“‘Never fear,’ says the good son, ‘I don’t sleep at my work.’
“And he goes out in the field and lugs a big stone up in the tree, and then sends every cow far out in the clover-fields and goes back again to the tree! And out comes the giant a-roaring, so you could hear the roars of him a mile away, and when he finds the cow-boy, he goes under the tree to shake him down, but the good little son slips out the big stone, and it fell down and broke the giant’s head entirely. So the good son went running away to the giant’s house, and it being full to the eaves of gold and diamonds and splendid things.
“So you see what fine luck comes to folks that is good and honest! And he went home and fetched his old Mother, and they lived rich and contented, and died very old and respected.”
“Do you suppose your son Michael killed any giants in America, the way he got to be an Alderman?” asked Eileen, when Grannie had finished her story.
“I don’t rightly know that,” Grannie answered. “Maybe it wasn’t just exactly giants, but you can see for yourself that he is rich and respected, and he with a silk hat, and riding in a procession the same as the Lord-Mayor himself!”
“Did you ever see a giant or a fairy or any of the good little people themselves, Grannie Malone?” Larry asked.
“I’ve never exactly seen any of them with my own two eyes,” she answered, “but many is the time I’ve talked with people and they having seen them. There was Mary O’Connor now,—dead long since, God rest her. She told me this tale herself, and she sitting by this very hearth. Wait now till I wet my mouth with a sup of tea in it, and I’ll be telling you the tale the very same way she told it herself.”
Note 1. Adapted from “Marygold House,” in Play-Days, by Sarah Orne Jewett.