his son Gargantua!” cried the
cake-bakers.

Gargantua turned his horse, and pranced joyously toward home, with
his army streaming after. Last of all came Marquet and the captain of
Picrochole’s guard, very humble and crestfallen, marched between four
strong soldiers.

Grangousier saw them coming. “Cooks, cooks, cooks!” he cried. “Fire
up your ovens, and spread the finest banquet since the days of King
Ahasuerus!”

And the cooks did. That day Gargantua feasted with his father, and
Ponocrates, Gymnast, and Eudemon (who arrived just in time), and all the
victorious army. And this is what they ate, according to Ulrich Gallet’s
list:

    Sixteen roasted beeves,
    Thirty-two calves,
    Sixty-three kids,
    Ninety-five sheep,
    Two hundred and twenty partridges,
    Four hundred capons,
    Seven hundred snipe,
    Twelve thousand pullets and pigeons,
    Fourteen hundred hares,
    One hundred and forty pheasants;

and deer, turkeys, ducks, geese, and vegetables without number. And after
they had finished _that_, there was served up a whole ton of the hottest,
most fragrant little cakes in all the world, baked by Marquet and the
captain of Picrochole’s guard.

“A fine feast!” cried Gargantua.

“A fine son!” beamed Grangousier, happy as only a giant can be.

“A fine father!” called Gargantua.

“And fine cakes!” said Queen Gargamelle.

                                    —_Adapted from Rabelais’ “Gargantua.”_

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




XI

The Man Who Went to the Giants’ Country

    You who scoff at tales of giants,
    Only sure of what you’ve seen,
    Listen to this man of science
    Who had long with giants been:

    Then when doubting folk confront you,
    Flout your faith or mock your fear,
    Tell them of this wise man, won’t you?
    Read them what’s recorded here.

                         _Seymour Barnard._




XI

The Man Who Went to the Giants’ Country


[Illustration]

    As the world grew older and ways became stiffer, there came a
    dreadfully dull time when nothing ever happened by magic, and
    everything could be explained by a Reason. Worn out by this
    heavy atmosphere, the gods left the earth for the clouds, and
    the fairies vanished into moonlight and mist.

    As for the giants, who had been so neighborly, they disappeared
    altogether. No frightened herdboy following a cry through the
    moonlit forest, came upon their towering figures. No Indian
    pushing out over the misty sea was hailed by a giant canoe.

    People became quite superior and scornful. There was hardly a
    person who would discuss giants seriously. The grown-ups would
    only sniff; and even the children, who were young enough to
    know better, would cry, “Pooh! There never were any _giants_.”

    Oddly enough, it happened, as those things sometimes do, that
    one of the most matter-of-fact persons of all, an Englishman
    and a scientist, came suddenly upon the giants’ country. After
    that, you may be sure, the people who had been the first to
    scoff whenever giants were mentioned, became quite silent
    and respectful. Here is the Englishman’s own story of the
    adventure, almost as he wrote it in his stiff, honest, grown-up
    way:

[Illustration]

In June, 1702, I, Lemuel Gulliver, ship’s surgeon, went on board the
merchant-vessel _Adventure_ bound for Surat. Rounding the Cape of Good
Hope, we had a good voyage through the Straits of Madagascar. But just
south of the equator a violent gale sprang up, and continuing for twenty
days, drove us before it a little to the east of the Spice Islands.

Suddenly, the wind dropped and there was a perfect calm. I was delighted,
but the captain, who knew those seas, bade us all prepare for a storm.
The next day, just as he had said, a wind called the Southern monsoon set
in. We reefed the best we could, but it was a very fierce storm, and the
waves broke strange and dangerous. We let our topmast stand, and the ship
scudded before the sea.

Thus we were carried about five hundred leagues to the east, so that the
oldest sailor aboard could not tell in what part of the world we were.
Our provisions held out well, our ship was stanch, and our crew all in
good health, but we were in great distress for lack of water.

The wind moderated, and the next day a boy on the topmast discovered
land. Soon, we were in full view of an island or continent, on the south
side of which was a neck of land jutting out into the sea, and a creek
too shallow to hold our ship. We cast anchor about a league away, and
our captain sent a dozen of his men well armed, in the long-boat, with
buckets for water. I asked his leave to go with them, to see the country
and make what discoveries I could.

When we came to land, we saw no river or spring, nor any sign of
inhabitants. Our men wandered on the shore, hoping to find some fresh
water near the sea, and I walked alone on the other side where the
country was all barren and rocky. Beginning to be tired, I started back
toward the shore, only to see our men already in the boat rowing for dear
life to the ship.

I was going to holloa to them when I saw a huge creature walking
after them in the sea. The water was hardly to his knees, and he took
prodigious strides. But our men had the start of him by half a league,
and as the sea thereabout is full of sharp-pointed rocks, the monster was
not able to overtake the boat. This I was told afterward, for I dared not
stay to see, but ran as fast as I could the way I first went, and climbed
up a steep hill which gave me a view of the country. I found it fully
cultivated; but what first surprised me was the length of the grass,
which in the hay-fields was about twenty feet high.

I came upon a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served the
inhabitants only as a footpath through a field of barley. Here I walked
for an hour but could see little, for the grain rose forty feet into the
air on either side. Coming at last to the end of the field, I found it
fenced in with a hedge over one hundred feet high, and a stile impossible
for me to climb.

I was trying to find a gap in the hedge when I saw a man as tall as a
church-steeple approaching the stile. Hiding myself in the grain, I heard
him call, but the noise was so high in the air that at first I thought it
was thunder. Immediately seven monsters, each with a reaping-hook as big
as six scythes, came to reap the grain in the field where I was.

