Mary D. Maitland Kelly

“ 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. ”

“ Nannie always lifts me out of bed when I won’t wake up. I only wish she was here to do it to him!”
And then she could have bitten her tongue out, for the butterflies suddenly wheeled round and flew away in a great cloud, and “He is a heavy weight, Miss Peggy,” said Nurse, appearing on the other side of the hedge, her face very red and hot. “But I’ll manage it in a moment. Now then, up with you! There he is, great heavy thing! He ought to be ashamed of himself, the big baby!” ”

“ Peggy slid off her branch and flew to the Giant, perching on his shoulder and stroking his hair.
“I’ll take care of you,” she said, “if they do come. Don’t you be afraid! He’ll be all right, won’t he?” she added, turning to the Fairies.
But they were not listening.
They had all flown to the tops of their trees and were balancing on the topmost branches, bending forward and listening intently. For there was a soft humming, grumbling, hissing, bleating, gurgling sound coming from somewhere very far away!
“That’s the Ogres,” said Nurse, looking very grave—and the sound got a tiny bit louder. ”

“ It’s all your fault for saying ‘or something exciting’ after your wish. I forgot to tell you how very risky that was. Ah, thank you! That’s better,” for Peggy had wished, and the Giraffe at once quieted down into a walk—in fact into such a slow walk that it almost might have been called standing still.
“Get on!” said Peggy, digging her heels into the Giraffe’s back—but he went slower and slower still.
“Oh dear, you’ll have to get off and push, I’m afraid,” she said to the Giant. “We shall never get anywhere at all if you don’t. I’m not going to waste another wish on the horrid old thing!” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Instead of being grateful for having so many wishes at a time, you begin grumbling——”
“O Giant, darling, I didn’t mean to grumble!” cried Peggy. “I was only wondering. But I won’t ask any more questions, I promise you, if you’ll only think of some lovely exciting adventure for to-day. You think of such beautiful things always,” she added.
“Oh, that’s all very well!” said the Giant, but his voice sounded rather pleased. “Well now, let me see. This takes some thinking. What was it that that child and I did in 1350 or thereabouts? Oh yes, I remember. She wished all her toys to come alive. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ THE SLEEPY GIANT
“Poor Giant,” said little Peggy, climbing up the hedge to look down at his round, good-tempered face, and wide-open mouth. “Sometimes he talks so grandly, but he’s not a bit grand really. I’ll let him stay asleep for a nice long time whilst I pick a huge, big bunch to send Mummie,” and she jumped down into the field again. ”

“ If they do see you, you’ve only got to wish yourself invisible too.”
The noise had now changed to the rattling kind that a million luggage trains would make if they were all driven along in a row at once, and Peggy could hear tree after tree crashing to the ground. She had only just time to wish, and see the Giant disappear completely, when a great red creature plunged down through the branches above into the open space in front of the Fairies, and fell on his side, quite close to Peggy’s tree, lashing his tail and panting like a dog. ”

“ Peggy hadn’t much minded until now. Nurse had petted her all day and given her little bits of buttered toast at tea with apricot jam on them, and then had let the housemaid come up and play dominoes with her until bedtime, and now she had tucked her up warmly in bed with a hot-water bottle and told her to go to sleep quickly, so that she should be quite well before Mother came home the next day.
But go to sleep was just what Peggy couldn’t do. For one thing, thinking of Mother coming back was enough to make her keep wanting to jump out of bed and dance all over the room. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Peggy soon got quite good at half fluttering, half balancing along the branches like the others were doing, and trying each different sweet by turn.
(I’m afraid this sounds rather a greedy adventure of Peggy’s, but it wasn’t really, as it happened in Fairy-land, and there were enough sweets for everyone, and no one felt sick when they’d eaten too many.)
She had just bitten a pink sugar rabbit in half, and found it tasted just like meringues, when she remembered the Giant.
“Oh dear,” she cried, “where is the Giant? I’d quite forgotten him!” ”

“ You see the Ring, don’t you? Peggy quite forgot about the Giant’s red stockings till the picture was finished!
“We cant, I tell you!” cried Peggy, losing all patience. “Come up and look for yourself! Come on, climb on to the Giant’s boot!” For by this time the Giant had given up trying to hide himself, and was sitting on the car with his legs dangling into space, and looking the picture of misery.
“Stretch your foot down a little more,” said Peggy to him. “There,” as it dangled just above the Mayor’s head, “now jump this instant!” ”

“ Peggy didn’t mean to do another picture of the fifth Adventure, but Mother particularly wanted one of the Pixies, so she had to do this, as the Ball-room one was too difficult to do. The Pixies are just shouting out, “This is Mazing, this is!” and Peggy is trying to catch two of them. You can see how tired and giddy the Giant must have got with wandering about amongst so many Snowmen. He is just wiping his face with his red handkerchief. Peggy made herself so very ugly by mistake, and didn’t know how to change it.
“Do try to remember as we go what ‘Mazing’ means,” said Peggy. “I wish I knew. ”

