Peggy’s Giant

BY M. D. HILLYARD

WITH SEVEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR DRAWN BY PEGGY

A. & C. BLACK, LTD. 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1 1920

TO PEGGY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

BY PEGGY

[5]

PEGGY’S GIANT

CHAPTER I WHAT PEGGY FOUND

“It rattles!” said Peggy, shaking the last cracker, and looking up at Nurse.

“Well, pull it now, there’s a dear,” said Nurse, “and let me clear up this litter.”

Peggy had just finished her birthday tea up in the nursery alone with Nurse, as Mother was away. Of course it hadn’t been nearly so exciting as her last birthday tea—the only one she could remember—which had been downstairs with lots of other little girls and boys, who had all come to see Peggy. They hadn’t talked to her or to each other much, but had eaten lots of birthday cake, and Peggy had been taken up to bed before the last of them left, because she had had such a long and exciting birthday.

This year the only children who could come had suddenly started whooping-cough, and so there was no party at all. Still it was better than the usual dull nursery tea, for Mother had left a lot of crackers with Nurse for Peggy; and Cook had remembered to put six new candles on the new sponge cake, and they had all been lighted, and were doing their very best to look brighter than the sunshine pouring in through the nursery windows.

“Do guess what’s inside first, Nannie,” said Peggy, shaking the cracker again. “I guess it’s a little tiny cup and saucer for my doll’s house. Now, you guess.”

[6]“Oh, I don’t know—a whistle,” said Nannie, beginning to clear up the pieces of brightly-coloured paper that covered the table-cloth and floor, and that really looked a great deal too pretty to burn. “That’s generally what it is. But what’s the good of guessing when you’ll know in a minute? Come along and pull, I’m waiting.”

Peggy shut her eyes, and putting one hand over her ear—she was always uncomfortably startled by the bang—pulled hard with the other.

The thing inside immediately flew through the air, and rolled away under the toy cupboard. And Peggy followed as far as she could, lying flat on the floor and peering under. Then—“O Nannie, it sparkles!” she cried excitedly. “I do believe it’s a beautiful ring! I can see it quite plainly. Yes, it is. It’s a gold ring with a great big green stone in it! There, I’ve got it! O Nannie, look how it sparkles!”

“A bit of tin and glass,” said Nurse examining it and dropping it on the table. “What they want to put such rubbish in for passes my understanding! You can’t play with it, and it’ll only get left about. Now come and look at the paper blazing,” and she swept all the ends of the crackers into the fire.

Peggy was terrified that her ring would follow too, and she began in a great hurry to put it on all her fingers in turn to see which it would fit.

“It won’t fit any of them except my fum,” she remarked. “But just look how well it fits my fum!” and she waved her left hand to and fro proudly.

“You can’t wear a ring at your age,” said Nurse decidedly, “and no one ever wears them on their thumbs, as you very well know. Oh dear, your hair ribbon’s coming right off, as usual! Come here whilst I tie it on again.”

[7]“Just look how it sparkles!” repeated Peggy, stroking the green stone admiringly. And it certainly did. A bright green light spread from it all over that part of the nursery, just like the light in a beech wood in spring, when the sun is shining through the leaves; and it coloured and played over Nurse’s face and the cupboard and the roses on the wall-paper. “Do look, Nannie,” cried the child, “now the fireplace is green!”

“Very pretty,” said Nurse absentmindedly, not looking up as she brushed Peggy’s curls. “What a tangle your hair’s in, to be sure! Now I think I’ll take off this clean frock and put on your brown holland so that you can have a good game with all your toys out at once, as it’s your birthday.”

“Aren’t you going to play with me, too?” asked Peggy rather wistfully.

“I can’t,” said Nurse. “I’ve some letters to write, and post goes in half an hour—when it’ll be your bedtime. Grown-ups can’t spend all their time playing with little girls, you know. Here, slip your frock off and stay by the fire, whilst I fetch in your other,” and she bustled off into the night-nursery.

“I wish I was grown up,” said Peggy, twirling the ring round and round her thumb and staring into the fire. “Then I should drink strong tea, and eat birthday cake downstairs every day if I liked, and wear grand hats with fevvers in them!”

“I’m ready whenever you are,” said a voice behind her.

Peggy turned round quickly, and then nearly jumped out of her skin with astonishment.