I kept as far from them as I could, but I could move only with great
difficulty, for the barley-stalks were sometimes less than a foot apart
so that I could hardly squeeze between them. However, I struggled on till
I came to a part of the field where the grain had been beaten down by the
rain and wind. Here it was impossible to advance a step, for the stalks
were so interwoven that I could not creep between, and the beards of the
barley were so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes.
At the same time, hearing the reapers close behind me, I threw myself
down between two ridges, overcome with despair.

The next moment I saw an immense foot not ten yards away and the blinding
gleam of a great reaping-hook above my head. I screamed as loud as fear
could make me. The huge reaper stopped short, and looking about on the
ground for some time, finally spied me. He considered a while as if he
were planning how he could pick up a small, dangerous animal so that it
could neither bite nor scratch him. At last he ventured to take me up by
the middle, between his forefinger and thumb, and held me within three
yards of his eyes.

Good fortune gave me so much presence of mind that I resolved not to
struggle as he held me in the air, about sixty feet from the ground,
although he grievously pinched my sides. Instead, I raised my eyes and
clasped my hands, speaking some words in a humble tone and groaning to
let him know how cruelly I was hurt by the pressure of his thumb and
finger. He seemed to understand, for putting me gently into his pocket,
he ran along with me to his master, the farmer I had first seen.

The farmer blew my hair aside to get a better view of my face, and then
placed me softly on the ground on all-fours. But I got immediately up,
and walked slowly backward and forward. Pulling off my hat, I made a low
bow to the farmer. I fell on my knees, and spoke several words as loud as
I could. I took a purse of gold out of my pocket and humbly presented it
to him. He received it on the palm of his hand, and turned it with the
point of a pin, but could make nothing of it.

[Illustration: A cat three times as big as an ox]

He spoke to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of
a water-mill. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and
he laid his ear within two yards of me, but all in vain. We could not
understand each other.

He then sent his servant to work, and taking out his handkerchief, spread
it on his left hand, which he placed flat on the ground with the palm
upwards. He beckoned to me to step up on it, which I could easily do, as
it was not more than a foot thick. Wrapping me up in the handkerchief,
he carried me home to his house. There he showed me to his wife; but she
screamed and ran back as if I had been a spider. However, when she had
seen how gentle I was, and how well I obeyed the signs her husband made,
she became extremely tender to me.

It was dinner-time, and the servant brought in a dish of meat about
twenty-four feet across. At the table were the farmer, his wife, and
three children. The farmer placed me at some distance from him on the
table, which was thirty feet high from the floor. I was in a terrible
fright, and kept as far as I could from the edge, for fear of falling.
The wife minced a bit of meat and crumbled some bread, placing it before
me on a plate. I made her a low bow, took out my knife and fork, and
began to eat, which gave them much delight.

[Illustration: The baby seized me by the middle]

Then the master beckoned me to come to his plate; but as I walked on the
table, I stumbled against a crust and fell flat on my face. I got up
immediately, and finding the good people greatly concerned, I waved my
hat over my head, giving three _huzzas_ to show that I had received no
hurt. Just then I heard a noise like that of a dozen stocking-weavers
at work, and turning my head, found it to be the purring of a cat three
times as big as an ox. The fierce look of this creature, which had
jumped into the mistress’s lap, altogether discomposed me, although I
stood at the further end of the table, fifty feet away. I was less afraid
of the dogs, one of which was a mastiff as big as four elephants.

But my chief danger came from another quarter. When dinner was almost
over, a nurse came in with a child a year old in her arms, who
immediately spied me and began a squall that you might have heard across
London, to get me for a plaything. The mother put me towards the baby,
who suddenly seized me by the middle, and put my head into his mouth,
where I roared so loud that he was frightened and let me drop. And I
should certainly have broken my neck if the nurse had not held her apron
under me. To quiet the baby, the nurse shook a rattle filled with rocks
as big as cobblestones, which was fastened by a cable to the child’s
waist.

But the one of all the family whom I liked the best was a little girl
nine years old, who became from the first my chief protector. It was she
who fixed up a bed for me in her doll’s cradle, and it was she who taught
me the language. When I pointed out anything, she told me the name of
it in the giants’ tongue, so that in a few days I was able to call for
whatever I wished. She was very good-natured, and not above forty feet
high, being small for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, meaning
mannikin. I called her my Glumdalclitch, or little nurse.

[Illustration: She was not above forty feet high]

It soon began to be known in the neighborhood that my master had found
in the field a tiny animal shaped exactly like a human creature, which
seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already learned
several words of theirs, walked erect on two legs, was tame and gentle,
and would come when it was called. Another farmer, who lived near by,
came on a visit on purpose to find out the truth of this story. Being old
and dim-sighted, he put on his spectacles to see me better, at which I
could not help laughing, for his eyes looked like the full moon shining
into a room at two windows. This man was thought to be a great miser, and
to my way of thinking, he well deserved it, for the first thing he did
after seeing me was to advise my master to show me as a sight in the next
town.

Accordingly, the next market-day, my master mounted his daughter, my
little nurse, on a pillion behind him, and rode with me to town. I
was carried in a wooden box, closed on every side, with a little door
to let me in and out, and a few gimlet holes to give me air. Although
Glumdalclitch had put her doll’s quilt in the box for me to lie down on,
I was nevertheless terribly shaken up by this journey of only half an
hour. The horse went about forty feet at every step, and trotted so high
that the motion was like the rising and falling of a ship in a great
storm.

My master alighted at an inn; and having hired the crier to give notice
of me through the town, placed me on a table in the largest room of the
inn, which was about three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on
a low stool close by, to take care of me and direct what I should do. To
prevent danger, my master would allow but thirty people at a time to see
me, and set benches round the table so as to put me out of everybody’s
reach.

