XIIThe Giant who Came Back

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 childwas 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.

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 goingsouth!”

“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 thinkI’dlike to seethem!”

“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 grewwarmer, 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 wholecountry 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.

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. Thewalls 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 footin 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 carryyou in his great hands right out into the country!”

Luigi smiled more happily than ever. “What a fine idea!” he cried. “Perhaps onewillcome, 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 giantssomewhere.” 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.

Therewasanother 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.

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 downtill 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,—Rosaalmostdoes,” 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. “WillI?” 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 tosidewalk 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 treesbrushed 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.

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 Icouldgo,” 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.

If you will look

When this book you close for aye,Childish fancies to efface,Bid these friendly giants hieDown the years with you a pace:Faith! Companions such as they,Only charméd folk may know;Those who walked the giants’ waySome time in the long ago:Children with the world a-face,As the waiting years unfold,With this friendly giant raceFare ye till the tale is told.Seymour Barnard.

When this book you close for aye,Childish fancies to efface,Bid these friendly giants hieDown the years with you a pace:

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’ waySome time in the long ago:

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 raceFare ye till the tale is told.

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.

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