Half-Past Seven Stories Part 29

"A card trick?" asked Marmaduke in turn, rather hoping it was.

The Giant laughed and looked down at his fingers. Each one was as big as a thick flagpole thirty feet long.

"What would these fingers be doing, playing cards?" he said. "Pshaw! I couldn't play even Old Maid--or Casino."

"I'll show you how," said Marmaduke eagerly, and the Giant put him on a shelf of the Earth close to his head. Then Marmaduke took from his pocket a little pack of cards and shuffled them. He explained the rules very carefully--Old Maid it was--and then dealt them to Ping Pong, Sing Song and Ah See, for they joined in the game, and to the Giant. In those thirty-foot fingers the tiny cards looked like little bits of pink confetti. The Giant seemed to like the game, but Marmaduke beat the three little Chinamen, and the Giant, too, for all he was so big.

They had finished the second hand, when the Giant looked at his furnace.

"There, that's what I get for loafin'," he said, "my furnace is 'most out."

After he had thrown about a thousand shovelfuls or so on the fire, which must have taken him all of five minutes, the Giant turned to Marmaduke.

"I haven't shown you _my_ trick," he said, "how would you like to see me make a volcano blow up?"

Marmaduke was a little frightened, but it was too good a chance to miss.

"Yes, thank you," he replied, "that would be rather nice."

"Well, sir, watch then."

And the Giant raised his hands to his mouth and shouted at the little gnomes:--

"Hurry, more coal now--make it snappy!"

And the gnomes ran back and forth from the coal-piles to the tunnels, trundling their wheelbarrows, until their legs twinkled under them as fast as the little lights in their foreheads.

Soon the coal-pile was as high as a black mountain, and the Giant began to shovel, shovel away, throwing the coal into the mouth of the furnace which was as high as the Woolworth Tower. Then he closed the door and watched.

The flames began to leap, and the steam began to hiss, and soon the great furnace began to shake all over with the steam imprisoned inside, just like a man with chills and fever. Then all-of-a-sudden, from somewhere above them on the outside of the Earth, they heard a great roar.

"There goes old Vesuvius," said the Giant.

There was another great roar.

"And there's Aetna and Cotopaxi," he added, "now for Old Chimborazo!"

Marmaduke remembered enough of his geography to know that the Giant was calling off the names of the great volcanoes of the world. It was indeed very thrilling! But he really had hardly time to think, for he had to hold on so tight to the rope hair of the Giant's beard; and if the three little Chinamen hadn't kept tight hold, too, of their flatirons, they would have been blown to the ceiling of the pit, the furnace and the whole place shook so. As it was they were tossed head over heels, their feet flying in the air, but their hands held on to the flatirons like s.h.i.+ps to their anchors, and they were saved.

The Giant turned to Marmaduke.

"Have you the time?" he asked, "I've broken the watch my grandfather gave me."

Marmaduke took out his little Ingersoll with one hand, meanwhile holding on with the other to the beard.

"It's just twelve," he informed the Giant.

"Noon again--my, how Time does fly!" the Giant exclaimed. "It seems as if yesterday were the _first_ noon, and yet that was a couple of million years ago. But we've had only six volcanoes. We must have six more for a noon whistle, so the little gnomes will know it's time for lunch."

There were six more gigantic explosions up on the outside of the earth, then the little gnomes all stopped work, turned up their wheelbarrows, sat down on them in tailor-fas.h.i.+on, took out their lunch-pails, and began to eat. Then the three little Chinamen perched on their irons and took out some bowls and chopsticks. It made the Giant laugh to see their funny antics.

"Ho! ho!" exclaimed he, but he turned away his head in another direction before he laughed.

"I'm laughing in _that_ direction," he explained, "because there's a city full of wicked people up there, on the Earth outside.

When I laugh, it's an Earthquake, you see, and I don't want to shake up the good people. Now"--he pointed in another direction--"the town of Five Corners is up about there. You wouldn't want me to try an Earthquake on _it_, would you?"

Marmaduke thought this was very kind and considerate of the Giant, to try to spare the people in the town where he went to buy candy and to see circuses and things. Then he had an idea.

"Couldn't you shake up the ground a mile or two west of that--see," he pointed his finger at the roof of the pit, "about there. That's where Fatty lives, over near Wally's Creek, and it would do him good to be shaken up by a earthquake--just a little one."

"All right," replied the Giant, "I can accommodate you. But you're running a risk. I might kill your friend Fatty."

"He isn't any friend of mine," Marmaduke interrupted--then he thought for a moment. After all he didn't really want Fatty killed. He guessed he'd better not take a chance.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "after all, I 'spose you'd better not try it."

"All right," the Giant answered, "just as you say. But have you had any lunch?"

At that question Marmaduke suddenly felt rather faint, and he watched the Giant hungrily, as he took out of an oven in the furnace a dozen steers, roasted whole, and ten loaves of bread, each as big as a house.

It didn't take many gulps for the Giant to swallow the whole lot, but first he very kindly handed a few crumbs of bread to Marmaduke up on his shoulder. At least the Giant thought they were crumbs, but they were really as big as loaves of bread Mother made. And the little slivers of roasted steer which the Giant reached up to him were as big as whole steaks. So Marmaduke's hunger was soon satisfied, and, for once in his life, Wienerwurst's, too.

He wanted to stay a little longer, to talk with the big Giant and ask him questions, but, looking down, he saw the three little Chinamen making odd gestures and beckoning to him with their long fingernails.

"We must hully, quickillilly," they said, which, of course, meant, as you should know, that they had to hurry quickly, or it would be dark before they reached China.

He told his troubles to the Giant, who said he "didn't see what anyone wanted to see that heathen land for," but nevertheless he lifted the little boy down, hundreds of feet to the ground, and Marmaduke curled up on his iron, and the three little yellow men curled up on theirs, while Wienerwurst got down on his haunches; and they all said "goodbye" to the great Giant, and the little gnomes trundling their wheelbarrows, and the little twinkling lights in their foreheads.

On the other side of the furnace, the hole opened up again, and down it they scooted on their way to China. It was fortunate that the Giant had given Marmaduke something to eat, for it was a long trip.

There were many wonderful things there, but as you're all yawning, and we couldn't make sleepyheads understand, for that you'll have to wait till another night.

XV

THE PEPPERMINT PAG.o.dA

After Marmaduke and Wienerwurst, Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, had scooted down the long hole for a few thousand miles or so, they began to see light below them, a little circle of blue, just at the other end, on the other side of the world. When their long journey was over, they got up from their flatirons and stretched themselves, and Wienerwurst got up from his haunches and stretched himself. Then one by one they stuck their heads out of the bottom of the hole to take a look at China.

A very pretty country it was, yet quite strange. The strangest thing about it all was that now, though they were on the opposite side of the world from the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road, they weren't standing upside down. They could stand up straight, with their heads--not their feet--in the air, and look at the sun, at the bottom of the hole just as they did at the top, on the farm back home.

When all five had climbed out, they found that they were near a great wall. It was built of very old stones and was as wide as a road on top. Several horses could ride abreast on it.

A company of Chinese soldiers with guns and swords guarded the gate, and the three little Chinamen, Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, were afraid to enter with the American boy. The soldiers might have let Wienerwurst in because he was yellow like themselves, but Marmaduke was much too white.