it half-awake. When there is a baby in
the wood, no one can stop to ask questions; and when we have found it,
then it is too late."

"Do more boy or girl babies come to the wood?"

"They don't come to the wood; we go to the wood and find them."

"Are there more boys or girls of you now?"

I had found that to ask precisely the same question twice, made them
knit their brows.

"I do not know," she answered.

"You can count them, surely!"

"We never do that. We shouldn't like to be counted."

"Why?"

"It wouldn't be smooth. We would rather not know."

"Where do the babies come from first?"

"From the wood--always. There is no other place they can come from."

She knew where they came from last, and thought nothing else was to be
known about their advent.

"How often do you find one?"

"Such a happy thing takes all the glad we've got, and we forget the last
time. You too are glad to have him--are you not, good giant?"

"Yes, indeed, I am!" I answered. "But how do you feed him?"

"I will show you," she rejoined, and went away--to return directly with
two or three ripe little plums. She put one to the baby's lips.

"He would open his mouth if he were awake," she said, and took him in
her arms.

She squeezed a drop to the surface, and again held the fruit to the
baby's lips. Without waking he began at once to suck it, and she went on
slowly squeezing until nothing but skin and stone were left.

"There!" she cried, in a tone of gentle triumph. "A big-apple world it
would be with nothing for the babies! We wouldn't stop in it--would we,
darling? We would leave it to the bad giants!"

"But what if you let the stone into the baby's mouth when you were
feeding him?" I said.

"No mother would do that," she replied. "I shouldn't be fit to have a
baby!"

I thought what a lovely woman she would grow. But what became of them
when they grew up? Where did they go? That brought me again to the
question--where did they come from first?

"Will you tell me where you lived before?" I said.

"Here," she replied.

"Have you NEVER lived anywhere else?" I ventured.

"Never. We all came from the wood. Some think we dropped out of the
trees."

"How is it there are so many of you quite little?"

"I don't understand. Some are less and some are bigger. I am very big."

"Baby will grow bigger, won't he?"

"Of course he will!"

"And will you grow bigger?"

"I don't think so. I hope not. I am the biggest. It fri