“Oh, dear Oscoon!” cried Pulowech, “we could not be happier than in your wigwam. It is something we partly remember that makes us sad. Ever since we heard the ice-giant’s scream, it has seemed to us that we have not always been in this Giantland. Once we seem to have lived in a different country, where we were cold, and often hungry. But there our wigwam was, and our children. It is they that worry us. For we do not know what they can do without us. They must be hungry—” Pulowech caught his breath, and his poor wife began to sob.
Now, Oscoon was a good giant if there ever was one, and it grieved his big heart through and through to see his small friends so unhappy.
“Oh, my little people!” he cried, heaving a little himself, “I would rather give you anything than to have you leave us. But you must go back to your children—right away.”
And with that he sneezed so violently that the rocks were jounced around in their places, and the Indians had to cling tight to his thumb for fear of falling off. Then they all laughed,—which made them feel so much better that everybody’s sobs got swallowed.
And so, grasping his little people, Oscoon ran leaping back to the wigwam, calling the giantess at the top of his big lungs. “Oh, wife! wife!” he bellowed, “our little people have a voyage to take. We must give them the little dog, and some food to take along with them.”
When the giantess heard about the children at home, she kissed her little Indians very hard indeed, and then she set all the young giants at work piling up furs and dried meat for them to take home to their wigwam. And so, as they all worked with a will, in about two minutes and a half there were enough furs and meat stacked up to sink three or four hundred canoes the size of Pulowech’s.
When Oscoon saw that, he took the Indians’ canoe down from the top of the wigwam, and filled it as full as it could hold. Then he set Pulowech in the stern, and his wife in the bow, and holding the canoe high over his head, roared out to the whole camp that they were ready to start.
So they set out, Oscoon ahead, carrying his little people in their canoe in one hand, and in the other a tiny, sharp-nosed gray dog. All the giants followed in a great procession, leaping up and down and singing, as though it were a very gala occasion indeed. When they came to the shore, Oscoon gently slipped the canoe into the water, and gave Pulowech the little gray dog.
“Paddle,” he said, “just as the little dog points. He will take you home.”
The little dog ran to the middle of the canoe, and stood with his paws resting on the edge. He barked, and pointed with his nose straight out to sea. Pulowech dipped his paddle, but he could scarcely see to steer for the tears in his eyes.