【英文读物】Peggy's Giant

【英文读物】Peggys GiantPreface This is Peggys 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 Peggys brown holland frock behind her.Peggy drew the frock very carefully, spreading it out flat on the floor to get it exactly right. Mother helped her with the Giants 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 Giants foot are the broken bits of the cup and saucer, and the black dots are the currants in the cake. The curls in the Giants beard were the most fun to do.CHAPTER I WHAT PEGGY FOUND “It rattles!” said Peggy, shaking the last cracker, and looking up at Nurse.“Well, pull it now, theres a dear,” said Nurse, “and let me clear up this litter.”Peggy had just finished her birthday tea up in the nursery alone with Nurse, as Mother was away. Of course it hadnt been nearly so exciting as her last birthday teathe only one she could rememberwhich had been downstairs with lots of other little girls and boys, who had all come to see Peggy. They hadnt talked to her or to each other much, but had eaten lots of birthday cake, and Peggy had been taken up to bed before the last of them left, because she had had such a long and exciting birthday.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 whats inside first, Nannie,” said Peggy, shaking the cracker again. “I guess its a little tiny cup and saucer for my dolls house. Now, you guess.”6“Oh, I dont knowa whistle,” said Nannie, beginning to clear up the pieces of brightly-coloured paper that covered the table-cloth and floor, and that really looked a great deal too pretty to burn. “Thats generally what it is. But whats the good of guessing when youll know in a minute? Come along and pull, Im waiting.”Peggy shut her eyes, and putting one hand over her earshe was always uncomfortably startled by the bangpulled hard with the other.The thing inside immediately flew through the air, and rolled away under the toy cupboard. And Peggy followed as far as she could, lying flat on the floor and peering under. Then“O Nannie, it sparkles!” she cried excitedly. “I do believe its a beautiful ring! I can see it quite plainly. Yes, it is. Its a gold ring with a great big green stone in it! There, Ive got it! O Nannie, look how it sparkles!”“A bit of tin and glass,” said Nurse examining it and dropping it on the table. “What they want to put such rubbish in for passes my understanding! You cant play with it, and itll only get left about. Now come and look at the paper blazing,” and she swept all the ends of the crackers into the fire.Peggy was terrified that her ring would follow too, and she began in a great hurry to put it on all her fingers in turn to see which it would fit.“It wont fit any of them except my fum,” she remarked. “But just look how well it fits my fum!” and she waved her left hand to and fro proudly.“You cant wear a ring at your age,” said Nurse decidedly, “and no one ever wears them on their thumbs, as you very well know. Oh dear, your hair ribbons coming right off, as usual! Come here whilst I tie it on again.”7“Just look how it sparkles!” repeated Peggy, stroking the green stone admiringly. And it certainly did. A bright green light spread from it all over that part of the nursery, just like the light in a beech wood in spring, when the sun is shining through the leaves; and it coloured and played over Nurses face and the cupboard and the roses on the wall-paper. “Do look, Nannie,” cried the child, “now the fireplace is green!”“Very pretty,” said Nurse absentmindedly, not looking up as she brushed Peggys curls. “What a tangle your hairs in, to be sure! Now I think Ill take off this clean frock and put on your brown holland so that you can have a good game with all your toys out at once, as its your birthday.”“Arent you going to play with me, too?” asked Peggy rather wistfully.“I cant,” said Nurse. “Ive some letters to write, and post goes in half an hourwhen itll be your bedtime. Grown-ups cant 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