boy who played the hand-organ.

The Kentucky giantess sat in two chairs on a platform, and there was a
large cage of monkeys just beyond, toward which Kate and I went at once.
"Why, she isn't more than two thirds as big as the picture," said Mrs.
Kew, in a regretful whisper; "but I guess she's big enough; doesn't she
look discouraged, poor creatur'?" Kate and I felt ashamed of ourselves
for being there. No matter if she had consented to be carried round for
a show, it must have been horrible to be stared at and joked about day
after day; and we gravely looked at the monkeys, and in a few minutes
turned to see if Mrs. Kew were not ready to come away, when to our
surprise we saw that she was talking to the giantess with great
interest, and we went nearer.

"I thought your face looked natural the minute I set foot inside the
door," said Mrs. Kew; "but you've--altered some since I saw you, and I
couldn't place you till I heard you speak. Why, you used to be spare; I
am amazed, Marilly! Where are your folks?"

"I don't wonder you are surprised," said the giantess. "I was a good
ways from this when you knew me, wasn't I? But father he run through
with every cent he had before he died, and 'he' took to drink and it
killed him after a while, and then I begun to grow worse and worse, till
I couldn't do nothing to earn a dollar, and everybody was a coming to
see me, till at last I used to ask 'em ten cents apiece, and I scratched
along somehow till this man came round and heard of me, and he offered
me my keep and good pay to go along with him. He had another giantess
before me, but she had begun to fall away consider'ble, so he paid her
off and let her go. This other giantess was an awful expense to him, she
was such an eater; now I don't have no great of an appetite,"--this was