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.