I walked about on the table as Glumdalclitch commanded; she asked me
questions, and I answered them as loud as I could. I paid my humble
respects to the audience, and said they were welcome. I took up a thimble
filled with wine, and drank their health. I flourished my sword, and
exercised with part of a straw as a pike. That day I was shown to twelve
sets of people, and as often forced to go through the same antics till I
was half-dead with weariness and vexation. For those who had seen me made
such wonderful reports that the people were ready to break down the doors
to come in.

[Illustration: I took up a thimble]

Finding how profitable I was, my master decided to take me to the
metropolis. And so, having made my box more comfortable for a longer
journey, he and Glumdalclitch set out with me for Lorbrulgrud, or the
Pride of the Universe, three thousand miles away. Arriving there, my
master hired a large room on the principal street of the city, not far
from the royal palace, and showed me ten times a day. The fame of me
spread far and wide, for during the journey I had learned to speak the
language fairly well, and understood every word I heard. Indeed, we had
not been long in the city when a gentleman usher came from the palace,
commanding my master to take me there immediately for the diversion of
the Queen and her Ladies.

Her Majesty was beyond measure delighted with me. I fell on my knees,
and begged the honor of kissing her imperial foot. But she ordered me
to be set on a table, and held out her little finger toward me, which I
embraced in both my arms, putting the tip of it with the utmost respect
to my lips. She asked whether I would be content to live at Court. I
bowed down to the table, and answered that I should be proud to devote
my life to her Majesty’s service. She then asked the farmer if he were
willing to sell me at a good price. He said he would part with me for a
thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered for him on the spot.

One request only I made of the Queen: that Glumdalclitch, who had always
tended me with so much kindness, might continue to be my nurse and
instructor. Her Majesty agreed, and easily got the farmer’s consent, who
was glad enough to have his daughter preferred at Court. As for the poor
girl herself, she was not able to hide her joy.

The Queen commanded her own cabinet-maker to make a box that might serve
me as a bedroom, after the model that Glumdalclitch and I should agree
upon. This man, who was most ingenious, in three weeks finished for me a
wooden room, sixteen feet square and twelve high, with windows, a door,
and two closets. The board that made the ceiling lifted up on hinges so
that Glumdalclitch could take out my bed every day to air, and let it
down at night, locking up the roof over me. A skilful workman, who was
famous for little curiosities, made me two tables and two chairs of a
substance not unlike ivory. The room was quilted on all sides, as well
as the floor and the ceiling, so that no harm might come to me if my box
were carelessly carried, or jolted about in a coach.

The Queen likewise ordered the thinnest silks that could be gotten to
make me new clothes. But even these were thicker than blankets, and very
much in my way till I was used to them.

So fond of my company did the Queen become that she could not dine
without me. I had a table placed on that at which she ate, just at her
left elbow. Glumdalclitch stood on a stool nearby, to assist and take
care of me. I had an entire set of silver dishes, which in proportion to
the Queen’s were not much bigger than those of a doll’s house. For her
Majesty’s knives were twice as long as a scythe, set straight upon the
handle, and her spoons, forks, and plates were all on the same scale. I
remember the first time I ever saw a dinner-party at Court, when a dozen
of these enormous knives and forks were being plied at once, I thought I
had never seen so terrible a sight.

But after living among the giants several months, my first horror at
their huge size so far wore off that I could not help smiling at myself
when the Queen used to place me on her hand before a mirror in which both
our figures were reflected together. The contrast was so ridiculous that
I really began to think I must have dwindled far below my usual size.

But nothing mortified me so much as the Queen’s dwarf, who was the
smallest ever known in the country, being hardly thirty feet high. Seeing
at last a creature so far beneath him, he became insolent, and never
failed to make some smart remark about my littleness. My only revenge
was to call him brother and challenge him to wrestle, which made him not
a little angry. One day, at dinner, he became so nettled that raising
himself up on the frame of the Queen’s chair, he picked me up by the
middle and let me drop into a large silver bowl of cream, and then ran
away as fast as he could. I fell in over my head, and if I had not been a
good swimmer, I believe I should have been drowned. For Glumdalclitch was
at the other end of the room, and the Queen was too frightened to help
me. However, my little nurse ran to my relief, and took me out, after I
had swallowed more than a quart of cream. I was put to bed, but I was not
hurt, except for my clothes, which were ruined.

[Illustration: She could not dine without me]

Indeed, I should have lived happily enough in Brobdingnag (for that
is the name of the giants’ country), if my littleness had not made me
continually the victim of the most absurd accidents. I remember one
morning Glumdalclitch set me in my box on a window-sill to give me the
air. I opened my windows and sat down at my table to eat a piece of
sweet-cake for breakfast, when twenty wasps as big as partridges came
flying into the room, droning louder than so many bag-pipes. Some of
them seized my cake and carried it piecemeal away. Others flew about my
head, deafening me with their noise, until I was afraid I should be stung
to death. However, I had the courage to draw my sword, and attack them
in the air. Four of them I killed, but the rest got away, and I shut my
windows in a hurry.

Another day Glumdalclitch let me walk about by myself on a smooth
grass-plot in the garden, when there suddenly fell such a violent
shower of hail that I was struck to the ground. And when I was down, the
hail-stones, which were as big as tennis-balls, gave me such cruel bangs
that I could scarcely creep to the shelter of a primrose. As it was, I
was so bruised from head to foot that I could not go out for ten days.

But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same garden when my
little nurse had left me for a few minutes alone. While she was away,
a small white spaniel belonging to one of the gardeners, ranged by the
place where I lay. The dog, following the scent, came directly up, and
took me in his mouth. Wagging his tail, he ran straight to his master,
and set me gently on the ground. Luckily, he had been so well taught,
that I was carried between his teeth without the least hurt. But the
poor gardener, who knew me well, was in a terrible fright. He took me
up tenderly in both his hands, and asked me how I did; but I was so
amazed and out of breath that I could not speak a word. In a few minutes,
however, I came to myself, and he carried me safely to my little nurse.

