THE GIANT AND THE PYGMIES-I

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

NOTE. This selection is taken from a story in "Tanglewood Tales."

A great while ago, when the world was full of wonders, there lived an earthborn Giant named Antæus, and a million or more of curious little earthborn people, who were called Pygmies. This Giant and these Pygmies, being 5 children of the same mother (that is to say, our good old Grandmother Earth), were all brethren, and dwelt together in a very friendly and affectionate manner, far, far off, in the middle of hot Africa.

The Pygmies were so small, and there were so many 10 sandy deserts and such high mountains between them and the rest of mankind, that nobody could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years. As for the Giant, being of a very lofty stature, it was easy enough to see him, but safest to keep out of his sight.

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Among the Pygmies, I suppose, if one of them grew to the height of six or eight inches, he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man. It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by 20 habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage.

The king's palace attained to the stupendous magnitude of a babyhouse, and stood in the center of a spacious square, which could hardly have been covered by our hearth rug. Their principal temple, or cathedral, 5 was as lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderfully sublime and magnificent edifice.

All these structures were built neither of stone nor wood. They were neatly plastered together by the Pygmy workmen, pretty much like birds' nests, out of 10 straw, feathers, eggshells, and other small bits of stuff, with stiff clay instead of mortar; and when the hot sun had dried them they were just as snug and comfortable as a Pygmy could desire.

The country round about was conveniently laid out in 15 fields, the largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of a little girl's flower beds. Here the Pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of grain, which, when it grew up and ripened, overshadowed these tiny people as the pines and the oaks and the walnut and 20 chestnut trees overshadow you and me when we walk in our own tracts of woodland.

At harvest time they were forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain, exactly as a woodcutter makes a clearing in the forest; and when a stalk of 25 wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to come

crashing down upon an unfortunate Pygmy, it was apt to be a very sad affair. If it did not smash him all to pieces, at least, I am sure, it must have made the poor little fellow's head ache.

5 And oh, my stars! if the fathers and mothers were so small, what must the children and babies have been? A whole family of them might have been put to bed in a shoe, or have crept into an old glove, and played at hide and seek in its thumb and fingers. You might have 10 hidden a year-old baby under a thimble.

Now these funny Pygmies, as I told you before, had a Giant for their neighbor and brother, who was bigger, if possible, than they were little. He was so very tall that he carried a pine tree, which was eight feet through the 15 butt, for a walking stick. It took a far-sighted Pygmy, I can assure you, to discern his summit without the help of a telescope; and sometimes, in misty weather, they could not see his upper half, but only his long legs, which seemed to be striding about by themselves.

20 But at noonday, in a clear atmosphere, when the sun shone brightly over him, the Giant Antæus presented a very grand spectacle. There he used to stand, a perfect mountain of a man, with his great countenance smiling down upon his little brothers, and his one vast eye (which 25 was as big as a cart wheel, and placed right in the center

of his forehead) giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once.

The Pygmies loved to talk with Antæus; and fifty times a day one or another of them would turn up his head and shout through the hollow of his fists, "Halloo, 5 Brother Antæus! How are you, my good fellow?" and when the small, distant squeak of their voices reached his ear, the Giant would make answer, "Pretty well, Brother Pygmy, I thank you," in a thunderous roar that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest temple, 10 only that it came from so far aloft.

THE GIANT AND THE PYGMIES — II

It was a happy circumstance that Antæus was the Pygmy people's friend; for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of such bodies as theirs. He might have beaten down their biggest city 15 at one kick, and hardly have known that he did it. With the tornado of his breath he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings, and sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. He might have set his immense foot down upon a multitude; and when 20 he took it up again there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure. But the Giant gave them his brotherly