“No; there are never any in the wood for them. They do not love them. If they saw ours, they would stamp them.”
“Is there always the same number of the giants then? I thought, before I had time to know better, that they were your fathers and mothers.”
She burst into the merriest laughter, and said,
“No, good giant; WE are THEIR firsters.”
But as she said it, the merriment died out of her, and she looked scared.
I stopped working, and gazed at her, bewildered.
“How CAN that be?” I exclaimed.
“I do not say; I do not understand,” she answered. “But we were here and they not. They go from us. I am sorry, but we cannot help it. THEY could have helped it.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked, more and more puzzled—in the hope of some side-light on the matter.
“Always, I think,” she replied. “I think somebody made us always.”