“Who are you?” he roared as softly as he could, for he was not one of the hateful giants, but one of the good-natured sort. “Where are you going?” “We’re going to find a silver door for the cottage,” shouted Silverboy as loud as ever he could. “Eh?” roared the Gentle Giant. “What’s that? Talk a little louder, can’t you?” And he held the children up to his ear. Then Silvergirl screamed with all her might:-- “We’re going to find a silver door for the cottage.” “That’s all right,” said the Gentle Giant, with a laugh that shook the trees like a tempest. “I wonder if _she’d_ like a silver door,” he added, trying to look through the trees to another mountain even higher than his. “When you find your silver door, you might come up here and tell me about it,” he said with a chuckle. “If you are going up on _that_ mountain, I’ll carry you over the swamp and halfway up the hill. I don’t dare to go any farther.” “Why, how could any one hurt _you_?” cried Silverboy, taking hold of the Gentle Giant’s ear with both hands and shouting into it. The Gentle Giant seemed so good-natured that the children did not feel one bit afraid; but now something happened that did frighten them, for the giant began to cry, and he cried such floods of tears that they had to cling to his fingers with all their might to keep from being washed off and down the side of the mountain. “I’m sorry as I can be,” said Silvergirl. “Don’t cry, Mr. Gentle Giant.” And Silverboy called, “We’ll help you, and there shan’t anybody hurt you.” The Gentle Giant laughed till he was almost crying again, and he shook so that the children had to hold on harder than ever. Then he said:-- “Come up on the mountain and see my house and eat dinner with me, will you? I’m lonesome up there, and it isn’t often that I get any children to come and play with me.” Of course they said yes, and he carried them carefully up the mountain to the biggest house that they ever saw. It was built of logs, bigger than any trees that grew in their own forest. The door was so high that the clouds could have floated in as easy as anything. In one corner was the bed. To make it, the giant had driven into the floor a stake, or rather the trunk of a great pine tree. He had laid long rails from this stake to the two walls, shutting in the corner. On top of the rails were stout boughs, and on top of the boughs were whole barnfuls of soft spruce and fir and hemlock branches, until there was as comfortable a bed as was ever seen. For a table he had driven another tree trunk into the middle of the floor. Then he had split in two the biggest tree on the mountain and had fastened it to the top of the trunk, the flat side up. At one end of the room was the chimney, and that was large enough to roast at least ten oxen, eleven deer, and fifteen bears, with plenty of room between them for pigs and partridges.