Each afternoon, when school was done, the children went to the Giant’s garden. It was a large, beautiful garden with green grass that shone in the sun, where peach and plum trees stood here and there. In spring, they lifted pale blossoms over the children’s heads, and in summer, they bent low with fruit. Birds sat on the branches and sang while the children ran beneath them.
The Giant had been away for seven years, visiting a friend in a distant country. One day he finally came home, only to find the children playing under his trees. “What are you doing here?” he shouted. His voice was loud and harsh, and the children stopped at once. “My garden is my own garden, and nobody shall play in it but me.”
The very next morning, he built a high wall all around the garden and set up a large wooden board upon it that read: TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. After that, the children had nowhere so fair to go. They wandered along the dusty road after their lessons, looking through cracks in the wall. “How happy we were in there,” they whispered to each other.
Soon, spring came over the country. In every other garden, there were small green leaves and open flowers. Birds made nests in the hedges, and the air smelled sweetly of rain and earth. But in the Giant’s garden, it was winter still. The trees had forgotten to blossom there, for no children rested under them. Snow …
6 chapters
