Lilith

"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 frightens me sometimes."
"Why should it frighten you?"
She gave me no answer.
"How old are you?" I resumed.
"I do not know what you mean. We are all just that."
"How big will the baby grow?"
"I cannot tell.−−Some," she added, with a trouble in her voice, "begin to grow after we think they have
stopped.−−That is a frightful thing. We don't talk about it!"
"What makes it frightful?"
She was silent for a moment, then answered,
"We fear they may be beginning to grow giants."
"Why should you fear that?"
Lilith
"Because it is so terrible.−−I don't want to talk about it!"
She pressed the baby to her bosom with such an anxious look that I dared not further question her.
Before long I began to perceive in two or three of the smaller children some traces of greed and selfishness,
and noted that the bigger girls cast on these a not infrequent glance of anxiety.
None of them put a hand to my work: they would do nothing for the giants! But they never relaxed their
loving ministrations to me. They would sing to me, one after another, for hours; climb the tree to reach my
mouth and pop fruit into it with their dainty little fingers; and they kept constant watch against the approach
of a giant.
Sometimes they would sit and tell me stories−−mostly very childish, and often seeming to mean hardly
anything. Now and then they would call a general assembly to amuse me. On one such occasion a moody
little fellow sang me a strange crooning song, with a refrain so pathetic that, although unintelligible to me, it
caused the tears to run down my face. This phenomenon made those who saw it regard me with much
perplexity. Then first I bethought myself that I had not once, in that world, looked on water, falling or lying
or running. Plenty there had been in some long vanished age−−that was plain enough−−but the Little Ones
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