Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne Read Free Book Online Page B

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