{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16731/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16731","id":"gutenberg_16731","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16731","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Novels","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales","Fantasy fiction","Imagination -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"Produced by William F. Seabrook\n\n\n\n\n\n                          The Garden of the Plynck\n\n                                    by\n\n                             Karle Wilson Baker\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Contents\n\n       Chapter I.    The Dimplesmithy\n\n       Chapter II.   Avrillia\n\n       Chapter III.  Relations\n\n       Chapter IV.   The Invaders\n\n       Chapter V.    Crumbs and Waffles\n\n       Chapter VI.   The Little Lost Laugh\n\n       Chapter VII.  Accepting an Invitation\n\n       Chapter VIII. The Vale of Tears\n\n       Chapter IX.   Cheers and Butter\n\n       Chapter X.    Sara's Day\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Chapter I\n                           The Dimplesmithy\n\n\nGrown people have such an exasperating way of saying, \"Now, when I was\na little girl--\"\n\nThen, just as you prick up the little white ears of your mind for a\nstory, they finish, loftily, \"I did--or didn't do--so-and-so.\"\n\nIt is certainly an underhand way of suggesting that you stop doing\nsomething pleasant, or begin doing something unpleasant; and you would\nnot have thought that Sara's dear mother would have had so unworthy a\nhabit. But a stern regard for the truth compels me to admit that she\nhad.\n\nYou see, Sara's dear mother was, indeed, most dear; but very\nself-willed and contrary. Her great fault was that she was always busy\nat something. She would darn, and she would write, and she would read\ndark-colored books without pictures. When Sara compared her with other\nmothers of her acquaintance, or when this very contrary own-mother\nwent away for a day, she seemed indeed to Sara quite desperately\nperfect. But on ordinary days Sara was darkly aware, in the clearest\npart of her mind--the upper right-hand corner near the window--that\nher mother, with all her charm, really did need to be remoulded nearer\nto her heart's desire.\n\nShe was especially clear about this on the frequent occasions when she\nwould come into the room where her mother was sitting, and plump down\nupon a chair with a heart-rending sigh, and say, \"I wish I had\nsomebody to play with!\"\n\nFor then her dear but most contrary mother would glance up from her\nbook or her darning and remark, with a calm smile,\n\n\"When I was a little girl--\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"I used to go inside my head and play.\"\n\nAnd Sara would answer with a poor, vindictive satisfaction, \"There's\nnothing in my head to play with!\"\n\nAnd her kind-hearted mother would snip off her thread and say gently,\nin a tone of polite regret, \"Poor little girl!\"\n\nThen Sara would gnash the little milk-teeth of her mind and have awful\nthoughts. The worst she ever had came one day when Mother, who had\nalready filled about fourteen pages of paper with nothing in the world\nbut words, acted that way again. And just as she said, \"Poor little\ngirl!\" Sara thought, \"I'd like to take that sharp green pencil and\nstick it into Mother's forehead, and watch a story run out of her head\nthrough the hole!\"\n\nBut that was such an awful thought that she sent it scurrying away, as\nfast as she could. Just the same, she said to herself, if Mother ever\nacted that way again--\n\nAnd, after all, Mother did. And that was the fatal time--the\nfour-thousand-and-fourth. For, after Mother had suggested it four\nthousand and four times, it suddenly occurred to Sara that she might\ntry it.\n\nSo she shut the doors and went in.\n\nYes, I said shut the doors and went in; for that is what you do when\nyou go into your head. The doors were of ivory, draped with tinted\ndamask curtains which were trimmed with black silk fringe. The curtains\nfell noiselessly behind Sara as she entered.\n\nAnd there in the Gugollaph-tree by the pool sat the Plynck, gazing\nhappily at her Echo in the water.\n\nShe was larger than most Plyncks; about the size of a small peacock.\nOf course you would know without being told that her plumage was of a\ndelicate rose color, except for the lyre-shaped tuft on the top of her\nhead, which was of the exact color and texture of Bavarian cream. Her\nbeak and feet were golden, and her eyes were golden, too, and very\nbright and wild. The wildness and brightness of her eyes would have\nbeen rather frightening, if her voice, when she spoke, had not been so\nsoft and sweet.\n\n\"I think a little girl has forgotten something,\" she said gently,\nlooking down into her Teacup.\n\nSara examined herself anxiously. She knew it was something about\nherself, because the Plynck's tone was exactly like Mother's when she\nwished to remind Sara, without seeming officious, that she had not\nwiped her feet on the mat, or spread out her napkin, or remembered to\nsay \"Thank you\" at the exact psychological moment.\n\nSara was extremely anxious to please the Plynck, because she thought\nher so pensive and pretty; but, try as she would, she couldn't think\nwhat she had forgotten to do.\n\n\"Does a little girl wear her dimples in The House?\" asked the Plynck,\nstill more gently.\n\n\"Oh, of course not!\" said Sara, taking them off hastily. But she could\nnot help adding, as she looked around appreciatively at the silver\nbushes and the blue plush grass and the alabaster moon-dial by the\nfountain, \"But this isn't The House, is it?\"\n\n\"Isn't it?\" asked the Plynck, glancing uneasily about her. What she\nsaw startled her so much that she dropped her Teacup. Of course it\nflew up to a higher branch and balanced itself there instead of\nfalling; but the poor little thing was so round and fat,\nthat--especially as it hadn't any feet--it had some difficulty at\nfirst in perching. As for the Plynck, she seemed so embarrassed over\nher mistake that Sara felt dreadfully uncomfortable for her.\nRecovering herself, however, in a moment, she said in her sweet,\ngentle way,\n\n\"Well, dear, you wouldn't want the Zizzes to fall into them, even if\nthis isn't The House--would you?\"\n\nSara hadn't noticed until then that the air was full of Zizzes; but\nthe minute she saw their darling little vibrating wings she knew that\nshe wouldn't for anything have one of them come to grief in her\ndimples. They were more like hummingbirds than anything she had ever\nseen outside of her head, but of course they were not nearly so large;\nmost of them were about a millionth-part as large as a small mosquito.\nShe noticed, too, that their tails were bitter. If it had not been for\nthe bitterness of their tails, she would not have felt so uneasy about\nthem; as it was, she held the dimples tight in her hand, with the\nconcave side next her palm.\n\n\"Avrillia's at home,\" said the Plynck gently, with her eyes on her\nTeacup, which she was gradually charming back into her hand. (Her\nhands were feet, you know, like a nightingale's, only golden; but she\ncalled them hands in the afternoon, to match her Teacup.) The timid\nlittle thing was fluttering back, coming nearer twig by twig; and it\ntrembled up to the Plynck just as she said, softly and absent-mindedly,\n\"Avrillia's at home.\"\n\n\"Oh, is she?\" exclaimed Sara, clapping her hands with joy. She did not\nknow who Avrillia was; nevertheless, it somehow seemed delightful to\nhear that she was at home. But alas and alas! when she clapped her\nhands she forgot all about the dimples she had been holding so\ncarefully. To tell the truth, she had never taken them off before; but\nshe was ashamed to let the Plynck know about that, especially as she\nhad lived in The House all her former life. Her first thought, indeed,\nwhen she realized what had happened, was to conceal the catastrophe\nfrom the Plynck; but before she could get her breath that gentle bird\nstartled her almost out of her wits by shrieking,\n\n\"Watch out! the Snimmy will get it!\"\n\nAnd there, at Sara's feet, where a bit of the dimple lay on the taffy\n(looking very much like a fragile bit of a Christmas-tree ornament),\nwas a real Snimmy, vest-pocket and all. His tail was longer than that\nof most Snimmies, and his nose was sharper and more debilitating, but\nyou would have known him at once, as Sara did, for a Snimmy. She\nthought, too, that he trembled more than most of them, and that he was\nwhiter and more slippery. Ordinarily, she had never felt afraid of\nSnimmies; but the startling shriek of the Plynck, and the exposed\nposition of her dimple, set her to jumping wildly up and down. And,\nindeed, the worst would have happened, had not the Echo of the Plynck,\nwith great presence of mind, cried out', \"Cover it! Cover it!\" And at\nthat cry the Teacup fluttered hastily down and turned itself upside\ndown over the piece of dimple. And there it sat, panting a little, but\nlooking as plump and pleased as possible, though the Snimmy was still\ndancing and sniffing ferociously around its rim.\n\n\"There!\" said the Plynck in her own gentle voice, though it still\nshook with excitement. \"It's a mercy you settled without breaking.\"\nThen, turning to Sara, \"And goodness knows how we'll ever get it out,\nSara. It will take at least three onions to anaesthetize the Snimmy.\"\n\nNow, this was indeed dreadful. Sara had been conscious enough before\nthis announcement of the havoc she had wrought by her carelessness;\nand now to have brought down upon herself a word like that! She was\nalmost ready to cry; and to keep from being quite ready, she suggested,\ntremulously, \"Do you suppose I could go after the onions?\"\n\nThe Plynck looked at her in surprise. \"Why, didn't you bring them with\nyou?\" she said. Then, suddenly, she noticed how threateningly the\nSnimmy was dancing and squeaking around Sara's feet, and how Sara was\nshrinking away from him.\n\n\"He won't hurt you,\" she began. \"He's perfectly kind and harmless,\naside from his mania for dimples. He still smells the piece under the\nTeacup.\" Then, all at once, she grew rigid, and her golden eyes began\nto leap up and down like frightened flames.\n\n\"It's the ones in your hand!\" she shrieked. \"In your hand! Sit down\nfor your life!\"\n\nSara at first thought she had said, \"Run for your life,\" and had\nindeed taken two-elevenths of a step; but when she realized that the\nPlynck had said, \"Sit down for your life,\" she sat down precisely\nwhere she was, as if Jimmy had pulled a chair out from under her, on\nthe very ice-cream brick her feet stood on. She realized that in a\ncrisis like this obedience was the only safe thing. And the instant\nshe touched the pavement, the Snimmy gave a great gulping sob and hid\nhis face in his hands; and small, grainy tears the size of gum-drops\nbegan to trickle through them and fall into his vest-pocket.\n\nThe Echo of the Plynck in the water gave a rippling laugh of relief.\n\"Well,\" she said, \"it's a mercy you remembered that. Perhaps you don't\nknow, my dear,\" she said, turning to Sara, \"that no Snimmy can endure\nto see a mortal sit down. It simply breaks their hearts. See, he's\neven forgotten about the dimples.\"\n\nAnd indeed, the Snimmy was standing before her, overcome by remorse.\nHe was holding his shoe in his hand in the most gentlemanly manner,\nand Sara forgave him at once when she saw how sorry and ashamed he\nwas.\n\n\"I--hope you'll try to--to--to excuse me, Miss,\" he sobbed, humbly\noffering her a handful of gum-drops. \"Them dimples--\" here, for a\nmoment, his nose began to wink and his feet pranced a little, but he\nlooked closely to see that she was still sitting down, and controlled\nhimself. \"Them dimples--\" he began again; but he could say no more.\nThe gum-drops began falling all around like hail-stones, so fast that\nSara felt that she ought to help him all she could--without getting\nup--to get them into his vest-pocket.\n\nThe clatter of the gum-drops again attracted the attention of the\nPlynck's Echo, who said, kindly, \"Go and take a nap, now, Snimmy, and\nyou'll feel better.\"\n\nThe Snimmy lifted his shoe and tried to reply, but he only gave a\nrespectful sob. So he turned away and crept back to his home in the\nprose-bush--where, all this time, his wife had been sitting in plain\nsight on her own toadstool, grimly hemming the doorknob. At her feet\nlay her faithful Snoodle.\n\nUp to this time, Sara had not ventured to address the Teacup. But, as\nshe looked around and saw her still sitting there, so pleasant and\nbland and fragile, and with such a consanguineous handle, she felt a\nsudden certainty that the Teacup would always be kind and helpful; so\nshe suggested timidly,\n\n\"Then we shan't need the onions?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, yes,\" answered the Teacup, in a soft, wrinkled voice. \"We'd\nnever in Zeelup be able to get the pieces of the dimple to Schlorge\nwithout first anaesthetizing the Snimmy.\"\n\nSara jumpled: that awful word again! Her head reeled (exactly as heads\ndo in grown-up stories) as she realized how many things there were in\nthis strange place that she didn't know. Who was Schlorge, for\nexample? And how was she to get anything to anybody without getting\nup? And \"anaesthetize\"?\n\nShe hated to disturb the Teacup; she was knitting so placidly, and\nmurmuring over and over to herself, \"Never in Zeelup.\" She looked up\ninto the tree; the Plynck, too, had fallen asleep, worn out by the\nunwonted excitement of the morning; and her lovely Echo also slept in\nthe amber pool. Sara now noticed that, though the Plynck was\nrose-colored, her Echo was cerulean.\n\nThe great, soft, curled plumes of the Plynck and her Echo rippled as\nthey breathed and slept, rather like water or fire in a little wind;\nand with every ripple they seemed to shake out a faint perfume that\ndrifted across Sara's face in waves. And they both looked so lovely\nthat she could not think of disturbing them, either. So she looked\nabout to see if there might be any one else who could enlighten her.\n\nAnd there at her elbow, as luck would have it, stood a Koopf. Up to\nthis time, Sara had not been able to tell a Koopf from a Gunkus. To be\nsure, there isn't any difference, really; but you would think that any\nfairly imaginative child ought to be able to tell one. However, Sara\nnow saw that the ground was swarming with Gunki.\n\n\"Do you know who Schlorge is?\" asked Sara, rather timidly.\n\nAt first the Koopf only grinned. \"Guess I do,\" he managed to say at\nlast. Then he surprised and rather startled her by winking his left\near at her. \"He's the best dimplesmith ever,\" he said at last.\n\"He's--he's--\" he began looking all about him, vaguely and a little\nwildly. But, just as Sara was growing a little afraid of him, his\nattention suddenly came back to her with a kind, businesslike\ninterest. \"Need some repairs?\" he asked. \"Some fractured dimples,\nmaybe?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Sara, earnestly. \"I have most of them here in my\nhand.\" She opened her hand and showed him the pretty little pieces.\n\n\"Where's the rest?\" he inquired, with another grin. \"Your plump friend,\nhere, sitting on 'em?\"\n\nSara nodded.\n\nThe Koopf stooped and picked up one of the gum-drops that had rolled\nout of the Snimmy's vest-pocket. \"Thought so,\" he said. \"Happens every\nnow and then. Only lately there ain't been anybody here that was\ndimpliferous, to speak of.\"\n\nThen, suddenly, as if somebody had told him his house was on fire, he\nturned and set off down the path as fast as he could run. \"Bring 'em\nto the shop!\" he shouted back over his shoulder, excitedly. \"Bring 'em\nto the shop!\"\n\nWhile Sara was looking after him, and wondering where the shop might\nbe, and whether she dared try to get up without waking the Snimmy, the\nKoopf suddenly stopped running, and started thoughtfully back up the\npath toward her. \"Don't know how I happened to forget it,\" he said,\n\"but I--well, fact is, I'm--where's a stump? Where's a stump?\" He\nlooked hastily about him, and this time, seeing a stump near by, he\nclambered upon it, thrust one hand into his bosom and the other behind\nhis back, like the pictures of Napoleon, and repeated, solemnly,\n\n\"I am Schlorge the Koopf, King of Dimplesmiths.\n\n     \"Under the gright Gugollaph-tree\n      The Dimplesmithy stands;\n      The smith is harder than the sea\n      And softer than the lands;\n      He mends cheek-dimples frank and free,\n      But will not work on hands.\"\n\n\nAnd as soon as he had finished he started wildly down the path again,\nshouting back, \"Bring 'em to the shop!\"\n\nSara sat looking down the path, then at the dimples in her hand. \"Well,\"\nshe said aloud, \"I'm glad they're cheek-dimples, anyhow. But what in\nthe world shall I do about the onions?\"\n\n\"What in Zeelup,\" corrected the Teacup gently, counting her stitches.\n\"Milder than swearing, my dear, more becoming, and quite as\neffective.\"\n\nSara wanted to tell her she wasn't swearing, but just at that moment\nthe wife of the Snimmy remarked, with some disgust in her voice,\n\n\"Well, if you'd of asked me sooner, I could of told you. I have them\nin the sugar-bowl, of course. Do you suppose I'd be without, and him\nsubject to such fits?\"\n\nAnd so saying, she replaced the doorknob, which was now neatly hemmed,\non the front door of the prose-bush, and came down the steps to Sara,\ncarrying three large onions. She was not a bad-looking person, though\nan amnicolist.\n\nShe then proceeded to slice the onions very deftly with a tuning-fork,\nafter which she rubbed the ice-cream of the pavement with the slices,\nmaking a circle all around the Teacup, and another all around Sara,\nsomewhat like the ring they used to burn about a fire in the grass, to\nkeep it from spreading. All this time she was talking to them\ngrumblingly, though she never once looked up.\n\n\"I should think anybody'd know better than to bring dimples around\nwhere he is,\" she said, \"and I have my opinion of such. A poor,\nhardworking man like him, that tries to act moral. I should think--\"\n\nShe kept on saying things like this, that made Sara feel very\nuncomfortable. But at last she finished her work, and looking\nwatchfully back over her shoulder at the sleeping Snimmy, she said\ngrudgingly to them both, \"Now get up careful.\"\n\nSara rose to her feet, and the Teacup lifted her dainty little skirt\never so slightly. The minute the perfume from the dimples reached the\nSnimmy (he couldn't smell those in Sara's hand, of course, so long as\nshe was sitting down), he sprang to his feet, quivering; but almost\nimmediately he caught a whiff of the onions, and sank down again,\nentirely overcome, into a deep sleep.\n\nThe Teacup arose and shook out her skirts. She picked up the tiny,\nsparkling piece of dimple she had been protecting so long, and handed\nit prettily to Sara. \"Now, my dear,\" she said, \"I think I shall return\nto my mistress. I would suggest that you take your dimples to the shop\nimmediately.\" So saying, she hopped up into the tree and settled\nquietly down beside the dreaming Plynck, taking great care not to\ndisturb her. And Sara started down the path toward the Dimplesmithy.\n\nThe path turned presently into a wide road, very pleasant and\npeaceful-looking, and so deep with pollen-dust that Sara's shoes soon\nlooked as if they were powdered with gold. Sunset sheep came wandering\ndown the road now and then, and lines of white geese, and once she\npassed a little pond where green ducks were quacking and paddling; the\nroad was so pretty, indeed, that it was hard for her to keep her mind\non finding the Dimplesmithy. There were tall Gugollaph-trees all along\nthe road, here and there, but Sara felt sure she would know the right\none when she saw it. And sure enough, there it was, with the smithy in\nthe shade of it, and the Koopf blowing up the fire in his forge with a\npair of puff-ball bellows. She knew now why he had hurried home so\nfast: it was to put on his apron. It was of the finest mouse-hide, and\nhe was plainly very proud of it.\n\nHe took the dimples from Sara at once, and showed a keen professional\ninterest in them. He assured her that he had never seen a finer pair.\n\"But you must take better care of them,\" he said.\n\nHe seemed so kind and interested that Sara thought perhaps he would\nhelp her with a problem she had been revolving in her mind ever since\nthe accident. (She had fastened the problem on a little stick with a\npin, like the paper windmills Jimmy made, so that she could turn it\naround very easily, and so see all sides of it.) So she asked the\nKoopf, quite respectfully,\n\n\"What ought I to do with them, when I shut the doors and come in?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Koopf, judiciously, \"the Plynck's Echo should have\nseen to that, first thing. Ought to have had a dimple-holder at the\ngate. Ought to know the Snimmy, by this time. A good fellow--can't\nhelp his failing. We used to keep a dimple-holder there all the time,\nbut it's been so long, as I told you, since we've had anybody come\nalong that was dimpliferous, to speak of. We've got sort of careless,\nI guess. I've got a very nice stock, here; I'll put one up before you\ngo, so you'll know where to find it next time.\" As he spoke he took\ndown from a shelf behind him a sort of receptacle which looked rather\nlike a soap-bubble, rather like a gazing-globe; except that it had a\ntiny opening at the top, and a cushion of whipped cream in the bottom.\nThen he picked up from his bench the dimples, which he had been\nmending as he talked.\n\n\"It's a good thing the Snimmy can't see 'em now,\" he said, holding\nthem off at arm's length and looking at them with frank admiration.\n\"They're as good as new. Now let me show you what to do with 'em next\ntime you come.\"\n\nSo saying, he dropped them into the holder, where they looked very\npretty sparkling on the whipped cream cushion.\n\n\"Now,\" he said, \"you carry them, and I'll bring the pedestal.\"\n\nHe tucked the pedestal under his arm, and they started back down the\nroad together. It was very lovely to be trudging along under the late\nclear sky, through the sweet-smelling pollen-dust, and now and then\nmeeting the sunset sheep, who, by this time, had found their little\nlambs. When they got back to the Garden, and stood in front of the\ngate through which Sara had entered, Schlorge had Sara sit down at\nonce. It was really an unnecessary precaution, he said, since the\nholder was a non-conductor of dimple-waves, and not even the Snimmy\ncould detect their presence when they were inside of it. \"Still,\" said\nSchlorge, \"I'll feel safer about 'em when they're on the pedestal out\nof his reach,\" and with that he took the globe from Sara's hands and\nfastened it deftly on the pedestal. Sara had never enjoyed herself\nmore than she did as she sat by the amber waters in the fading light,\nwatching the kind, clumsy Koopf (who was yet so skilful at his own\nwork) place the pretty globe with so much pride and pleasure. She kept\nsniffing, meanwhile, at the tantalizing perfume that seemed to sift\ndownward from the feathers of the Plynck, as she stirred, ever so\nsoftly, in her dreams.\n\nAt last the Koopf took a large slice of onion, which the Snimmy's wife\nhad left convenient, and rubbed it all around the base of the\npedestal.\n\n\"Now,\" he said, \"if you'll always remember to stand inside of that\ncircle, when you take 'em off and put 'em on, there won't be any more\ntrouble. And take 'em off as soon as you shut the doors. If you\ndilly-dally a minute--\"\n\nAt that moment the Plynck awoke and saw Sara. She stretched her warm,\nshimmering feathers and smiled.\n\n\"Avrillia's at home,\" she said, gently.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Chapter II\n                                Avrillia\n\n\n\"I make it a rule,\" the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtain\nbehind her the next morning, \"to fly around the fountain at least\ntwice every day.\" As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a\nbundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree,\nsomething that looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easily\nwith one golden claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out with\ncareless grace for another.\n\n\"Oh,\" breathed Sara, clasping her hands. And she could not help adding,\nshyly, \"If I could only see you when you fly--Madame Plynck!\"\n\nSara was very proud of herself after she had said that. She had never\ncalled anybody \"Madame\" before, but she had read it in books, and it\nseemed just the title for a creature so beautiful and gentle and\nstately as the Plynck. It seemed so suitable that it gave her courage\nto repeat, \"If I could only see you fly!\"\n\n\"But I don't do it often, you see,\" answered the Plynck, quietly.\n\n\"Why--!\" exclaimed Sara. \"I thought you just said--\" Not for worlds\nwould she have seemed rude or impolite to the Plynck, but she was\ncompletely puzzled.\n\nThe Plynck looked very kind. \"I said I make it a rule,\" she said,\ngently. \"I didn't say--you explain it to her,\" she said suddenly to\nher Echo in the pool, who had been looking on with rather an amused\nexpression.\n\nThe Echo fluffed out her deep blue plumes a little and took up the\ntask. \"What are rules for, my dear?\" she began.\n\n\"Why--to keep, I guess,\" ventured Sara, a little flustered. \"Aren't\nthey?\"\n\nThe Echo glanced up at the Plynck with a twinkling smile. \"Do you hear\nthat?\" she asked. \"Bless the child! She says rules are made to keep!