Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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 to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to
finger. So fearless were they, that they made nothing of creeping in
among the folds of his garments. When his head lay sidewise on the
earth, they would march boldly up, and peep into the great cavern of his
mouth, and take it all as a joke (as indeed it was meant) when Antaeus
gave a sudden snap of his jaws, as if he were going to swallow fifty of
them at once. You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and
out among his hair, or swinging from his beard. It is impossible to tell
half of the funny tricks that they played with their huge comrade; but
I do not know that anything was more curious than when a party of boys
were seen running races on his forehead, to try which of them could get
first round the circle of his one great eye. It was another favorite
feat with them to march along the bridge of his nose, and jump down upon
his upper lip.
    If the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome to
the Giant as a swarm of ants or mosquitoes, especially as they had a
fondness for mischief, and liked to prick his skin with their little
swords and lances, to see how thick and tough it was. But Antaeus took
it all kindly enough; although, once in a while, when he happened to be
sleepy, he would grumble out a peevish word or two, like the muttering
of a tempest, and ask them to have done with their nonsense. A great
deal oftener, however, he watched their merriment and gambols until his
huge, heavy, clumsy wits were completely stirred up by them; and then
would he roar out such a tremendous volume of immeasurable laughter,
that the whole nation of Pygmies had to put their hands to their ears,
else it would certainly have deafened them.
    "Ho! ho! ho!" quoth the Giant, shaking his mountainous sides. "What a
funny thing it is to be little! If I were not Antaeus, I should like to
be a Pygmy, just for the joke's sake."
    The Pygmies had but one thing to trouble them in the world. They were
constantly at war with the cranes, and had always been so, ever since
the long-lived Giant could remember. From time to time, very terrible
battles had been fought in which sometimes the little men won the
victory, and sometimes the cranes. According to some historians, the
Pygmies used to go to the battle, mounted on the