One sunny afternoon, a gentle breeze swept over a cheerful landscape, ruffling the hair of a youthful girl captivating all with her laughter. She wore a radiant smile that touched the heart—a genuine source of joy. Beneath this girl’s benign rule lay a friendly village, full of lively chatter and play. Yet, in the heart of this village, children kept secret a quaint tale about a giant who resided in the nearby hills, unseen and hidden from view.
Now, this giant was a lovely creature, the sort of giant everyone would desire as a friend. Of course, all her acquaintances must be quite extraordinarily large; nevertheless, that tiny drawback didn’t bother her in the least. She had long, splendid hair that clung in beautiful ringlets to her massive neck and shoulders, and she liked nothing better than to tie it up in two great bunches high on either side of her head, with a crimson ribbon leading down her back. Her body was round and just the right height to give any girl, small or big, the most lovely of rides. Moreover, her hands were big enough to carry a dozen common children at once, and if she only had her way, she would certainly have had them over her hills every day.
But there was one little obstacle to this plan—namely, the fact that her voice, wonderful for singing as it was, was also just the trifle loud for her dear children’s comfort. Now and then, therefore, “Dear Gigi,” they used to say—“if you would only keep as quiet as the little birds, we could go over to see you far more often.” And Gigi used to promise, of course, because Gigi was so gentle and kind-hearted and full of love for children, from the smallest to the biggest, that nothing was a trouble to her, no, not even promise keeping. So she used to sit regarding from her hillside her little friend with infinite affection and was quite happy, dreaming a pleasant dream.
The little children had many pleasures and amusements of their own—games and revelries and charming stories to listen to. But Gigi had nothing for company on her lonely hills but the pretty blue sky, the accompanying clouds, the flowing sunny braids of the cheerful creek, and the sweet songs of the little birds. Feeling so sorry for her, all the dear little children used sometimes to slip away from their plays and go up to visit the kind-hearted lonely giantess. They used to find her in the softest of summer gowns, working with her needle and her thread, and in her arms a sweet little kitten. The children were very glad to come across the mighty mass of quilting that she had taught the birds to stitch for her, or to find her working at something beautiful, or to look at her delightful collection of butterflies. But all alone upon the hills, and never even catching a glimpse of her little friends—this they could not make her understand was too dreadful an imprisonment for a gentle giant, so big and strong merely for the purpose of carrying and playing with the tiniest of her play friends.
But one day Gigi was informed that the children’s pretexts were all played out and exhausted, so she decided to come down to the friendly village. She believed so gently and sincerely: if she were only to be seen once, she would not be deemed unworthy of a place among the visitors to the various complaints—otherwise hostile everyday life.
When, therefore, it became known that the giantess with all her kittens was really coming down, armed with the heaviest of big silver trays filled with her most delicious cakes, all the children rushed into the houses for what they could put on to their lovely dresses, but the red on the girls’ cheeks was ever the ruddier. To picture the friendly village without a penny in its pocket now invited the gentle giantess down from the peaceful solitude of her hills was quite an impossibility for any child.
The sun rose and beamed down, and then rose again; and still not a single foot could be heard moving about on the hills.
“I thought Gigi was coming to see us on Sunday!” squeaked the sharp voice of the eldest of the children early on Sunday morning in the ears of all her companions.
“But you can’t, of course, play with a huge creature like this Sunday, and give her yourself,” cried a girl. “What d’you find so very laughable in this?”
All at once they heard a slight scratching sound at the door, so they opened it. “Ohhh!” was heard on every side, breaking into wild yells of joy.
“And only see what she has brought with her!” said the sharp-eyedest of the girls, nodding her head knowingly towards a dozen fat letters that had tumbled half out of their copper boxes, and were looking in quite a friendly way. “She is going to have tea in her house, treated exactly like the children at the village, and I warrant that we shall all receive an invitation signed with a big red seal.”
Even such a promise was not, of course, sufficient to cheer up the gigantic visitor’s courage. The sound of her noisy voice, which would be nominated for tea-giving for the first time, was expected, however, as a foretaste quite unbearable.
With hearts all drumming away with fright or ill-timed joy, the children waited. Louder still grew their own hearts, not knowing how; and suddenly, as if endowed with some magic power, the nursery door was wide open and admitted an unnamed sea with a whole generation of innocent little children standing right on its surface floating about in a lovely boat.
“D’you think, perhaps, to wonder away the first red seal so long? It’s the one you ought to use, so precious for that end. It’s easily moved, you know, as full of love as a young butterfly. Besides if you were not so tiresome in your walk through life—but big, and heavy, and loud, and digging ditches as it were—you’d never make a mistake, and children as harmless as myself would be quiet, happy beings for all time.”
The tea-drinking went on most merrily, every sometimes serious point in life having been thoroughly outlived, and everyone becoming blood relations. Gigi’s huge armchair sat between a youthful Duke, possessing nothing but good qualities, and another invitation whose baggage firmly remains in the carrier’s hands.
“And now for a stroll by the moonlight. How would that suit you?” said the Duke standing up from the table, and next according to his former premises sending all his feet into giddy despondency. “If any person could indulge me to-night—merely on leaving private matters aside, of course—this girl is remarkably clever with her eyes. The distant hills yonder are literally illimitable as nature’s sympathy or the love on her part with regard to a heavenly being herself—a boundless amount of good and amiable diamonds and jewels is, indeed, in question.”
As a friend he did not touch upon the favourite child in whose room he stood; they were two bonded brothers the one expecting, from all appearances, further visits from the other. But Gigi sat down upon her new sister’s bed straight away, relieved the stout self-conscious girl of her two heavy medallions, unscrewed a thick gold chain from a heap of golden rubbish, then sprang like a bee on a startled flower again to her mountain’s point.
The clothed stones gave way to her warmth; and as soon as she had given some rough model its finishing touch, a luxuriant hair of her newest ornament swung towards the ground almost sobbing from joy. Might this present perhaps succumb even quicker than its mother!