\"\nShe laughed to herself a little longer, then she turned to Sara more\nsoberly. \"As far as your country is concerned, my dear, you are\ndoubtless right, and I suppose it's important for you to keep that\nfact in mind. But here it's very different. Our rules are made to\nbreak. Don't you hear the Plynck breaking them?\"\n\nSo that was what she was doing! For the first time, Sara understood\nwhy she had so enjoyed the delightful little snapping sounds, which\nmade her think of corn dancing against the lid of a corn-popper--or of\nthe snapping of little dry twigs under the pointed shoes of a brownie,\nslipping through the woods alone on Christmas Eve. She thought it was\nthe most completely satisfying sound she had ever heard. She thought,\ntoo, that the broken rules under the tree made a charming litter, and\nwished that the Gunki who were raking them up would leave them there\ninstead. But they went on piling them into wheelbarrows and trundling\nthem down the road toward the smithy.\n\n\"They are taking them to be mended,\" said the Echo of the Plynck, who\nhad been watching her. \"We believe in conservation, you see. Schlorge\nmends them one day, and she breaks them the next, and so we usually\nhave plenty.\"\n\nSara was charmed. But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she remembered\nwhat she had heard her say as she came in. \"Will--will she fly?\" she\nwhispered to the Echo.\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" said the Echo of the Plynck. \"There's a rule\nthat she must, and so it's quite an effort. And there's a rule that\nshe must not sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree. So\nof course she usually sits there. You wouldn't think, yourself, that\nshe'd want to sit there, day after day, if there wasn't--would you?\"\n\nSara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed so\nreasonable and familiar should sound so strange. But it was a blissful\nwonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rules\ncontinued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the still air of the\nGarden. All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by the\nPlynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,\n\n\"Look! Be careful! Oh, dear, oh, dear, it's in!\"\n\n\"Oh, what is it?\" cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap her\nhand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling there\nthat something had happened to her southwest dimple--and she had meant\nto be so careful! And yet she had allowed herself to get so interested\nin the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right past\nSchlorge's beautiful dimple-holder. \"What is it?\" she cried, jumping\nup and down. \"Oh, what is it?\"\n\n\"It's one of the Zizzes!\" cried the Plynck. \"Where are the forceps?\nRun for Schlorge--won't somebody please run for Schlorge?\"\n\nShe sat fluttering her lovely pink plumes and gazing around with her\nsweet, wild, golden eyes in such acute distress that the sight of her\ngrieved and terrified Sara even more than the awful tickling. \"I'll\ngo--\" she began, desperately.\n\nBut that seemed to frighten the Plynck more than ever. \"Oh, don't you\ngo,\" she cried, more wildly than before. \"You stay right here where I\ncan watch it! Oh, somebody--\"\n\n\"I can't come out of the pool,\" panted her Echo, fluttering around the\nrim distressfully.\n\n\"I know I could never in Zeelup get there, with this consanguineous\nhandle,\" hesitated the Teacup, in tears.\n\nAnd just then they saw one of the Gunki rushing off down the road as\nfast as his feet could carry him.\n\nThe Plynck drew a sobbing breath of relief. \"Don't cry, dear--stand\nstill,\" she said, finding time at last to feel sorry for Sara. \"We'll\nsoon have it out now, when Schlorge gets here.\"\n\nSara stood as still as she could, for the tickling. \"What is it?\" she\nventured to ask, tremulously.\n\n\"It's a Zizz, dear,\" said the Plynck, soothingly. \"He flew into your\ndimple and got stuck in the sugar left there from your last smile. You\nshould have wiped it off,\" she added, very gently. \"Standing so close\nto the pool has made it sticky, and now the poor little Zizz--\"\n\n\"I meant to take off my dimples entirely,\" said Sara, her lip\nbeginning to tremble again.\n\n\"Never mind, dear,\" said the Plynck. \"It will be all right now. I see\nSchlorge coming with his forceps.\"\n\nAnd sure enough, in a moment Schlorge came panting up, with his\nforceps in his hair, as usual. Very deftly he extricated the poor\nlittle Zizz, and held it out for Sara to see, still buzzing its wings\nas furiously as it could, with so much syrup on them.\n\nThe Teacup fluttered down, and they all looked at it with mingled\nsympathy and curiosity. The mixture seemed to agree with it, too, for\nthe familiar faint, pale-blue \"zizzing\" sound began to come from its\nwings.\n\n\"Poor little thing!\" said the Echo of the Plynck. \"Why will they\npersist in doing it? Flying right into the syrup like that!\"\n\n\"It's on account of the bitterness of their tails,\" explained Schlorge\nabsently, without looking up from his work.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Sara, though she didn't quite understand. \"Will it\never be able to fly again?\"\n\n\"Well,\" answered Schlorge, \"I'm afraid you'll have to dry it.\" He\nlooked about him. \"Where's the stump?\"\n\nHe found it presently, and led Sara to its mossy base; then he gently\npressed one of her shoe-buttons, and she was lifted upon it in safety.\n\n\"Now,\" he explained, \"you got it all sticky with your smile, and you'll\nhave to frown on it to dry it. I know it's hard to do, here, but if you\nkeep your mind on it, you can. I'll hold the Zizz's wings out, and it\nwon't take long. Think of something very unpleasant--something you came\nhere to escape. Come, what shall it be?\"\n\n\"Fractions,\" said Sara.\n\n\"All right,\" said Schlorge. \"Now think hard. And frown.\"\n\nSo Sara sucked in the corners of her mouth to keep from smiling, and\ntried hard to feel very cross indeed. But, as you will imagine, it was\nnot easy to do in that place. As you have already guessed, the place\ninto which Sara went when she shut the ivory doors was a sort of\ngarden, but not an ordinary one. To be sure, it had the pool, and the\nfountain in the middle, and the moon-dial, like most gardens, and the\nGugollaph-tree where the Plynck sat, and a good many prose-bushes\nbesides the one with the hemmed doorknob where the Snimmy lived with\nhis wife. But not many gardens have such charming little openings in\nthe flowery hedges that shut them in, through which little paths run\nout as if they were escaping through sheer mischief, and on purpose to\nlead you on. And not many are placed, as this one seemed to be, in the\nmiddle of a sort of amphitheatre, with distant mountains rising like\nwalls about it, golden and pansy-colored, a million miles away. The\nspace that lay between the hedge and the mountain-walls seemed to be\nfilled with sunrises and sunsets, like the Grand Canyon. I said, all\naround; but, really, the walls of the amphitheatre didn't quite meet.\nOn one side, over the hedge, Sara could see a marble balcony, with\nbox-trees in vases on the balustrades; and beyond and beneath it there\nwas Nothing--Nothing-at-All. Sometimes, as Sara afterward learned, the\nsun came to that place to set; but usually it was too lonesome, and he\nset nearer the Garden.\n\nYou may well imagine that it was not easy for Sara to look cross in\nsuch a strange, delicious place. But she knew she owed it to the poor\nlittle Zizz, so she tried with all her might to think only of\nfractions and asparagus. (Her mother had an obstinate conviction that\nthat, too, was good for children.)\n\nThey were all so interested in listening to the deepening blueness of\nthe sound the Zizz made that they kept quite still. Suddenly Schlorge\nthought of something.\n\n\"Where's the Snimmy?\" he asked, sharply.\n\n\"He's gone with his wife to bathe the Snoodle,\" answered the Echo of\nthe Plynck. \"They have to bathe it every three days, you know, in\ncastor oil. That's what keeps it white. And there isn't any here.\"\n\n\"Thank goodness!\" thought Sara, who had nearly jumped off the stump at\nthe sound of those baleful syllables. It would be good to think of,\nanyhow, she decided; and as she thought of it, the wings of the Zizz\nbegan to dry so fast that they fairly sang. And suddenly it zizzed\nright out of Schlorge's forceps and went buzzing straight off to the\nflowery hedge.\n\n\"Well!\" said Schlorge, with much satisfaction, \"that's over.\" Then, as\nSara's face twinkled into smiles, he added, excitedly, \"Bless my\nbellows! She's still got on her dimples! Won't you learn, Sara? Course\nI didn't notice 'em while you frowned. Come, now--\"\n\n\"And it's time for the Snimmy to be back,\" interrupted the Teacup, who\nhad fluttered down and perched on the edge of the moon-dial to see\nwhat time it was. \"They said they'd only be gone two hours.\"\n\n\"Then there's no time to lose,\" said Schlorge. He pressed Sara's\nshoe-button decidedly and she floated softly down upon the blue plush,\nlike a milk-weed seed in the fall. And then Schlorge deftly took off\nher dimples--it felt very funny to have them removed with the\nforceps--and put them in the dimple-holder where they belonged. Then,\ndrawing a deep breath, he rubbed his hands and smiled at her, saying,\n\"What's the next thing you'd like to do?\"\n\nSara saw that, though he was still rather bashful, Schlorge had taken\na great fancy to her. It pleased her very much; he was such a useful\nand accommodating person. While she was trying to decide which one of\nseveral places she would ask him to show to her, the Plynck remarked,\ngently,\n\n\"Avrillia's at home.\"\n\nAvrillia--that was it! Sara clapped her hands again, and this time no\nharm was done; for her cheek-dimples were safe in the dimple-holder,\nand her hand-dimples were on the outside, so that the clapping only\njarred them a little. It was funny, she thought, that Schlorge scorned\nto work on hand-dimples, and even the Snimmy scarcely noticed them.\nBut it didn't worry her. Avrillia--that was it. She had come this time\nespecially to see Avrillia.\n\n\"Do you know where she lives?\" she asked Schlorge.\n\n\"Avrillia?  I  should say so. Everybody knows Avrillia. At least I\nknow her to speak to. As to what goes on inside of her, I can't say.\nShe's queer. She writes poetry, you know.\"\n\n\"But she's nice?\" asked Sara anxiously.\n\n\"Oh, she's pleasant-spoken,\" said Schlorge, \"and pretty. Some like her,\nand some don't. The Plynck, here,\" he spoke respectfully, though\ndissentingly, \"thinks the sun rises and sets in her. For myself, I\nlike folks of a more sensible turn.\"\n\n\"Even fairies?\" asked Sara, half inclined to protest.\n\nFor the first time Schlorge was almost rude to her. \"Well, do you take\nme for a human? And I can do something besides write poetry on\nrose-leaves.\" He replaced the forceps in his hair with obvious\nprofessional pride--and, of course, when he put them in in that way,\nthey stayed.\n\nBut Sara echoed delightedly, \"On rose-leaves?\"\n\n\"Well, go and see her, then,\" said Schlorge, ungraciously. Then,\nrelenting a little, \"Come on, I'll take you--if you're stuck on\nverse-writing females.\"\n\nHe took Sara by the hand, and of course his hand was kinder than his\nvoice. To Sara's joy they struck into the curliest of the little paths,\nwhich slipped suddenly through a half-hidden arch in the hawthorn\nhedge, and then skipped confidingly right up to Avrillia's door.\nAvrillia's house was right on the Verge, but the Verge was quite wide\nat this point, and very lovely. It was more like a beach than anything\nelse; and the sands, of course, like those of most beaches, were of\ngold; but instead of being bare, like most beaches, it was sprinkled\nquite thickly with lovely clumps of fog-bushes, which were of a\ndifferent color every hour of the day and every day of the year; and\nthe shells had stems and leaves, and were prettier even than most\nshells. And Avrillia's house had sails, instead of curtains. Still, it\nwas not a boat, because it had star-vines climbing all over the\nterrace (the flowers were of all colors, except square, and only\nopened in the evening) and it had the marble balcony, with the\nbox-trees in urns. For, without knowing it, it was Avrillia's balcony\nthat Sara had seen from the stump.\n\n\"Well, there's Pirlaps,\" said Schlorge, lifting his shoe politely and\nturning back toward the Dimplesmithy. \"He'll tell you where to find\nAvrillia.\"\n\nSara was left looking at a middle-aged fairy-gentleman with a little\npointed beard, who was sitting on a sort of stool or box before an\neasel, hard at work. He had on white tennis-flannels, and an odd but\nbecoming sort of cap. Usually Sara was very shy of strangers; but this\ngentleman looked so pleasant that she had almost made up her mind to\nspeak to him when she saw Schlorge running wildly back up the path.\n\"Where's a stump?\" he panted. \"I forgot--where's a stump?\"\n\nHe spoke so loudly that the gentleman in tennis-flannels heard him and\nlooked around. \"Oh, it's you, Schlorge,\" he said. \"Why, there isn't\nany stump here, you know--but you may use my step, if you like.\"\n\nHe had lovely manners, even with a plain dimplesmith like Schlorge;\nand he rose as he spoke, with his palette in his hand, and made a\npleasant gesture to indicate that Schlorge was quite welcome to it.\nBut Schlorge looked at it doubtfully; and, indeed, Sara saw that it\nwas of chocolate, and rather soft where the gentleman had been sitting\non it. \"I don't want to soil my soul,\" mumbled Schlorge, standing on\none foot and looking down at the sole of the other, very much agitated\nand embarrassed.\n\n\"That's true,\" said the gentleman politely; \"I never stand on it.\" At\nthat Sara could not help showing that she noticed the large black spot\nleft by the chocolate on the seat of his trousers. He saw her look at\nit, and spoke to her kindly.\n\n\"That's all right, little girl,\" he said. \"Avrillia will have me\nchange them in a minute.\"\n\nThen he noticed Schlorge's dreadful impatience for something to stand\non, and rang a little bell in his left ear.\n\nImmediately a small servant, also of chocolate, came tumbling out of\nthe house. He was the most attractive-looking person you can imagine.\nHis eyes and teeth were exactly like the filling in a chocolate cream,\nand how his eyes rolled and his teeth twinkled! But it was the inside\nof his mouth that fascinated Sara most. It was of the lovely, violent\nred of certain jelly-beans she had known, and she caught the most\ntantalizing, cavernous glimpses whenever he grinned.\n\n\"Yassuh,\" said his master, \"go at once and get a piece of plain white\nsatin for Mr. Schlorge to stand on. You'll find a bolt in the\ntool-box.\"\n\nYassuh scrambled off down the path. (He was very bow-legged, because\nhis mother had allowed him to go out in the sun too much, when he was\na baby, and, being of chocolate, his legs had softened into that\nshape.) Almost immediately he came rolling back with the white satin,\nwhich he spread on the box.\n\nAll this time Schlorge had been in an agony of impatience. Almost\nstepping on Yassuh in his eagerness, he jumped upon the box, and,\narranging his hands as before, shouted loudly, \"Pirlaps, this is Sara,\na little girl! Sara, this is Pirlaps, Avrillia's step-husband!\" Then\nhe sprang down and went running down the path again, shouting\nexcitedly, \"See you again, Sara! See you again!\"\n\n\"Well, Sara,\" said the pleasant fairy-gentleman, taking her hand, \"how\nare you? Did you come to see Avrillia?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Sara, looking up at him from under her lashes and\nthinking she had never see a shaving-person, except her own father, so\ndelightful.\n\n\"I think you'll find her on her balcony,\" said Pirlaps, kindly. \"I\njust heard a poem drop over the Verge. Here, Yassuh,\" he said, \"take\nthis little girl to your mistress.\"\n\nSara followed Yassuh along the path of silver gravel that led around\nthe house, and then up a little outside staircase of marble to the\nbalcony; and there, on the third step from the top, she paused.\n\nHas any mortal but Sara ever seen Avrillia? Certainly there never was\nanother fairy so wan and wild and beautiful. When Sara caught sight of\nher she was leaning over the marble balustrade, looking down into\nNothing, and one hand was still stretched out as if it had just let\nsomething fall. She seemed to be still watching its descent. Her body,\nas she leaned, was like a reed, and her hair was pale-gold and cloudy.\nBut all that was nothing beside Avrillia's eyes.\n\nFor she turned around after a while and saw Sara, and smiled at her\nwithout surprise, though she looked absent-minded and wistful.\n\n\"It didn't stick,\" she said.\n\n\"What didn't?\" asked Sara. Her words may not sound very polite; but if\nyou could have heard the awe and wonder in her little voice you would\nhave pardoned her.\n\n\"The poem,\" said Avrillia. What was it her voice was like?\nSheep-bells? Sheep-bells, that was it. Sheep-bells across an English\ndown--at twilight! Sara had never seen more than three sheep in her\nlife; and those three didn't wear bells; and she had never heard of a\ndown. And yet, Avrillia's voice sounded to Sara exactly as I have\nsaid.\n\nMoreover, it drew Sara softly to her side. Her dress smelled like\nisthagaria; and it was very soft to touch. For Sara touched it as\nconfidingly as she would her own mother's.\n\nAt that Avrillia seemed to remember her. Sara saw at once that\nAvrillia never remembered anybody very long at a time. She was kind,\nand her smile was entrancingly sweet; but her mind always seemed to be\non something else. Probably on her poetry, Sara decided.\n\nNow, however, she remembered Sara, and asked, \"Would you like to look\nover?\"\n\n\"What's down there?\" Sara could not help asking.\n\n\"Nothing. Would you like to see it?\"\n\nSara drew nearer the balustrade, full of awe, and uncertain whether\nshe wished to look or not. But presently curiosity got the better of\nher, and she leaned over the balustrade and looked down into Nothing.\nIt was very gray.\n\n\"Do you throw your poems down there?\" she asked of Avrillia, in\ninexpressible wonder.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Avrillia. \"I write them on rose-leaves, you know--\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" breathed Sara. She still thought she had never heard of\nanything that sounded lovelier than poems written on rose-leaves.\n\n\"Petals, I mean, of course,\" continued Avrillia, \"all colors, but\nespecially blue. And then I drop them over, and some day one of them\nmay stick on the bottom--\"\n\n\"But there isn't any bottom,\" said Sara, lifting eyes like black\npansies for wonder.\n\n\"No, there's no real bottom,\" conceded Avrillia, patiently, \"but\nthere's an imaginary bottom. One might stick on that, you know. And\nthen, with that to build to, if I drop them in very fast, I may be\nable to fill it up--\"\n\n\"But there aren't any sides to it, either!\" objected Sara, even more\nwonderingly.\n\nAvrillia betrayed a faint exasperation (it showed a little around the\nedges, like a green petticoat under a black dress). \"Oh, these literal\npeople!\" she said, half to herself. Then she continued, still more\npatiently, \"Isn't it just as easy to imagine sides as a bottom? Well,\nas I was saying, if I write them fast enough to fill it up--I mean if\none should stick, of course--somebody a hundred years from now may\ncome along and notice one of my poems; and then I shall be Immortal.\"\nAnd at that a lovely smile crossed Avrillia's face.\n\nSara stood a long time, thinking. She couldn't help loving Avrillia,\nalthough she knew that Avrillia was not nearly so fond of her as the\nPlynck, or Schlorge, or even the Teacup. Yet she would have loved\nAvrillia, even if she had not been kind to her at all.\n\nNow she attracted her attention again by timidly touching her dress.\n\n\"It--it seems a waste,\" she murmured. I think probably she was\nthinking of the rose-petals rather than of the poems. All those lovely\n\"rose-leaves\"! And she had never seen even one blue one. But Avrillia\nwas thinking of the poems.\n\n\"That's the regular way to do about Poetry,\" she said, with a pretty\nlittle air of authority. \"First, you write it, and then you drop it\nover the Verge into Nothing. But it must be very good--otherwise, it\nisn't worth while to spend your time on it.\" But just then the\nthermometer went off.\n\nYes, the thermometer. Well, perhaps you do set the alarm-clock; but\nAvrillia was a poetess, and a fairy besides, and she set the\nalarm-thermometer. It sounded very pleasant to Sara, like soda-water\nrunning through a straw on a hot afternoon; but Avrillia seemed to\nfind it rather nerve-racking.\n\n\"There it goes,\" was all she said, however. Sara noticed that her\nvoice and manner were extremely quiet and controlled; but she had a\nsuspicion that it was because her eyes were so very wild. Oh, yes,\nthey were beautiful, but wild--wilder even than the Plynck's. The\nTeacup, however, had quite tame eyes; it must be confessed that, when\nSara saw the effect of the thermometer upon Avrillia she wished for\nthe Teacup, a little.\n\nBut Avrillia merely called Yassuh in her sweet, controlled voice, and,\nwhen he appeared, said to him quietly,\n\n\"Go tell your master it's time for him to change his trousers and\nshave.\"\n\nWhen Yassuh was gone she turned to Sara again--rather as one\nentertains a visitor when one really wants to be doing something\nelse--and said, politely, \"I suppose you know he's my step-husband.\nThat makes it rather troublesome.\"\n\nSara, remembering Pirlaps and his white trousers, looked so eager and\nso uncomprehending that Avrillia evidently felt called upon to explain\nfurther.\n\n\"It makes it necessary for him to sit on the step constantly, you see.\nAnd it's of chocolate. That's unfortunate, too, but it can't be\nhelped. It's all right in winter, of course, but in summer it's a\ngreat deal of trouble. When we were first married he used to wear\nblack trousers in summer; but I soon put a stop to that. I have him\ntrained now so that he always wears white ones, and I set the\nthermometer and remind him to change them every two hours. That's my\npart of the bargain. He has forty-seven pairs. And, every time he\nchanges them, he has to shave. That's part of the agreement, too.\"\n\n\"Why,\" began Sara, \"I thought he had--\"\n\n\"To be sure he has,\" said Avrillia, looking a little amused. \"It grows\nso fast, you see.\"\n\nSara turned this over in her mind for several moments. Then her\nthoughts returned to the step. She simply couldn't help making\nsuggestions to Avrillia. She seemed, for all her little haughty\npolitenesses, so helpless.\n\n\"You might put something over it--\" she began.\n\n\"I have suggested that,\" said Avrillia, \"but he would not consent to\nit. He says it would be circumnavigating Nature. Of course, when it's\nnecessary to offer it to guests--\"\n\nBut just at that moment Pirlaps himself came out of the house, wearing\na fresh, immaculate pair of trousers. His little pointed beard was\ngone; but Sara thought she could see it already coming back. Yassuh\ncame along behind him, carrying the step.\n\n\"You see, marriage is very civilizing, Sara,\" he said, in his gay,\nkind way. \"I wouldn't do this for anybody but Avrillia. How's the\npoetry, Avrillia?\"\n\n\"Doing nicely, thank you,\" said Avrillia, pleasantly. \"How's the\npainting?\"\n\n\"Flourishing,\" said Pirlaps, cheerfully. \"How are the children?\"\n\n\"I haven't seen them this week,\" said Avrillia. \"I vanished them last\nRoseday.\"\n\nPirlaps' face fell a little--perhaps an inch, altogether. But Sara\ncried out, clapping her hands again with impunity (try doing it that\nway, sometime--it's great fun),\n\n\"Oh, are there children?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Avrillia.\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"Oh, about seventy,\" said Avrillia, a little languidly.\n\n\"May--may I see them?\" asked Sara.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said Avrillia. \"Perhaps you'll come some day when they're\nnot vanished.\"\n\nSara, somehow, felt herself to have been politely dismissed; and she\nsoon found herself walking beside Pirlaps down the little marble\nstairs. She slipped her hand into his as she would into her own\nfather's, and, looking up into his face, said, enthusiastically, \"Oh,\nisn't she lovely?\"\n\nPirlaps seemed very much pleased, and looked down upon her more kindly\nthan ever. \"You like Avrillia?\" he said. \"That's good. It isn't\neverybody that appreciates Avrillia.\"\n\nHe stopped before a lilac-colored fog-bush and put his step down\nbefore his easel. Sara did not dare remonstrate, but she cast an\nagonized look first at the step and then at his lovely white trousers.\n\n\"Is--is that what is meant by step-relations?\" was all she could say.\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said Pirlaps, sitting firmly down on the chocolate. \"Are\nyou interested in relations?\" he asked eagerly, after he had adjusted\nhis easel. \"Because, if you are, we'll go to see mine, some day. I\nhave a lot.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Chapter III\n                                Relations\n\n\n\nSara was determined, when she shut the ivory doors behind her the next\nmorning, to do two things, no matter what happened; first, she would\nput her dimples in the dimple-holder immediately; and, second, she\nwould go right on to find Pirlaps, and not be beguiled into lingering\naround the pool by the fascinating talk of the Plynck and her Echo.