For behind her, on the other side of the table, stood a Giant!

Peggy knew in a moment that he was a real Giant,[8] because he was the living image of the one on page 375 of the Blue Fairy Book, but instead of looking cross like that one does, he had a nice wide smile, and the kindest round twinkly blue eyes Peggy had ever seen. He was dressed all in brown, with bright scarlet stockings, his hair was thick and long, and so was his beard, and the nursery was so much too low for him that he had to bend nearly double, his great shoulders sending a cloud of plaster off the ceiling every time he moved. In one huge hand he held a cup of very black-looking tea, and in the other a bit of birthday cake with sugar on it and almond paste and little silver beads.

“You are a tall kind!” gasped Peggy, staring up at him. “I—I don’t think Nannie will be at all pleased!” and she glanced fearfully through the half-open door into the night-nursery.

“I know, that’s why I spoke,” said the Giant, sitting down on the floor and stretching himself—one foot went right out of the window in the process, and the other up the chimney, but he looked much more comfortable. The cup of tea and the cake he put carefully down by his side. “You rubbed the ring and wished, you know. How do you like your dress?”

Peggy looked down at herself and discovered she was wearing a striped white and yellow silk gown falling in heavy folds to the ground, and very high-waisted. On her arm was hanging, by its ribbon, a large white poke-bonnet, wreathed entirely around with a curling yellow feather.

“What are these things?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Why, you wished to be grown up, didn’t you?” said the Giant. “And you are. Or, at least, that’s the best I can do for you. But I’m a bit out of practice I know,” and he gazed with a rather disheartened air at the bonnet.

“I don’t know what Nannie will say,” said Peggy[9] uneasily. (She hadn’t the heart to tell the Giant that he hadn’t made her in the least the kind of grown-up she wanted to be.) “She never likes me dressing up!”

“Well then, wish about it,” said the Giant. “Say, ‘I wish Nurse to stay away half an hour.’ Hurry up, she’s coming.”

“I wish Nurse to stay away half an hour,” said Peggy obediently. “But what’s the good of that?” she added. “Here she is,” and so she was.

She came through the door hurriedly, with the frock in her hand, and when she saw the Giant she jumped right up high into the air, and then she sat down on the floor with a flop.

“Who is this, Miss Peggy?” she asked in an awful voice.

“Dear me!” said the Giant, struggling to his feet and knocking over the Rocking-Horse and three chairs in his hurry. “What can have gone wrong? The spells don’t work as they used to!” He looked at Nurse nervously; then—“You must stick to me,” he whispered hoarsely to Peggy, stepping back on the cup and saucer and grinding them to powder with his heel.

CHAPTER II DISAPPEARING

“He’s—he’s a friend of mine!” said Peggy bravely. She suddenly felt very sorry for the Giant, for though he was so extremely big he seemed somehow now just like a helpless baby. “He’s come to tea, Nannie, because it’s my birfday.” (Peggy still talked baby language when she got excited.)[10] “And he’s brought a lovely bit of cake like you said people had before the War,” she went on, pressing the ring tightly, and wondering when Nurse would speak. But the unfortunate woman continued to sit on the floor, glaring wildly at the Giant, and opening and shutting her mouth without a sound coming out of it.

“Oh dear, I wish something would happen,” at last came from Peggy desperately.

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she felt the Giant tuck her under his arm and walk straight out of the window with her!

They went right over the garden and fields, the Giant striding along through the air with the greatest ease, and at such a pace that often the birds they met had no time to fly out of their way, and flew full tilt against them.

“Phew! that was a narrow shave!” said the Giant, stepping down at last into the middle of a great wood. He put Peggy down on some soft green moss, and leant against an oak tree, panting. “And after all, we left the tea and cake behind!” he added.

Peggy looked up at him. His head was right up above the branches, but she could see his long brown beard among the twigs.

“You squashed them both with your foot,” she said plaintively. “And I don’t understand anyfing! Why did you come at all? Though I like you very much,” she continued quickly. And indeed she had, from the very first moment. For he had such a kind face—though it was not what you would call a clever one exactly—and he was so different from every one else, and looked as though he would play games nicely.

“I came because you wished,” said the Giant. “That’s a Fairy Ring, that is. But it’s not once in a hundred years[11] any children find it—or, when they do, think of putting it on their thumb and wishing. By the way, where was it this time?”