“ Peggy is up above peeping from behind the tree. She wanted to draw the Ogres too, but there wasn’t any room. Mother only helped her with some of the branches, everything else she did by herself, and the Fairies took ages to do. They are sitting on the boughs eating the sugar animals and birds. It made the Dragon furious to see they weren’t afraid of him a bit. Those long things on the ground are the trees he knocked down, and the bits of red are the fires he started with his red-hot paws. The Giant is invisible sitting on the grass, just behind the Dragon’s tongue. ”

“ Peggy drew the frock very carefully, spreading it out flat on the floor to get it exactly right. Mother helped her with the Giant’s knee, and with the table. All the rest she did herself. She knows Nurse is too small, but she was too busy getting her surprised enough to remember to make her bigger. Peggy is behind the Giant wondering what to say. The little round things near the Giant’s foot are the broken bits of the cup and saucer, and the black dots are the currants in the cake. The curls in the Giant’s beard were the most fun to do. ”

“ You can’t expect to be found if you act like that. Now—not another word——”
“I’m afraid the Giant’s dreadfully lost this time!” thought Peggy, as she washed her hands for tea. “I don’t fink I was very kind to him! I do wonder if the fat lady minded the big hole in the car, and the wheel being lost. Oh, but I suppose that all comes right again, just as she forgets that the Giant sat her down in the drive! It would be lovely to tell Nannie that I’d driven a Mayor up a rainbow in a real motor car! But it’s no good trying to, she doesn’t understand the sensiblest things.” ”

“ It spoils all the fun.”
“The thing that puzzles me,” said Peggy, looking at her Ring as it gleamed and sparkled in that dark place, “is how much the Ring does, and how much you do? And why sometimes it doesn’t work till it’s turned, and why you can’t always bring me back without my having to use up a wish, and where you live when you’re not here, and——”
“Well, of all the inquisitive children you absolutely take the cake!” said the Giant. “I don’t think I’ve been asked so many questions for the last five hundred years at least. ”

“ The butterflies flew round her in hundreds and allowed her to stroke their soft red and blue and yellow wings, and when she suggested a game of hide-and-seek they were all delighted, and fluttered round in such quantities that she could scarcely breathe. ”

“ PEGGY DRIVES A CAR
“What’s that whizzing, Nurse?” asked Peggy, as she was picking a bunch of double snowdrops in the garden the next afternoon.
“A motor, I expect,” said Nurse, who was talking to the gardener—and she ran to peep down the drive through the bushes. “Callers, I’ll be bound. Yes, here it comes, a big red car. There’s a fat lady in behind, and a girl chauffeur driving it.” ”

“ It wouldn’t do to look dowdy.”
“But what do Flitting, Mazing, and Wending mean?” asked Peggy, looking at the invitation again.
“Well, Flitting is flying round one after the other at the very top of the caves and copying everything the front Pixie does,” said the Giant, “and the one who goes on longest gets a prize. It’s tiring, but exciting; a sort of Follow-my-Leader, only a better game. And Wending is dancing up and down the Unexplored Passages and seeing who can pick up most diamonds first. They only have it at the very grandest parties. And Mazing is—now, what is Mazing? ”

“ Suddenly she noticed that all the people they passed were beginning to behave in the most extraordinary manner, some of them racing away down side streets, screaming, others beginning to chase the car and shout at the top of their voices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The rocking-horse got off his rockers, and was put in a real stable, and given real hay to eat; and the dolls’ house [62] was put alongside a real house and had a creeper trained up it, and instead of the whole of the front wall having to be undone before people could get in, the little brown door opened and shut just like one in a real house does.
As for the tops and ninepins, dominoes and other small fry, they just spun and hopped up and down the road and in and out of the houses, not really playing at anything, but enjoying it all as much as anyone. ”

“ This is Peggy’s own drawing of what happened in the first Adventure of the Ring. Everyone is very frightened in it. Nurse has just sat down on seeing the Giant, and has dropped Peggy’s brown holland frock behind her. ”

“ The next moment she was sitting among the flowers, once more her proper size, with the Giant, once more his proper size too, standing by her.
“And now, may I begin to pick a bunch for Mummie?” she asked.
“Certainly,” said the Giant. “There’s no one to stop [19] you; they’re all your own.” He sat down on a hedge near by, which immediately sank with his weight, the trees that grew on it toppling down in all directions. ”

“ And you’ve got that Ring on your thumb again, I do declare! Mother wouldn’t like it at all, nasty common thing.”
“Oh, mayn’t I wear it sometimes, Nannie?” Peggy pleaded. “I know Mummie wouldn’t mind. She always lets me wear the bead necklaces I make.” ”