tly.

"Don't be afraid," she repeated soothingly. "I'll tell you what. You lie
down and I'll put this blanket over you," she said, rising. "Will that
be all right?"

She laid him down and covered the small form with a blanket. He lay
there watching her with his large eyes.

"You don't look very sleepy," she said. "Perhaps I had better turn the
light down." She did so, slowly, so as not to alarm him. But he was
silent, watchful, never taking his eyes from her.

She smiled and sat down next to him. "Now I'll tell you a story and then
you must go to sleep," she said softly.

He smiled--just a little smile--and she was pleased.

"Fine," she cried. "Well--once upon a time there was a beautiful planet,
not at all like this one. There were lovely flowers and cool-running
streams and it only rained once in a while. You'd like it there for it's
a very nice place. But there were people there who liked to travel--to
see strange places and new things, and one day they left in a great big
ship."

She paused again, frowning in thought. "Well, they traveled a long, long
way and saw many things. Then one day something went wrong."

Her voice was low and soft. It had the quality of a dream, the texture
of a zephyr, but the little boy was still wide awake.

"Something went very, very wrong and they tried to land so they could
fix it. But when they tried to land they found they couldn't--and they
fell and just barely managed to save themselves. The big, beautiful ship
was all broken. Well, since they couldn't fix the ship at all now, they
set out on foot to find out where they were and to see if they could get
help. Then they found that they were in a land of great big giants, and
the people were very fierce."

The little boy's dark eyes were watching her intently but she went on,
hardly noticing.

"So they went back to the broken ship and tried to decide what to do.
They couldn't get in touch with their home because the radio part of the
ship was all broken up. And the giants were horrible and wanted
everything for themselves and were cruel and mean and probably would
have hurt the poor ship-wrecked people if they had known they were
there.

"So--do you know what they did? They got some things from the ship and
they went and built a giant. And they put little motors inside and
things to make it run and talk so that the giants wouldn't be able to
tell that it wasn't another giant just like themselves."

She paused, straig