IN THE GIANT’S HOUSE
“Oh, yes, it _sounds_ easy,” grumbled Wendell. “Just walk into a witch’s
house and steal her magic cloak. Easy as rolling off a log. Only how am
I going to do it, I’d like to know.”
“I might help,” said the Pixie. “I rather like a lark of that kind.”
“Oh, if _you_’d help,” said Wendell. “That would be great. What could
you do?”
“Well, I have some rather neat transformation charms, myself,” said the
Pixie. “I suppose if I once got you into the house, you could do the
rest.”
“I guess so,” said Wendell. “I could hide in the oven or something.”
“I’ll have to make you pretty small to get into one of these gas ranges
they use now-a-days,” said the Pixie thoughtfully. “You have to think of
everything, you know, in this business, or else you lose by a fluke. I
have it. I’ll change myself into an organ grinder, and you into the
monkey.”
“Yes!” jeered Wendell. “Nice chance a monkey would have to be let into
anybody’s house.”
“Well, of course,” said the Pixie, somewhat crestfallen, “it was only a
suggestion.”
“It’s got to be something that anybody would be glad to have in their
house,” said Wendell. “Something helpful. A furnace man. Or a gas
man--to read the meter.”
“Nobody’s glad to have _him_ in their house,” grunted the Pixie. “But I
get your idea. Why not a plumber to stop a leak? I have a fine plumber’s
transformation among my charms. I’ll be the plumber and you can go as my
assistant. Good idea, what?”
“The very thing,” said Wendell.
“Well, after school to-morrow, you get into your oldest clothes, and
I’ll come around.”
Wendell hurried home the next afternoon and hunted out an old suit that
he had withheld from the Morgan Memorial Goodwill bag, in case of a
painting job or something. Hardly had he got into these clothes, when he
heard an impatient honking in the street. Looking out, he saw in front
of the curb a huge Cadillac with the driver’s seat occupied by a young
chap in workingman’s clothes who grinned up at him and beckoned
frantically.
Wendell went down.
“I wouldn’t have known you,” he said. “It’s a fine disguise.”
“I think it’s rather neat,” returned the Pixie with quiet pride. He had
a young, pleasant, intelligent face, and no one could possibly have
taken him for a Pixie. He was very suitably dressed in khaki trousers,
blue coat, tan shoes, and visored cap, all somewhat creased and soiled,
and a bundle of tools lay on the seat beside him.
“Where did you get the car?” asked Wendell.
“Part of the outfit,” responded the Pixie. “I couldn’t pass for a
plumber, these days, could I, unless I went to my job in a high-powered
touring car?”
The Pixie guided the car deftly down the hill, and turned from the
dimpling blue Charles River into Beacon Street. They spun out over the
smooth pavement through Boston and into Brookline, consulted the address
that the Beauteous Maiden had written down, conferred with a policeman
or two, and at length turned into one of the pretty winding roads that
net the Boston suburbs.
“That’s it,” said the Pixie. “There’s the number.”
It was an attractive modern house of the near-Colonial style of
architecture, white-painted, with green blinds, a brick porch, a very
well-kept lawn, the whole tasteful, but not pretentious.
The Pixie rang the bell.
After a few moments, the door was opened by a young lady, who, while not
positively deformed, was so very, very plain, that Wendell knew at once
that she was the Ugly Stepsister.
“Leak in the bathroom?” asked the Pixie, with a concise, business-like
air.
“I didn’t know it. I’ll ask Mummer,” said the young lady. She left the
door ajar, and they heard her calling, “Mummer!” as she retreated to
the back of the house.
“I might slip in now, don’t you think?” asked Wendell.
“No, no!” whispered the Pixie sternly. “Wait and walk in like a
gentleman. No sneaking when you’re with me, young man.”
Wendell felt somewhat abashed, and yet resentful.
“I’d like to know if it isn’t sneaking to--” he began, but just then a
door opened from the kitchen and the Cruel Stepmother came forward. She
had projecting teeth, and a hooked nose and chin, and her hair straggled
uncombed about her face.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Leak in the bathroom,” said the Pixie briefly. “Your husband
telephoned.”
