Once upon a time, in a tiny village way down in the country, there lived a Giant—this Giant’s head nearly touched the sky—and there never was such a good-natured Giant as he. When anyone spoke kindly to him, he would look down on them with such eyes as would have blinded them, only he always took care to turn his head a little on one side, so that they escaped with their lives.
At the same time, he was so big and clumsy that his greatest friend Daisy, a little girl with diamond eyes, a mouth as red as a rose, and hair as bright as the sun itself, was frequently in danger of losing her life when he was having a game with her. He used to toss her so high into the air that when she came down again she never knew what to think of it, and upon more than one occasion she had to go to bed for a whole week and have Doctor Pivert to see her, which made her mother very angry.
Now, the head of this Giant was so big that nobody knew exactly what to do, and there was the greatest possible confusion in his village, for they were afraid he would never die, and each family had a funeral to make preparations for, and they kept quarrelling and quarrelling, which made his three hundred and sixty-five doctors, who came from all quarters of the world, to see if they could cure him, quite sad and sorry; so sad and sorry were they that they cried, so that their beards became all wet, and they said:
“Ah! ah! every head must die, but we never imagined this Giant’s head would be the last to break the earth.”
Now Garry was not at all like this Giant for he lived quietly in the country and never quarrelled with anyone. But one fine morning he discovered a little village—the Giant’s village—with his telescope, and rushed down to know all about it, and perhaps to see if the people were kind and amiable. Now everyone who passed by was screaming:
“Oh, what a horrible Giant; if he catches us in the fields, how can we escape him! He will crush us under one of his feet.”
But a little girl named Emmiline—and a pretty girl she was—had just dropped her garland of wild flowers she was going to offer to her mother, and had just picked it up when Garry reached them. So he took Emmiline on his hand to sit on his finger, and hid the rest of them in an empty field which was just opposite; but she was quite at a loss to know what to do.
Then all the people of the village, looking more dead than alive, came towards him, and took off their caps (no caps were ever bigger, though he caught up a dozen or two, saying it was for always, and it was on that very day the cap of grace was invented), praying him to have pity on their poor village, and to return it to its old state. “For,” said an old woman, who looked like a potato with a bell-shaped hat on, “there pass within three paces of my house such quantities of little men and women that I am almost afraid they will come to dwell inside of myself.” “Oh! that would be, indeed, a great misfortune!” said Garry. He thought they had injuries to complain of like himself.
So he tossed the coppers and silver he had in his pockets into the village, promising that this hole in the wall should never be re-touched on pain of his becoming furious. But he told them that when his friends were laid down at the foot of the Golden Hill he should himself like to be buried there, for that he was very fond of visitors.
The people of the village promised him left the rest of the coppers and silvers in the middle of the public place, but Garry at sunset took them all back again, and cast his shoes, which were so big he feared nobody would notice, into the sea, to hide that ugly hole in the wall.
Never was there so amiable a giant as he; every Sunday he came and brought them fish, and pears, and wine, and watered their gardens in hot seasons.
And, as it is a very good thing to avoid quarrels, and that everyone calls those people their worst enemies who interfere in their affairs and give them bad advice, the people of the little village caught up one of their greatest Thomases without leaving bad plenty of remedy and a halfuoe for afterwards, and sent him as ambassador to Garry. This ambassador was a little old man, rather hunch-backed, but his dress was clean, and with a cocked hat “Made in England,” and shoes by Zapandouze, and he told him all the news of the old one, and the news of the new ones who were constantly being sold; adding that his health was in state of nature, and it cost him no headache to perceive how things were.
“This is indeed a piece of work,” said Garry; “the gown-makers in my country make for all missionaries, but for the part of your person here we haven’t a single stitch on; wash yourself down again, and we will live and die friends.”
They embraced, and a friend is always a present indeed.