Shima’s grandfather was telling
the story of the Selfish Giant in the family
gathering. Grandma refused to go
to bed. She forgot her back pain.
The Selfish Giant
It was a large lovely garden,
with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass
stood beautiful flowers. Also
there were fruit trees around the garden.
One day the Giant came back. He
went to see his friend in a distant land and
stayed with them for seven years.
When he arrived he saw children playing in his
garden.
“What are you doing here?” cried
the Giant in a very gruff voice. The children ran
away.
Every afternoon the children came
back from school and used to go and play in
the Giant’s garden.
“My own garden is my own garden,”
said the Giant. “Anyone can understand
that. And I will allow nobody to
play in it.” So he built a high wall all round the
garden and put up a notice board.
The children had now nowhere to play.
There were no gardens around and
the
roads were busy and crowded.
After
school they used to go round the
high
wall and talk about the beautiful
garden inside. “How happy we were
there!”, they said to each other.
Then came the spring. And all
over the country
there were flowers and there were
birds. Only in
the garden of the Giant it was
still winter. Here
there were no birds singing, no
flowers
blossoming. There were only snow
and frost and
north wind in it.
“I cannot understand why the
spring is so late in
coming,” said the Giant. He was
sitting at the
window of his big castle and
looking out at his cold, dry, lifeless garden. “I hope
there will be a change in the
weather.”
But neither spring nor summer came to his garden.
One morning the Giant was lying
awake in bed when he heard some
lovely music. It was so sweet to
his ears that he thought it must
be
the King’s musicians passing by.
But in fact it was only a little
bird
singing outside his window. Then
the north wind stopped and a
delicious perfume came to him
through the open window. “I
believe the spring has come at last,” said the Giant.
He jumped out of bed and looked
out. What did he see?
He saw the most wonderful sight.
Through a little hole in the wall the children
crept in and they were sitting in
the branches of the trees. In every tree there was a
little child. And the trees were
so delighted to have the children back again that
they covered themselves with
blossoms. They were waving their arms gently
above the children’s heads. The
birds were flying about and twittering
delightfully. The flowers were
looking up through the green grass and laughing.
But only in one corner of the
garden it was still winter. There under a tree a little
boy was standing alone crying. He
was so small that he could not reach up to the
branches of the tree. The poor
tree was still covered with snow, and the north
wind was blowing above it.
The Giant felt sorry as he looked
out. “How selfish I have been!” he said to
himself. “Now I know why the
spring would not come here.”
So he quickly went out into the
garden. But when the children saw him they were
so frightened that they all ran
away, and the garden became winter again. Only the
little boy did not run, for his
eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant
coming. The giant quietly came
behind him, took him gently in his hands and put
him up into the tree. And the
tree at once broke into blossom, and the birds came
and sang on it. The little boy
stretched out his two arms, flung them round the
Giant’s neck and kissed him.
The other children saw this. They
saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer.
So they came running back. And
with them came the spring.
“It’s your garden now, little
children,” said the Giant. Then he took a great axe
and knocked the wall down. And
the people passing by found the Giant playing
with the children in the most beautiful garden in
the country.