\nFor, ever since she left him, she had been thinking of the offer\nPirlaps had made to take her to see his relations; and she had been\ngrowing more and more curious and interested.\n\nAnd this time she did remember her dimples; she saw them sparkling on\nthe whipped cream cushion, all safe and contented, before she so much\nas lifted her eyes from the blue plush grass. But alas, for her\nresolution not to loiter! For although, on the other days, there had\nbeen such a variegated murmur of delighted sound--the Echo of the\nPlynck in the pool, and the lovely crackling of breaking rules, and\nthe deep-blue singing of the Zizzes' wings, and the melodious snoring\nof the Snoodle (like that of a tuning-fork when it sleeps on its side)\n--yet everything had been as still and motionless to the eye as an\nApril daydream. But this morning it was the other way around. Not a\nsound was to be heard; but what a scene! You see, for the first time,\nthe Snoodle was awake, frisking soundlessly around the fountain; and\nthe Plynck--the Plynck was flying!\n\nNow, it is true that a Plynck at rest is a beautiful sight; but it is\nnothing to the charm and wonder of a Plynck in motion. (The same, as\nwe shall see in a moment, is true in a lesser degree of a Snoodle.)\nIts long, rosy plumes, like those of an ostrich, only four times as\nlong, went waving through the air with an indescribably dreamy grace;\nand now Sara could actually see the perfume, which before she had only\nsmelled. It rained down through the air, as the Plynck circled slowly\nround and round the fountain, and looked rather like a sort of golden\nspice. And as Sara stood watching, spellbound and sniffing, she knew\nshe had been mistaken in thinking that, there was no sound at all.\nThere was just one: a little soft, straining sound the Plynck's\ncerulean Echo made as it circled round and round in the pool and tried\nto keep up with the Plynck. Her motions would have been exactly as\nlovely as those of the Plynck, if they had not been just a trifle\nlabored, owing to the difficulty of flying under water; and her\nbreathing was distinctly perceptible. Sara could hear it, too; and it\nsounded like the ghost of a dead breeze in a pine-top.\n\nAs soon as Sara could take her ravished eyes from the sight, she\nlooked down to see what was nuzzling about her shoe-buttons; and, just\nas she had suspected, it was the Snoodle, frisking and tumbling and\nrolling about her feet to make her notice him. And, indeed, when he\nwas awake, the Snoodle was irresistible. Not that he looked like\nanything Sara had ever seen before. He might, perhaps, have looked\nlike a dog, except that he was so very long--his length, indeed, gave\nhim a haunting resemblance to a freshly cooked piece of macaroni.\n(Sara was later to find out the reason for this; but at the moment she\nwas puzzled, just as you are when you meet a stranger who looks like\nsomebody else, and you can't remember who else it is.) And his head,\nwhich was not very clearly defined, was finished off with a neat\nlittle cap that looked like a snail-shell, and seemed to be fastened\nto him. His eyes, which stuck out several inches in front of his face\non long prongs, were delightfully mischievous and confiding; and he\nwas covered with the most beautiful snow-white, curly hair. But he had\none drawback; and Sara discovered that when she started to pick him\nup. It was a sort of little window in the exact middle of his back,\nwith an ising-glass cover, like the slide-cover of some boxes. The\nminute you touched him, this little slide drew back, and from within\nthere escaped an odor of castor oil. It, too, was distinctly\nperceptible; Sara could even smell it. As soon as she did so, she\nherself drew back, and contented herself with looking admiringly at the\nconfiding, playful little Snoodle.\n\nAs she stood watching his pretty antics she became aware that the\nSnimmy's wife had stopped her work and was watching them with a grim\nsmile. Sara saw that she had just unscrewed the knob of the prose-bush,\nand was still holding the doorknob and the corkscrew in her hand. As\nfar as Sara could tell, the doorknob seemed as neatly hemmed as ever;\nso, overcome by curiosity, she asked the Snimmy's wife what she was\ngoing to do with it.\n\n\"This is the day to unhem it,\" she answered rather glumly. \"I unhem it\nevery Pinkday, and hem it every Lilyday. I used to hem it only oncet a\nmonth, but Avrillia said that wasn't civilized, and whatever she says,\ngoes. At least,\" she added, glancing up at the Plynck, who was still\ncircling beautifully around the fountain, \"she thinks so. And as long\nas I live neighbor to her it's sort-of up to me to respect her\nstandards.\"\n\nAvrillia! Ah, now Sara remembered! She had meant to go straight to\nfind Pirlaps and Avrillia! She glanced around to see if she could find\nthe curly little path; but she could not really start until she had\nasked a few questions about the darling little Snoodle.\n\n\"Is--isn't he lovely?\" she began, aware of a vague necessity of\npleasing the wife of the Snimmy, if one wanted to find out anything.\nHowever, she was quite honest; she really did think the Snoodle was\nlovely--except for his drawback.\n\n\"You think so?\" answered the Snimmy's wife, trying hard not to show\nhow foolishly pleased she really was. \"He's the only child we have.\"\n\nIf Sara had thought a minute, she would not have asked the next\nquestion--certainly not of so formidable a person as the Snimmy's\nwife. But she didn't think. She just asked, eagerly,\n\n\"Is he a--a sort of--dog?\"\n\n\"A sort of _dog_?\" echoed the Snimmy's wife, in the most outraged\nitalics.\n\n\"A--kind of--puppy?\"\n\n\"A kind of--PUPPY?\" said the Snimmy's wife, in perfectly withering\nsmall capitals. Then she said, in the loftiest large capitals Sara had\never seen,\n\n\"HIS MOTHER WAS A SNAIL--SHE HELD THE WORLD'S RECORD FOR SLOWNESS. AND\nHIS FATHER WAS A PEDIGREED NOODLE.\"\n\nSara looked at him in awe; now she understood the cap, and the prongs,\nand the extreme length. But, in spite of the Snimmy's wife's indignant\nmood, she had to ask one more question.\n\n\"But you said he was your child,\" was the way she put it.\n\n\"I didn't,\" retorted the Snimmy's wife, with undisguised contempt. \"I\nsaid he was the only child we have. We have him, haven't we?\" And with\nthat she sat down with her back to Sara on her own toadstool, and\ncurled her long white tail around the base with quite unnecessary\ntightness. Her nose was not quite so debilitating as the Snimmy's;\nstill, it nearly stuck into the doorknob as she hemmed.\n\nSara saw there was nothing further to be got out of her, and she did\nnot wish to pick up the Snoodle on account of his drawback; so she\ndecided to go on to Avrillia's without further delay, and began to\nlook around her again for the little curly path. It was pink, this\ntime, instead of curly, but that made it all the more attractive; so\nshe struck into it at once, and went skipping happily toward the arch\nin the hawthorn hedge. Just before she reached it she heard Avrillia's\nthermometer go off, so she knew that she was on the right path.\n\nThe minute she got through the hedge she saw Avrillia, and, oh,\nloveliest of wonders! What were those? Flying around her hair,\nclinging to her silken skirts, dancing among the shell-flowers,\nswarming over the balcony, playing a dainty game up and down the\nmarble stairs--oh, it was the children! The children were at home!\n\nAnd when Avrillia saw Sara she came toward her with the loveliest look\nof welcome, the children hanging all around her like rose-garlands.\nAnd if Sara had loved Avrillia the day before, she could simply find\nno words now to express her adoration. For Avrillia knelt down among\nthe shell-flowers, and held out her arms (which were like the necks of\nswans) to Sara; and she really seemed to see her this time. And when\nshe smiled at her, her eyes were hardly at all wild, but quite playful\nand gentle; and so sweet that Sara, for a moment, had a dizzy\nconviction that if she were a Zizz she would fly right into them.\n(Though, of course, the Zizzes' tails were bitter.) Besides, Avrillia\nheld her at that minute tight to her breast, which was as soft as her\nown perfect, contrary mother's, and had, besides a most entrancing,\nfaint perfume of isthagaria.\n\nWhen she had finished hugging Sara, she held her off at arms' length,\nand said to her, smiling, in that lovely voice,\n\n\"Well, Sara, you see the children are here. Aren't they nice?\"\n\nAnd once more Sara could find no words to express their niceness. And\nshe could no more have described them to you than if they had been so\nmany endearing young charms. But one of the queerest, prettiest things\nshe was sure about: their faces were all dimples! Moreover, they were\nmuch more becoming to them than ordinary features would have been.\n\n\"How old are they?\" asked Sara, in the most delighted bewilderment.\nThe friendly little things fluttered and chattered and chirruped\naround her in the most distracting way, brushing her face with their\nwings in their eagerness to get acquainted, and even getting their\nsilver sandals tangled in her hair.\n\n\"Well,\" said Avrillia with great exactitude--Sara had already\ndiscovered that Avrillia had a weakness for being considered\npractical--\"fourteen of them are six and three of them are two and\nthirty are seven and ten are nine, and five are six months.\"\n\n\"My!\" said Sara, in doubt and wonder. And right there she had a\nsuspicion that that was one reason she had loved Avrillia from the\nfirst: she couldn't do arithmetic! To be sure, Sara herself couldn't\nadd all that mixture in her head--at least not with all those lovely\nchildren about--but it sounded like a great deal more than seventy;\nand there certainly looked to be a million. So, as she stood and gazed,\nshe said, more in wonder than with any idea of correcting Avrillia,\n\"And you said there were just seventy?\"\n\nFor a moment Avrillia's eyes again grew distraught and doubtful, and\nshe answered, uncertainly, \"I think there are just seventy.\" Then she\ncalled to Pirlaps, who was sitting on his step in the light of a\nglorious flame-colored fog-bush, hard at work, \"Pirlaps, have we had\nany children since Sara was here yesterday?\"\n\n\"Not one,\" said Pirlaps, smiling at her with a look of pleasant\namusement. \"Don't you remember that you dropped poems over the Verge\nall day?\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" said Avrillia, with relief, \"but Sara seemed to think\nthere were more than seventy.\" Then her eyes fell upon the trousers of\nPirlaps, who had risen and was coming toward them now, with Yassuh\nrolling along behind with the step.\n\n\"O Pirlaps,\" said Avrillia, her sweet voice full of reproach, \"you\nhaven't changed your trousers! That's just the way things go,\" she\nadded, beginning to look wild and worried and distraught, \"when the\nchildren are here! I can't keep up with everything! And the\nthermometer went off fifteen minutes ago! I heard it, but I was busy\nwith the children. And your shaving-water will be perfectly cold!\" She\ngrew more and more agitated.\n\n\"Never mind, Avrillia,\" said Pirlaps, soothingly, and Sara noticed\nthat his pleasant, cheerful ways always had a wonderfully calming\neffect upon Avrillia. \"I'm going right in now to change; and then I\nhave a plan that will straighten things out and please everybody.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Avrillia, looking more hopeful.\n\n\"It's too soon to tell yet,\" said Pirlaps, with a delightfully wise\nair, and he went on up the steps, with Yassuh tumbling after him,\nleaving them all feeling very much relieved.\n\nAvrillia, making a brave effort to recover her composure, began\nplaying with the children again, and they were having almost as\ndelightful a time as if nothing distressing had occurred, when Pirlaps\nreappeared, all fresh-shaven and immaculate.\n\n\"Put the step out in the sun where it will keep soft, Yassuh,\" he\nsaid. \"I shan't need it this afternoon.\"\n\nThey all stopped playing and looked at him in wonder.\n\n\"I'm going to take Sara to see my relations, as I promised her I would,\"\nhe explained, taking Sara kindly by the hand.\n\n\"Oh, that's lovely,\" said Avrillia, looking at Pirlaps gratefully out\nof her speaking eyes. \"There's nobody like you, Pirlaps.\"\n\nPirlaps looked wonderfully pleased with himself; and, since there was\nnot a bit of chocolate on his trousers, he looked unusually spruce and\nhandsome, too. Sara skipped along beside him delightedly; only,\nsometimes when she looked back, she wished she could stay with\nAvrillia while she was in such a lovely mood, and all those\ninteresting children. Still, Sara's dear, self-willed mother had\ntaught her to be a considerate little girl, and she reflected that she\nreally ought not to bother Avrillia with another child, when she\nalready had seventy to look after. The thoughts of Pirlaps also seemed\nto be running in the same channel (indeed, Sara could catch glimpses\nof them, trickling along under that thin, funny cap he always wore),\nand he presently said,\n\n\"It's too bad to bring you away when the children are at home, Sara,\nbut you know they are a great deal of care to Avrillia, and when\nthey're at home I try to do everything I can to relieve her. Now, you\nsee, she won't have to bother about my trousers for the whole\nafternoon.\"\n\n\"But how can you get along without your step?\" asked Sara. She knew\nthis was a personal question, but she felt, somehow, that Pirlaps\nwould not think her impolite.\n\nHe looked down at her and smiled, just as her own father did when she\nasked questions which showed her youth and inexperience.\n\n\"I'm not a step-man, Sara,\" he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement\nat her lack of information, \"only a step-husband. When I'm away from\nAvrillia I don't need the step.\"\n\nAll this time they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed\nthat they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very\npleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of\nhollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored\nhills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre. There\nwere not so many Gugollaph-trees as there were in the Garden and along\nthe road to the Dimplesmithy, owing to the different topography of the\ncountry; instead, there were a good many poker-bushes.\n\n\"My relations live in a colony,\" said Pirlaps. \"There used to be\nnearly seven hundred of them; but now there are only eight hundred and\nthree.\"\n\nAnd just at that moment they came in sight of the colony. It consisted\nin a large number of odd, attractive-looking little houses grouped\naround an open space covered with pleasant red grass, which Pirlaps\ntold her was an uncommon. In the middle of the uncommon was a sort of\nplatform, and upon the platform there was something which Sara, at\nfirst glance, took to be an enormous statue. But even at that distance\nshe could see it move; so she hastened to ask Pirlaps what it was.\n\n\"Why, that's my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather,\" said Pirlaps,\nwith a good deal of pride. \"He occupies the Post of Honor in the\ncolony, you know, because he's the oldest and the largest. He's really\ngreat, and quite pleasant; you'll enjoy meeting him.\"\n\nBy this time they were going down a little shady road that led\nstraight to the uncommon. Sara was so struck by the large number of\ncurious and interesting people she saw on all sides, going quietly\nabout their regular occupations, that she could hardly look where she\nwas going. But Pirlaps led her right to the foot of the post, and the\nfirst thing she knew he was introducing her. \"This is Sara,\nGreat-Great-Great-Great,\" he was saying; and Sara looked up and saw,\nsitting in a sort of easy chair on top of the post, the very largest\nperson she had ever seen. In size he was a veritable giant, or even an\nogre; but anybody could see that in disposition he was as far as\npossible from being either. Indeed, his disposition was evidently very\nlike that of her own grandfather (who wasn't great at all, at least\nnot in comparison with this one), even to the bag of marshmallows in\nhis pocket. Sara could see it sticking out--but such enormous\nmarshmallows! Why, each one was larger than the biggest, fattest\nsofa-pillow Sara had ever seen. And, of course, beside the\nmarshmallows, the Great-Great-Great-Great had beautiful white hair,\nand twinkling eyes, and all the usual equipment of a grandfather.\n\n\"Why, good afternoon, Pirlaps,\" said the Great-Great-Great-Great, in a\nlittle high, cracked voice that seemed very odd. (\"As they get greater,\ntheir voices get smaller,\" explained Pirlaps, who had noticed that\nSara jumped when the old gentleman spoke.) \"Would you like a\nmarshmallow?\" he continued, tossing one down to her; and Sara saw\nthat it would have tipped her over, as Jimmie's missiles sometimes did\nwhen they had a pillow-fight, if Pirlaps had not caught it. While she\nwas wondering what would be the polite way to eat so huge a\nmarshmallow, she saw the other Grandfathers coming toward her. She\nknew them because there were four of them, marching in single file,\nwith their hands on each other's shoulders. The Great-Great-Great, who\nwas next in size to the one on the Post of Honor, was leading, and\nthey were arranged in order down to the plain Grandfather, who was not\nmuch above the usual height.\n\nAt the same moment she saw the Grandmothers coming from the\nopposite direction, in the same manner. Only, the mate to the\nGreat-Great-Great-Great was leading, and they were coming straight\ntoward the vacant Post. Sara watched them with extreme interest. They,\ntoo, were of quite the usual grandmotherly pattern, but were equally\nvariable and extraordinary in size. When they reached the Post they\nmade a sort of living stepladder, like the acrobats in the circus; that\nis, the plain Grandmother stooped over, like a boy playing leapfrog,\nand the Great mounted on her back; then the Great-Great mounted on her\nback, and so on, until finally the Great-Great-Great-Great got upon the\nvery top and so stepped upon the Post. She took her seat in an\narm-chair like the one on the other Post, and Sara noticed that her\nkerchief was exactly the size of one of Mother's hemstitched sheets.\nShe was indeed a handsome, venerable and distinguished-looking old\nlady, if you stood far enough away to see her all at once.\n\n\"Well, Sara, should you like to see the cousins?\" asked Pirlaps, when\nthis interesting manoeuvre had been completed and the other\nGrandmothers began to disperse. \"We'll be just about in time for the\ndrill.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" cried Sara, who was very fond of watching drills. So\nPirlaps led her to a level place which he told her was the cousins'\ndrill-ground. It was hard and smooth, and marked off with lines like a\ntennis-court, only much more intricately. And there were numbers of\ncousins standing about, each one looking very erect and alert, with\nhis hand on the back of a chair. Just as Sara came up, the captain of\nthe cousins stepped out in front and called, \"Attention!\"\n\nThe cousins looked so attentive it was almost painful.\n\nThen he called out, \"First Cousin once removed!\" and the First Cousin\nmarched out very stiffly and set his chair down accurately on the\nfirst mark, after which he sat down in it with military precision.\nThen the captain called, \"Second Cousin once removed!\" and the Second\nCousin marched out and sat down in the right place quite as\nimpressively.\n\nWell, you can imagine how it went on, as far as Tenth Cousin eighth\nremoved; and after they had gone through it straight the captain began\nskipping them around. It was very lively and exciting; but when\nPirlaps heard Sara give a little sigh, and asked her, with a twinkle,\nhow she liked it, she was obliged to answer, \"I like it, but--it makes\nmy head turn around. It's so much like arithmetic.\"\n\n\"That's what Avrillia says,\" answered Pirlaps, smiling. \"Well, let's\nwalk around a bit. And then I'll show you the Strained Relations.\"\n\nSara thought that sounded very interesting; and, besides, she was glad\nto walk after standing still so long. So they strolled about, enjoying\nthe pleasant afternoon, and the oddity of the people and their ways.\nThere were any number of step-relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers\nand sisters, sitting around on their various steps, or carrying them\njauntily under their arms. She noticed that none of them had a servant\nto carry them, however, from which she concluded that they were not so\nwell-to-do as Pirlaps. But then, none of the steps were of chocolate.\nThey were of various materials, however, even yellow.\n\nOnce, in crossing the uncommon, they met one of Pirlaps' half-sisters.\nShe was divided lengthwise, and so had only a profile; but, as her\nprofile was very pretty, the effect was not at all unpleasant. While\nthey were talking to her, one of his half-brothers came up, but he was\ndivided crosswise, and so had no back. However, from the front, of\ncourse, you hardly noticed it.\n\n\"Well,\" said Pirlaps, at last, glancing at the small clinical\nthermometer he carried, \"we'll just have time to take a look at the\nStrained Relations, and then I must get back and help Avrillia vanish\nthe children.\"\n\nHe led Sara to a distant corner of the uncommon that was fenced off\nfrom the rest by a high wire netting. It looked rather like the high\nnets about a tennis-court, except that it was made of silver wire,\nwith a mesh as fine as a milk-strainer. Inside the wire, in a sort of\nlittle private park, she could see a number of very haughty-looking\npersons moving about.\n\n\"Don't speak to them,\" said Pirlaps, as they drew near. \"They're\nentirely too snobbish to be spoken to.\"\n\nSara approached in awe, and they stood gazing at the pale,\nsupercilious-looking creatures, who returned their gaze through\nmonocles, lorgnettes, and other contemptuous media.\n\n\"You see,\" explained Pirlaps, \"nobody speaks to them. Every time they\ngo in or out, they pass through the strainer, and that strains out all\nof their red corpuscles and leaves only the blue. That's why they are\nso superior and exclusive. Of course, too, it makes them very thin,\nand gives them that sheer, transparent look.\" And, indeed, Sara\nnoticed that she could see quite through one of the thinnest ones, who\nwore a very high-necked dress buttoned in the back.\n\nPirlaps was now growing anxious to be at home, so after saying good-by\nto the important personages on the Posts of Honor, they started back.\n\nAs they drew near, they saw Avrillia in the rose-garden near the\nbalcony, looking very lovely as she moved among the flowers.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Pirlaps, \"she's already vanished them. She's gathering\nrose-leaves for tomorrow's poems.\"\n\nAs he spoke, Avrillia, looking up, waved a blue rose to them, and\ndisappeared within the house. In a moment she reappeared, wearing the\nsweetest smile Sara had ever seen.\n\nPirlaps looked greatly pleased and touched. And no wonder; for\nAvrillia was coming out to meet him, bringing him his step with her\nown hands.\n\n\n\n\n\n                              Chapter IV\n                             The Invaders\n\n\nWhen Sara dropped the curtains behind her the next morning she paused\nin horror, with her hand poised above the dimple-holder. What had\nhappened to her lovely Garden in the night?\n\nIt looked exactly as her own little garden was accustomed to look\nthree days after a hard freeze. Blighted--that was the word: it was\nblighted. The leaves hung limp and brown from the trees; the blue\nplush grass, and even the blue bark of the Gugollaph-tree, had turned\na most sickly green. The water was frozen in the pool; and, imprisoned\nbelow it, she could see the Echo of the Plynck, perfectly stiff, and\nlooking as if she were in some sort of awful trance. The Plynck, on\nthe other hand, drooped on her accustomed branch like the leaves on\nthe trees, as if she hardly had strength to hold her loosened plumes\ntogether. The Snimmy's wife sat on her own toadstool, rigid and\nangry-looking, with her tail wound tightly around the base, and with\nthe half-hemmed doorknob forgotten in her lap; the Snimmy lay\nwatchfully at the door of the prose-bush, with his long, debilitating\nnose on his paws, shivering terribly; and the Snoodle looked as if\nsomebody had put salt on his mother. And the poor, timid Teacup looked\nlike a gentle, fat little old lady who has just been shot out of a\nvolcano.\n\nAvrillia and Pirlaps were standing together in the little arch,\nlooking with passionate and indignant eyes upon the general distress\nand havoc, and especially upon the insolent creatures who had caused\nit. For Sara saw, after a few minutes of bewilderment, that the\nbeautiful place with its gentle inhabitants had been overrun in the\nnight by a horde of Fractions.\n\nFor there they sat, grouped insolently around the fountain, drinking\ntears out of mugs of enormous sighs, and hammering with their fists\nupon the peculiarly disagreeable-looking tables at which they sat.\nThese tables were of various sizes, but they were all very ponderous\nand slippery-looking; and observing them closely, Sara saw that her\ninstinctive aversion was well founded--for they were multiplication\ntables. The Two-Times table was nearest to her, being placed just to\nthe left of the dimple-holder; and they increased regularly in size up\nto the Twelve-Times table, at which the officers were sitting.