The longer I stayed in Brobdingnag the fewer accidents I had, as I
gradually adapted myself to the huge size of everything about me. After a
while, in fact, I even contrived a way so that I could read the giants’
books, although they were several times as big as I was. The book I
wished to read was opened and put leaning against the wall, and in front
of it, a kind of step-ladder, which the Queen’s carpenter had made for
me, twenty-five feet high, and fifty wide. Mounting to the upper step
of the ladder, I began reading at the top of the page, walking along to
the right till I got to the end of the line. So I went, back and forth,
till I had got a little below the level of my eyes. Then I descended
gradually, going on in the same way to the bottom; after which I mounted
again, and began the other page in the same manner. As for turning the
leaf, that I could easily do with both hands, for it was as thick and
stiff as pasteboard, and even in the largest books not more than twenty
feet long.

But the Queen, who was always thinking up ways to amuse me, gave me the
best pastime of all. She asked me one day whether I knew how to sail or
row. I told her that I understood both very well, but I did not see how
I could do either in her country, where the smallest rowboat is as big
as a man-of-war among us. For even if I had a boat small enough for me
to manage, it could never live in any of the giants’ rivers. But the
Queen only smiled and said that if her carpenter could make me a boat,
she would provide a place for me to sail in. So, in ten days I had a
pleasure boat, complete with all its tackling, big enough to hold eight
Englishmen. And in an outer room of the palace the Queen had ordered
built along the wall a wooden trough, three hundred feet long, and eight
deep, which two servants could fill with water in half-an-hour.

Here I often used to row for my own pleasure, as well as that of the
Queen and her ladies. Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then I had
only to steer while the ladies gave me a breeze with their fans. And when
they were tired, some of the pages would blow my sail forward, while I
showed my skill by steering starboard or larboard as I pleased. When I
was through, Glumdalclitch always carried my boat back into her closet
and hung it on a nail to dry.

One day a servant who was filling my trough, let a huge frog slip out
of his pail. The beast lay concealed till I was put into my boat, when,
seeing a resting-place, he climbed up and made it lean so much on one
side, that I was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to
keep it from overturning. When the frog had got in, he hopped at once
half the length of the boat, and then over my head, rubbing against me
with his slimy body. The hugeness of his features made him seem the most
deformed animal imaginable. However, I asked Glumdalclitch to let me
deal with him alone. I banged him awhile with one of my oars, and finally
forced him to leap out of the boat.

But even though I was the favorite of a great Queen and the delight of a
whole Court, I could not help sometimes wishing to be in a country where
I need not live in fear of being stepped on like a toad or a young puppy.
But my escape came sooner than I expected, and in a most curious way.

Besides the large box in which I was usually carried, the Queen had a
smaller one made for me, about twelve feet square, for convenience in
traveling. On top was a great ring, by which one of the giants could
carry the box in his hand. And on one side were two iron loops, through
which a person carrying me on horseback could run a leather belt and
buckle it around his waist. The other sides had windows, latticed with
iron wire to prevent accidents. Inside, I had a hammock swung from the
ceiling, and a small hole cut in the roof just above it to give me air in
hot weather. There were, besides, two chairs screwed to the floor so that
they could not be tossed about by the motion of the horse or coach.

It was in this traveling-box that I made my last trip in the giants’
country. One spring I was carried in it to spend a few days at the
seashore along with the Queen and Glumdalclitch. My poor little nurse and
I were tired by the journey. I had only a little cold, but Glumdalclitch
was sick in bed. I longed to see the ocean, and asked leave to have one
of the pages carry me along beside the sea. I shall never forget how
unwillingly Glumdalclitch consented, bursting into a flood of tears, as
if she had a foreboding of what was to happen.

The page took me out in my box, and walked with me on the rocks along
the shore. Feeling slightly ill, I ordered him to set me down so that I
could take a nap in my hammock. I got in, and the boy shut the window to
keep out the cold. For some time I lay and watched him out the window, as
he searched about among the rocks for birds’ eggs. But after a while he
went out of my sight altogether, and feeling more and more drowsy, I fell
asleep.

There was a sudden, violent pull on the ring of my box, and I awoke with
a start. I felt my room raised high in the air, and then carried forward
at a terrific speed. The first jolt almost shook me out of my hammock,
but afterward the motion was easy enough. I called out several times as
loud as I could, but all in vain. I looked out my windows, but could see
nothing but clouds and sky. I listened, and made out a noise over my
head like the flapping of wings. Then for the first time I realized what
had happened. Some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak. Soon, no
doubt, he meant to let it fall on a rock like a turtle in a shell, and
pick out my body to devour it.

Suddenly, the great wings above me began to beat faster, and my box was
tossed up and down like a swinging sign on a windy day. I heard several
bangs, as I thought, given to the eagle, and then felt myself falling
straight down for more than a minute, but so swiftly that I almost lost
my breath. My fall was stopped by a terrible squash that sounded louder
to my ears than Niagara Falls; after which, I was in the dark for another
minute. Then my box began to rise so high that I could see light from the
tops of the windows. I now saw that my box had fallen into the sea, and
with the weight of my body, the furniture, and the broad plates of iron
on the bottom, floated about five feet deep in water.

