Why Did The Giant Laugh?
Why Did The Giant Laugh?
There was once a kind-hearted giant called Whopping. He was just like his name, simply enormous, with a great big head, long, strong arms, and legs that could stride miles without getting tried.
He was a good-natured creature, and most people liked him. He was gardener to the Lord High Chamberlain of Brownieland, and a very good one he made too, for he could dig twice as fast and twice as much as ten men at once! He could sweep up leaves in a second with his enormous broom, and could carry great loads of bricks or earth in his big barrow. The other gardeners did the planting and the weeding, for Whopping's hands were too big things.
Now one day, as he was going home wheeling his big barrow, whom did he see but Mr Dunce and his wife, walking slowly along the road each carrying a heavy sack, full of carrots and onions for soup.
They had been a long way and they were tired. Whopping felt sorry for them. They lived next door to him, and by the time they reached home he would have had his meal, read his paper, undress and gone to bed! But then, his long legs took him twice as fast over the fields as Mr Dunce's thin ones and his wife's little fat ones.
The kind-hearted giant stopped and called to the tried couple.
Hi!' he called. 'Hi, Mr Dunce and Mrs Dunce! Want a lift?'
'Oh, thank you,' said Mr Dunce, looking round. 'But what in?'
'My big wheelbarrow, of course,' said whopping, laughing. 'It's quite clean, and I can easily take you both. We'll be home in no time!'
'Well, thank you very much,' said Mr and Mrs Dunce. They climbed into the wheelbarrow and sat down side by side. 'We do hope we shan't be too heavy for you.'
'Not a bir, not a bit!' said Whopping. Mr Dunce whispered something to his wife, and they both solemnly lifted up their sacks of onions and carrots and put them on their shoulders.
'What do you want to do that for?' asked whopping in surprise. 'Why don't you put your sacks beside you in the barrow? You don't want to be down under their weight all the way home.'
'Oh,' said Mr Dunce, 'we thought perhaps it would be too much for you, carrying us and our heavy sacks too. So I told my wife to put her sack on her shoulder and carry it herself, and I did the same with mine. Then, you see, you would only have us to carry, and not our sacks, too.'
Whopping listened and then he roared with laughter. How he laughed! Really, all the trees shook as if they were in a big wind when his laugh went roaring down the road! As for Mr and Mrs Dunce they looked quite offended.
'What's the joke?' asked Mr Dunce, stiffly. 'I don't see anything to laugh at in what I have just said.'
Whopping tried to explain that the two sillies and their sacks were all in the barrow, whether they carried the sacks on their shoulders or not, but he laughed so much that he couldn't say a dropped down Mrs Dunce's neck.
She put up her umbrella at once and sat in the barrow looking most disgusted.
'Rude fellow!' she said to her husband. 'Isn't he an unmannerly, noisy, vulgar fellow, this giant? What does he want to laugh like that for, when you simply make an ordinary remark?'
'I'm sure I don't know,' said Mr Dunce, in a buff. 'A pretty sight we must look sitting in his barrow, and him roaring with laughter behind us as if we were a couple of clowns at a circus! I've a good mind to get out and walk.'
'No, don't let's do that, because my feet are tried,' said Mrs Dunce. 'It doesn't make any difference to him to have us in his barrow, a great, strong fellow like that! Why, I expect he could take ten of us and not feel it.'
Whopping still went on laughing every time he saw the two sacks so carefully perched up on the narrow shoulders of Mr and Mrs Dunce. At last Mr Dunce became very angry indeed, because every time Whopping laughed a great draught blew down Mr Dunce's neck, and he felt sure he would have a sore throat the next day.
He whispered to his wife.
'Wife, put down your sack in the in the barrow. I will do the same. If the giant is so horrid as to laugh at us for begin kind enough to carry our heavy sacks ourselves, he deserves to be punished. He shall now carry our sacks for us as well as ourselves!'
Whopping heard what Mr Dunce said. He saw the little man put down his heavy sack into the barrow and Mrs Dunce did the same. The giant began to laugh all over again. It was too funny, really!
'What are you laughing at now?' asked Mr Dunce, in a temper.
But Whopping couldn't tell him; he was laughing too much. More tears fell out of his eyes and splashed on to Mr Dunce's head. He wiped them off with his handkerchief and spoke loudly to his wife. 'I wish I had brought my mackintosh with me,' he said.
That made Whopping laugh more than ever, and suddenly the barrow tipped over and the two Dunces fell out, sacks and all.
'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry,' said Whopping. 'But really, you shouldn't say such ridiculous things and make me laugh.'
Mr and Mrs Dunce picked up their sacks and walked away huffily. 'You see!' said Mr Dunce to his wife. 'As soon as we put our sacks down in the barrow, he wasn't strong enough to carry us and the sacks too, and tipped us out!'
At that Whopping began to roar again, and the Dunces hurried away as fast as they could-Whether Whopping managed to get home that night or not I have never heard _ but I do know that Mr and Mrs Dunce can't guess to this day why Whopping laughed so much! Can you?