\nThe whole crowd of invaders were disgustingly haughty and\nself-important--worse even than the Strained Relations, Sara thought;\nbut the officers were the worst of all. From the Least Common Multiple\nup to the Greatest Common Divisor, from the thin, poker-like Quotient\nwith the fierce white moustache to the enormous, puffy Multiplicand,\nSara thought they were the most pompous lot she had ever seen. However,\nsince they were officers and units, she could imagine that they might\nhave some excuse; but what possible excuse could there be for conceit\nin the Fractions, every one of whom had something missing about him?\nSome of them, of course, lacked only an ear or a little finger; but\nnumbers of them had only one leg or one arm, and many of them were\nmuch worse off! Why, at the farthest side of the Three-Times table\nSara saw a Fraction who consisted entirely of one eye!\n\nThere was one table, to be sure, the Eleven-Times, the noisiest of all,\nthat was occupied entirely by Improper Fractions; but aside from their\ntable-manners and general behavior, which were shocking, Sara thought\nthey looked even worse than the proper ones. For one of them had two\nfaces, another three feet, and a third one had as many arms as an\noctopus. Sara positively refused to look at them.\n\nWhile Sara stood gazing in horror and dismay, and feeling so grieved\nfor her friends that she could not bring herself to ask anybody what\nhad happened or what could be done, she saw Schlorge coming at a run\ndown the path from the Dimplesmithy. He looked as wild and distracted\nas any of them, but Sara felt a great relief when she saw him, because\nshe knew he was so clever and practical. She felt, too, that she could\nask him what the trouble was and he could bear it--better than the\nTeacup, for instance, who, she feared, would go all to pieces, or the\nEcho of the Plynck, who was clearly all in. So she ran up to him and\ntouched his elbow and asked, almost crying, \"What is it, Schlorge? How\ndid it happen?\"\n\nSchlorge, even in his excitement, was comforted by her sympathy, and\nevidently very glad to see another ally. \"Why--a--\" he began, and then,\nremembering, he cried excitedly, \"Where's the stump--where's the\nstump? I have to tell Sara about it!\"\n\nBut alas, the invaders had razed the stump to the ground, apparently\nout of wanton malice, for they had made no use of it. All over and\naround it were strewn plus-signs, minus-signs, and other weapons; and\nSara noticed that the dots from the divided-by signs were rolling\nabout everywhere on the withered grass. Manifestly, Schlorge could not\nget upon the fallen stump, through such a thicket of debris, and he\ndared not move them nor step on them; besides, it is doubtful if he\ncould have told Sara about it unless the stump were right side up.\n\nAt this juncture, however, Pirlaps stepped boldly forward and once\nmore offered Schlorge his step. Schlorge sprang upon it without\nnoticing the chocolate, but he was so agitated that he put his left\nhand into his bosom and his right behind his back, instead of the\nother way around. However, it was in a loud, firm voice, with fierce,\ndefiant looks at the invaders, that he informed Sara:\n\n          \"The Fractions came down like a wolf on the fold:\n           Their ears are acute but their noses are cold.\n           They know nothing of poetry, music or art--\n           So why in Sam Hill should they think they're so smart?\"\n\n\n\n\"Why in Zeelup?\" corrected the Teacup, from above, in a tremulous,\nweeping voice; but even had it been louder it would have been drowned\nin the clamor that rose from the tables.\n\n\"Silence, impudent clown!\" roared the fat, fierce-looking\nMultiplicand. \"Ignoramus! nothing of music! Why, you don't know Common\nTime!\"\n\nSara quaked; only yesterday she had got all tangled up trying to tell\nthe difference between three-four time and two-four time; and she knew\nSchlorge was wrong and the dreadful creature was right. But Schlorge\nwas beside himself with fury and beyond the reach of fear or reason.\n\n\"Oh, go on!\" he shouted fiercely. \"You don't know nothing about the\ninsides of music--that's only the outsides! Besides, what time does a\nbird sing by? That's music, ain't it?\"\n\nBut before the Multiplicand could answer, his henchman, the Multiplier,\ncalled out, \"And what do you know of art, Oaf? Don't you know that\nmodern art is colored geometry?\"\n\n\"And poetry?\" squeaked the Quotient, fiercely, \"Don't poets have to\ncount their feet to write poems?\"\n\nBut at that juncture they were all electrified to see Avrillia\nstepping forward, looking so beautiful and so queenly and so\ntransfigured by righteous indignation that even the invaders merely\nblinked. \"Not modern poets,\" she said, with an icy authority that sent\na hostile shiver up and down the multiplication tables. \"They do not\ncount anything--not even the cost.\"\n\nIt was not so much what Avrillia said, as the way she said it, and the\nway she looked, that cowed even the all-powerful invaders for a\nmoment. Pirlaps, at her side, said, \"Good for you, Avrillia!\" under\nhis breath; and Schlorge glared at the Fractions with triumphant scorn\nand continued,\n\n           \"Like leaves of the forest when summer is green\n            Our beautiful Garden at sunset was seen;\n            Like leaves of the forest when autumn is flown,\n            You see it this morning all withered and strown.\"\n\n\nAs he finished this stanza Schlorge seemed to rise to twice his full\nheight (indeed, he seemed to Sara for a moment almost half as tall as\nher waist) in his eloquent fury, as he continued:\n\n           \"But we will lambast you, you straight-waisted pigs,\n            As sure as black's yellow and thistles is figs!\n            Yea, surer than squashes our vengeance we'll wreak;\n            If it isn't today, why, we'll do it next week!\"\n\n\n\nSara had a distressed feeling that this was rather a weak ending, but\nnobody else seemed to notice it; indeed, several of the Fractions were\nso incensed at the bold threat that two or three of them called out,\n\"Shoot him at sunrise!\" The Greatest Common Divisor, however, merely\ngave him a savage and contemptuous glance over his tear-mug, as much\nas to say that he would annihilate him when it was quite convenient.\n\nIn a few moments they were again entirely absorbed in their drinking\nand carousing, and then Pirlaps cautiously touched Schlorge on the\narm. \"Let's have a council of war,\" he said, in a very low voice,\ndrawing him a little to one side. \"I have an idea. Where shall we go?\"\n\n\"Better come down to the Smithy,\" said Schlorge. \"They haven't\ndiscovered it yet.\"\n\nVery quietly then, while the Fractions were busy drinking, Schlorge\nand Pirlaps and Avrillia and Sara and the Snimmy and the Snimmy's wife\nslipped out of the Garden and down the path to the Dimplesmithy. They\ndidn't think it necessary to tell the Plynck, who was too much crushed\nto be of use, or the Teacup, for whom they dreaded the slightest\nshock. The Echo of the Plynck might have been useful, only she was\nstill frozen into the pool.\n\nThe farther they got from the Garden the less blighted and the more\nnatural everything looked; and by the time they reached the road, they\nwould not have suspected, from the look of the country, that\ndestruction was lurking so near.\n\nWhen they reached the Dimplesmithy, they sent the Snimmy to sniff out\nthe neighborhood carefully with his debilitating nose, to see if there\nwere any spies about; and when he returned, Pirlaps carefully unfolded\nhis plan.\n\n\"I am convinced,\" he said earnestly, \"from what I have observed this\nmorning, that Poetry will be absolutely fatal to these hateful\nintruders who have descended upon us. The only question in my mind is,\nHow shall we apply it? After thinking about it most carefully, I have\nworked out a tentative plan. Avrillia, I am sure, can furnish us\nplenty of ammunition.\" (Sara, glancing admiringly at Avrillia, saw the\nthrilling look of high resolve that shone in her face.) \"And Schlorge\nwill have to make us two or three more pairs of bellows. Are you\nstrong enough to wield a pair, Sara?\" he asked. Even in the stress of\nthis dire moment he spoke so kindly that she loved him more than ever;\nand she told him proudly that she was sure she could. Schlorge had\nalready dragged down from a shelf three extra pairs of bellows--one\nbrand-new one and two old ones; and he was busy at his forge mending\nand putting them in order. All the while, however, he was listening\nanxiously to Pirlaps.\n\n\"The only part I haven't been able to work out,\" said Pirlaps, with a\nworried look, \"is this: How can we reduce the Poetry to a powdered\nform fast enough to be effective?\"\n\nThis was a problem indeed; and everybody thought deeply and\ndesperately. Avrillia, Sara could see, was already so absorbed in\nmaking the poems that she didn't even hear; but it was an agonizing\nmoment for the rest of them. It did not last long, however; for the\nSnimmy's wife stepped forward and said triumphantly, in her deep,\ncross voice, \"My coffee-mill!\"\n\n\"Ah, these practical people!\" cried Pirlaps, rubbing his hands\ndelightedly. \"Now for our organization. Avrillia, have you plenty of\nrose-leaves?\"\n\n\"An extra supply,\" answered Avrillia, raptly. \"Yassuh filled the\nleaf-closet only yesterday. How fortunate!\"\n\n\"Then the problem of transportation,\" said Pirlaps, greatly pleased.\n\"There must be no break--\"\n\n\"The Gunki will bring 'em,\" said Schlorge, decisively. \"Here, you!\" he\nshouted; and a swarm of Gunki came tumbling out from under the\nadjacent bushes. \"Bring your coal-scuttles!\" he shouted; and each\nGunkus scuttled back, reappearing in a moment with the desired\nreceptacle.\n\n\"Good!\" said Pirlaps. \"Stand at attention until I give you further\norders.\" And each Gunkus stood perfectly still and straight, holding\nhis coal-scuttle by the handle between his teeth, and dropping his\neyes into it. They hit the bottom of the scuttle with a ringing,\nmartial sound.\n\n\"Now,\" said Pirlaps, \"how many hands for the bellows? Avrillia will be\nbusy writing poems; Mrs. Snimmy will be busy grinding them. That\nleaves Schlorge, Sara, Mr. Snimmy and myself. Four pairs of\nbellows--how fortunate!\" He then explained to the Gunki that they were\nto march straight to Avrillia's balcony and form an unbroken line from\nthere to the Snimmy's wife's coffee-mill, on the front porch of the\nprose-bush; and that they were to pass the scuttles full of loaded\nrose-leaves in a steady stream, as fast as they could. The last Gunkus\nwas to empty the scuttles into the coffee-mill.\n\nIn a very short time they had this plan in execution. When they\nslipped back into the Garden they found that the Fractions had been\ndrinking so heavily that many of them were snoring loudly under the\nmultiplication tables; and the rest were carousing so uproariously\nthat they took no notice whatever of the preparations for their\noverthrow. The Snimmy's wife took her station grimly at the\ncoffee-mill; Pirlaps, Schlorge, Sara and the Snimmy grouped themselves\nabout her, and in a very few minutes the first scuttleful of poems\narrived. The first Gunkus emptied them into the mill; Mrs. Snimmy\nbegan to grind violently; the gunners, with hands trembling with\nexcitement, loaded their bellows. Even in this terrible moment Sara\ncould not help noticing what a lovely stuff the powder was--a blue and\nsilver dust, with a delicate fragrance like sachet powder. Surely it\ncould not harm anybody! She felt a sinking of the heart; but she kept\nher eyes on Pirlaps, and his splendid, confident bearing helped to\nreassure her. And when he said, \"A--B--C!\" they all fired\nsimultaneously. And oh, glorious success! It was clear that the\npoem-dust was absolutely deadly to the enemy. At the first shot the\nLeast Common Multiple and a number of privates fell out of their\nchairs, as dead as if they had been caught between the covers of an\narithmetic! Moreover, the poem-dust that filled the air seemed to tend\nto stupefy the others; so that, though there was a terrible uproar and\na desperate scramble for weapons, victory for the defenders was\ncertain from the start. There was only one defect in the organization;\none thing had escaped Pirlaps' wonderful foresight. There was no\nefficient way to get the powder from the coffee-mill to the bellows;\nand in the loading much time was wasted and much ammunition spilled.\nWhile Pirlaps was looking about him with great anxiety, trying to\nthink of some way to remedy the trouble, the little Teacup came\nfluttering tremulously down from above. \"Let me do it!\" she cried; and\nwhile they all looked on in admiration (though with only one eye\napiece, since the other was busy aiming at the enemy) she proceeded to\nload one pair of bellows after another, with the utmost nicety and\nplenty of poetry-powder. A little was spilled, to be sure, because she\ntrembled so terribly; still, it was an enormous improvement, and they\nall praised and congratulated the Teacup.\n\n\"Ah, these sheltered women!\" said Pirlaps. \"How an emergency does\nbring them out!\"\n\nThe battle must have raged for nearly an hour; but at the end of that\ntime there was not so much as a One-Twenty-Second left alive. The\nGreatest Common Divisor, as befitted his rank, was the last to succumb;\nand when he went down the defenders of the Garden threw down their\nweapons and began tossing their shoes into the air and shaking each\nothers' hands and talking all at once. The Gunki passed the word down\nthe line to Avrillia, who presently came floating in, with her wild\neyes shining and her pale-gold hair rumpled, and her golden\nswan's-quill still in her hand; and everybody fell upon her with\ncongratulations. But, indeed, everybody was congratulating everybody\nelse, and calling him or her the hero or heroine of the day. Schlorge\nwas doubly cordial to Avrillia because he felt that he had\nunderestimated her; and for the same reason Pirlaps was particularly\ndelighted with the Teacup and the Snimmy's wife--whom, to tell the\ntruth, he had always considered very ordinary women. The Teacup\nfluttered and laughed nervously, murmuring, whenever anybody praised\nher, \"If my handle hadn't been so consanguineous--\" But the Snimmy's\nwife merely smiled grimly, as much as to say that she had always\nthought they would all come to their senses sooner or later.\n\nPresently the Snimmy, who had been sniffing about the fallen invaders,\nsuggested, \"What's to be done with the remains, begging everybody's\npardon?\"\n\n\"Don't make such long speeches, Snimmy,\" said his wife, \"and don't beg\nanything. Didn't you blow as hard as any of 'em?\"\n\nBut Schlorge was already deeply interested in the problem. He began\nwalking around among them, now and then turning one over with his\nfoot. Of course there had never been an ounce of flesh and blood among\nthem; they were as dry as bones--which, indeed, they much resembled.\n\n\"I could make them into first-class rules,\" he said, picking up the\nwaist-line of an Improper Fraction and snapping it easily across his\nknee. \"They'd keep the Plynck supplied a whole winter.\"\n\nThe Plynck! In the excitement of victory they had all momentarily\nforgotten the Plynck, though, when the fight was hottest, it had been\nthe sight of her tragic drooping plumes among the blighted leaves that\nhad nerved them to redoubled effort. Now Avrillia stepped softly under\nthe tree and called gently, \"O Plynck, dear Plynck! They're all dead,\nand Schlorge is going to make them into rules for you to break!\"\n\nA shiver ran through the soft, rosy plumes of the Plynck; she opened\nher terrified eyes, and when she saw that the good tidings was indeed\ntrue, she began to shine and smile down upon them again like a\nconvalescent rainbow. The Gunki had already formed a line to\nSchlorge's smithy, and were briskly sending scuttlefuls of the hateful\nfragments down the line.\n\n\"I--I'm sorry I was so useless,\" apologized the Plynck with deep\nhumility, looking down upon her faithful friends. But they one and all\nbegan to protest that she had not been needed in the least. \"It was\nfor you as we done it, ma'am,\" Schlorge assured her, looking up into\nher tree with his shoe in his hand; and the poor Snimmy was so\novercome by emotion that he was compelled to lie down at the foot of\nthe Gugollaph-tree, with his debilitating nose on his little cold paws,\nand sniffle frankly.\n\n\"But how will they get back the lovely grass and flowers?\" asked Sara\nof Pirlaps, softly. Her friends were saved; but her Garden still\nlooked sadly afflicted.\n\n\"Well, perhaps it will snow,\" said Pirlaps, hopefully.\n\n\"Snow?\" asked Sara. \"Will that bring the grass and leaves back?\"\n\n\"Why, certainly, Sara,\" said Pirlaps, looking down at her with his\nkind, amused smile. Pirlaps was often amused at her ignorance; but he\nwas always so kind about it that Sara didn't mind at all.\n\n\n\n\n                                   Chapter V\n                              Crumbs and Waffles\n\n\nSara beheld such an entrancing sight the next morning that her dimples\nnearly escaped from her control while she was putting them into the\ndimple-holder. The Snimmy leaped up with a wild sniff, only to sink\ndown again, trembling, as Sara shooed the little rollicking things\nsafely down through the opening.\n\nFor it had indeed snowed in the night; the whole glittering Garden was\nas white as the Snoodle. The pool was unfrozen, and in her accustomed\nplace within it sat the Echo of the Plynck, looking wonderfully happy\nand refreshed; the bark of the Gugollaph-tree was again a healthy,\ndazzling blue, and the branches were piled with little ridges of\nfluffy-looking snow, which produced a delightful effect. And among\nthem, with her happy golden feet in the snow, and her rosy plumes\nfluffed out, sat the Plynck, looking as softly dazzling as a snowy\nsunrise. An army of Gunki were busily mowing the deep snow with\nscintillating long-handled ice-sickles. It flew up in clouds as they\nmowed, and another army of Gunki was engaged in catching it in baskets\nand spreading it smoothly down again. One and all, they seemed deeply\nabsorbed in this useful work.\n\nStill a third crew of Gunki were engaged in helping Schlorge reset the\nstump. They had got it nearly into place by the time Sara arrived. It\nwas a tremendous engineering feat, and had evidently required any\nnumber of ropes and pulleys and things.\n\nSara could see that the ropes were made of taffy, but she could not\nimagine where they had found enough pulley-bones to supply all the\npulleys. So she asked Schlorge about it, and he explained with great\nrelish that they had used the wish-bones of the Fractions themselves.\n\n\"Oh, we've made 'em useful!\" said Schlorge, triumphantly. \"We've used\neverything about 'em except their conceit. We didn't want that, so we\njust raked it up into piles and burned it.\"\n\nAs he talked, Schlorge was busy fitting the stump exactly to the root\nthat was left in the ground, so that it would grow back just right\nwhen the snow melted.\n\n\"I have to hurry,\" explained Schlorge, working away with an anxious\nexpression, \"because I have an announcement to make to you--a message\nfrom Avrillia.\"\n\n\"Oh, do hurry!\" cried Sara, clapping her hands so recklessly that\nSchlorge looked up from his work to say, \"Take care--I don't mend them\nknuckles ones, you know.\"\n\nSo Sara sat down very quietly on the snow near by, keeping a watchful\neye out for the Gunki with the keen ice-sickles, and sitting very\nstill so that she would not disturb Schlorge. And in a very little\nwhile, indeed, the work was finished, and Schlorge scrambled eagerly\nupon the stump and arranged his hands. Then he began:\n\n             \"I'm requested to say\n              On this glickering day\n              That Avrillia is feeding the Birds;\n              And if Sara will come\n              She will find her at home,\n              With waffles and welcoming words.\"\n\n\n\nSchlorge jumped down and began scrambling his tools together; then he\nwent rushing wildly, as usual, down the road to the Dimplesmithy. \"Go\nsee her, Sara!\" he shouted back over his shoulder encouragingly.\n\"You'll enjoy it! Go on!\"\n\nSo Sara, who really needed no urging, went smiling down the little\npath (it was curly again, though very white) toward the little arch in\nthe hedge. And from there she looked out upon another exhilarating\nscene.\n\nNow I did not think it necessary to say that the snow in the Garden\nwas of powdered sugar, as it is in all well-informed stories; but\nbeyond the hedge, as far as the eye could reach (and Sara had quite a\nlong eye for her age--her mother was kept busy letting out hems) the\nsnow was of powdered silver. I am sorry to say it was not good to eat\nat all; but it was so much more beautiful than the common garden kind\nthat I do not believe you would have minded, any more than Sara did.\nIt was, of course, fairy snow, while the other was just the plain\nimaginary kind.\n\nBut the scene before her was so strange and animated that even the\nsnow could not hold Sara's attention for long. (It was slippery, for\none thing; and, besides, the crust was thin, and Sara's attention was\nso excited and skippy that it was continually breaking through.)\n\nBeyond Avrillia's house on one side, in the direction Sara had gone\nwith Pirlaps to see his relations, was a long, delightful hill; and\nthere all the seventy children were coasting and snowballing. Every\none of them had on a cap that seemed to be made of a tiny red pepper,\nand their little mittened fists looked exactly like holly-berries.\nTheir sleds were of curled rose-petals, and Sara knew without being\ntold that it had cost their mother quite a struggle to spare so many\nfrom the supply she had collected to write poems on. Sara had watched\nthem for several minutes before she noticed that they always coasted\nuphill and dragged their sleds down. And all the time the air flashed\nwith snowballs so big that they looked like the tantalizing silver\nballs which sometimes occur in the nicest boxes of chocolates.\n\nIt was some time before Sara could disengage her attention (it had\nbecome entangled in the rope on one of the smaller children's sleds)\nto examine the extraordinary scene near at hand. For, on the lawn at\none side of Avrillia's house, opposite the rose-garden, where Pirlaps\nusually sat painting under the fog-bushes, a large table had been\nplaced; and around it were assembled a group of the most\nremarkable-looking persons Sara had ever seen. If they had not been so\nlarge, Sara would have been sure that they were birds; but the largest\none was a head taller than Sara herself, and the very smallest was at\nleast as large as her youngest cousin.\n\nPirlaps, who was helping Yassuh put some sort of food on the table,\nlooked up and saw Sara; and in a moment he put down the dish he had in\nhis hand and seemed to slip away unnoticed, to come to her. Sara\nwondered at this, for Pirlaps was always so polite; it would have been\nmuch more like him to excuse himself with a courteous bow to his\nguests.\n\n\"Good morning, Sara,\" he said in a low tone, when he reached her side.\n\"A glorious morning, isn't it? Avrillia thought you would enjoy seeing\nthe Birds fed, and the children at their winter sports. Avrillia\nherself is very busy just now; the suet gave out and she's gone to\norder some more. But I daresay she'll have time to speak to you after\na while. Meantime, I'll tell you who they are: it isn't polite to\nintroduce them to anybody. Indeed, I must tell you that their ways are\nvery peculiar, and they are very easily offended; so try to be\ncareful. For instance, you must never speak aloud in their presence,\nbut only behind your hand, in a whisper; and if you wish to make the\nbest impression, do not seem to see them at all. Also, if you should\ncare to partake of any of the food, remember not to touch it with your\nhands: that is the very worst of bad manners. Always take it with your\nbeak--I mean your mouth.\"\n\nSara stood perfectly still, watching; never had she been so charmed\nand astonished.\n\n\"Who are they?\" she asked, after a moment.\n\n\"Well, the tallest one, with the high blue beaver hat, is the Popinjay,\"\nsaid Pirlaps. \"He's just about the cock of the walk, and he's quite\nself-important and touchy. The one with the very long bill, and the\nstiff, stumpy tail that he uses for a cane, is the Redpecker. The one\nin the checked suit, with the black necktie, yellow satin\nsleeve-linings, and white patch on his coat-tail, is the Snicker. He's\nfull of fun and a good fellow, but rather crude--for he'll sometimes\ntalk to you a little if he's sure the others aren't looking. Ants are\nhis favorite food, but Avrillia didn't put up any this summer, so I\nhad to send Yassuh down to the colony to get one of my uncles for him.\nPoor Uncle,\" said Pirlaps, looking very sad for a moment, \"I hated to\ndo it; but he was only a half-uncle and quite old, and lately he had\ngrown so thin that he was hardly more than a three-eighths one.\nHowever, he was plenty for the Snicker,\" he added more cheerfully,\n\"he's not as exacting as most of them. The little lady in brown, with\nthe bustle, is a When; like the Snicker, she's really quite a charming\nlittle person, though of an interrogative turn of mind; and they all\nfrown on her sociable ways. The fierce-looking old gentleman with the\nRoman nose is the Squawk; he has a worse disposition, even, than the\nPopinjay. That beautiful little lady with the deep blue velvet cloak\nand the vest that looks like ploughed fields in March, is the Skybird;\nshe is lovely and gentle, and reminds me of Avrillia. But she's quite\nabsent-minded. Besides, she's very careful of her manners; so don't\nexpect her to speak to you. Now come on, and watch them eat.