FullReads

“Why bless my big leather belt,” he exclaimed, “it’s little Mary Louise.”

“Oh, Mr. Giant,” said Mary Louise, “I’ve disobeyed the Fairy Queen and lost my pony Dapple Gray.”

“Bless my big hob-nailed club,” said Mr. Merry Laugh, for this was the giant’s name, “how did you come to do that?”

So Mary Louise told him how the Fairy Queen had directed her to the Wishing Stone, but that she had forgotten to say when making her wish,

“Rose red, rose white,
I will try to do what’s right.”

“Well, I’ll give you another chance,” said the big kind giant. “Now let me see,” and he took off his big leather cap and scratched his head, and then he whispered something to the little yellow bird, but his whisper was so loud that of course Mary Louise heard it, for when a giant whispers it sounds like a man shouting, so I’ve been told.

“Come with me,” said the giant after the little yellow bird had nodded her head, and pretty soon, not so very long, they came to his castle, where the giant made Mary Louise very comfortable in a little chair which had once belonged to his son.

“Now you rest here while I go and get out my big Gold Book,” said Mr. Merry Laugh.

“Mr. Merry Laugh, the Giant,
Has a big Gold Book,
Bound with leather hinges
And a big brass hook,”

sang the little yellow bird.

“Now let me see,” said the good, kind giant, opening the book and turning over the pages with his great immense thumb. “Ah, here it is,” but before he began to read he took off his spectacles which were as big as automobile lamps and wiped them carefully on his red silk handkerchief which was bigger than a sail.

“Whoever disobeys the queen
Can for his guilt atone
By making a little whistle
Out of a turkey’s bone.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared the giant till the crystal chandelier tinkled like a million little bells and the portrait of his mother-in-law fell off the wall with a dreadful crash, “I never heard anything so funny before,” and he picked up the portrait and laughed again, only this time even louder, for his mother-in-law’s picture was all smashed to smithereens!

“Well, that’s easy,” he said after wiping his eyes. “Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving and you shall dine with me. And after dinner I’ll give you a magic knife and if you can’t make a whistle out of the drumstick bone, I’ll have another portrait made of my mother-in-law.”

“That’s very good of you,” said little Mary Louise.

“Don’t mention it,” replied the giant. “I have a book that once belonged to my boy when he was a little fellow. It’s called the Iceberg Express, and you look so like the little girl on the cover that I’d almost believe you were she.”

“I am, I am,” shouted Mary Louise, jumping out of her chair. “And that’s the reason I wanted to sit in the big Wishing Stone chair. I was going to wish I was home with mother.”

“You don’t say so,” exclaimed Mr. Merry Laugh. “Well, well, well. It takes me back to the time when my boy was a little fellow and sat on my knee to hear me read Little Journeys to Happyland. How time flies!” And the big kind giant took his pocket handkerchief out again to wipe his blue eyes, and after that he went over to the piano and sang:

“If I had my little boy again
How happy I should be,
I’d piggy-back him all around
And trundle him on my knee.

“But oh, dear me. It’s so long ago,
And he’s been away so long,
That all I can do is to wish and wish
That he could hear this song.”