Young Ofeg's Ditties/Ditty 9
IX.
Upon a great plain outside a city the whole youth of the country were assembled. In the midst of them stood a giant: his foot was as long as a street, and his flat hand as broad as a market-place; and he was so tall that he could not stand erect under the sky, but was forced to bend his head. And when he spoke his voice was so strong that the youth of the country trembled like aspen leaves at a wind puff.
"Jump Jim Crow!" he called, and the youth of the country immediately jumped Jim Crow.
"Couche là!" he yelled, and all the youth of the country crouched like dogs at his feet.
"Hie over!" he commanded, and held out his riding-switch, and the entire youth of the country jumped over the riding-switch with well-trained agility.
"Novelties! Novelties! Who'll buy?" he wheedled, and all the youth of the country bought his novelties, money down—honestly—cheated in their change.
Then the giant took every lilliput and Tommeliden of them on his flat hand, not singly, but in heaps, and he scattered them handful by handful into space. And when the plain was emptied, seventy times a thousand black specks were crawling about the pulpits and cathedras. At first I took them to be rats, but on closer observation I discovered that they were human beings, and since that, that they were the youth of the country.