\"\n\nSara was very curious, but a little timid, the visitors looked so\nlarge and so strange; so she held tight to Pirlaps' hand as they stole\ncarefully up to the group and stopped near the table. The Popinjay,\nthe Squawk, the Redpecker and the Skybird went on eating as if nothing\nhad happened, so Sara felt sure she had been sufficiently polite; but\nthe little When, who was hopping about from one side of the table to\nthe other, cast a bright, questioning glance at her that made her\nwhisper, behind her hand, and under her breath, \"Next August!\" And\nthen she was sure she heard the Snicker wink.\n\nAll this time Sara had been aware of an irresistible curiosity about\nthe table. It looked somehow familiar and unpleasant; and yet it was\nof a beautiful primrose yellow, decorated with blue roses. At last she\nput up her hand and whispered to Pirlaps, \"The table! Where did you\nget the table? It wasn't here the other day!\"\n\nPirlaps laughed softly. \"Ah, Sara,\" he said, \"you aren't easy to\nhoodwink! That's the Seven-Times table. Avrillia and I had a regular\nbattle about it. Of course we never really quarrel,\" he explained\nseriously, \"but we sometimes have a lively clash of wills. After we\nfinished off the Fractions yesterday, I was determined to save that\ntable for a memento. Avrillia hated the idea, and positively refused\nto have it in the house; and then I won my point by remembering that\nwe'd never had a table large enough for the birds to eat from when it\nsnowed. I told her we'd keep it on the lawn. She tried to persuade me\nto order a plain Time-Table from your country, instead; saying that,\nthough it would be bad enough to have our nice clean eternity\ncluttered up with a Time-Table, it would be better than one of these.\nBut I finally brought her around, by promising to paint it and make it\nas pretty as possible. She'll forget its real nature after a while,\nand I shall always value it greatly for its historical interest.\"\n\nSara's mind was distracted toward the close of this explanation by the\npeculiar, not to say angry, behavior of the Popinjay and the Squawk,\nwho, she was sure, had become displeased about something. One\npeculiarity of the Popinjay's she had not noticed until she came near\nthe table. It was that, though he had two perfectly good feet, they\nseemed to have grown to a sort of perch, which was fastened crosswise\nto a sharp peg; and when he wished to move he had to hop from place to\nplace, sticking this peg into the snow. He was now hopping round and\nround the table with loud, incoherent cries, while the little When\nflitted from place to place to keep out of his way, and the Snicker\nlaughed softly in his yellow satin sleeve. Sara touched Pirlaps on the\narm.\n\n\"Mercy me!\" cried Pirlaps, speaking softly, but forgetting in his\nexcitement to cover his mouth with his hand. \"The table is quite empty,\nand Avrillia has not come with the rest of the suet! Yassuh should\nhave brought more crumbs long ago. Let's go to the house and see\nwhat's the trouble, Sara!\"\n\nThey hurried to the house, and began looking everywhere. They even\nopened the door of Avrillia's own bed-room, which was upholstered\nentirely in pink morning-glory satin, with hangings of opalescent mist;\nSara thought it was quite the most ravishing place she had ever seen;\nat least she though so until Pirlaps distractedly led her down into\nthe basement to Avrillia's kitchen. A smell of something delectable\nscorching enveloped them as they opened the door. And there beside the\nstove, all deliciously sticky and comfortable, lay Yassuh, fast asleep\nand half melted; while little wisps of smoke curled out of the crack\nbetween the oven and the door. The stove was almost as big as the tin\none Jimmy had given Sara for Christmas, but much more massive and\nefficient-looking. On the table, looking so delicious that they made\nyour mouth water, were the ingredients with which Yassuh had been\nworking: a bubble-pitcher of milk-weed cream, a bowl of butterfly eggs\n(the daintiest things!), a silver panful of flour from the best white\nmiller, and a large silk sack of snow-sugar from the Garden. Sara had\nto put her hands behind her back.\n\n\"Yassuh!\" shouted Pirlaps; and Sara had never before heard him speak\nangrily. \"The messy little rascal! I can't even kick him to wake him\nup--I'd never get my foot out! Where are the tongs? Here, Sara, you\ntake the poker, and help me with him!\"\n\nSo saying, Pirlaps picked the soft and sleeping Yassuh up gingerly\nwith the tongs, and Sara put the poker crosswise under the softest\npart of him to keep him from pulling apart, and together they carried\nhim to the door and dropped him outside, where he made a\ndelicious-looking brown puddle on the silver snow.\n\n\"You stay and watch him till he hardens,\" called Pirlaps, hurrying\nback toward the kitchen, \"and don't let him go to sleep again. As soon\nas he's hard enough, send him straight in here to me.\"\n\nSara stood on the doorstep watching Yassuh, who was now awake and\ngrinning, and she was very much interested to see how, as he hardened,\nhe wriggled himself back into shape, like a chrysalis that has just\nshed its caterpillar skin. She was sure this was no new experience to\nYassuh.\n\nPresently she thought he was hard enough to be taken back into the\nkitchen; and there they found Pirlaps, sitting with flushed face upon\nhis own fast-melting step, taking little muffin-pans full of\nfresh-baked crumbs out of the oven. One panful, alas, was burnt to a\ncrisp, and some of the others were a shade too brown; but oh, they did\nsmell and look so very delightful! Considered as muffins (and they\nlooked so like them that Sara could not help being reminded of them)\nthey were certainly the tiniest things imaginable; considered as\ncrumbs (and that was what she had heard Pirlaps call them) they were\nconsiderably above the average in size. For all that, what\ndiscouragingly small crumbs for such appallingly large birds! No\nwonder Pirlaps was so worried, and looked so unnaturally hurried and\nstrenuous!\n\n\"Here, Yassuh!\" he called, without stopping to scold him. \"You empty\nthese into the baskets and take them right out to the table; and then\nyou hurry right back and get another batch into the oven as quick as\nyou can. Roll!\"\n\nYassuh, apparently quite refreshed by his nap, went tumbling out with\nthe fragrant baskets, and Sara hurried after Pirlaps in his anxious\nsearch for Avrillia. At last they thought of the balcony; and as they\nran up the stairs, there, indeed, they saw Avrillia, with her white\narm outstretched above the balustrade, watching a curled rose-leaf as\nit floated down, down, down.\n\n\"Avrillia!\" called Pirlaps. \"Where is the suet?\"\n\nAvrillia was leaning far out over the balcony, gazing down into\nNothing. She straightened up and turned around, looking at them with\neyes that hardly saw them.\n\n\"It didn't stick,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Avrillia! the suet!\" cried Pirlaps, laying his hand on her arm and\nshaking it ever so little. \"The suet!\"\n\nHe was not cross--he couldn't be cross with Avrillia--but Sara thought\nhe was for once almost half impatient. Avrillia's mind came back into\nher beautiful eyes and she cried remorsefully,\n\n\"O Pirlaps, I forgot. Is it all gone? What will they think of me?\"\n\n\"Every bit,\" said Pirlaps, relenting at once. \"And Yassuh went to\nsleep and burnt up a whole panful of crumbs.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" cried Avrillia, \"how dreadful! The suet came quite a while\nago, but while I was slicing it I thought of a poem about snow; and\nthen I happened to think that maybe the air over the Verge might be a\nlittle warmer than it is here, and so the poem might melt a little as\nit fell, and, maybe, stick. But it didn't,\" she finished, growing\nabstracted again.\n\n\"Too bad,\" said Pirlaps, peering down into Nothing with real sympathy\nin his voice. Then, with a start, \"But the suet, Avrillia?\"\n\n\"Oh, let's go get it,\" cried Avrillia. \"I laid it on my dressing-table\nwhen I went to get a fresh handkerchief just before I sat down to\nwrite.\"\n\nSo they flew to Avrillia's pink bed-room, and there was the suet, in\nthe midst of Avrillia's lacy pin-cushions and crystal toilet-bottles.\nThey gathered it up and hurried out to the Birds, who were now eating\ncrumbs and looking fairly good-natured; though you could tell by the\nway Yassuh's knees trembled that he had found them in a dreadful\nstate.\n\nWell, you can hardly imagine how busy they were kept, all that\nafternoon--Sara and Yassuh and Pirlaps and Avrillia--supplying crumbs\nand suet to those thankless Birds. The lovely Skybird did, toward\nsundown, trill a beautiful little song of gratitude; but she addressed\nit to nobody in particular, and looked all the time straight into a\nfog-bush--because of course it would have been very bad manners, as\nshe thought, to pay any attention to her hosts. The little When cast a\nbright look at Avrillia, who whispered, when no one was looking, \"Next\nyear, dear--the first snow,\" and the Snicker, who was the most\nreckless of all, nudged Sara with his elbow and said in a\nstage-whisper, \"Certainly did have a good time,\" and then snickered\nloud and long. But the Popinjay and the Squawk and the Redpecker\ndeparted without a word of thanks for all the food they had eaten and\nall the trouble they had caused.\n\nAs soon as they were gone Pirlaps and Avrillia drew a long, relieved\nbreath; then Pirlaps tossed his step to Yassuh and seized Avrillia\nabout the waist, and whirled her up and down the silver paths in the\ngayest, most fantastic little dance Sara had ever seen. Presently they\nstopped before Sara.\n\n\"Now for the waffles, Sara,\" said Pirlaps; and Avrillia stooped and\nkissed her and said, \"Come, Sara, and see what I can cook!\"\n\nSara thought the notion of Avrillia's cooking must be an odd and\npretty fancy, but she skipped back with them to their little house,\nholding a hand of each. Through the windows she could see the fairy\nlights gleaming, for it was growing late and cold. They led her again\ndown into the little shining, warm kitchen, where the lights from the\nglowing stove danced upon the silver bowls, and the air was full of\ndelicious, spicy smells.\n\n\"Lie down, Yassuh, and go to sleep,\" cried Avrillia; and so saying she\ntook down her kitchen-apron from the gold-headed pin where it hung and\nbegan to flit about the cook-table--measuring out snow-sugar and\nbreaking butterfly eggs into her shining cups and bowls. Then she got\nout the silver waffle-irons (Sara wanted them for her toy stove) and\nbuttered them, and put them on the stove to heat while she beat up the\nbatter.\n\nMeantime, Sara helped Pirlaps to set a dainty little round table (not\nat all like a multiplication table) with pink shell dishes, and put on\na jar of honeysuckle honey and a pat of buttercup butter. Then\nAvrillia baked the waffles and they sat down to eat.\n\nAvrillia had hardly taken the first mouthful when she cried, \"I forgot\nthe children!\" and sprang up and flitted to the door.\n\nAs she opened the door Sara heard faint little cries and tinkling\nlaughter, drifting back from the hill where the children still played\nand frolicked in the snow. Presently Avrillia shut the door and came\nback to her place at the table.\n\n\"Bless their hearts!\" she said, smiling, \"I think I'll just let them\nstay out and play all night--they're always begging me to let them.\nAnd they're having such a good time I can't bear to vanish them. They\nwon't bother us,\" she added, daintily pouring honeysuckle syrup on her\nwaffle.\n\nThe waffles were so tiny and delicious that, every time she had\nswallowed one, Sara almost thought she had dreamed it.\n\n\"I didn't know you could cook, Avrillia,\" she said, shyly and\nadmiringly.\n\nAvrillia looked pleased. \"Oh, anybody can cook!\" she said, lightly.\nSara understood from her tone that not everybody could write poems on\nrose-leaves.\n\n\"We do this every year, Sara,\" said Pirlaps, \"the first time it snows.\nIt's our favorite philanthropy. It's a big undertaking, and rather too\nmuch of a strain for Avrillia, but we can't make up our minds to give\nit up.\"\n\n\"And then, when it's all over,\" continued Avrillia, \"I make waffles\n(aren't they good, Sara?) and we eat down here in the kitchen, and\nrelax, and have a lovely, cozy time. And it makes it doubly pleasant\nwhen we have some congenial person to help us celebrate--like you,\nSara.\"\n\nSara's little heart swelled with love and pride. Her eyes traveled\nonce more over the shining little table, and the friendly faces of\nPirlaps and Avrillia, and the glowing little kitchen, and out through\nthe little window, where the fog-bushes were making long blue shadows,\nand the fairy lights danced on the silver snow.\n\nNever before had she stayed so late. But neither had she ever had such\na lovely time.\n\n\n\n\n                               Chapter VI\n                         The Little Lost Laugh\n\n\nSara had always intended to take her dolls with her to the Garden, but\nevery morning before the sixth morning she forgot it. On the sixth\nmorning, however, her arms were so full of dolls that she could not\ntake off her dimples. She had not foreseen that difficulty.\n\nShe had not really intended to bring them all. But the Brown\nTeddy-Bear looked so fiercely sad that she decided at the very outset\nthat she could not leave him. He was not really a doll, of course, but\nas Sara kept him dressed in a kerchief and full skirt, he had the\neffect of a doll--a sort of Wolf-Grandmother-of-Red-Ridinghood doll.\nAnd the Billiken looked so cheerful that Sara decided that she must\nsurely take him along, to reward him for being so unfailingly\npleasant. And the Japanese doll had to go, because he was the newest,\nand because he was the only one who was large enough to wear the pink\ntulle lady-doll's hat Sara's aunt had sent her on her birthday. His\nhead was as bare as an egg, because the little rosette of black hair\nthat distinguishes a Japanese doll had come unglued. This made the\neffect of the hat a little odd; still, he could wear it. The Kewpie\nwas just too cunning to leave--that was all there was to that; and no\nright-minded mother ever left the baby. So that made it necessary to\ntake the Baby doll with the long clothes. (That is, she should have\nbeen wearing long clothes, but Sara's dolls never wore the clothes\nthat belonged to them; and this morning the Baby was tastefully\nattired in a wide red sash, with the Japanese doll's paper parasol\nstuck through it, like the dagger in a comic opera.)\n\nSo there was Sara, with five dolls in her arms, and the Snimmy\nshuddering deliciously from head to foot because he was beginning to\nsmell dimples in his sleep.\n\n\"What in the world shall I do?\" wondered Sara, half aloud.\n\n\"What in Zeelup, my dear,\" corrected the Teacup, leaning out from her\nperch with sympathetic interest.\n\nAnd then, what do you think the Teacup saw? She saw the Kewpie, who\nwas always a friendly little soul, reach up and take off Sara's\ndimples himself!\n\n\"I'll do it for Sara,\" he said, helpfully, as he dropped them safely\nupon the whipped cream cushion.\n\nAnd then what do you think happened? Why, the daintiest little\ncreature sprang right out from between Sara's lips and went skipping\nand leaping and tumbling and running over the ice-cream bricks around\nthe pool, across the blue plush grass, and, before you could tell it,\ndisappeared around the turn of a little dim path Sara had never\nfollowed.\n\nSara stood gazing after him. She had never seen anything that looked\nlike that before. Some of Avrillia's children came nearest to looking\nlike it: but not even they were so tinkly or so bubbly or so\naltogether gay-looking. And how nimble it was--disappearing like a\ndrop of water trickling down a rock!\n\n\"What in the world?\" breathed Sara again.\n\n\"--In Zeelup?\" breathed the Teacup, quite as softly. But Sara hardly\nheard her: she was so astonished at the babel of small voices that\nstarted up about her feet. She had been so startled at the appearance\nand the disappearance of that strange little creature that she had not\nnoticed that all the dolls were wriggling out of her arms and sliding\ndown her skirts and legs like schoolboys escaping from a burning\ndormitory. Not that they were afraid of anything: it was only that\nthey were so glad to be able at last to move and talk.\n\n\"There he goes!\" cried the Japanese doll, pointing excitedly: and\nindeed they did catch one more glimpse of the fleeting sprite between\nthe shrubs. \"He was mighty jolly,\" said the Brown Teddy-Bear enviously,\nin his deep, mournful voice; and \"Let's go catch him!\" cried the Baby,\nwhere it sat flat on the bricks, crowing and clapping its hands.\n\n\"I'll have to get off these togs, then,\" said the Billiken, who was\nalways fat and cheerful, but seldom spoke. He was driven to it this\ntime by the fact that Sara had dressed him in the Baby's long clothes.\n\n\"But what is it?\" asked Sara, still bewildered.\n\n\"Why, it's your laugh, child,\" said the Echo of the Plynck, who, all\nthis time, had been watching the scene with much amusement. \"Don't you\nknow your own laugh when you see it?\"\n\n\"I never saw it before,\" said Sara with a wondering smile. \"I guess\nI've heard it.\"\n\n\"Now, isn't that odd--and interesting!\" said the Echo to the Plynck.\n\"The child says she has heard it, but never seen it. Here,\" she added,\nturning to Sara, and speaking in a louder tone, \"we see a great deal\nof laughter--but we never hear it.\"\n\n\"Well, and are you going to stand there all day staring?\" suddenly put\nin the wife of the Snimmy from the prose-bush. \"Ain't you going to go\nafter it and ketch it? What'll your Maw say if you come home without\nyour laugh? And your Paw?\"\n\nSara had not thought of that. But when she did think, she realized\nthat it would be dreadful. What would Father think when he told her\nhis funniest story and she did not laugh?\n\n\"But--but what shall I do?\" she wondered, half to herself.\n\nThe dolls at her feet set up a clamor of plans, but as they were all\ntalking at once (except the Brown Teddy-Bear, who looked even more\npessimistic than usual) their suggestions were not very helpful. Sara\nand her other friends stood knitting their brows in perplexity. (Sara\nwas just learning to knit, so she had her needles and a ball of yarn\nsticking out of her apron pocket. She was delighted to find brows so\nmuch easier to knit than yarn.)\n\nSuddenly the Snimmy's wife spoke again. \"Send for Schlorge,\" she said.\n\"He'll know what to do.\"\n\nNo sooner were the words out of her mouth than they saw a Gunkus\nrunning down the path toward the Dimplesmithy to tell Schlorge.\n\n\"In the meantime, Sara, you'd better dress me more suitably,\"\nsuggested the Billiken kindly. Sara had never heard him object before\nto wearing the Baby's long dress; but he was evidently looking forward\nto a race and did not wish to be handicapped.\n\nSo Sara sat down on the blue plush grass, and undressed the Billiken\nwhile they waited for Schlorge. She had time now to notice that the\nsnow had melted and left everything beautifully fresh and bright, just\nas Pirlaps had assured her it would do. She had never seen the Garden\nlook so lovely and spring-like. She was glad, too, to see that the\nstump had grown back exactly as it was; they had even removed the\nropes and scaffolding.\n\nShe took the Baby's clothes off the Billiken, and left him all free\nand unimpeded in his own, fat, white, furry body. You see, she always\ncalled the Teddy-Bear the Brown Teddy-Bear because the Billiken was\nhis first cousin, and had a white Teddy-Bear body; it was only their\ncolors and their heads that were different. Oh, yes,--and their\ndispositions; for the Billiken was a supremely cheerful person, while\nthe Brown Teddy-Bear was a misanthrope. Sara had always known that he\nhad something very depressing on his mind; and she was planning, now\nthat he had learned to talk, to ask him what it was at the first\nsuitable opportunity.\n\nWhen she had got the clothes off the Billiken, she started to put them\non the Baby; but the Baby behaved as it had never done before. It had\nalways been a good baby, adapting itself amiably to any schedule its\nmother saw fit to adopt. Sara saw at once that animated babies are not\nso easy to manage as inanimate ones; for the Baby kicked and cried and\npositively refused to be dressed. So Sara, who was really a very young\nmother, and had not yet trained herself to be firm and self-willed and\ncontrary, put the Baby's clothes in her pocket with the yarn and\nknitting needles and a ginger-snap she had brought, and set the\nstubborn Baby down on the blue plush grass, where it rolled around\nquite happily again in its red sash and parasol.\n\nAnd just at that moment she saw good old Schlorge hurrying down the\npath from the Dimplesmithy with the Gunkus at his heels.\n\nOf course they all had to tell Schlorge about it at once, even the\ndolls (all except the Brown Teddy-Bear), so that Schlorge looked quite\nwild, and scratched his head a good deal before he was finally quite\nclear what had happened. Then he turned and looked thoughtfully down\nthe path they had pointed out to him, and scratched it some more.\nFinally he said slowly,\n\n\"I tell you what we'll have to do,\"--and then, looking about him all\nat once very wildly,--\"where's the stump--I'll have to tell Sara!\nWhere's the--\"\n\nBut this time he found it without loss of time; and scrambling upon it,\nhe adjusted his hands and shouted loudly,\n\n                  \"Over hill, over dale,\n                   Thorough bush, thorough briar,\n                   Over park, over pale,\n                   Thorough flood, thorough fire,\n                   We'll have to follow everywhere,\n                   If Sara's laughter we would snare.\n                   I will go and lead the van,\n                   You may follow if you can.\n                   Sara's would be an awful plight\n                   To go home laughterless tonight.\"\n\n\n\nThen he sprang from the stump and went rushing straight down the\nlittle dim path, shouting back over his shoulder, \"Come along, all of\nyou! Sara, ask the Plynck to come, too!\"\n\nDown the path they went tumbling--the Snimmy, his wife, a crowd of\nGunki, and all the dolls. Sara and the faithful little Teacup stayed\nbehind to see if the Plynck would come, and the Snoodle was still\nasleep.\n\n\"Will you come with us, dear Madame Plynck?\" asked Sara, softly,\nlooking up into the tree; and \"Do you think you could stand it?\"\nfluttered the Teacup solicitously.\n\n\"It's against my rules to leave the Garden,\" said the Plynck, and\nSara's heart sank; for she really thought the search would be a sort\nof picnic, and she had hoped that the lovely Plynck would go, too. It\nsank clear to the bottom of the pool, and the Plynck's Echo fished it\nup and handed it back to her, all wet and shiny, just as the Plynck\nfinished her sentence, \"So I think I'll go.\"\n\nSara clapped her hands, and to add to her pleasure she heard just then\nthe most delicious crashing sound: the kind of sound she had imagined\nwhen she stood at the top of the basement steps at home with the glass\npitcher in her hands, wishing she could hurl it down upon the cement\nbecause Mother would not let her wear her new short-sleeved dress. She\nsaw at once that the Plynck had broken the largest rule she had, and\ndropped it upon the pile at the foot of the tree; and now she was\nmoving her plumes softly for flight, so that the golden spice was\nfalling in Sara's hair. The Teacup was looking intensely pleased and\nflustered, and both of them had forgotten the poor Echo, who was\nscrambling about the rim of the pool like a swimmer trying to draw\nhimself out of the water by a slippery bank. When she saw Sara looking\nat her, however, she stopped trying, and sat down stiffly in her usual\nplace.\n\n\"I can't go, of course,\" she said with dignity, \"but go ahead--don't\nmind me.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry!\" said the Plynck, hovering over her\nsoftly. \"I wish you could!\"\n\n\"Go ahead,\" said the Echo, trying hard not to look sulky and virtuous;\nand so Sara ran down the path after the others, with the Plynck and\nthe Teacup fluttering gracefully over her head. As she passed through\nthe hedge she cast a backward look at the Garden, which was now so\nstill that she thought it looked like a picture in a dream--shimmering\nand bright and clear, without a soul left at home but the Plynck's\ncerulean Echo and the sleeping Snoodle.