Page:The Princess of Cozytown.pdf/76



NCE upon a time there was a last Giant. How he escaped Jack the Giant Killer I have no idea, have you? But escape he did, that is certain. Oh, but he had a wretched life of it. 'Twas simply dreadful! 'Tis always dreadful being the last of anything. You see he had no one to walk with, or talk with, or to stay with or play with. Why, his huge giant heart was cracking with loneliness. Besides, Jack the Giant Killer's grand-nephews and nieces were continually on the lookout for him. All day he was forced to hide, and 'tis no easy task when one is as big as all outdoors.

Sometimes he stood in his dingy brown suit with his shaggy hair tumbled over his face, his two arms crooked like branches, pretending to be a tree. He did make a tremendously tall one, but it was mighty tiresome work being a tree, and the mischievous little birds would peck his nose, and tweak his ears and pull out his hair, for they knew he did not dare to cry out or shake them off because Sarah Ann Giant Killer was sure to be on hand with her spy glass and giant-killing hat pin. Other days he would wade out into the sea, standing stiff and tall as a lighthouse, but even here the crabs would pinch his heels and the other sea folk would steal his shoe buttons, and stick and prick him spitefully. If he rolled up on the ground to look like a brown hill, along would come the owner of the field and a score of workmen to shovel and pick-axe him out of the way, or blow him to bits with dynamite. It was all very unpleasant for the last Giant.