The Pumpkin Giant, Part 2

As I said yesterday, I loved this book so much--I discovered it in our library ramblings when my children were very young, and we used to check out as many as 30 books at a time--that my daughters hunted down a copy for me.




















Well, a few years later, my sister--artist that she is--made a plate out of the book for me.

It's SOOO Wonderful!!! I love it. She had to figure out how to merge some of Trina Schart Hyman's drawings and choose the coloring, because the original book is only in black, white, and orange. It made me cry when she gave it to me several years ago--a great Christmas memory.

The Pumpkin Giant, continued

But when some time had elapsed and nothing more of the Giants appeared above the surface of the potato field, and as moreover the heads had not yet displayed any sign of opening their mouths, the people began to feel a little easier, and the general excitement subsided somewhat, although the King had ordered out Ariadne Diana's bodyguard again.

Now AEneas had been born with a propensity for putting everything in his mouth and tasting it; there was scarcely anything in his vicinity which could by any possibility be tasted, which he had not eaten a bit of. This propensity was so alarming in his babyhood, that Daphne purchased a book of antidotes; and if it had not been for her admirable good judgment in doing so, this story would probably never have been told; for no human baby could possibly have survived the heterogeneous diet which AEneas had indulged in. There was scarcely one of the antidotes which had not been resorted to from time to time.

AEneas had become acquainted with the peculiar flavor of almost everything in his immediate vicinity, except the Giants' heads; and he naturally enough cast longing eyes at them. Night and day he wondered what a Giant's head could taste like, till finally one day when Patroclus was away he stole out into the potato field, cut a bit out of one of the Giants' heads and ate it. He was almost afraid to, but he reflected that his mother could give him an antidote; so he ventured. It tasted very sweet and nice; he liked it so much that he cut off another piece and ate that, then another and another, until he had eaten two thirds of a Giant's head. Then he thought it was about time for him to go in and tell his mother and take an antidote, though he did not feel ill at all yet.

"Mother," said he, rolling slowly into the cottage, ''I have eaten two thirds of a Giant's head, and I guess you had better give me an antidote."

"O my precious son!" cried Daphne, "how could you?" She looked in her book of antidotes, but could not find one antidote for a Giant's head.

"O AEneas, my dear, dear son!" groaned Daphne, "there is no antidote for Giant's head! What shall we do ?"

Then she sat down and wept, and AEneas wept too as loud as he possibly could. And he apparently had excellent reason to; for it did not seem possible that a boy could eat two thirds of a Giant's head and survive it without an antidote. Patroclus came home, and they told him, and he sat down and lamented with them. All day they sat weeping and watching AEneas, expecting every moment to see him die. But he did not die; on the contrary he had never felt so well in his life.

Finally at sunset AEneas looked up and laughed. ''I am not going to die," said he; ''I never felt so well; you had better stop crying. And I am going out to get some more of that Giant's head! I am hungry."

"Don't, don't!" cried his father and mother, but he went, for he generally took his own way, very like most only sons. He came back with a whole Giant's head in his arms.

"See here, Father and Mother " cried he, "we'll all have some of this, it evidently is not poison, and it is good--a great deal better than potatoes!"

Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were hungry, too. Since the crop of Giants' heads had sprung up in their field instead of potatoes, thy had been hungry most of the time, so they tasted.

"It is good," said Daphne, "but I think it would be better cooked." So she put some in a kettle of water over the fire, and let it boil awhile, then she dished it up, and they all ate it. It was delicious. It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything else, in fact it was stewed pumpkin.

Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius; and next day she concocted another dish out of the Giants' heads. She boiled them, and sifted them, and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and spice; then she lined some plate with puff paste, filled them with the mixture, and set them in the oven to bake.

The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite had ever been tasted. They were all in ecstasies, Aeneas in particular. They gathered all the Giants' heads and stored them in the cellar. Daphne baked pies of them every day, and nothing could surpass the felicity of the whole family.

One morning the King had been out hunting and happened to ride by the cottage of Patroclus with a train of his knights. Daphne was baking pies as usual, and the kitchen door and window were both open, for the room was so warm; so the delicious odor of the pies perfumed the whole air about the cottage.

What is it that smells so utterly lovely?" Cried the King, sniffing in a rapture.

He sent his page to see.

"The housewife is baking Giants' head pies," said the page returning.

"What?" thundered the King. "Bring out one to me!"

So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all his knights had tasted to be sure it was not poison, and the king had watched them sharply for a few moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted, too.

Then he beamed. It was a new sensation, and a new sensation is a great boon to a king.

"I never tasted anything so altogether superfine, so utterly magnificent in my life," cried the king; "stewed peacocks' tongues from the Baltic are not to be compared with it! Call out the housewife immediately!"

So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and Aeneas came also.

"What a charming lad!" exclaimed the King, as his glance fell upon Aeneas. "Now tell me about these wonderful pies, and I will reward you as becomes a monarch!"

Then Patroclus fell on his knees and related the whole history of the Giants' head pies from the beginning.

The King actually blushed. "And I forgot to knight you, a noble and brave man, and to make a lady of your admirable wife!"

Then the King leaned gracefully down from his saddle, and struck Patroclus with his jeweled sword and knighted him on the spot.

The whole family went to live at the royal palace. The roses in the royal gardens were uprooted, and Giants' heads (or pumpkins, as they came to be called) were sown in their stead; all the royal parks also were turned into pumpkin fields.

Patroclus was in constant attendance on the King and used to stand all day in his antechamber. Daphne had a position of great responsibility, for she superintended the baking of the pumpkin pies, and Aeneas finally married the Princess Ariadne Diana.

They were wedded in great state by fifty archbishops; and all the newspapers united in stating that they were the most charming and well-matched young couple that had ever been united in the kingdom.

The stone entrance of the Pumpkin Giants' castle was securely fastened, and upon it was engraved an inscription composed by the first poet in the kingdom, for which the King made him laureate, and gave him the liberal pension of fifty pumpkin pies per year.

The following is the inscription in full:

"Here dwelt the Pumpkin Giant once;
He's dead, the nation doth rejoice,
For, while he was alive, he lived
By e----g dear, fat, little boys."

The inscription is said to remain to this day, if you were to go there you would probably see it.


Happy October!