I did then, and do still, suppose that the eagle which flew away with my
box, was chased by two or three others who wanted a share in the prey.
In defending himself he was forced to let me drop, but the iron plates
on the bottom kept the box from breaking when it struck the water. Every
joint was snugly fitted, and the door shut down, like a window, which
kept my room so tight that very little water came in. Nevertheless,
I expected every minute to see my box dashed to pieces, or at least
overturned by a wave. A break in a single pane of glass would mean
immediate death, and indeed nothing could have saved the windows but the
iron lattices the giants had put on the outside. I could not lift up my
roof, or I should certainly have climbed out and sat on top, where I
would at least have had a chance of living a few hours longer than by
being shut up inside. But even if I escaped drowning for a day or two,
what could I expect but a miserable death from cold and hunger?

[Illustration: A voice calling in English]

After four hours of these wretched imaginings, I thought I heard a kind
of grating noise on the side of my box where the iron loops were fixed.
And soon after, I began to fancy that the box was being towed along in
the sea, for now and then I felt a sort of tugging, which made the waves
rise near the tops of my windows, leaving me almost in the dark. This
somehow gave me a hope of escape, although I could not imagine how it
could be brought about. I unscrewed one of my chairs from the floor, and
having managed to screw it down again directly under the air hole in
the ceiling, I mounted on it and called for help in all the languages I
knew. Then, fastening my handkerchief to my walking stick, I thrust it up
through the hole, and waved it several times in the air, so that if any
ship were near, the sailors might see that there was some one shut up in
the box.

There was no reply to my signals, although I saw plainly that my box
was moving along; and in an hour or so the side where the iron loops
were, struck against something hard. I feared that it was a rock, for I
was being tossed about more than ever. Suddenly, I heard a noise on the
roof, like the grating of a cable passing through the ring, and I felt
myself being hoisted up at least three feet higher than I was before.
At that, I waved my stick and handkerchief again, and called for help
till I was hoarse. In return I heard a great shout repeated three times.
There was a trampling over my head, and a voice calling in English to
ask if there was anybody below. I answered that I was an Englishman, and
begged to be rescued from the prison I was in. The voice replied that I
was safe, for my box was fastened to their ship, and the carpenter would
come immediately to saw a hole in the roof large enough to pull me out.
I said that was needless, for one of the crew had only to put his finger
in the ring and take the box out of the sea into the ship. On hearing me
talk so wildly some of the crew thought I was crazy, and others laughed,
for indeed it never occurred to me that now I was among people of my own
height and strength. The carpenter came, and in a few minutes sawed an
opening about four feet square, then let down a small ladder, which I
mounted, and from there took me to the ship.

The sailors crowded about me, asking me a thousand questions, but I was
all in a daze at the sight of so many pigmies. For my eyes had been
so long accustomed to the giants that I could not believe these were
ordinary-sized Englishmen. However, the captain, seeing that I was about
to faint from weariness and amazement, took me into his own cabin, and
put me upon his own bed, advising me to take a little rest.

I slept some hours, and when I woke up, felt much better. It was then
about eight o’clock at night, and the captain entertained me most kindly
at dinner. He said, that about twelve o’clock at noon, as he was looking
through his glass, he spied my chest at a distance, and thought it was
a sail. As his ship’s biscuit had begun to run short, he made for it,
hoping to buy some. On coming nearer and finding a huge chest instead of
a ship, he sent out his long-boat to find out what it was. His men came
back in a terrible fright, swearing that they had seen a swimming house.

Laughing at their folly, he went himself in the boat, ordering his men to
take a strong cable along with them. He rowed around me several times,
saw my windows, and the great iron loops upon the other side. To one of
these loops he ordered his men to fasten a cable and tow the chest along
toward the ship. When it was there he told them to fasten another cable
to the ring in the cover, and raise the chest up with pulleys. But all
the sailors tugging together were able to lift it only three feet. It was
then that they saw my stick and handkerchief waving through the hole, and
decided that some unlucky man was shut up inside.

He asked me, how it was that I had come there, and I told him my
story from beginning to end. And as truth always forces its way into
reasonable minds, so this honest gentleman was not slow in believing me.
He said he wondered at one thing very much, which was to hear me speak so
loudly, and he asked whether either the King or Queen of the giants was
deaf. But I explained to him, how for the two years I had lived among the
giants I had been like a man on the street talking to people in a steeple
far above. I told him, too, how the sailors on the ship had seemed to me
the tiniest little creatures I had ever seen, and how I almost laughed
when I saw his table set for dinner, with plates the size of a penny, a
leg of pork hardly a mouthful, and cups not so big as nutshells.

The captain laughed heartily, and during the whole voyage we were the
best of friends. With a favorable breeze all the way, we rounded the Cape
of Good Hope, and so sailed safely home to the tiny shores of England.

                _Adapted from Jonathan Swift’s “A Voyage to Brobdingnag.”_

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




XII

The Giant Who Came Back

    Stepping so carefully, up foot and down,
    Big Benevaldo is walking the town,
    Now to the left of him, now to the right;
    Some one will ride with a giant to-night:

    Tall as the houses and wide as the ways,
    Big Benevaldo is stopping to gaze;
    See, through the window he’s looking at you;—
    Little Luigi, your dream has come true!

                               _Seymour Barnard._




XII

The Giant who Came Back


[Illustration: An hour’s chat]

    For several years after the giants moved into a country of
    their own, they came back sometimes to walk among the tiny
    towns of men. For they still had a few old acquaintances there
    to take up in their big hands for an hour’s chat. But as time
    went on, the old friends, one by one, went away, until there
    was nobody to give the giants a genial hail, or so much as
    notice them when they passed. For every man and woman and
    child was so busy looking after his own little affairs near
    the ground that they did not even see the giants at all.

    So the giants, feeling quite lonesome and neglected, stayed in
    their own country. And so it happened that the young giants
    grew up without ever seeing the tiny creatures called men.