\n\nAs soon as they passed through the hedge they found themselves in a\npicturesque broken country, rather difficult to traverse, but very\nprettily decorated with rocks, streams, and waterfalls. Little groves\nof cedars, the exact size and shape of Christmas-trees, grew out of\nthe rocks; the candles were already full-grown, but Schlorge sent the\nJapanese doll running back to tell Sara that she must not light them,\nas they would not be ripe till Christmas Eve. Sara had never seen a\nprettier place, but she was rather worried by a maternal anxiety about\nthe dolls. For it was certainly not a very safe place for them. Of\ncourse the Brown Teddy-Bear and the Billiken were all right, though\nthe latter might come to grief if he should fall on his head. The\nJapanese doll, who had lost a hand, was unbreakable; but unbreakable\nonly means that you may be dropped from a reasonable height upon\nhard-wood floors, but not from a second-story window on concrete or\nasphalt. That was how the Japanese doll had lost his hand (it would\nhave been his head, but for the fact that the accident happened while\nhe was indisposed from neuralgia, and had his head pinned up in the\nBaby's flannel petticoat). And these rocks certainly looked as hard as\nany pavement. And even as Sara worried, the worst happened: she heard\na dreadful cracking sound, followed by a shrill clamor from the dolls\nand a hoarse cry from Schlorge, and the grim, excited voice of the\nSnimmy's wife. It was by no means a pleasant sound, like the cracking\nof breaking rules: no, it was the familiar, heart-rending sound that\nmakes the heart of any mother of dolls turn cold. Sara went leaping\nand scrambling down the rocks, with the Plynck and the Teacup hovering\nanxiously over her. In a few moments she reached the scene of the\naccident, and found them all gathered around the Kewpie, who lay in\nthe lap of the Snimmy's wife with both legs broken. Sara ran and knelt\nbeside her.\n\n\"Now, here, don't you go and burst into tears,\" said Schlorge,\nspeaking in the gruff tone an anxious doctor uses toward an excitable\npatient. \"I'll have my hands full mending your baby here, without\nhaving to mend you. He has no internal injuries,\" he added, turning\nthe Kewpie upside down and peering down the stumps of his legs (which\nwere hollow) into a perfectly pink and smooth and healthy-looking\ninterior, \"and you might have. Besides, we'll fix it up all right.\"\n\n\"Can you really, Schlorge?\" asked Sara. There were tears in her voice,\nbut, by trying very hard, she did keep from bursting into them.\n\n\"Of course I can!\" said Schlorge, speaking quite crossly to conceal\nhis sympathy. \"Here--you Gunki! A stretcher!\"\n\nSo the Gunki came running with a stretcher made out of a large\nmullein-leaf, and they put the Kewpie and his legs tenderly upon it.\nHe was a trifle pale, but still smiling, and insisted that he did not\nsuffer at all.\n\n\"Only it's inconvenient, you know, not to be able to walk,\" he\nexplained, \"and I didn't want to miss the fun. Would it be too much\ntrouble--could you take me this way? These gentlemen, now--\"\n\n\"Sure!\" said the four Gunki at once, in tenor, baritone, bass, and\nsecond bass. Sara, even in her distress, was charmed; for that was the\nfirst time she had heard a Gunkus speak.\n\n\"Are you sure you won't faint from loss of air?\" asked Schlorge\nlooking at the patient anxiously; and indeed the air was pouring in a\nsteady stream out of the Kewpie's inside.\n\n\"I'll be all right--only take me along,\" maintained the Kewpie,\nvaliantly.\n\nSo they all started on again across the rough, uncharted country.\n\nNow, all this time they had not had so much as a glimpse of Sara's\nlaugh. The Snimmy ran along ahead with his long, quivering,\ndebilitating nose to the ground; and two or three times he raised it,\nand said in an excited undertone, to Schlorge, \"It touched here.\" And\nthen they would all look anxiously about, under every rock, and behind\nevery stump, without finding a trace of it.\n\nBut after they had gone a long way, and were all getting tired and\nthirsty (not to say hungry) they came to a most inviting little grove\naround a spring; and here, with one accord, they all threw themselves\ndown to rest. The Teacup, with an arch look, dropped down to the\nspring, filled herself with water, and fluttered up to Sara's lips,\nsaying softly, \"Allow me, my dear!\" Sara drank, in delight and wonder,\nand found that the spring was not made of water, but of a sort of\nsuper-lemonade, the most delicious beverage she had ever tasted. After\nshe had drunk, the Teacup took a drink to the Plynck, explaining to\nher with an apologetic smile, \"I served her first, my dear, because\nshe was the guest of honor--so to speak,\" and the Plynck assented most\ngraciously. Then the kind-hearted and democratic little Teacup\nperformed the same gracious office for the whole company, one after\nthe other--even the Baby doll and the Gunki who bore the stretcher.\nBut the Billiken did look very funny drinking out of the Teacup; and\nit was just at that moment that they were startled by a little\ngurgling sound in the tree above them (as if a Brownie had overturned\na blue honey-pitcher, and the little drops were tumbling over each\nother upon a silver floor) and Sara's lost laugh sprang from the top\nof the tree to the ground, and went tinkling off again among the\nrocks. They all looked after it with their mouths open, as a fisherman\ngazes at the hook from which he has just lost the largest fish that\never was on sea or land.\n\n\"There, now! If we had only been more watchful!\" exclaimed the\nJapanese doll. The pink tulle lady-doll hat had slipped far back on\nhis perspiring head; he looked as if he had come a long way.\n\n\"I thought I saw something moving up in the tree--I was just going to\nspeak about it,\" said the plucky little Kewpie, who, being compelled\nto lie on his back, had been gazing straight up into the branches.\n\n\"Well!\" said Schlorge grimly. \"It won't do that again.\"\n\nThey all saw that Schlorge had something on his mind, and began to\nwatch him as he took his gimlet out of his pocket and began to cut a\nsmall willow wand.\n\n\"What are you going to do, Schlorge?\" asked the Japanese doll, who was\na good sort of a person, but a little lacking in tact.\n\n\"Never mind me,\" said Schlorge, \"the rest of you take a nap!\"\n\nSara saw that his professional pride, as the leader and practical man\nof the party, had been hurt by the escape of her laugh; and he spoke\nso crossly that they all turned around and began to try to make\nconversation to cover their embarrassment. But they didn't succeed\nvery well; and presently the Baby spoke the thought that was uppermost\nin everybody's mind.\n\n\"I'm hungry!\" he said.\n\nAlas, so were they all! It was no use trying to disguise it! So the\nSnimmy said, almost tearfully, \"Why didn't we think to bring some\nlunch?\"\n\n\"Humph!\" retorted his wife. \"You'd never think of anything--except\ndimples!\"\n\nSo saying, she took down a large hamper which she had been carrying on\nher head, and removed the cloth which was tucked neatly over it. They\nhad all noticed the hamper, but supposed it was Avrillia's wash, which\nthe Snimmy's wife always took home on Poppyday.\n\nNow it proved to be packed full of a rich and varied picnic luncheon,\nthe sight and aroma of which made even the Brown Teddy-Bear look\neager. The Snimmy's wife set all the viands out on the grass, and the\nPlynck graciously drifted down and took her place at the head of the\ntable. There was a trifle too much sand in the sandwiches, but\neverything else was perfect; and they all ate as immoderately as\npeople do at picnics.\n\nSara found herself seated next to the Brown Teddy-Bear. After he had\neaten a pickle or two and begun to look cheerful, she asked him,\ntactfully, what he had had so long on his mind.\n\n\"I'll tell you, Sara,\" said the Brown Teddy-Bear candidly and\nmournfully. \"I'm so ephemeral.\"\n\nSara opened her eyes, and looked at him carefully. What new affliction\nwas this? \"Do you mean you're sick?\" she asked, after a while.\n\n\"No, Sara,\" said the Teddy-Bear, smiling sadly. \"You don't understand.\nWhat I mean is, I'm already old-fashioned; I've had my day. Twenty\nyears from now, nobody will know what you mean when you speak of a\nTeddy-Bear.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Sara, squeezing his paw affectionately.\n\n\"Well, perhaps you will, Sara,\" admitted the Teddy-Bear, \"because\nyou'll remember. But the children won't, and they're the only ones\nthat matter.\"\n\n\"I'll tell mine,\" insisted Sara stoutly.\n\n\"Ah, yes, Sara,\" said the Teddy-Bear, still more sadly, \"but such\nloyalty as yours is rare. I have but a frail hold upon posterity. The\nsame is true of many of my colleagues--the Billiken, for instance, and\nthe Kewp. But the Billiken is a philosopher, and doesn't care; and the\nKewp is a careless child. But I feel it, Sara; I have to confess to\nyou that I am a prey to the 'last infirmity of noble minds.'\" After a\nmoment he added, less sadly but more irritably, \"That creature, now,\nbrainless as it is, is just a doll. And dolls are immortal.\"\n\n\"It's a Baby doll,\" said Sara, wishing to offer consolation, but\nreally not knowing what to say.\n\n\"Humph,\" said the Brown Teddy-Bear disgustedly. \"Babies are as\nuniversal as dolls.\"\n\nSara was still trying to think of something pleasant to say to him,\nwhen she noticed that the Plynck, having finished her luncheon, had\nflown up to a bough of the tree just over the spring; and suddenly she\nheard her speak.\n\n\"Well!\" she said in astonishment. \"Where did you come from?\"\n\nAnd looking down, Sara saw the Echo of the Plynck in the water. She\nlooked quite imperturbable again, and quite cerulean. \"Oh, I have ways\nof doing things,\" she answered, preening her feathers. And the Plynck\nwas so mystified that she did not say another word.\n\nReally, she didn't have time, for Schlorge strolled back into their\nmidst at that moment, carrying a butterfly net he had just finished.\nThe stick was made of the willow wand Sara had seen him cut; and the\nbag was made of two thicknesses of spider's web. \"Now I'll get him,\"\nsaid Schlorge grimly. \"Pack up now, and let's start out again.\"\n\nSo all together they started out, climbing hills, and jumping across\ntumbling streams, and scrambling over rocks. It was quite hard for the\nstretcher-bearers, but they bore up manfully; and the Kewpie never\nlost his arch, heroic smile.\n\nSuddenly Schlorge, who was ahead, came stealing back to them. \"Hist!\"\nhe cried, and all the Gunki hissed venomously. \"I saw it light in an\nam-bush just to the left of that big rock. Now, I want you all to\nspread out and form a large circle, with the bush in the centre; then,\nif I miss it, everybody must try to shoo it back toward the middle.\nDon't let it pass over you.\"\n\nSo they all stole to the places Schlorge indicated, and then waited\nbreathlessly while he stealthily approached the am-bush. The little\nlaugh, feeling over-confident, must have been dozing; for it did not\nsee him until he was within a few feet. Then it flew out wildly, with\na sound like that made by the wings of a mother bird who leaves her\nnest at the last moment. But it was caught at last. With one skilful,\ntriumphant swoop Schlorge had it.\n\nAnd then how it did titter and twitter and giggle and struggle! It\nfanned its wings as furiously as a Zizz; it was as wild as a moon-moth\nin a net, or a bird you hold in your hand. And all the time, it was\nabout to die with amusement.\n\nThey all gathered around to see what a darling little thing it was.\nEven Schlorge admired it openly; and the Snimmy's wife said grudgingly,\n\"It sure is pretty.\" As for the Snimmy, he buried his face in his\nhands. \"I can't stand it!\" he groaned, and the gum-drops began to\nsqueeze through his fingers. \"It makes him think of dimples,\" his wife\nexplained, in a low tone, to Sara.\n\n\"'So near and yet so far,' you know,\" fluttered the Teacup,\nsympathetically.\n\nThe next thing was to decide how to get their captive home. Schlorge\nwas quite sure it couldn't break the net; still, he thought it best to\naccept the Brown Teddy-Bear's suggestion that they put it, net and all,\ninto the Snimmy's wife's basket, and tie the lid securely.\n\n\"'Specially since we have to go around by the Smithy,\" he added, \"and\npatch up our brittle friend, here.\"\n\nSo they made the little laugh secure in the basket, and went on toward\nthe Smithy. It kept them all amused by the happy, ridiculous little\nsounds it made, giggling and scuttling and fluttering about in the\nbasket. Even the Brown Teddy-Bear smiled once or twice.\n\nToward sundown they reached the Smithy, and Schlorge had soon turned\nhis anvil into an operating table, on which they laid the\nuncomplaining little sufferer. The Snimmy's wife said there were\nplenty of onions at home in the sugar-bowl, and Schlorge offered to\nsend a Gunkus after them; but the Kewpie would not hear of it, so\nSchlorge mended him quite quickly and neatly without an anaesthetic at\nall. He declared himself able to walk, at once, but they persuaded him\nto let the Gunki carry him to the gate on the stretcher. And so they\nall escorted Sara and her dolls back to the dimple-holder in state.\n\nThe Snoodle was awake, and howling lonesomely; but he was soon\nfrisking happily about their feet. The Plynck flew at once to her\nbranch and looked into the pool, and there sat her Echo.\n\n\"Have a pleasant day?\" the latter asked, inscrutably.\n\nBut the Plynck was so puzzled that she said nothing at all. However,\nwhen she was leaving the Garden, Sara heard her say to the Teacup, as\nshe slipped on an iris-colored kimono and shook down her back plumes,\n\n\"I think I won't break any rules tomorrow. I think I'll just rest.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 Chapter VII\n                            Accepting an Invitation\n\n\nThe next morning Sara took with her only the Kewpie and the Baby. The\nJapanese doll was perfectly willing either to go or stay; he was not\nat all temperamental, and anything suited him. She could tell from the\nBilliken's smile that he didn't mind staying in the least; and the\nBrown Teddy-Bear looked tired. He couldn't talk, of course, on the\neveryday-side of the ivory doors; but with the new insight she had\nacquired into his character, Sara felt sure his expression meant, \"I\nthink I'd rather just sit in the corner. At my age a little excitement\ngoes a long way.\" As for the Kewpie, Sara was determined to take him,\nas a reward for the distinguished fortitude he had shown the day\nbefore; and the Baby, on the other hand, had behaved so badly that she\nfelt uneasy about leaving him. If he should act that way again--for\ninstance, when Lucy disturbed him in dusting the room--why, Lucy might\nspank him! So the Kewpie was rewarded for being good, and the Baby was\nrewarded for being bad, and Sara slipped through the ivory doors with\nboth of them tucked under one arm.\n\nAlmost immediately a Gunkus in livery stepped up and handed her a note\nfrom Avrillia. He made a low bow, holding his shoe in his right hand\nover his heart.\n\nIt was written on a rose-leaf, of course, and it had a delightful\nfaint odor, not only of roses, but of isthagaria. Sara opened it, and\nread,\n\n\"We're leaving on the early boat. Would you like to go with us? We'll\nbe gone all day.\"\n\nThere was no answer to that but to run as fast as she could down the\nlittle curly path. This morning it was not so much curly as melodious;\nbut Sara was in such a hurry that she hardly noticed. She forgot to\ndismiss the Gunkus, but left him standing in front of the\ndimple-holder, still bowing low, with his left shoe in his right hand\nover his heart.\n\nPirlaps was standing on the front steps, all ready to start, and\nbeside him grinned Yassuh, carrying the step in one hand and an\nenormous traveling-bag (almost as large as Sara's mother's leather\npurse) in the other.\n\n\"Good-morning, Sara,\" said Pirlaps, in his unfailingly delightful way,\n\"I'm glad you got here in time. Avrillia will be ready in a second or\ntwo.\"\n\nSara could hardly keep from skipping, she was so pleased at the\nprospect of a day's expedition with Pirlaps and Avrillia. She did not\nknow where they were going, but that didn't matter: she was sure to\nsee something interesting. She edged up to Yassuh, taking care,\nhowever, not to get close enough to brush against his chocolate\noutside, which might come off on her clean apron. \"What's in your\nbag?\" she coaxed, mischievously.\n\n\"Only my extra trousers, Sara,\" said Pirlaps, smiling; and then Sara\nremembered that, though he did so many useful things (when he was not\nasleep), she had never once heard Yassuh speak. He only grinned and\nrolled his white eyes as Pirlaps continued, \"We're taking twelve extra\npairs.\"\n\nJust then Avrillia came out of the door. Avrillia could not be\nungraceful or abrupt, but she was evidently in a hurry. Her motions\nwere rather like that of a wisp of white sea-fog that is blown ahead\nof a rising wind.\n\n\"There was so much to do before I could get off!\" she explained a\nlittle breathlessly. \"The children came unexpectedly, too, and I had\nto vanish them. Then, while I was dressing, I thought of a poem I had\nto write about hair-pins--and oh, it almost stuck! It acted as if it\nwere going to, so I watched it longer than usual. But now I guess\nwe're off,\" she ended turning to fasten the door behind her. Sara\nnoticed that she fastened it with a hook and eye exactly like the ones\non Mother's prettiest waist--only this one was more valuable, being of\ngold.\n\n\"Well, it's quite a long walk down to the landing,\" said Pirlaps,\nleading the way, \"and we don't want to miss the boat.\"\n\nSo they started off in the direction Sara had never gone before,\nfollowing a path that presently began to wind down among the cliffs,\ngiving them a blue view of the sea. Sara could hardly follow the path\nfor looking. Before long they could look back and see Avrillia's\nbalcony, with the little box-trees on the marble balustrade, and, far\nbelow it, the gray abyss of Nothing. It was very strange and beautiful,\nbut it gave Sara a queer, empty feeling somewhere under her little\napron; and she was glad to turn her eyes back to the sea, which\nbeckoned far below them, a dancing blueness; and to the golden cliffs,\nlaughing in the sunlight far and near. The path was quite steep and\nwinding and unexpected, and Yassuh scrambled about a good deal; but he\nmanaged to keep hold of the step and the bag. As for Sara, she had\nnever seen a more fascinating place, and she supposed these great\ncliffs must form a part of the walls of the amphitheatre she had seen\nfrom Schlorge's stump. Presently, at one especially wild, golden place,\nwhere the path followed the edge of a chasm, Pirlaps paused a moment\nand said,\n\n\"You can hear a lovely reflection from here, Sara. Shall I call?\"\n\n\"A reflection?\" said Sara, wonderingly.\n\n\"Surely,\" said Pirlaps. \"Listen.\" Then he cupped his hands about his\nlips and called clearly,\n\n\"Avrillia!\"\n\n\"'Rillia!\" came back the wild, eerie syllables, so distinctly that\nSara's heart leaped.\n\n\"Oh, an echo!\" she cried, clapping her hands. \"How beautiful!\"\n\n\"Bless the child!\" said Pirlaps, smiling at Avrillia. \"You hear a\nreflection, Sara; you see an echo.\"\n\n\"Like the Echo of the Plynck in the pool,\" supplemented Avrillia.\n\"Don't you remember, Sara?\"\n\nSara was sure her father had told her it was just the other way around;\nbut she was too happy to argue. So, to change the subject, she asked\nPirlaps very respectfully where they were going.\n\n\"To Zinariola, Sara--to the City. You've never been there, have you?\"\n\nNever, never had Sara been there; and she began immediately trying to\nbuild that lovely city in her mind--the frail spires, and the rich\nbazaars, dusky and spicy and full of brocades and silks, and the\nlittle narrow, climbing streets. But, though it was a pleasure to try,\nshe knew she could not imagine anything so strange and charming as the\nreal City of Zinariola would be.\n\nAll this time they had been winding steadily down to the sea. And\npresently they caught sight of the boat, riding at anchor near the\nlanding place, with a little skiff drawn up on the sand. Of course you\nknow that the boat was a scallop-shell, with sails of gossamer; but\nSara had been expecting an ordinary boat, and she was perfectly\ndelighted. Of course it was large enough to hold Sara, as well as the\nrest of the party; but just barely. And the sailors were no larger\nthan Pirlaps, though of course more rugged-looking and not so\nsmooth-shaven. And not one of them said a single word, during the\nentire voyage, except \"Yo-ho!\" They sang that out continually; but as\ntheir voices were small and musical (though hoarse) one didn't mind\nthe monotony of it.\n\nThe sea was very smooth that morning, and not one of the party was\nseasick; and Sara, who had been gazing, fascinated, into the water in\nfront of the bow was just beginning to suspect that the boat was being\ndrawn by a very large amber-colored fish who kept just ahead of it and\njust under the surface (with the sails chiefly for ornament) when\nAvrillia called suddenly from the stern, \"You can see Zinariola now,\nSara!\"\n\nAh, there was the magical city!--for that it was magical the most\nmatter-of-fact person could see at a glance. Of course it was not just\nimaginary, like the one Sara had built up in her mind, for this little\ncity was shining upon the cliffs; but for all that it was not a common\ncity--it was a toy one, and enchanted at that. And it was even more\nstrange and beautiful than she had dreamed. For streamers of violet\nfog blew up its streets from the sea, and a wild light from behind the\nfarthest cliff struck across its green roofs and gilded weather-vanes.\nJust as they drew up to the quay they heard a tinkling sound of music\nand much laughter; and an organ-man with a monkey came spilling out of\none of the little streets, followed by a crowd of clapping children.\nThey were somewhat like Avrillia's children, only quite\nforeign-looking, with green and red and yellow kerchiefs. The\norgan-man was not so large as Yassuh, and the monkey was about the\nsize of a small spider. As for the organ, it looked strangely like the\nmusic-box that belonged to Sara's dolls.\n\nSara had never before seen a city simply swarming with fairies. Any\ncity was a wide-eyed place to Sara; so what of the wonder of a fairy\ncity? To be sure, many of them were foreign-looking, like the ones who\nfollowed the organ-man, and in other ways, too; still, as Zinariola\nwas a seaport, it was very cosmopolitan, and one saw all sorts of\npeople on its streets. Many were just natural-looking people, like\nPirlaps and Avrillia; but some were of chocolate, like Yassuh, and\nsome were Chinese, with long pigtails of black buttonhole-twist; and\nsome were Parisians, with hats exactly like the one that the Japanese\ndoll wore so unbecomingly. (Yes, Sara knew in her heart that it was\nunbecoming, though she would not have admitted it, even to you.) On\nthe gay Parisian lady-fairies, however, these hats were charming--but\nhardly more striking than the many-colored headdresses, made of\nhumming-bird's feathers, that attracted so much attention when a band\nof wild Indians went whooping down one of the principal streets. And\neverywhere one saw sailors--rolling along the sidewalks and greeting\neach other with loud \"Yo-ho's!\" (Loud, that is, for their size, but\nalways hoarsely musical.)\n\nThis visit of Sara's took place before automobiles were introduced\ninto Zinariola, and the carriages were drawn by devil's horses. Of\nthese Sara was frankly afraid--they reared so, and turned their heads\nso weirdly on their long green necks. Sara noticed one in particular,\nwhich was drawing a carriage in a wedding procession that was just\nleaving a church. This was a closed carriage, occupied by the bride\nand groom; and the devil's horse was not looking where he went at all;\nhe had turned his head completely around, and was staring through the\nlittle window straight into the carriage! Sara was afraid to cross the\nstreet in front of horses that never looked where they stepped. It\ntook all her courage to attempt it, and you may be sure she held fast\nto Pirlaps. And when Pirlaps had to leave them in order to go to a\nbarber-shop (Avrillia had not insisted upon his bringing his shaving\nthings today, but he went to a barber-shop every two hours) she would\nnot cross the street, but stayed on the sidewalk. Pirlaps changed his\ntrousers at the barber-shop, too, whenever it was necessary; but today\nthere were so much to do and see that he did not sit on his step as\nmuch as usual, and so did not need as many.\n\nFor they had a good deal of shopping to do, besides showing Sara the\nsights. In the first place, Avrillia had to go to the stationery store\nand get a new supply of swan's-quill pens. \"That's one store I always\nknow where to find,\" she said. \"The others change about so that I\nalways have to ask somebody.\" Then, Pirlaps needed some new trousers\n(two or three pairs had worn out and he only had forty-four or five\nleft) and some shaving soap. \"And besides,\" said Avrillia, smiling at\nSara mysteriously, \"we want to get some presents.\"\n\n\"And you'll have to make your usual visits of charity. Oh, I know you,\nAvrillia,\" said Pirlaps. \"If we don't hurry we won't catch the evening\nboat.\"\n\nSo they went first to the stationery store (which, just as Avrillia\nhad said, was in the usual place), and then to a bazaar where they\ndisposed of their household buying. While Sara was feasting her eyes\non the strange, delicious-looking fruits, the old candlesticks, and\nthe bolts and lengths of rich-looking cloth with stories woven into it,\nshe heard Avrillia say, \"Now a set of self-buttoning buttons, please.\"\n\nThe jolly little old leather-colored man who kept the bazaar winked at\nSara as he brought out the buttons for Avrillia's inspection. They\nlooked very much like ordinary buttons, except that they were, of\ncourse, more intelligent-looking, and they were on a pink card instead\nof a white one; also, they were in a shiny lacquer box, the lid of\nwhich was watched over by gold dragons.\n\n\"They will do very nicely,\" said Avrillia. \"Now a thimble--a really\ngood one, please, that is thoroughly finger-broken, and has a\ntractable disposition and some sense. The one this little girl has now\nis simply abominable, and wouldn't push a needle through cobweb--not\nto mention the heavy textiles they are obliged to use in her country.