“In a cracker,” said Peggy.

“Ah, I know those crackers,” said the Giant. “One Fairy one to ten million common ones is the average. Let me congratulate you! You’ll be allowed six visits from me, and six wishes each time, before the Ring disappears again. Very liberal, I call it.”

“Do you mean you can let me have everything I wish for, like what happens in the Fairy stories?” asked Peggy in a state of great excitement, and she began to jump about in a very un-grown-up way. “Oh, I wish—I wish this tree was made of chocolate!” she screamed. (You must remember she was rather over-excited, as it was her birthday.)

The Giant immediately handed her down a chocolate cream from one of the boughs; and Peggy noticed a bright shade of brown creeping all over the trunk and branches.

“Wish number three gone,” said the Giant with a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness, that wasn’t difficult. But I’m sorry to tell you I’ve grown rusty, very rusty indeed! It’s so many years since I’ve had anything of this sort to do, that I’ve forgotten how to manage the simplest things.” He sighed deeply till the branches clashed together over Peggy’s head. “I can see by your eye,” he went on gloomily, “that there’s something not quite up to date enough about your dress. And you must have noticed in the nursery that I’d quite forgotten how to disappear quickly. I shall lose my nerve at this rate, I know I shall!” and a large tear dropped at Peggy’s feet.

“Oh, no, you won’t!” said Peggy, putting her arms as far round one of his ankles as they would go, and hugging it. (The chocolate cream had been delicious, and she was in very[12] good spirits.) “I’d have hated you to disappear without me just now! Nannie would have been angry anyhow at my dress—and you managed beautifully after! But you shall practise disappearing now if you want to. We’ve lots of time, haven’t we? Go on. Try.”

So the Giant tried and tried—and then he rested—and then he tried and tried again, but it wasn’t the slightest good; he remained just as big and brown and there as ever. At last, with a stupendous effort, he almost succeeded, though he still showed a bit where the sun shone down against the trunk, whilst one of his huge boots remained quite visible, standing forlornly on the grass beside Peggy.

“It’s no good,” he remarked, reappearing again with startling suddenness. “There, I’m back again, you see, and I didn’t mean to be. Do use one of your wishes on it! Perhaps if I’d only disappeared once in the proper way, I should get into the hang of it all again. You’d better turn the Ring besides wishing, to make it more certain.”

Peggy did so, giving the Ring an extra turn in her zeal, and the Giant rolled completely up, and disappeared in a twinkling, to her great satisfaction. “That was splendid!” she cried. “You see it was quite easy! Now come back and do it again by yourself”—but the Giant didn’t answer at all.

A little cold wind blew right through the wood and rustled all the chocolate oak leaves above Peggy’s head, and a squirrel up in the branches threw a chocolate cream down on her, and then another, and they both squashed on her striped silk dress. Peggy was not easily frightened, but it all felt very lonely and queer, particularly as she didn’t know in the least where she was. She jumped to her feet and began running about the wood, shouting for the Giant as loudly as she could.

[13]It was only when she had been doing this for quite a long time, and getting no answer at all, that she remembered that she had not wished or turned the Ring. She at once did both, and, “Don’t tread on me for goodness’ sake!” said a squeaky voice near her foot.

Peggy looked down, and there amongst the leaves stood a tiny little figure reaching no higher than her instep. It was only when she had picked him up and peered closely into his face that she recognised the features of the Giant, distorted with rage.

“Oh dear,” she cried, “what has happened?”

“You should learn to manage your Ring better, before you treat me like this!” said the tiny Giant in an exceedingly cross voice. “Put me on a blade of grass at once, please,—thank you. I don’t like being held round the middle like that. Why did you turn the Ring more than once? I’ve never disappeared so uncomfortably fast before. And now look at the size I am! This is all I can manage after such a shock!”

“Well, it’s not my fault,” said Peggy with some spirit. “You ought to know the Ring better than I do. I only did what you told me!”

“I have got a broad outline of how the thing should be run,” said the Giant. “But I can’t fill in the details. You will have to learn by experience, I suppose.”

“What grand words you use,” said Peggy respectfully, but the Giant didn’t look mollified at all.