It was a warm spring for frosty Giantland. As early as May crocuses as
big as lilac bushes came pushing up at the edge of the snow. Benevaldo,
coming down to breakfast, leaped three stairs at a time.

“Father! Mother!” he called, bursting in on them, “I’m going on a
journey.”

His mother took a second helping of walruses. “I was just saying to your
father,” she remarked in her big, placid way, “that it was time we were
starting north for the summer.”

“But,” said Benevaldo, beaming all over his wide, eager face, “I’m going
_south_!”

“South!” cried his mother. “At this time of year!”

“Go if you like,” said his father, “but I warn you, you won’t enjoy it.
The first thing you know, you’ll be stumbling into the men’s country. And
then you’ll be glad enough to come back again. Why, the last time I was
there, you could hardly step in some places without stubbing your toe
against one of their houses.”

“And I’ve heard,” put in his mother, “that it’s getting more crowded all
the time.”

“There’s nothing so annoying,” went on his father, “as to be there with
all those little creatures scampering about at your feet, and not one of
them speaking to you or so much as seeing you.”

“But why can’t they see us?” cried Benevaldo. “We’re big enough, I hope.”

His father did not answer. A hurt look came into his great eyes, and he
bent soberly over his walruses.

“Hush, Benny!” chided his mother. “Don’t you know they can’t see us
because they don’t believe in us any more?”

“Never mind!” cried Benevaldo cheerfully. “I think _I’d_ like to see
_them_!”

“Why, Benny,” said his mother in despair, “whatever put that into your
head?”

“I don’t know,” smiled Benevaldo. “The spring, I guess.”

“Well, there!” said his mother, complacent again. “Go if you want to, and
see what there is to see.” And she began slicing up muffins the size of
small haystacks to make sandwiches for his journey.

So Benevaldo started south to see the men’s country. At every step the
ground grew greener, the sun grew warmer, the sky grew bluer. And it
was all fun for Benevaldo. He swung along over mountains and plains,
whistling like the wind; and sprang over rivers as carelessly as if they
were brooks.

Little by little, the look of the land changed. There were no more long
forests to kick his way through. There were no more wide, bare plains.
The whole country was marked off into small green and brown squares like
a plaid; and across it went tiny paths, this way and that.

Ahead on one of the paths something moved. It was a little creature
coming toward him, stepping along on its two tiny legs as he did on his
big ones. Benevaldo gasped with the surprise of it. “A man!” he said to
himself. “A man!” And he stood motionless, astride the path, to let the
pigmy pass. “If I move, I shall frighten him,” thought he.

But the man walked under him without a quiver or so much as a glance. It
was quite plain that he had not seen Benevaldo at all.

The young giant went on, whistling a little ruefully. Another man passed
him, and another,—two or three driving in a tiny cart behind a little
animal. Presently they came so thick and fast that Benevaldo had to keep
skipping aside to avoid stepping on them. The whole country was dotted
with their absurd houses; and he saw now that the green and brown squares
must be their fields, and the tiny paths their highways.

There was a quick snort down near his feet. A hot, hissing monster like
a black, jointed snake swept by his toes. As he started back, dazed with
the rush of it, another came whizzing after. Something gleamed in their
wake. Benevaldo knelt down and felt of it. The creatures’ shining path
was a cold, two-ridged track.

He walked more carefully than before, stepping over the roads and looking
out for the slippery tracks. The houses came in clusters now. The small
clusters he could jump over, but the big ones he had to go around, or
risk wedging his feet in the narrow streets. There was no longer any fun
in walking. No sooner had he taken half a dozen good free steps than he
came tripping against one of these towns. Even in the bare spots the
roads were buzzing with tiny wagons, darting about by themselves like
overgrown beetles.

Benevaldo, looking down from his height on all the confusion, grew quite
giddy. It was sunset time, and he had been walking all day without
stopping. He pulled out a sandwich from his lunch bag, but he had to eat
it standing up. For he could not sit down without crushing a house or
blocking a road.

“Heigh-ho!” yawned Benevaldo, stretching his long arms. “Here I’ve been
dodging and dancing about all the afternoon in a country much too small
for me, with nobody to speak to, or to look at me, for that matter. It’s
time I went home where there is room to walk and some one to talk to.”

But when he came to start on again, he did not turn around after all. He
kept on walking south, south, south, as fast as he could for the roads
and the towns. A feeling he could not explain drew him on. In spite of
the cramps in his legs and the scratches on his feet, he could not give
up his uncomfortable adventure.

It grew dark; and the houses seemed to become closer and closer. He
could not put his foot down without feeling them pressing against it on
all sides. He hardly dared to step at any rate, for every open space
seemed swarming with people and the little buzzing, beetle-like wagons.
A thousand small lights seemed to burst out in that world around his
ankles. They dazzled him until he could see less than ever where he was
going.

His leg came against something cold and hard. He drew back cautiously,
stepped over and stopped. His eyes got over their blinking, and he stood
still, looking about. He was knee-deep in brick walls. As far as he could
see were rows on rows of other brick walls, some higher, some lower,
all honeycombed with lights. He bent down over those in front of him,
listening. They seemed full of bustle and tiny voices.

[Illustration: Benevaldo had almost reached the shining towers]

Benevaldo straightened up in surprise. Were there people, then, inside?
These walls were like no houses he ever had seen in his life. Were they
prisons perhaps, or traps?

He looked ahead for a new foothold. But there was nowhere for him to
step. Between the rows of walls were nothing but streets lined with
lights, seething with small vehicles and people. The whole vast extent of
twinkling walls seemed shaken with the rumble, rumble, rumble of moving.

Benevaldo sighed, and peered about for some way to go on. He could not
turn back now. An idea struck him. Over at his right, the lights suddenly
stopped. He edged cautiously that way, and then he saw. The walls
stopped as well as the lights, before a wide, dark river.

