have defied the biggest and roughest boy in her school.
One giant, the black-bearded one that seemed youngest, was first to move. Very raptly he lifted one foot and set it down again, well behind the other. Then he retreated a second pace. A third. The giantess, who had crouched to blow upon the fire, also moved backward on all fours, rather like a tremendous and revolting crab. Helen favored these fugitives with no more than a flick of her bright eyes. She wheeled toward the grizzled one who still stood his ground, holding Clay like a trapped frog.
Rising on tiptoe, Helen hooked one hand in her father’s trouser-cuff. “You put him down,” she ordered terribly, “or I’ll blow some more smoke, and you’ll wish you had.”
She suited action to word.
Above Clay sounded a great hacking cry, as the giant choked and strangled. He felt himself released, falling heavily to the ground. The odor of burning tobacco smote his nostrils. He heard the heaviest of feet scrambling and stumbling away. He heard Helen laugh, in harsh triumph, as Deborah might have laughed over the fall of Sisera’s army.
“They’re gone. Daddy,” she said brightly. “You shouldn’t have dropped your pipe in the first place. But I remembered—giants hate tobacco. I came to save you.”
Mist swallowed Clay and he fainted gratefully.
When he awoke, Helen was sitting beside the great dying fire, quite unconcerned. “Did you have a nice sleep?” she asked.
He rose on his elbow. “How long was I like that?”
“Not very long. About five minutes, I guess.” She offered him his pipe. "It didn’t make me sick a bit.”
Clay got up, shakily. Helen took his hand, as though it represented to her the surest pledge of safety. They turned homeward on the trail. “Helen,” he said, “what has happened today? Before I—slept?”
“Oh, you mean about those giants? Why, just what you said.” She looked up at him with a little wonder that he should not be sure.
Then it had been true, among the Trees of Truth. She, too, had seen and known. “Helen, how were they driven away?”
“With the magic pipe. Daddy. “You know. I smoked it.”
This as carefully and clearly as though she were the adult speaking to the child. “Why, Helen,” he said, “this isn’t a ma—”
Then he broke off. Better to be careful about talking away any protection. He asked another question. “You weren’t afraid?”
“Not with the magic pipe. You told me they hated it. And everything comes true in these woods—whether it’s about giants or pipes.”
Clay agreed in his heart that it was a thing not to be explained—only to tremble over his whole life long. Helen was more fortunate. Six years old in a world of wonders and importance, to her three hungry giants were no more wondrous or important than many another thing.
“Don’t tell Mummy about this, Helen,” he said. “We’ll have it for our secret.”
She smiled and nodded, pleased by the word “secret.” Clay felt better. That would help matters now. Some time when she was older, and mentioned the business as a childhood memory, he could get her to agree that it was a dream—grotesque, frightening, but only a dream.
“Daddy,” said the little girl, “are there squirrels here, too? Because I think I see one.”
