squirrel's cage. The king's palace attained to the stupendous

magnitude of Periwinkle's baby house, and stood in the center
of a spacious square, which could hardly have been covered by

our hearth- rug. Their principaltemple, or cathedral, was as
lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderfully

sublime and magnificentedifice. All these structures were
built neither of stone nor wood. They were neatly plastered

together by the Pygmy workmen, pretty much like birds' nests,
out of straw, feathers, egg shells, and other small bits of

stuff, with stiff clay instead of mortar; and when the hot sun
had dried them, they were just as snug and comfortable as a

Pygmy could desire.
The country round about was conveniently laid out in fields,

the largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of
Sweet Fern's flower beds. Here the Pygmies used to plant wheat

and other kinds of grain, which, when it grew up and ripened,
overshadowed these tiny people as the pines, and the oaks, and

the walnut and chestnut trees overshadow you and me, when we
walk in our own tracts of woodland. At harvest time, they were

forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain,
exactly as a woodcutter makes a clearing in the forest; and

when a stalk of wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to
come crashing down upon an unfortunate Pygmy, it was apt to be

a very sad affair. If it did not smash him all to pieces, at
least, I am sure, it must have made the poor little fellow's

head ache. And O, my stars! if the fathers and mothers were so
small, what must the children and babies have been? A whole

family of them might have been put to bed in a shoe, or have
crept into an old glove, and played at hide-and-seek in its

thumb and fingers. You might have hidden a year-old baby under
a thimble.

Now these funny Pygmies, as I told you before, had a Giant for
their neighbor and brother, who was bigger, if possible, than

they were little. He was so very tall that he carried a pine
tree, which was eight feet through the butt, for a walking

stick. It took a far-sighted Pygmy, I can assure you, to
discern his summit without the help of a telescope; and

sometimes, in misty weather, they could not see his upper half,
but only his long legs, which seemed to be striding about by

themselves. But at noonday in a clear atmosphere, when the sun
shone brightly over him, the Giant Antaeus presented a very

grand spectacle. There he used to stand, a perfect mountain of
a man, with his great countenance smiling down upon his little

brothers, and his one vast eye (which was as big as a cart
wheel, and placed right in the center of his forehead) giving a

friendly wink to the whole nation at once.
The Pygmies loved to talk with Antaeus; and fifty times a day,

one or another of them would turn up his head, and shout
through the hollow of his fists, "Halloo, brother Antaeus! How

are you, my good fellow?" And when the small distant squeak of
their voices reached his ear, the Giant would make answer,

"Pretty well, brother Pygmy, I thank you," in a thunderous roar
that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest

temple, only that it came from so far aloft.
It was a happy circumstance that Antaeus was the Pygmy people's

friend; for there was more strength in his little finger than
in ten million of such bodies as this. If he had been as

ill-natured to them as he was to everybody else, he might have
beaten down their biggest city at one kick, and hardly have

known that he did it. With the tornado of his breath, he could
have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings and sent

thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. He might
have set his immense foot upon a multitude; and when he took it

up again, there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure.
But, being the son of Mother Earth, as they likewise were, the

Giant gave them his brotherly kindness, and loved them with as
big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very

small. And, on their parts, the Pygmies loved Antaeus with as
much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. He was always

ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power; as for
example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the

Giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural
respiration of his lungs. When the sun was too hot, he often

sat himself down, and let his shadow fall over the kingdom,
from one frontier to the other; and as for matters in general,

he was wise enough to let them alone, and leave the Pygmies to
manage their own affairs--which, after all, is about the best

thing that great people can do for little ones.
In short, as I said before, Antaeus loved the Pygmies, and the

Pygmies loved Antaeus. The Giant's life being as long as his
body was large, while the lifetime of a Pygmy was but a span,

this friendly intercourse had been going on for innumerable
generations and ages. It was written about in the Pygmy

histories, and talked about in their ancient traditions. The
most venerable and white-bearded Pygmy had never heard of a

time, even in his greatest of grandfathers' days, when the
Giant was not their enormous friend. Once, to be sure (as was

recorded on an obelisk, three feet high, erected on the place
of the catastrophe), Antaeus sat down upon about five thousand

Pygmies, who were assembled at a military review. But this was
one of those unlucky accidents for which nobody is to blame; so

that the small folks never took it to heart, and only requested
the Giant to be careful forever afterwards to examine the acre

of ground where he intended to squat himself.
It is a very pleasant picture to imagine Antaeus standing among

the Pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever
was built, while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and

to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there were
affection and sympathy between them and him! Indeed, it has

always seemed to me that the Giant needed the little people
more than the Pygmies needed the Giant. For, unless they had

been his neighbors and well wishers, and, as we may say, his
playfellows, Antaeus would not have had a single friend in the

world. No other being like himself had ever been created. No
creature of his own size had ever talked with him, in thunder-

like accents, face to face. When he stood with his head among
the clouds, he was quite alone, and had been so for hundreds of

years, and would be so forever. Even if he had met another
Giant, Antaeus would have fancied the world not big enough for

two such vast personages, and, instead of being friends with
him, would have fought him till one of the two was killed. But

with the Pygmies he was the most sportive and humorous, and
merry-hearted, and sweet-tempered old Giant that ever washed

his face in a wet cloud.
His little friends, like all other small people, had a great

opinion of their own importance, and used to assume quite a
patronizing air towards the Giant.

"Poor creature!" they said one to another. "He has a very dull
time of it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting

a little of our precious time to amuse him. He is not half so
bright as we are, to be sure; and, for that reason, he needs us

to look after his comfort and happiness. Let us be kind to the
old fellow. Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to

ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."
On all their holidays, the Pygmies had excellent sport with

Antaeus. He often stretched himself out at full length on the
ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it

was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged Pygmy to
journey from head to foot of the Giant. He would lay down his

great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them