Here the Pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of grain , which , when it grew up and ripened , overshadowed these tiny people as the pines , and the oaks , and the walnut and chestnut trees overshadow you and me , when we walk in our own tracts of woodland . At harvest time , they were forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain , exactly as a woodcutter makes a clearing in the forest ; and when a stalk of wheat , with its overburdened top , chanced to come crashing down upon an unfortunate Pygmy , it was apt to be a very sad affair . If it did not smash him all to pieces , at least , I am sure , it must have made the poor little fellow 's head ache . And O , my stars ! if the fathers and mothers were so small , what must the children and babies have been ? A whole family of them might have been put to bed in a shoe , or have crept into an old glove , and played at hide-and-seek in its thumb and fingers . You might have hidden a year-old baby under a thimble . Now these funny Pygmies , as I told you before , had a Giant for their neighbor and brother , who was bigger , if possible , than they were little . He was so very tall that he carried a pine tree , which was eight feet through the butt , for a walking stick . It took a far-sighted Pygmy , I can assure you , to discern his summit without the help of a telescope ; and sometimes , in misty weather , they could not see his upper half , but only his long legs , which seemed to be striding about by themselves . But at noonday in a clear atmosphere , when the sun shone brightly over him , the Giant Antaeus presented a very grand spectacle . There he used to stand , a perfect mountain of a man , with his great countenance smiling down upon his little brothers , and his one vast eye -LRB- which was as big as a cart wheel , and placed right in the center of his forehead -RRB- giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once . The Pygmies loved to talk with Antaeus ; and fifty times a day , one or another of them would turn up his head , and shout through the hollow of his fists , `` Halloo , brother Antaeus ! How are you , my good fellow ? '' And when the small distant squeak of their voices reached his ear , the Giant would make answer , `` Pretty well , brother Pygmy , I thank you , '' in a thunderous roar that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest temple , only that it came from so far aloft . It was a happy circumstance that Antaeus was the Pygmy people 's friend ; for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of such bodies as this . If he had been as ill-natured to them as he was to everybody else , he might have beaten down their biggest city at one kick , and hardly have known that he did it . With the tornado of his breath , he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings and sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air . He might have set his immense foot upon a multitude ; and when he took it up again , there would have been a pitiful sight , to be sure . But , being the son of Mother Earth , as they likewise were , the Giant gave them his brotherly kindness , and loved them with as big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very small .
And , on their parts , the Pygmies loved Antaeus XXXXX as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold .
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