: The book of friendly giants by Fuller Eunice Barnard Seymour Contributor Smith Pamela Colman Illustrator - Giants Juvenile fiction

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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"Good! Good!" cried the giant, chuckling with the noise of a happy waterfall. "Up with you, then. Lean against my neck, and take tight hold of my long hair." And with that, he picked Ivan gently up and tucked him snugly just below his right ear.

So he handed Ivan a long piece of gray gauze, so fine that in the moonlight he could hardly see it at all. Ivan tied it about his waist. And then although he pinched himself and knew quite well that he was all there, he couldn't so much as see his own toes.

As for the giant, now that he could neither see Ivan nor feel his weight, he began to be a little nervous. "Once in a while," he said, "I wish you'd stand up and shout my name 'Costan' into my ear, so that I'll know you haven't tumbled off. And now, are you ready? Hold tight, and we'll go on."

Costan raised himself, and strode off with a long, limping step through the forest. To Ivan it was like being on a great ship at sea, going up a long wave, and down. He felt that he might fall asleep if it were not such fun sitting there on Costan's shoulder and watching the treetops glide past the moon.

The trees grew fewer and fewer. Ivan swung around, and peered ahead, clinging to Costan's hair. They were coming to a great open space in the midst of the forest, a meadow thronged with giants and giantesses. There seemed to be hundreds of them, dressed not like Costan in skins but in wonderful shimmering garments that blew about their shoulders like clouds of mist in the moonlight. In the center of them all was a huge fountain that shot up in a silver torrent far above their heads.

One of the giants came running to meet Costan. "Oh, here you are!" he cried. "We were afraid you weren't coming." And with that, he gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder that nearly sent Ivan spinning off a hundred feet or more to the ground.

Costan explained about his hurt foot. "I'll just sit and look on for to-night," he said, and chuckled to himself, thinking of Ivan.

And so Ivan, safely nestled on Costan's shoulder, watched till his eyes stood out, as the giants danced and played giant games, chasing each other through the fountain, with a shower of spray like a whirling rainstorm. They wrestled, they leaped, they sang till all the trees trembled.

Just as the fun was at its liveliest, there was a mighty gurgle, and the fountain, which had been casting itself so high into the air, sank suddenly into the earth. The oldest giantess of all gathered her great fluttering robes about her, and striding to the edge of the forest, pulled up a fir-tree with one wrench of her wrist.

"Midnight!" whispered Costan.

Silently the giants crowded about the uprooted tree.

Instantly the giants seemed to flatten out. Their backs seemed to come forward, and their fronts to shrink back. Their arms, their legs, their heads, their bodies, grew thin as cardboard. They stood there like great paper-dolls, taller than the trees. One by one, they stepped into the hole where the tree had been, and cut their way down into the ground like huge knives.

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