“But what if you let the stone into the baby’s mouth when you were feeding him?” I said. “No mother would do that,” she replied. “I shouldn’t be fit to have a baby!” I thought what a lovely woman she would grow. But what became of them when they grew up? Where did they go? That brought me again to the question--where did they come from first? “Will you tell me where you lived before?” I said. “Here,” she replied. “Have you NEVER lived anywhere else?” I ventured. “Never. We all came from the wood. Some think we dropped out of the trees.” “How is it there are so many of you quite little?” “I don’t understand. Some are less and some are bigger. I am very big.” “Baby will grow bigger, won’t he?” “Of course he will!” “And will you grow bigger?” “I don’t think so. I hope not. I am the biggest. It frightens me sometimes.” “Why should it frighten you?” She gave me no answer. “How old are you?” I resumed. “I do not know what you mean. We are all just that.” “How big will the baby grow?” “I cannot tell.--Some,” she added, with a trouble in her voice, “begin to grow after we think they have stopped.--That is a frightful thing. We don’t talk about it!” “What makes it frightful?” She was silent for a moment, then answered, “We fear they may be beginning to grow giants.” “Why should you fear that?” “Because it is so terrible.--I don’t want to talk about it!” She pressed the baby to her bosom with such an anxious look that I dared not further question her. Before long I began to perceive in two or three of the smaller children some traces of greed and selfishness, and noted that the bigger girls cast on these a not infrequent glance of anxiety. None of them put a hand to my work: they would do nothing for the giants! But they never relaxed their loving ministrations to me. They would sing to me, one after another, for hours; climb the tree to reach my mouth and pop fruit into it with their dainty little fingers; and they kept constant watch against the approach of a giant. Sometimes they would sit and tell me stories--mostly very childish, and often seeming to mean hardly anything. Now and then they would call a general assembly to amuse me. On one such occasion a moody little fellow sang me a strange crooning song, with a refrain so pathetic that, although unintelligible to me, it caused the tears to run down my face. This phenomenon made those who saw it regard me with much perplexity. Then first I bethought myself that I had not once, in that world, looked on water, falling or lying or running. Plenty there had been in some long vanished age--that was plain enough--but the Little Ones had never seen any before they saw my tears! They had, nevertheless, it seemed, some dim, instinctive perception of their origin; for a very small child went up to the singer, shook his clenched pud in his face, and said something like this: “‘Ou skeeze ze juice out of ze good giant’s seeberries! Bad giant!”