did you ever hear the story of the giant with two heads, who chased a whale, and caught him by the tail, and tickled the terrible monster with a big, crooked hickory fence rail?
well, i’m not going to tell you a story about that giant, but about another, who had only one head, though it was a very large one, and this giant nearly scared papa no-tail, the frog gentleman, into a conniption fit, which is almost as bad as the epizootic.
it happened one day that there wasn’t any work for mr. no-tail to do at the wallpaper factory, where he dipped his feet in ink and hopped around to make funny black, and red, and green, and purple splotches, so they would turn out to be wallpaper patterns. the reason there was no work was because the pelican bird drank up all the ink in his big bill, so they couldn’t print any paper.
“i have a holiday,” said papa no-tail, as he hopped about, “and i am going to have a good time.”
“what are you going to do?” asked grandpa croaker as he started off across the pond to play checkers with uncle wiggily longears.
“i think i will take bully and bawly and go for a swim, and then we’ll take a hop through the woods and perhaps we may find an adventure,” answered mr. no-tail.
so he went up to the house, where bully and bawly, the two boy frogs, were just getting ready to go out roller skating, and mr. no-tail asked them if they didn’t want to come with him instead.
“indeed we do!” cried bully, as he winked both eyes at his brother, for he knew that when his papa took them out hopping, he used often to stop in a store and buy them peanuts or candy.
well, pretty soon, not so very long, in a little while, papa no-tail and the two boys got to the edge of the pond, and into the water they hopped to have a swim. my! i just wish you could have seen them. papa no-tail swam in ever so many different ways, and bully and bawly did as well as they could. and, would you believe me? just as bully was getting out of the water, up on the bank, ready to go hopping off with bawly and his papa through the woods, a big fish nearly grabbed the little frog boy by his left hind leg.
“oh my!” he cried, and his papa hopped over quickly to where bully was, and threw a stick at the bad fish to scare him away.
“ha! hum!” exclaimed mr. no-tail, “that was nearly an adventure, bully, but i don’t like that kind. come on into the woods, boys, and we’ll see what else we can find.”
so into the woods they went, where there were tall trees, and little trees, and bushes, and old stumps where owls lived. and the green leaves were just coming out nicely on the branches, and there were a few early may flowers peeping up from under the leaves and moss, just as baby peeps up at you, out from under the bedclothes in the morning when the sun awakens her.
“oh, isn’t it just lovely here in the woods!” cried bully.
“it is certainly very fine,” agreed bawly, and he looked up in the treetops, where johnnie and billie bushytail, the squirrels, were frisking about, and then down on the ground, where sammie and susie littletail, the rabbits, were sitting beside an old stump, in which there were no bad owls to scare them.
“now i think we’ll sit down here and eat our lunch,” said papa no-tail after a while, as they came to a nice little open place in the woods, where there was a large flat stump, which they could use as a table. so they opened the baskets of lunch that mamma no-tail had put up for them, and they were eating their watercress sandwiches, and talking of what they would do next, when, all of a sudden, they heard a most startling, tremendous and extraordinary noise in the bushes.
it was just as if an elephant were tramping along, and at first papa no-tail thought it might be one of those big beasts, or perhaps an alligator.
“keep quiet, boys,” he whispered, “and perhaps he won’t see us.” so they kept very quiet, and hid down behind the stump.
but the noise came nearer and nearer, and it sounded louder and louder, and, before you could spell “cat” or “rat,” out from under a big, tall tree stepped a big, tall giant. oh, he was a fearful looking fellow! his head was as big as a washtub full of clothes on a monday morning, and his legs were so long that i guess he could have hopped, skipped and jumped across the street in about three steps.
“oh, look!” whispered bully.
“oh, isn’t he terrible!” said bawly, softly.
“hush!” cautioned their papa. “please keep quiet and maybe he won’t see us.”
so they kept as quiet as they could, hoping the giant would pass by, but instead he came right over to the stump, and the first any one knew he had sat down on the top of it. i tell you it’s a good thing bully and bawly and their papa had hopped off or they would have been crushed flat. but they weren’t, i’m glad to say, for they were hiding down behind the stump, and they didn’t dare hop away for fear the giant would see, or hear them.
the big man sat on the stump, and he looked all about, and he saw some bread and watercress crumbs where bully and bawly and their papa had been eating their lunch.
“my!” exclaimed the giant. “some one has been having dinner here. oh, how hungry i am! i wish i had some dinner. i believe i could eat the hind legs of a dozen frogs if i had them!”
well, you should have seen poor bully and bawly tremble when they heard that.
“this must be a terrible giant,” said mr. no-tail. “now i tell you what i am going to do. bully, i will hide you and bawly in this hollow stump, and then i’ll hop out where the giant can see me. he’ll chase after me, but i’ll hop away as fast as i can, and perhaps i can get to some water and hide before he catches me. then he’ll be so far away from the stump that it will be safe for you boys to come out.”
well, bully and bawly didn’t want their papa to do that, fearing he would be hurt, but he said it was best, so they hid inside the stump, and out mr. no-tail hopped to where the giant could see him. papa no-tail expected the big man would chase after him, but instead the giant never moved and only looked at the frog and then he laughed and said:
“hello, mr. frog! let’s see you hop!” and then, what do you think that giant did? why he took off his head, which wasn’t real, being hollow and made of paper, like a false face, so that his own head went inside of it. and there he was only a nice, ordinary man after all.
“what! aren’t you a giant?” cried papa no-tail, who was so surprised that he hadn’t hopped a single hop.
“no,” said the man; “i am only a clown giant in a circus, but i ran away to-day so i could see the flowers in the woods. i was tired of being in the circus so much and doing funny tricks.”
“but—but—what makes you so tall?” asked mr. no-tail.
“oh, those are wooden stilts on my legs,” said the giant. “they make me as tall as a clothes post, these stilts do.”
and, surely enough, they did, being like wooden legs, and the man wasn’t a real giant at all, but very nice, like mr. no-tail, only different: and he left off his big hollow paper head, and bully and bawly came out of the stump, and the circus clown-giant, just like those you have seen, told the frog boys lots of funny stories. then they gave him some of their lunch and showed him where flowers grew. afterward the make-believe giant went back to the circus, much happier than he had been at first.
so that’s all now, if you please, but if the rose bush in our back yard doesn’t come into the house and scratch the frosting off the chocolate cake i’ll tell you next about bawly and the church steeple.