“Oh,” said she. “Right up the stairs there.”
The Pixie went up with the bag of tools on his shoulder, followed
closely by Wendell, and found a neat tiled bathroom. He unrolled his
tools, selected a monkey-wrench and went to work on the bath-tub pipes.
The two women had remained downstairs.
“Well, you’re here,” said the Pixie in a low tone.
“What would you do next?” whispered Wendell.
“Look about a bit,” rejoined the Pixie. “I’ll keep my ear cocked.”
Wendell tiptoed carefully into the hall and peeked into the front
bedroom. He tried a closet door, found it unlocked, opened it and peered
in at the usual collection of clothes hanging in closets. There was
nothing that looked like a magic cloak. He tiptoed into the next
bedroom and was investigating the contents of the closet there, when he
heard a sudden exclamation from the Pixie in the bathroom. He went in
hastily, asking, “Have you found anything?”
The Pixie had entirely disconnected the bath-tub and disjointed the
pipes, which lay strewn over the white-tiled floor. He was hastily
rolling up his bundle of tools.
“I’m off,” he said. “If the lady asks, tell her I’ve gone for my tools.”
“When are you coming back?” asked Wendell.
“Not at all,” said the Pixie, blithely but hurriedly.
“But aren’t you going to put the plumbing together again?” asked Wendell
in dismay. “They can’t ever do it.”
“I guess they can do it as well as I can,” returned the Pixie. “I never
took even a correspondence course in plumbing. So long.”
“But what about me?” protested Wendell.
“Well, here you are,” said the Pixie impatiently. “You said if I once
got you in here, you’d be all right. I’ve got to be on the way.”
“Yes, but don’t you think the Giant may come?”
“I do, indeed,” said the Pixie, who was now at the top of the stairs.
“In fact, I saw him only a moment ago coming down the street.”
With these words, he hurried down, opened and closed the front door,
swiftly but cautiously, and before Wendell had recovered from the shock,
there rose the purr of the motor, and the car was off.
Its sound had hardly died away, when there came a heavy tread on the
piazza that shook the house, the door was violently thrown open, and a
huge voice roared,
“_Fee, fi, fo, fum!_
_I smell the blood of--_”
The roar stopped short. Wendell heard the Stepmother’s voice.
“I wish you’d learn to control that fee, fi, fo, fum business!” she
scolded. “You scared the cook so badly with it this morning that she
gave notice, and here I’ve had to cook the dinner. It may have been all
right back in Cornwall several hundred years ago, but it doesn’t go
here.”
“Well, I’m sure,” said the Giant, “I didn’t mean anything. I _do_ smell
the blood of some one.”
“It’s that plumber upstairs,” she said. “Come in and eat your dinner.”
“Plumber?” said the Giant, and followed her into the dining-room.
They shut the door, but the Giant’s roar was so loud that Wendell could
still hear his part of the conversation, like one end of a telephone
talk.
“Where is the leak?”
* * * * *
“How did you know there was one, then?”
* * * * *
“No, I didn’t. No such thing.”
* * * * *
“Well, if he said I called him up, he’s probably a gang of thieves. I’ll
get the police. What did he look like?”
* * * * *
“With a small boy, eh? I _knew_ I smelled small boy. I’ll bet he’s one
of these Giant-killer smarties. I’ll soon fix him.” He rose, shaking the
house with his heavy tread.
Wendell was a brave boy, but who wouldn’t quail before an angry giant?
Wendell quailed. He looked around for a place to hide.
The bathroom occupied a little ell with eaves, and under the eaves ran a
wainscoting, broken by a little door that was evidently the entrance to
a low closet. Wendell opened it and crawled in, not quite closing the
door, as it had no handle on the inside. He crouched behind a trunk,
pulled down some old clothes from a nail to cover him, and kept very
still, all but his heart, which thumped loudly.
“They’re not here,” he heard the Stepmother say. “It looks as if they
were coming back, though.”
“They _are_ here,” roared the Giant. “The small boy’s here. I can smell
him. He’s in that closet.”
He flung open the door.
“Bring a light,” he commanded.