Everychild had too little time just then to marvel at the strange feat
which had been performed by the giant. He was lost in amazement at the
house before which he stood.

It was really an immense, dilapidated shoe, patched and broken. The
toe was about to gape open, though it was held here and there by a few
threads. The laces were gone and the whole upper sprawled shapelessly.
In brief, it was precisely like any old shoe you will see on a vacant
lot, save for its immense size. Its size was prodigious. It was as
large as a small house.

A stovepipe stuck out where the little toe would be, and smoke was
pouring out of the pipe just as if some one had been putting a supply
of fuel on the fire. It was woodsmoke and had a pleasant smell. It
seemed that perhaps some one was preparing supper.

Not a soul was in sight about the house--or the shoe--nor about the
premises. Yet you could see that some one had been hard at work only a
short time before. The wash had been hung out to dry and it was still
damp. It hung from a line which was suspended from the highest point
of the shoe--where the strap is that you pull it on by--to the limb of
a nearby tree. You could tell by the garments that there were a lot of
children about. There were best shirts and every-day shirts and
petticoats and trousers. There were many colors, so that they all made
a rather gay spectacle. And some were of ordinary size, and some were
quite tiny.

There were many trees in the background; and one of these cast its
shade over the immense shoe in a very pleasing way. There was a table
under the tree, and a kind of dinner-bell hanging from a limb of the