\nNow, some knotless thread, please,\" she continued, having decided upon\na thimble after much careful thought. \"Oh, no--not that! I don't mean\nthe kind that won't take a knot at the end; what I want is the kind\nthat won't tangle and snarl, even if a child's fingers are tired.\nThere, that's it!\" and she tucked a smiling little spool into Sara's\napron pocket.\n\n\"Now, Sara,\" she asked, \"is there any other simple little thing you'd\nlike to have? They have self-washing hands and self-learning lessons,\nand such things, but they're very expensive, and I know your mother\nwouldn't want you to accept expensive presents,\" and she smiled at\nSara affectionately.\n\nSara wanted terribly to ask for a set of self-learning multiplication\ntables, but she knew Avrillia was right, and that her mother wouldn't\nlike it. Besides, how could she ever get all that furniture home on\nthe boat?\n\nSo she assured Avrillia that she was more than satisfied--as, indeed,\nbeing a dear child, she was. And then Avrillia nearly took her breath\naway by saying, \"Well, then, we'll go up and fit the dollies--just for\ngood measure. I know a shop where the loveliest doll clothes may be\nbought for a trifle.\"\n\nAnd, would you believe it, that was the first time that Sara had\nremembered the Baby doll and the Kewpie! However, one could tell from\nthe Kewpie's delighted smile that no harm had been done, so far as he\nwas concerned; and the Baby, for a wonder, was asleep.\n\nSo Avrillia took them to the oddest little shop, the shape of a Dutch\nteapot, kept by a little old-lady doll who was delighted to show them\neverything. They bought a complete wardrobe for the Kewpie, who had\nnever had any clothes, and was charmed by the novelty of possessing\nthem; but the Baby nearly spoiled everything by waking up and kicking\nand squalling and refusing to try on a thing! \"You'd better behave,\nyou little rascal,\" said Pirlaps, \"it will be a long while before\nyou'll ever have another chance like this!\" But the Baby only kicked\nthe harder. However, the little shop-keeper doll was very patient, and\nby measuring him between kicks they managed to fit him out with a very\nnice layette. And then Avrillia insisted on buying all sorts of things\nfor the dolls at home--gorgeous oriental costumes for the Japanese\ndoll, sailor-suits for the Billiken, and a handsome fur overcoat, of a\nconservative style and cut, for the Brown Teddy-Bear.\n\n\"Now,\" said Pirlaps, \"we'll have luncheon--it's getting rather\nlate--and then I suppose Avrillia will have to call on her poor\nfamilies.\"\n\nHe led them to a little Chinese restaurant where a dumb-waiter with a\npigtail noiselessly served them with very good things to eat--though\nAvrillia said the prices were outrageous. As they were dipping their\neyelashes daintily in the finger-bowls, Pirlaps said,\n\n\"Well, Sara, shall we go with Avrillia, or would you rather stay\nhere?\"\n\n\"Oh, let's go!\" cried Sara. She would have stayed anywhere with\nPirlaps, but if there was more to see, she wanted to see it.\n\n\"Have you had the measles?\" asked Pirlaps.\n\nSara had; she could not be mistaken about it.\n\n\"And the mumps?\" Again Sara nodded, swallowing hard as she thought of\nlemons and vinegar.\n\n\"All right, come ahead,\" said Pirlaps. And they started off.\n\n\"But the Baby hasn't!\" suddenly remembered Sara. \"The Kewpie has, but\nthe Baby hasn't.\"\n\n\"Then it will never do to take him,\" said Pirlaps, decisively. \"Here,\nYassuh, you stay here and keep the Baby.\"\n\nPirlaps saw a look of doubt and reluctance in Sara's eyes as he was\nabout to consign the Baby to Yassuh's sticky care. So he handed the\nBaby back to Sara and darted into a store near by where he got some\nclean wrapping-paper. He then rolled the Baby, in its nice white dress,\nup in the paper, taking care to leave its nose out, so it could\nbreathe. Then he handed it over to Yassuh, and Sara felt quite\ncomfortable and contented. \"Keep out of the sun,\" he called back to\nYassuh, \"and mind you don't melt!\"\n\nThe next thing, Avrillia said, was to stop in a drug store. They found\none quite readily, and Sara watched with astonished eyes while\nAvrillia purchased a very large stock of drugs. Even a fairy drug\nstore is a disagreeable place to a child with a past like Sara's, and\nif this one had not had a show-case full of candies for her to look at\nshe would have been exceedingly restless. But the bonbons were\ncharming--of all shapes and colors, and almost as large as a pinhead.\n\nSara was really suffering from curiosity to know what Avrillia was\ngoing to do with the medicines, but she had already asked so many\nquestions that she thought she would try to be very polite, and wait.\nWaiting was made easier by the fact that the poorer quarter of the\ncity, through which they were now walking, was very queer and\ninteresting. It was like most such places, but Sara had not seen many,\nand she was fascinated by the babies tumbling about on the sidewalk,\nand the clothes-lines on the upstairs porches with clothes drying on\nthem. Once a goat in an alley looked up and spoke to her--but she did\nnot understand what he said. His mouth was full; for he was eating a\ntin can that looked strangely like Sara's old thimble.\n\nPresently they stopped before a mean-looking house and Avrillia\nknocked. Now, you often hear that word applied to quite innocent\nhouses that are only plain and poor; but this one really was\nmean-looking. And Sara noticed with wonder that there was a red flag\nover the door.\n\nA disagreeable-looking woman with watery eyes and her handkerchief to\nher nose opened the door; and then, at the sound of Avrillia's voice,\nthere swarmed out from the rooms on both sides of the hall a crowd of\nthe most unattractive children! They fairly mobbed Avrillia, all\ntalking at once and snatching at the bottles which they could see\nsticking out of Avrillia's basket. They had the reddest faces Sara had\never seen, and no manners at all; for without even asking permission\nthey began to drink out of the bottles, quarreling among themselves\ninto the bargain.\n\nSara drew as far away from them as she could; and while Avrillia was\ntalking kindly to the woman and the children (who didn't listen to her),\nand also to an old man who sat hunched over a stove in the corner,\nshe whispered to Pirlaps, \"Who are they?\"\n\n\"Why, the Measles, of course,\" said Pirlaps. \"I told you we were\ncoming to see them! They live with their mother, Mrs. Sneeze, and\ntheir grandfather, Old Man Cough. Avrillia thinks she can help them,\nbut they're a shiftless lot. Haven't a particle of get-up-and-go!\nAlways waiting for somebody to take 'em!\"\n\nAvrillia was too much interested to notice what Sara and Pirlaps were\ndoing. \"Now, children,\" she was saying kindly but severely, \"I shall\nexpect to find you better the next time I come. No, you can't have\nthat bottle--that's for the Mumps.\"\n\nSara found, as they left the house, that the Mumps were an old couple\nwho lived only a few doors down the same street. Old Mr. Mump had once\nmade a fortune in the pickle-business; but he had had reverses, and\nwas now very old and poor.\n\nThey found the old couple sitting in front of their rickety grate,\nwith their jaws tied up in red flannel. The old man evidently had a\nvicious temper, but he was plainly glad to see Avrillia. The old lady\nwas more mild and tearful; and both were overjoyed to get the\nmedicine.\n\nAs they went out into the street again, Sara gave a sigh of relief;\nbut Avrillia looked quite rapt and uplifted.\n\nSara was anxious to see if any mishap had overtaken Yassuh and the\nBaby; but when they had hurried back to the restaurant they found\nYassuh still awake and the Baby still asleep. Pirlaps took off the\nsticky paper and handed him, as clean as ever, back to Sara, who was\nvery glad that she had not exposed him to those dreadful diseases.\n\nThey caught the scallop-shell boat, though they had to run for it, and\nthey were quite quiet all the way home. Avrillia sat by the rail,\nwatching the gulls, and dreaming; and Sara strained her eyes for a\nlong time to catch the last glimpse of the little magic, toy City of\nZinariola. She was still lost in memories when the boat scraped on the\nbeach; and then they climbed the little path among the cliffs through\nthe sunset. As soon as they reached the house Pirlaps sat emphatically\ndown on his step, remarking, \"My, but it's good to be at home!\" But\nAvrillia hurried off to her balcony, murmuring absent-mindedly, \"I\nmust write a poem about streets!\"\n\nAs for Sara, she sped along the little curly path in the dusk toward\nthe ivory doors. And there, in front of the dimple-holder, stood the\nGunkus in livery, still bowing low, holding his left shoe in his right\nhand over his faithful heart.\n\nSara was much ashamed of having forgotten him, and she had no money\nwith her; but she had a postage stamp in her pocket, from which the\npuppy had licked the mucilage. This she gave him.\n\nIt was, in all other respects, a perfectly good stamp. And the\nfaithful Gunkus seemed much pleased.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Chapter VIII\n                             The Vale of Tears\n\n\nSuch a thing had never happened before, and how it happened this time\nI am at a loss to understand: but when Sara entered the Garden on this\nparticular morning her eyes were full of tears. She had to fumble\nblindly around for her dimples, and when she did find them they were\nburied quite deep in her little wet cheeks. She would have strayed\nright on into the Garden without removing them, except that as soon as\nshe saw the Snimmy's wife, absorbed in some simple domestic task, and\nsitting on her own toadstool at the door of the prose-bush with her\ntail wrapped so tightly around the base, she felt that she might smile\nafter a while, and then it might be too late to save the dimples from\nthe Snimmy. But before they had touched the whipped cream cushion in\nthe bottom of the holder, two Gunki rushed forward in great excitement,\nand seizing her by the arms, began to hurry her through the Garden,\ncrying hoarsely,\n\n\"She's crying! She's crying! She mustn't cry here!\"\n\nSara had never had a Gunkus touch her before; but, though they hurried\nher so fast that she was breathless, and the tears hung where they\nwere on her lashes without having time to fall, they were as gentle\nwith her as possible, and she understood that their anxiety was all on\nher account. She was further reassured when she saw the Teacup\nfluttering and hopping along--now on one side, now on the other, and\nnow in front--and murmuring, \"What in Zeelup, my dear?\" with the\nutmost solicitude expressed on her gentle old face. Sara knew that the\nTeacup was timid, and seldom left the Garden; and she realized that\nher affection and concern for her must be very deep, to bring her\nfluttering along with her in this fashion, without stopping to ask the\nPlynck, or to think of the consequences to herself and her\nconsanguineous handle.\n\nBy this time they had passed through the hawthorn hedge that bounded\nthe Garden, and could see just below them a beautiful little Vale,\nwith a rainbow arching over the entrance to it, like a gate. Inside\nthe Vale the view was not very distinct, for streamers of light mist\nblew across its green moss, and its white boulders, and the little\nstream that wound down the middle of it. It was rather a sad-looking\nlittle place, of course, but not bitter-looking or very long; and now\nand then a sun-pencil struck across it, and for a moment made more\nrainbows like the one at the entrance.\n\nAs soon as they had passed through the hedge the Gunki stopped,\nbreathing heavily and mopping their brows with their hatbands.\n\n\"Rest a minute, dear, and try to keep them from falling,\" said the\nTeacup, who was also breathless, but very kind. \"Of course, if they\nshould fall here it wouldn't be so bad; still, if you can keep them on\nyour lashes till we reach the Vale--\"\n\n\"What would they do,\" asked Sara, in awe, \"if they fell in the\nGarden?\"\n\nThe Teacup and the Gunki looked at each other with wide, horrified\neyes, each waiting for the other to speak.\n\n\"Well, you see, none ever have fallen in the Garden,\" said the Teacup,\nat last, speaking in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.\n\"Before my Saucer was broken--\"\n\n\"She's a widow, Miss,\" explained the Gunki, whispering to Sara behind\ntheir hands. One whispered in baritone, one in bass.\n\n\"Before my Saucer was broken,\" continued the Teacup, with a grateful\nlook at the thoughtful Gunki, \"I've heard him say that a little girl\ncame into the Garden one day with tears in her eyes, and that one\nwould have fallen, if a Gunkus had not caught it in his shoe. Haven't\nyou noticed the old, gray-haired Gunkus, who always wears a wooden\nmedal on his coat-tail--\"\n\n\"Our grandfather,\" whispered the Gunki, behind their hands. This time\nthey whispered in second bass and tenor.\n\n\"Yes, the grandfather of these dear boys,\" said the susceptible old\nlady. \"He was showing the little girl about the Garden, and so had his\nshoe in his hand out of respect for her; so he caught the tear in his\nshoe with the greatest presence of mind, and ran down here with it\nbefore any actual harm was done. What the child was crying about I\ncan't imagine; though, for that matter, why any nice child should\nbring tears into the Garden--\"\n\n\"Would it be worse than the Fractions?\" asked Sara, hastily.\n\n\"It would,\" said the First Gunkus, in bass.\n\n\"It would,\" said the Second Gunkus, in the solemnest second bass.\n\n\"Much, much worse,\" said the Teacup, in her soft, anxious tremolo.\n\"One snow remedied that, you see; but if a tear fell--but oh, dear,\nlet's don't talk about it! My handle is so consanguineous, and I\nforgot to ask the Plynck--and--and--\"\n\nThe poor old lady was evidently growing hysterical herself; so the\nfaithful Gunki hastily put up their hatbands, seized Sara by the arm,\nand again began hurrying toward the Rainbow Gate. The Teacup, having\nagain to put her mind on the task of keeping up with them, regained\nher composure--at least as much of it as she had ever had since her\nSaucer was broken.\n\nOnce inside the little arch, the Gunki stopped and relaxed their hold\non Sara's arm. \"Now you can cry, Miss,\" they said, with evident\nrelief.\n\n\"But I don't want to, now,\" said Sara, wonderingly.\n\n\"Treatment successful,\" said the First Gunkus.\n\n\"That's what usually happens,\" explained the Teacup. \"At least I've\nheard my Saucer say that that's what happened to the other little\ngirl. But here, boys, you must attend to these two she's already\ncried.\"\n\nThe two Gunki stepped up with alacrity, a little ashamed of having to\nbe reminded of their duties.\n\n\"Mad or sad?\" they asked.\n\n\"Wh-what?\" stammered Sara.\n\n\"Mad or sad?\" repeated the Gunki, twirling their thumbs.\n\n\"They mean, my dear,\" explained the Teacup, \"were you crying because\nyou were angry, or for some more or less legitimate reason--because\nyou cut your finger, for instance, or broke one of the charming\nchildren you had with you the other day? Because--\"\n\n\"It was because Jimmy wouldn't play what I wanted--\" began Sara,\nhanging her head, and thinking she might as well get it out and over\nwith.\n\n\"Mad!\" commented the Gunki in unison, with great professional\ninterest. \"Then they'll have to go to the fishes. Steady, now--\"\n\nAs he said the last words the First Gunkus stepped up and deftly\nremoved the tear from Sara's right eyelashes, while the Second Gunkus,\nwith almost equal skill, captured the one from her left ones. They ran\nwith them toward the little stream, and Sara was so curious to know\nwhat they meant to do with them that she followed unconsciously.\n\nNow this was, indeed, the saddest little stream Sara had ever seen.\nIts source was hidden in mist, and after it passed through the rainbow\narch it disappeared somewhere, as if the earth had swallowed it. But\nall along its banks, where Sara could see it, sat great frogs, with\ntheir green pocket handkerchiefs to their eyes; and every now and then\nthe most dismal sounds escaped them. Sara did not need to be told that\nthey were Sobs--anybody would have known it.\n\nLooking closely, Sara could see in the water hundreds of little black\nfish, decorated with silver dots and streaks. As the Gunki approached\nthe stream with Sara's tears, all the Sobs began to sob at once, and\nat the sound the little black fish all stuck their wide, greedy mouths\nup out of the water. The Gunki fed the tears to the two nearest, and\nthen they all sank again, with a great splashing and flouncing.\n\n\"You see, Miss,\" explained the First Gunkus (who seemed to have taken\na great liking to Sara, in spite of all the trouble she had caused him),\n\"we have to feed 'em all the mad tears. The sad ones turn into\nthese.\"\n\nSara looked where he pointed, and there, at her feet, she saw numbers\nof little blue-eyed flowers. They were extremely pretty, and by far\nthe pleasantest things she had seen in this Vale; but even they had a\nsad little fragrance, and each eye had a dewdrop on it. Sara found\nthat, if she looked at them long, she felt a lump coming in her throat;\nand at last she turned to her friends and said what she had been\ntrying to get up courage to say from the first, \"Please--I don't like\nthis place! I want to go!\"\n\n\"There, there, dear,\" said the Teacup, soothingly, looking as if she\nhad been dreading the worst, and it had come.\n\n\"We has orders, Miss,\" said the First Gunkus, stepping up, \"that we\nmust keep you here three-quarters of an hour, and show you the whole\nVale, Miss.\"\n\n\"Whose orders?\" faltered Sara.\n\nFor a moment the Gunki looked quite wild and disorganized. Then the\nFirst Gunkus collected himself and said quite firmly,\n\n\"Just orders, Miss--without any whose.\"\n\n\"But I can tell you why, dear,\" interrupted the Teacup soothingly, as\nif she hoped to distract Sara's mind. \"I've heard my Saucer say why.\nIt's so children can understand what kind of a place mothers have to\nstay in, when they cry. So cheer up, dear, and try to enjoy the\nscenery. The trip through the Vale won't last long.\"\n\nSara felt a good deal like crying again--but it was like carrying\ncoals to Newcastle to cry in a place like this! Besides, she was\nthinking of what the Teacup had said about mothers. Was it possible\nthat she brought anything like this on her own dear, self-willed\nMother every time she indulged in a few natural tears?\n\nAnd the more she thought of it, the more strongly she decided that she\njust wouldn't cry. And just at that moment one of those lovely pencils\nof sunlight, that looked brighter in this misty green place than\nanywhere she had ever been, fell across her path.\n\n\"What's that?\" she asked the Teacup.\n\n\"Why, dear, that comes from the Smiles. They live just over the way,\nyou know. We'll go by and see them on our way home.\"\n\nHere was good news, indeed! Sara had never felt more relieved. But at\nthat very moment she drew back; for she had seen several disheveled,\ncross, black-browed children peering at her out of a sort of cave in\nthe rock. Behind them was a very ill-natured-looking old man.\n\n\"Those are the Frowns,\" said the Teacup, holding Sara's hand\nreassuringly. \"They live in that cave with their step-father, Old Man\nScowl. Just come on by, as if you didn't notice them. But remember how\nthey look. And listen to those sighs!\"\n\nSo that was the doleful noise she had been hearing, up in the little\npine-trees? Sara looked up, and for a minute could see them quite\ndistinctly--little wispy, gray creatures, blowing about in the wind.\nThey were better than the Frowns and the Sobs, she decided,--but dear\nme! Why should anybody be so dismal?\n\nThey had now followed the windings of the little Vale till they came\nto a great wall of rock that rose across it. In the rock was an\nopening closed by a sagging, worm-eaten door, and in front of the door\nhung a rusty black curtain.\n\n\"Children don't go in there, dear,\" said the Teacup, as Sara stood\ngazing at it, fascinated. But indeed she had no wish to go in; and it\nwas with a skip of joy that she heard the First Gunkus say, \"Time's up,\nMiss!\"\n\nAt that word, back they all went scampering through the Vale, till\nthey came to a bridge, which was made of another rainbow. On this\nbridge they crossed the stream, and found themselves at the entrance\nof a little opening between the hills that shut in the Vale. The\nsunshine streamed through it, and looking down it Sara could see that\nit opened into a meadow full of daffodils and buttercups and\nblack-eyed Susans. There seemed to be children playing in it, and a\nfew lambs; and down the path toward it waddled a long line of snowy\ngeese. Altogether, it seemed to Sara she had never beheld so peaceful\nand ravishing a scene.\n\n\"This way out,\" said the First Gunkus, touching Sara's arm, and\npointing up to a signpost, marked \"Exit,\" beside the path. Drops of\nwater, like tears, dripped continually from this sign; but the\nsunshine falling upon them from beyond the valley made them look like\njewels.\n\nThe Teacup had told Sara that the Smiles lived in a peaceful village\njust beyond the valley; so she knew that the children playing among\nthe flowers were their children. She would have been glad to stop and\njoin in the gay, fairy-like games the little Smiles were playing; but\nshe could see that the Teacup was getting a little nervous, and\nanxious to be back in the Garden. And, since the kind little Teacup\nhad broken into her regular habits, and braved so many dangers and\ndiscomforts just to keep her company through the dismal Vale, she felt\nthat she ought to be very considerate. So she followed her down the\npath, which was now turning into a little lane, though she walked\nbackward part of the way, with her eyes on the children and the lambs.\n\n\nWhen she turned around she could see a lovely little old village ahead\nof her. It nestled at the foot of a mountain, and it had vine-covered\ncottages with thatched roofs, and spreading trees that made a velvety\nshade underneath and winked in the sunshine above. The air was full of\nthe prettiest sounds; and Sara, listening, thought they must come from\nthe mountain. The mountain itself looked like Fairyland; it was\ncovered with ferns and blossoming laurel and festoons of jessamine;\nand the sounds that seemed forever playing and skipping about from\nwall to wall and rock to rock were like the echoes (or was it the\nreflection?) of happy bells. Sara thought she ought to know what they\nwere, but she could not quite make out.\n\n\"Why, that's where Laughter lives, my dear,\" said the Teacup when she\nasked her. \"That's where your own little Laugh was making off to, the\nday you caught him. Listen--there are some as little as he was.\"\n\nAnd indeed Sara could distinguish many sorts--small, gurgly\nBaby-Laughs, dimpled Little-Girl Laughs, Chuckles like Jimmy's, soft\nLaughs like Mother's, and--almost the pleasantest of all,--deep,\ndelighted Father-Laughs that almost made her homesick. They seemed to\nbe having such a very good time up there that she would have liked to\nlisten to them forever; besides, she kept thinking she might catch\nsight of one. But, though she several times saw the vines swaying, or\nsomething flashing behind a laurel-bush, she was obliged to go on\nwithout really seeing any.\n\nAt the shady door of almost every cottage a pleasant Smile in a very\nwhite, old-fashioned kerchief and cap sat spinning at a queer sort of\nwheel; and the Teacup explained to Sara that this was where the\ndimples were made.\n\n\"It's the chief occupation of the women,\" said the Teacup. \"The thread\nthey use is something like spun-glass, and this is the only place in\nthe world where the secret of making it is known. They weave it into\nthis fabric that looks something like cloth, and then cut it into the\ndifferent shapes with their scissors. You see now why dimples are so\nfragile.\"\n\nThe Smiles all spoke to them with pleasant looks, and gladly stopped\ntheir work to talk to Sara, as she stood admiringly beside their\nwheels. She saw a good many gentleman Smiles going happily about their\nwork--drawing water, watering the flowers, or (since it was getting\nlate) milking the little buttercup-colored cows. Here and there, too,\na happy Smile, too little to go with the other children, rolled about\nand gurgled at its Mother's feet like a Cupid escaped from a\nValentine.\n\nAll this time Sara had been struggling with a plan that had been\nshaping itself in her mind as she looked at basket after basket full\nof shimmering, shining dimples, sitting beside the spinning wheels.\nAfter trying to start several times, she finally managed to ask of one\nof the pleasantest Smiles,\n\n\"Do you--do you sell them?\"\n\n\"Well, we don't usually sell them here,\" she answered doubtfully. \"We\nship them, you see, to the Stork. He takes our entire output. But, if\nyou like, I could let you have a dozen for a kiss or two.\"\n\nSara clapped her hands, and drew the Teacup aside. \"I'd like to take\nsome to the Snimmy,\" she explained. \"He wanted mine so. Do you think I\nmight?\"\n\n\"Why, bless the child!\" cried the Teacup. She looked pleased and\nflustered and doubtful, all at once; for she wasn't used to taking so\nmuch responsibility. \"That's very dear and generous of you, I'm sure.\nIt's never been done, has it?\" she asked, turing to the Gunki, who,\nfor their part, were so surprised that they only blinked. \"No, I'm\nsure it's never been done; but I don't see how it can do the least\nharm. Why, yes, my dear--I wouldn't refuse you the pleasure.