Chapter V: Part TWO: How the Bakers Wished They Hadn’t 251 (4)

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.

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._

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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._

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

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.”

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.”

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._

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

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.

“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.