The bright ferry boats crawling across the stream rocked in his wake. Even the dark ocean liners, tied up at their docks, trembled. “It must be blowing up a cyclone,” said the pilot on a tug, beating up and down on the waves. But when he looked out, the stars were shining clearer than ever, and there was not a cloud in the sky.
Benevaldo had almost reached the shining towers. Beyond them he could see the dark stretches of the ocean broken only by a few twinkling islands. Out there he could have a cool swim and land perhaps on another, less crowded shore to race back again, through new, wide countries to Giantland.
But instead he turned and waded deliberately to the walls on the river bank. Cautiously he settled his foot in one of the narrow, bright streets. They were less crowded now. There should be more chance to step. But the walls on each side pinched his toes and barked his shins.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” thought Benevaldo, with a giant laugh at his own folly. “But I’ve just got to see this queer place. It must be the springtime that is leading me on.”
But it was not the spring. It was only the wish in a little boy’s heart.
The little boy lived high up in one of those lines of tenement houses Benevaldo had taken for walls. His name was Luigi, and he had an ache in his back but a smile on his face. All day and all night for months he had lain beside a window, trying to get well. And besides that, he had made cloth flowers for ladies’ hats to help his mother and Rosa.
Sometimes when Rosa was not too tired, she would tell him stories as they worked. And once in a very long while, when they could get no work to do, she would bring home a library book and read him about fairies and giants.
One night when the reading was done, Rosa looked over at him wistfully. “Oh, Luigi,” she said, “I wish there were giants now, so that one could come and carry you in his great hands right out into the country!”
Luigi smiled more happily than ever. “What a fine idea!” he cried. “Perhaps one will come, Rosa.”
But Rosa shook her head. “Oh, no, Luigi,” she said sadly. “Don’t be a baby. There aren’t any giants any more, you know.”