It frightens me sometimes." "Why should it frighten you ?" She gave me no answer.
"How old are you ?" I resumed.
"I do not know what you mean.

We are all just that." "How big will the baby grow ?" "I cannot tell .-- Some," she added, with a trouble in her voice, "begin to grow after we think they have stopped .-- That is a frightful thing.

We don't talk about it!" "What makes it frightful ?" She was silent for a moment, then answered, "We fear they may be beginning to grow giants." "Why should you fear that ?" "Because it is so terrible .-- I don't want to talk about it!" She pressed the baby to her bosom with such an anxious look that I dared not further question her.
Before long I began to perceive in two or three of the smaller children some traces of greed and selfishness, and noted that the bigger girls cast on these a not infrequent glance of anxiety.
None of them put a hand to my work: they would do nothing for the giants! But they never relaxed their loving ministrations to me.

They would sing to me, one after another, for hours; climb the tree to reach my mouth and pop fruit into it with their dainty little fingers; and they kept constant watch against the approach of a giant.
Sometimes they would sit and tell me stories--mostly very childish, and often seeming to mean hardly anything.

Now and then they would call a general assembly to amuse me.