With one mighty spring, Benevaldo cleared the distance in between and
landed splashing in midstream. The water soothed his aching feet, and
he felt as fresh and adventurous as in the early morning. The lines of
glittering walls on the shore challenged him. Far ahead he could make
out lighted towers, as tall perhaps as he was. Leaping and eager, he ran
toward them down the river.

The bright ferry boats crawling across the stream rocked in his wake.
Even the dark ocean liners, tied up at their docks, trembled. “It must be
blowing up a cyclone,” said the pilot on a tug, beating up and down on
the waves. But when he looked out, the stars were shining clearer than
ever, and there was not a cloud in the sky.

Benevaldo had almost reached the shining towers. Beyond them he could
see the dark stretches of the ocean broken only by a few twinkling
islands. Out there he could have a cool swim and land perhaps on another,
less crowded shore to race back again, through new, wide countries to
Giantland.

But instead he turned and waded deliberately to the walls on the river
bank. Cautiously he settled his foot in one of the narrow, bright
streets. They were less crowded now. There should be more chance to step.
But the walls on each side pinched his toes and barked his shins.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” thought Benevaldo, with a giant
laugh at his own folly. “But I’ve just got to see this queer place. It
must be the springtime that is leading me on.”

But it was not the spring. It was only the wish in a little boy’s heart.

The little boy lived high up in one of those lines of tenement houses
Benevaldo had taken for walls. His name was Luigi, and he had an ache in
his back but a smile on his face. All day and all night for months he had
lain beside a window, trying to get well. And besides that, he had made
cloth flowers for ladies’ hats to help his mother and Rosa.

Sometimes when Rosa was not too tired, she would tell him stories as they
worked. And once in a very long while, when they could get no work to do,
she would bring home a library book and read him about fairies and giants.

One night when the reading was done, Rosa looked over at him wistfully.
“Oh, Luigi,” she said, “I wish there were giants now, so that one could
come and carry you in his great hands right out into the country!”

Luigi smiled more happily than ever. “What a fine idea!” he cried.
“Perhaps one _will_ come, Rosa.”

But Rosa shook her head. “Oh, no, Luigi,” she said sadly. “Don’t be a
baby. There aren’t any giants any more, you know.”

Luigi was not convinced. “Why, Rosa,” he argued, “there must still be
giants _somewhere_.” And that night he went to sleep and dreamed about
giants so plainly that the next morning he was surer of them than ever.

But usually at night Luigi lay awake and thought. “Suppose a giant should
come,” he would say to himself breathlessly; and he would listen through
the hot darkness for giant footsteps in the streets.

Somehow it did not seem as if the giant could come to-night. It was
so still that the rattle of the few carts, the rumble of the elevated
trains,—all the sounds Luigi knew so well,—were plainer than ever. It was
hard to imagine any he did not really hear. Luigi’s ears grew tired of
listening, and his eyes half closed.

There _was_ another sound though. Luigi’s ears woke up to it all of a
sudden. It was a kind of clambering and crashing,—for all the world as if
a giant were stumbling around among the houses. “But of course it can’t
be that,” said Luigi firmly, downing his hope.

[Illustration: A pair of giant eyes peered in]

Luigi’s own house trembled; and he opened his eyes with a start. There
was something—somebody outside his window. He raised himself up and
strained to see. Through the twilight of the city night, a great pair of
giant eyes peered in upon him.

“Is there some one in there who can see me?” boomed a kindly giant voice.

“Why, yes,” gasped Luigi, “I can see you.”

“Hooray!” shouted the giant, capering up and down till the whole block
shook again. “Hooray! A boy who can see me! A boy who can see me! What
will father say now?”

Rosa sighed in her sleep.

“Hush! Hush, good giant!” cried Luigi anxiously. “You will wake the
others.”

Benevaldo stood still again. “Do they believe in giants too?” he asked
eagerly.

“Well,—Rosa _almost_ does,” said Luigi loyally.

“But if she doesn’t quite believe,” explained the giant, “she can’t see
me or hear me any more than the rest of them.”

Luigi was puzzled. “But can’t everybody see you?” he asked.

The giant shook his great head solemnly. “People don’t seem to believe in
us any more,” he said. “I’ve walked all the way from Giantland to-day,
and passed thousands and thousands of them on the way, and you’re the
first one who has seen me at all. And I’ll tell you what, little boy,” he
went on, “I’m so happy,—so grateful to you, that I’ll give you anything
you wish for, if I have to squeeze through all these walls to do it.”

Luigi’s eyes shone. He sat up in bed. “Oh, giant,” he cried, “giant,
would you take me for a little walk out in the world?”

Benevaldo beamed. “_Will_ I?” he boomed. Then he twisted his limp lunch
bag around in front of him. “Would you mind riding in this?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” cried Luigi.

The giant considered. “I am afraid I can’t squeeze my hand through your
window,” he said.

Luigi leaned over the sill, and the giant managed it with three fingers.
He tucked Luigi safely into the bag, buttoned the bottom firmly inside
his blouse, and drew up the strings close around Luigi’s neck.

“Now you’re quite safe and steady, little boy,” he said. “Don’t be
afraid, but lean back against me, and look about.” And with that he took
a high step over a whole block of houses into an open square beyond.

For a moment Luigi was dizzy, looking from his height on the jumbled
roofs so far below. But as the giant stopped in the little park he got
his balance again. He looked down without fear on the house-tops and the
lighted streets that wound between.

“Where shall we go?” asked the giant good-naturedly.

Luigi hesitated. “Could we,” he asked, “could we go up the Avenue,—the
wide, bare one over there, with the bright lights?”