“Now we’ve used up the five wishes (not counting the failure) so you’d better wish yourself back in the nursery,” he said. “I don’t see that you’ve had much fun, and I know I haven’t. Goodness knows how I shall get back to my house!”

“Oh, but I want to do lots more,” said Peggy. “I[14] haven’t played at being grown up at all yet, and I haven’t had any more chocolates!”

“Never mind, there’s no time left—wish yourself home,” said the Giant. “Quick, now!”

He sounded so like Nurse at her crossest that Peggy hurriedly obeyed,—and the next instant she found herself standing alone in the nursery in her petticoat, and in the act of putting her ring into the toy cupboard.

“You must be cold!” said Nurse, coming in. “I thought I’d never find your old frock, and leaning over the drawer made me feel quite faint-like! There! now have a nice game with your dolls,” and she bustled over to draw the curtain.

“All the same I wish he hadn’t seemed so cross,” said Peggy to her Golliwog. “The only really nice part was the chocolate cream.”

“What are you grumbling about?” asked Nurse. “A chocolate cream, indeed, at this time of night! I think, if you ask me, that it’s time all little girls were in bed!” (She was that sort of Nurse.)

“All right,” said Peggy, jumping up at once. She even began to unbutton her frock and pull off her hair ribbon to Nurse’s great surprise; who, of course, couldn’t know that all Peggy wanted was for the next day to come quickly, so that she could see the Giant again.

“We’ll really find out the right way to manage the wishing to-morrow,” she thought as she cuddled down into bed. “It isn’t the dear old Giant’s fault if he’s forgotten things a little bit. It was really very clever of him to think of that dress at all! It’s the sort great-great-grandmother is wearing in the picture in the hall. Perhaps she was one of the little girls he played with. Fancy him remembering all that time ago, clever old thing!” She turned her head[15] and stared up at the ceiling, all golden with the firelight, and crossed with black crinkly bars from the reflection of the guard. “All the same I wish he hadn’t looked so cross,” she murmured, as she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III A DAISY FIELD

Peggy sat curled up on the big window seat in the nursery reading Mary’s Meadow. At least, you couldn’t call it exactly reading, but mother had read out bits to her so often that she could remember most of them by heart.

Nurse was down in the kitchen talking to Cook; and the rain was pelting against the window-panes and the wind was blowing the trees all sideways and flattening down the plants in the garden, and screaming round and round the house trying to get in and blow Peggy about too.

Her little fat fingers moved along below the words as she read to herself in a slow whisper:

“We went there for flow-ers; we went there for mush-rooms and puff-balls; we went there to hear the night-in-gale.”

Peggy stopped, and looked out at the driving rain with a little sigh. “I wish I had a meadow of my very own!” she thought. And then she suddenly saw a bright green light coming from the cupboard in front of her, and at the same moment the Ring flew right through the wooden door, and straight on to her thumb!

Peggy gave a little shout of delight.

“I wish I was in my meadow with my Giant,” she cried[16] as fast as she could, for she heard Nurse’s step on the stairs. “And picking daisies, please,” she added, turning the Ring round, and rubbing it too, so as to make quite certain lots would happen.

“I’m perfectly delighted with this effect. My powers are returning, it seems!” said the Giant, speaking in his grandest though tiniest voice.

Peggy rubbed her eyes and tried to open them wide, but the sunshine was so dazzling that for a few seconds she was quite blinded by it.

Then she saw that she was in a great big green field, edged all round with a tall green hedge; and growing amongst the grass in the field were flowers, shaped like daisies of every kind and colour, big ones, little ones, tall ones, short ones, white, blue, pink, red, yellow, and purple ones, and even some of colours Peggy had only thought about sometimes but knew no name for. And the most lovely scent—a sort of mixture of honey and roses and pansies—came up from the whole field.

Peggy sat down amongst the flowers, clapping her hands. This was something like a wish! But where was the Giant?

“May I really pick a bunch?” she asked, looking towards the place where she thought his voice had come from.

“Yes, only be very careful of me!” said the Giant, and Peggy felt something tickling her hand.

She looked down and saw the Giant.

He was still very tiny, and was balancing on the yellow centre of a scarlet daisy, and reaching up to prick her hand with a bit of tasselled grass. He had a most roguish and[17] good-tempered expression on his little fat face, and the sun shone down on his curly beard till it made it look quite golden.