So Benevaldo pranced over the long blocks in between and set his foot
in the smooth street. From sidewalk to sidewalk it just fitted; and he
walked, one foot ahead of the other, up by the little silent houses to a
tiny park.

“Look here!” cried Benevaldo excitedly. “See the clock!” And he pointed
to a great lighted face in the top of a tower as high as he was.

“Oh, yes,” said Luigi, “that is the biggest clock in all the city. It
takes up story after story of that office building.”

“It’s a little fast,” said the giant, holding his watch up beside it. And
with a gentle shove of his forefinger he set the hands back.

Luigi gasped. But the giant turned calmly, and started, foot after foot,
up the Avenue again. “Did you say,” he asked thoughtfully, “that that
tower was an office building?”

“Why, yes,” said Luigi, “what should it be?”

“And what was it I took you out of?” asked the giant.

“Why, a house,” said Luigi, wondering,—“a regular house.”

The giant chuckled. “You know,” he said, “I had an idea that all these
walls full of little lighted holes, were sort of prisons, or traps. I
thought you had all got caught inside and couldn’t get out!”

Luigi laughed. “Oh, no,” he said, “they’re the houses we live in. But
look,” he cried, “we’re coming to the Park!”

Benevaldo looked. Sure enough, down beside them was a whole patch of
trees. He drew a long breath. “If you’re going to live in these traps,”
he said, “why don’t you come up here in some of these white ones near the
trees?”

“Oh, these are quite different,” cried Luigi, proud that he could
explain. “These up here are rich people’s houses, and down where I live,
we’re all quite poor.”

The giant shook his head. He could not see what difference that made.

Luigi saw that it was no use to argue. “Aren’t the trees nice?” he
ventured.

Benevaldo snorted. “Nice enough, what there are of them!” he said. “But
now I am going to take you where there are thousands and thousands of
them,—all you can see.”

With that he gave three great springs right over the houses till he
landed, splash again, in the deep river. Then he let himself go, leaping
and running till Luigi laughed aloud with the dazzle and rush of it.

In a few minutes they had left the twinkling city far behind and were
racing over the dusky hills. The trees brushed them as they passed; and
above them millions of big, bright stars that Luigi had never seen in the
city, seemed to swirl and dance. Luigi drew deep breaths, and nestled
happily on the giant’s breast.

Benevaldo stopped and put his great watch up close to his eyes. “It’s
getting late, or rather, early,” he said. “I’ll have to take you back
again before the people get to swarming in the streets so that I can’t
step.”

So he turned and dashed back through the cool night. There was the city
again, glimmering beneath the pale sky. Beside it was a river, too, but
not the one they had rushed through before. For this one was crossed by
shining bridges from shore to shore. Luigi had once seen those bridges
from below, and they had seemed to him to tower through the clouds. But
now they came hardly to the giant’s waist.

Benevaldo paused. “Do you mind if I jump?” he asked. “You see,” he added
apologetically, “it’s rather awkward, crawling under.”

“Oh, no,” cried Luigi joyously. “Let’s jump them!”

So Benevaldo went hurdling down the river, taking the bridges one by one,
and dashing the city with spray.

[Illustration: The trees brushed them]

Luigi laughed with delight. “I’m sorry to get back,” he said, as he
pointed the way among the city houses.

Benevaldo took him gently out of the bag, and slipped him through the
window safely upon his own bed.

“Good-by,” boomed the giant, giving the house an affectionate pat.
“Good-by, little boy. Don’t forget Benevaldo, for I shall come again to
see you. Watch for me from your window; and if it is too crowded for me
to come among the houses, I will run along the river so that you can see
my shadow sweeping over the roof tops.”

“Thank you, thank you,” cried Luigi. “But can’t I ever see you yourself
again, good giant?”

Benevaldo thought. “If you ever go to the country,” he said, “look for me
there. For I shall come to meet you.”

The early wagons began to jangle through the streets, and Benevaldo
sprang hastily over the house-tops to his free river. Luigi listened
until his great splashing steps were gone.

Rosa yawned and bounced sleepily out of bed. It was to be a great day for
her. For a rich lady was to take her with all the neighborhood children
on a picnic up the river. She sang as she got ready, but her face fell
when she called Luigi to breakfast.

“Oh, brother,” she said, “I wish you were going on the picnic too!”

Luigi smiled bravely. “I wish I _could_ go,” he said.

Rosa gazed at him. “Why, Luigi,” she cried, “how well you look, and how
fast you walk!”

Luigi beamed. “The ache is all out of my back,” he explained happily.

“Mother! Mother!” cried Rosa. “Just look at Luigi. The ache is out of his
back; and see how well he walks! Can’t he go on the picnic too? I will
take good care of him.”

So Luigi went with the other children up the river, where Benevaldo had
waded with him the night before. All day long he sat quietly on the
steamer, gazing eagerly over the green hills.

All at once he jumped up and waved his cap. For there against the sun was
the great figure of his faithful giant, flourishing his friendly arms.

“Rosa! Rosa!” called Luigi. “There he is. See him,—my giant!”

The other children crowded around. “Where? Where?” they cried. But at
that moment Benevaldo was lost to view, and there was only his long
shadow, scudding across the hills.

But the shadow Luigi and Rosa saw often and often all their lives. And
you can see it sometimes too if you will look.

[Illustration: If you will look]

    When this book you close for aye,
    Childish fancies to efface,
    Bid these friendly giants hie
    Down the years with you a pace:

    Faith! Companions such as they,
    Only charméd folk may know;
    Those who walked the giants’ way
    Some time in the long ago:

    Children with the world a-face,
    As the waiting years unfold,
    With this friendly giant race
    Fare ye till the tale is told.

                 _Seymour Barnard._

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69746 ***