\"\n\nSo Sara picked out a dozen of the largest dimples, and paid gladly\nwith two kisses. Then, though she could hardly bear to leave the\npretty village, with the laughter always echoing over it like bells,\nshe grew all at once terribly impatient to take the Snimmy his\ndimples.\n\n\"It will be such fun to feed him,\" she said.\n\nFor a while Sara was too much absorbed in anticipation to notice that\nsomething was the matter with the Gunki. Then, all of a sudden, she\nnoticed that they were looking crestfallen and chagrined.\n\nSara was sorry to notice this because they had been very kind to her\nall through this rather trying day. She began to feel sure that she\nhad in some way hurt or offended them; and while she was wondering how\nshe could have done it, and how she might make amends, the First\nGunkus saw her looking at him.\n\n\"I'd be willing to do anything I could for you, Miss,\" he blurted out,\nturning his shoe awkwardly round and round in his hand.\n\n\"What's more, we done all we could,\" said the Second Gunkus, looking\ndeeply hurt.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Sara, who now understood. \"Why-why! You've been so kind to\nme! I'd love to repay you in some way! I haven't any money with me,\"\nshe went on doubtfully,--\"or any postage stamps,--or any\nginger-snaps-- Do you--do you like kisses?\"\n\nThe First Gunkus drew the back of his hand across his mouth and\ngiggled.\n\nThe Second Gunkus dropped his shoe, and fumbled about trying to pick\nit up.\n\n\"Don't we, though!\" said both of them, at last.\n\nSo Sara gave the faithful creatures two kisses apiece, which left them\nbeaming.\n\n\"Do--do you like them as well as dimples?\" she asked. \"Because, if\nyou'd like dimples, I'll give you some of the Snimmy's.\"\n\nBut the Gunki felt themselves honored beyond any Snimmy who had ever\nsniffed. They stuck their noses into the air and strutted along like\ndrum-majors.\n\n\"Dimples is for folks with tails,\" said the First Gunkus.\n\nIt was blue dusk and starlight when they reentered the Garden. Sara,\nwith her friends standing a little apart to enjoy the fun, slipped\nunseen quite close to the prose-bush, where the Snimmy lay with his\nlong debilitating nose on his paws, looking up at the stars. Sara\nwaited until the nose began to quiver and twitch; and then she\nsuddenly emptied her whole handkerchief full of dimples out before\nhim.\n\nSniff-gobble-gulp! Was there ever such haste and excitement? Sara\njumped up and down with delight, and everybody in the Garden laughed.\nAs for the Snimmy, he was quite overcome, and began to shed gum-drops\nof joy.\n\n\"For once he's had a full meal,\" said his wife, grimly indulgent. As\nfor Sara, she ran off, laughing, to tell Jimmy how funny he had\nlooked.\n\nThe Plynck waked up from her first nap and rustled her fragrant\nplumes.\n\n\"Was that Sara?\" she asked of her Echo.\n\n\"Of course,\" said the Echo. \"You've been asleep.\"\n\n\"Then it wasn't Sara this morning--the strange child with the tears?\"\n\nHer more practical Echo shrugged her wings. \"Go explain to her,\" she\nsaid to the Teacup.\n\nSo the little Teacup, very glad to be safe at home again, fluttered up\nto her place beside her mistress; and they talked about Sara and her\nstrange adventures far into the night.\n\n\n\n\n                               Chapter IX\n                            Cheers and Butter\n\n\nYou would have followed the Snoodle, too, if he had wagged himself at\nyou in that delightful, insinuating fashion, rolled over and over\nacross your foot, and then gone frisking down the path, looking back\nbeguilingly over his shoulder.\n\nSo of course Sara did, as soon as she had properly disposed of her\ndimples. She went skipping along so eagerly that she did not notice\nthat it was an entirely different path--neither pink nor curly--until\nshe had gone through a new arch in the hedge and found herself in the\nmeadow, with the Equine Gahoppigas, all saddled and bridled, waiting\nfor her.\n\nShe had known from the first, just from his general expression, that\nthe Snoodle was going to lead her to something interesting; but she\nwas not prepared for this.\n\nIt was clear, of course, that she was expected to ride the creature;\nbut what it was she could not at first make out. It was about the size\nof a large hobby-horse, and, in respect to its beautiful, wavy mane\nand tail, much resembled it. Otherwise, it was exactly like a\ngrasshopper. And it was rearing and snorting in a most alarming\nmanner. As Sara stood considering, however, she caught a backward look\nout of its wild eyes that said, \"Oh, come on; it's all a joke.\"\n\nSo Sara took her seat in the saddle. Just as she gathered up the reins\nthe Snoodle leaped up behind her--exactly as the trained dog in the\ncircus leaps up behind the monkey on the big Newfoundland. (Only,\ndon't fall into the error of thinking that the Snoodle was a dog; you\nremember his mother was a snail.)\n\nIt was a novel and exhilarating sensation to Sara (that means the way\nyou feel when you shoot the chutes at the Park) to go bounding through\nthe sunny air on the back of the Gahoppigas. The soft wind whistled\nthrough her hair, and blew past her so strongly that she was not even\nconscious of the Snoodle's drawback, though he sat so close to her. At\nthe end of every leap the Gahoppigas rested for an instant upon a\ndaisy head, and Sara saw that the heads of these daisies were as big\nas her own.\n\nNow, though Sara was really a nice child, there were two things she\nhad always been rather greedy about: and they were flowers and\nbutterflies. She had often wished, of a spring morning, wandering\nalong her own garden paths, and gazing at the velvety brightness of\nthe daisies, and the marvelous patterns of the butterflies who\nuncoiled their long tongues above them, that she might some day\ndiscover a meadow full of flowers as large as moons, perpetually\nfluttered over by butterflies as big as peacocks! Here, at last, were\njust such flowers; and since the grasshoppers were as large as\nhobby-horses--no, it was not a grasshopper, it was an Equine\nGahoppigas! Still, it was more like a grasshopper than anything else\nshe had ever seen.\n\nYou must not be surprised that Sara's thoughts were quite jerky and\ndisconnected, for she had never before traversed a meadow in soaring\nleaps, with only a minute now and then to take breath--and even that\nminute spent among the flying yellow hair of a swaying daisy. Still,\nall through the enjoyment and excitement, she managed to keep tight\nhold of one wish--if only there would be butterflies as big as\npeacocks!\n\nWell, there were, of course; on that side of the ivory doors you\ncannot wish for anything as hard as Sara did without getting your\nwish. To be sure, they must have been there long before Sara wished;\nfor the Butterfly Country on which Sara now rested her astonished eyes\nhad the look of a long-settled community. I need not tell you that it\nwas so beautiful it fairly took your breath: you would know that it\nhad to be, with those great flowers nodding everywhere, and those\ngreat gay wings drifting, and sailing, and soaring, and zigzagging,\nand crossing over them. But, all of a sudden, Sara made a discovery\nthat stopped her heart in a breath. In a country where the butterflies\nwere as big as peacocks, the caterpillars were as big as\nboa-constrictors! Sara didn't know the exact size of a boa-constrictor,\nhaving met them only in her Geography: but surely they couldn't be any\nbigger than these! Certainly they were big enough to swallow her as\neasily as the big black snake Jimmy had killed swallowed the egg.\n\nNow, if you can imagine a country inhabited by sea-serpents, of bright\ngreen and brown and pink and yellow, with all kinds of assorted horns\nand knobs and prickles, you can imagine what Sara saw as the\nGahoppigas took its last flying leap and alighted on a flaming\nmarigold at the foot of the palace-steps. Well, of course you would\nhave to imagine the palace, too; and part of it would be quite hard to\nimagine. It was a gorgeous place, of a beautiful amber color, and was\nbuilt of solid blocks of honey-comb,--which, however, had been treated\nby the builders so that they had a hard glaze, to prevent the wings\nand feet of the butterflies from sticking when they touched the walls.\nThe roof was a woven affair, very cunningly made so that the top\nsurface was a sort of thatch of flower-stems, while the ceiling was a\nsolid sheet of flowers. Of course, in this climate, they were always\nfresh. The butterflies had their beds on the ceiling; indeed, as Sara\narrived rather early, a few roistering young blades who had been out\nlate the night before were still hanging with closed wings from the\nroof, fast asleep.\n\nSara could see all this through the open door, which was made of an\nenameled lily-pad (extra-size, like the other things in this luscious\nplace). But the thing that startled her most, and that you would have\nfound it most difficult to imagine, was the strange way in which the\nroof was supported.\n\nA very elegant butterfly, who seemed to be an officer in uniform, was\nstanding on his hind legs at the right of the entrance. His waist was\nvery slim, his wings were very rich, and he was curling and uncurling\nhis proboscis languidly. Sara slid off the Gahoppigas and approached\nas near as she dared.\n\nAt that moment a little gong sounded somewhere (like a temple-gong in\na Japanese fairy-story) and the Butterfly-Officer straightened up and\ncalled out in a sharp, military voice, \"Shift Three!\"\n\nInstantly the caterpillars that were supporting the roof began\nwriggling out from under it, and a new relay that appeared as if by\nmagic began taking their places, planting their tails firmly on the\nfloor and adjusting their heads against the ceiling, and pressing\nupward by making their long bodies very stiff and straight. Of course\nthey did not all do it at once, or the roof would have floated off\ninto the sky; on the other hand, they relieved each other a few at a\ntime, with admirable precision and with no disorder whatever, as if\nthey had had long drill in this complicated manoeuvre.\n\nThe caterpillars who had been relieved seemed to be very much relieved\nindeed; they stretched out their long, cramped bodies luxuriously, and\nwent lumbering off together by twos and threes, with their hands in\ntheir pockets. Sara started to follow a bristly comma-caterpillar who\nwent off alone, but he was so big that she just couldn't make up her\nmind so do it. She had once fed one for three weeks in a fruit jar,\nand she knew that kind couldn't hurt her--still-- She felt she was\njust compelled to talk to somebody; but she believed she would rather\ntry the Butterfly-Officer who was on duty at the entrance. He looked\nbored and supercilious, but his wings were beautiful.\n\nShe drew near after a while and said, as pleasantly as she could,\n\n\"Good-morning!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the officer, without looking around.\n\nSara was a little taken aback, but he looked so conceited, as he stood\nthere coiling and uncoiling his watch-spring tongue, that she suddenly\nfelt herself growing quite provoked.\n\n\"That isn't the right answer,\" she said.\n\nThe Butterfly-Officer turned his lazy eyes and looked her over for\nsome time without speaking.\n\n\"You said it was a good morning, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And I agreed, didn't I?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sara.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said the Butterfly-Officer, turning away and beginning\nto coil and uncoil his spring.\n\nThis was not a very promising beginning. Sara would never learn\nanything at this rate. She must be more direct.\n\n\"Whose palace is this?\" she asked.\n\n\"The Monarch's.\"\n\n\"Might--might I go in?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\nWhat a baffling person! He agreed to anything, apparently, and yet one\nnever learned anything. Sara wandered past him, presently, quite\nsubdued by his elegant scorn.\n\nShe strayed on into the palace. She was speechless with\nadmiration--even if there had been anybody to talk to. There were\nnumbers of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting about, but nobody seemed in\nthe least surprised to see her, and they all seemed too languid to\ntalk. Sara heard them exchange a word occasionally, but for the most\npart they simply stood about, fanning themselves and coiling and\nuncoiling their springs. Never, however, had Sara seen such sumptuous\ncostumes. Such court-trains, and velvet breeches, and rainbow-colored\ncloaks!\n\nPresently, since nobody seemed to mind, Sara wandered straight into\nthe throne-room; and there sat the Monarch dozing on his throne, while\nfourteen courtiers took turns in fanning him with their wings. At\nSara's entrance, however, he awoke with a start; and Sara was terribly\nstartled herself, because it was the first time anybody had really\ntaken any notice of her.\n\n\"Bring her some butter!\" he commanded.\n\nAt his command four of the courtiers drifted away, and presently\nreturned carrying a silvery-white cloth, very rich and lustrous, woven\nof many thicknesses of milk-weed-silk. This they spread on the\ngreen-tiled floor in a corner of the throne-room, near a little\nfountain that trickled continually a sort of silver-colored syrup,\nwhich made a drowsy sound as it fell. Then they flew away again, and\nafter a good while returned carrying a pat of butter in a large\nmagnolia petal. The magnolia petal was about the size of Mother's best\nturkey-platter, and as white and fragrant as the magnolias at home.\nAnd the pat of butter was about as large as a veal loaf. Of course it\ndid not look in the least like a veal loaf; it looked exactly like\nbutter--a delectable, golden yellow, and all dewy-looking, as it used\nto come out of the spring-house at Grandmother's.\n\n\"Sit,\" said the Monarch, briefly.\n\nSara sat.\n\n\"Eat,\" said the Monarch, in the same sleepy but authoritative voice.\n\nNow, Sara was terribly uncomfortable. To be sure, nothing had ever\nlooked more delicious, and Sara liked butter on bread--a great deal of\nit, in fact. But to eat all butter, without anything to go with it!\nYet she felt it would be dreadfully impolite to refuse; and she could\nnot bear to be thought impolite by all these haughty and elegant\npersons. She was just about to say, humbly, \"Please, might I have a\nlittle bread?\" when it occurred to her that she might just taste it,\nat least. And oh, how glad she was that she did! For, of course, you\nhave guessed that it was not just ordinary butter, though it looked\nexactly like it. It was not even the plain imaginary kind: it was\nenchanted butterfly butter. And if you have ever seen a monarch\nbutterfly as big as a peacock, sitting on a throne, you know what it\ntasted like. The nearest I can come to explaining is to say that it\ntasted a little like custard and a little like ice-cream and a little\nlike a sort of candy Sara had forgotten the name of. And it had a\nfragrance something like that of isthagaria.\n\nThe Monarch went to sleep as soon as he saw that Sara had begun to eat;\nbut just before she finished he was awakened by a court official who\ncame in to announce, with a bored expression, that two ladies of high\ndegree, members of families very prominent in the realm, desired an\naudience with His Majesty.\n\nThe Monarch sighed and rubbed his eyes with his feelers.\n\n\"Show them in,\" he said.\n\nThe two ladies came zigzagging in, talking and arguing excitedly; they\nwere the first really animated persons Sara had seen in all this warm,\nshimmering place.\n\n\"The Princess Interrogation: the Countess Leaf-Wing,\" announced the\ncourtier.\n\nThen the two ladies, who had been talking to each other, both began\ntalking at once to the king. In spite of their aristocratic, high-bred\nair, their long necks and waists and slender wrists and ankles, their\nhigh heels and gorgeous clothes, they were as angry as cooks.\n\n\"She was laying eggs on my food-plant!\" cried the Princess.\n\n\"I wasn't!\" shrilled the Countess. \"What do I want with her old\nnettle? Don't I know Croton capita turn when I see it? I was just\nresting, and she came and pushed me off--\"\n\n\"She had already come and stuck her long tongue into a lily I had just\noccupied,\" continued the Princess. \"And I saw the eggs after she\nleft--\"\n\n\"They were your own old flat eggs,\" said the Countess contemptuously.\n\"You haven't mind enough to remember where you put them!\"\n\n\"Oh, roses!\" sighed the Monarch, \"I suppose I'll never have any\npeace. Always on the verge of civil war! Yesterday it was the\nclover-caterpillars complaining that the zebras were eating their\nfood--\"\n\nSara was just thinking how shockingly unbecoming such conduct was, and\nhow they were all behaving more like children than like the nice,\nunintelligent lower animals they ought to be, when another messenger\ncame flying in in a state of actual excitement.\n\n\"Your Majesty!\" he cried. \"There's a strange animal attacking the\ncaterpillars!\"\n\nSara's heart sank. The Snoodle--she knew it must be the Snoodle! And\nshe felt responsible for him!\n\nShe jumped up from her silver table-cloth and ran out of the palace\ndoor, with the whole court zigzagging excitedly after her. It was a\nnoiseless chase, for the butterflies (except when they quarrel) are\nvery quiet; but there was much excitement nevertheless. Sara ran a\nlittle way from the palace before she came to the scene of the\ndisturbance--and such a scene as it was! Caterpillars everywhere,\nbristling, smooth, green, pink, eye-marked and eyeless; caterpillars\nstanding on their tails, or crouching in every conceivable attitude of\ndefense; and in their midst the little Snoodle, frisking and fawning\nand endeavoring to come to grips with the horny and horrified worms.\nThere was one old Hickory Horn-Devil in particular, who had come out\nin front of the others like Goliath before the ranks of the\nPhilistines; and the Snoodle was dancing around him in an ecstasy of\nanticipation. Though he was so excited, he looked so good-natured that\nSara could not believe that he wished to harm even these\nfierce-looking brutes; indeed, there was a sort of resemblance between\nthem, except for the expression. And, as she thought that, it flashed\ninto Sara's mind that the Snoodle did not really want to hurt them, at\nall, but only to embrace them! So she ran forward and cried to the\nexcited populace (who were spinning this way and that, wildly coiling\nand uncoiling their springs and crying, \"What in butter shall we do?),\n\n\"He won't hurt them--he won't hurt them! He only wants to embrace\nthem! He thinks they're his relatives--his father was a noodle!\"\n\nAt this the people grew calmer, and began to gather around her head,\nasking cautious questions. The caterpillars did not seem to\nunderstand, and looked as frightened and agitated as ever; for Sara\nwas unconsciously speaking the butterfly language, and the\ncaterpillars spoke a different dialect.\n\n\"Give me a chance to prove my theory!\" continued Sara, in the\nbutterfly language. \"Here, Snoodle!\" she called, soothingly.\n\"Here--Horn-Devil!\" It took a great deal of courage for Sara to speak\nsoothingly to the giant caterpillar; but you see the butterfly people\nwere beginning to think her a very wise, brave person, and that made\nit rather necessary for her to be one. So she gave a little gulp which\nthe spectators took for a sign of bravery, and drawing nearer by\ninches, actually laid her hand on the rearing, plunging,\npanic-stricken creature! He lurched and snorted terribly when her hand\nfirst touched him, but as he did nothing worse, Sara grew braver and\nmore hopeful, and began to pat and stroke him and say soothing words.\nOf course he could not understand the words, but he seemed to\nunderstand the tone, for presently he stopped rearing, and at last\nstood quite quiet, only breathing hard and trembling a little.\n\n\"Now, Snoodle, come here!\" cried Sara, nerving herself for the supreme\ntest of her theory.\n\nThe Snoodle sprang forward at the word, and, as Sara had foretold,\nthrew his paws about the Horn-Devil's neck. The Horn-Devil sprang into\nthe air, making a sort of wild, whinnying sound (the only sound Sara\never heard, then or afterward, from a caterpillar); but as Sara patted\nhim kindly and the Snoodle only wagged himself ecstatically, he grew\nquiet again, and allowed himself to be hugged without further protest.\nThen the Snoodle, having finished his embrace, released his long-lost\nrelative and sat down on his long hinder-parts, looking about at the\nspectators with an air that said, \"There! I'm satisfied! I didn't do\nany harm, did I?\"\n\nAnd at that the populace went wild. You never saw such a change come\nover a nation of people in your life. They showered attentions upon\nSara until she was so delighted that she scarcely knew how to deport\nherself. They proclaimed her a heroine; they brought a sort of sedan\nchair, borne, not by the common cabbage butterflies who usually\ncarried them, but by a Chrysophanus hypophlaeas and a Lavatera\nassurgentiflora. And when they had put her into it they carried her at\nthe head of a procession to the royal gardens behind the palace, where\nno mortal had ever entered; and there they crowned her with flowers\nwhich have no name in our language, but which the butterflies call\ntinnulalia. And they fed her--not with butter this time--but with\nhoney-dew. They fanned her with their enormous wings (as big as\npeacocks') and hovered over her, and murmured compliments in her ears,\nuntil it was hard for her to believe that they were the same lovely\nbut supercilious race who had received her so coolly in the morning.\nAnd when, suddenly, the temple-gong sounded, and the Equine Gahoppigas,\nsaddled and bridled, and champing his bit, appeared at the entrance to\nthe royal gardens, they all took out their cobweb handkerchiefs and\nwept bitterly.\n\nAnd, indeed, Sara was loth to go; for this strange land was an\nenchanting place when its people were kind. But she saw that it was\ngrowing late; and, as the shadows began to lengthen, she suddenly\nremembered that she had followed the Snoodle away without telling\nanybody. She was certainly older than the Snoodle; he was so young and\nirresponsible. Ought she not to have told the Snimmy's wife? Perhaps\nhe was running away!\n\nSo she gathered up the reins and saw him leap safely up behind her;\nthen she turned to wave good-by to the Butterfly Country and its\nstrange, changeable, elegant inhabitants. And as long as she could see\nanything she watched the pulsing, many-colored wings waving\nregretfully over the royal garden with the strange flowers.\n\nThe ride home through the cool of the evening was as delightful as the\nmorning's ride had been; but not quite so breathless and exciting,\nbecause it seemed to Sara by this time quite natural to ride upon a\nGahoppigas. But when she slid off her charger at the entrance of the\nPlynck's Garden her ears were assailed by an unspeakable clamor of\nmournful sound; it sounded a little like a Swiss yodler with a broken\nheart, and a little like a dog howling because the yodler was singing.\nAnd it went \"Snoodle-oodle-oodle-ooo!!\" And Sara knew, with a sinking\nheart, that it was the Snimmy's wife lifting up her voice in\nlamentation for her lost child.\n\nTherefore, for the first time, she was a little afraid to go into the\nGarden. But she had already been so brave that day that she had rather\ncontracted the habit; so she drew a long breath, and, saying calmly,\n\"Come, Snoodle!\" she walked straight up to the pool.\n\nAnd such a clamor of rejoicing as arose at their appearance! The\nPlynck was so surprised that she crowed like a rooster; and then\napologized to everybody (half-laughing and half-crying) for being so\nunladylike. The Teacup fluttered, the Snimmy sniffed; and the Snimmy's\nwife--that grim, undemonstrative woman--rushed out from the prose-bush\nand gathered her darling, and Sara, too, to her heart.\n\nBut Sara was not through being brave. She stepped up upon Schlorge's\nstump, and, swallowing hard, said in a clear voice,\n\n\"Perhaps it was my fault. I'm older than the Snoodle--\"\n\n\"Hurrah for Sara! She's older than the Snoodle!\" cried the First and\nSecond Gunki. And at that the whole Garden went wild over her just as\nthe butterflies had done. The Gunki carried her around on their\nshoulders; the Snimmy and his wife pelted her with moon-flowers; the\nPlynck and the Teacup kept up an agitated patter of feminine\nhand-clapping; and Schlorge came running down the path from the\nDimplesmithy, cheering wildly.\n\nWhen they finally put her down beside the dimple-holder, very rumpled\nand bright-eyed and flushed, Sara felt her little heart swell with\npride. For twice that day she had been acclaimed a heroine--once because\nshe had tamed a caterpillar, and once because she was older than the\nSnoodle.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  Chapter X\n                                 Sara's Day\n\n\nSomething told Sara, the next morning, to take every one of her dolls.\nAnd the minute she entered the Garden she was glad that she had.\n\nIt was clear that something very unusual was afoot. She had never seen\nher dear Garden look so festive. It was lavishly decorated with\nsun-shafts and rainbows, and everywhere waved streamers of pink\nsunrise and violet mist. Over the fountain, in front of the tree where\nthe Plynck sat, had been stretched a large electric sign. It read,\n\n\"In Honor of Sara. Because She is Older than the Snoodle!\"\n\nIt was made of white and pink gum-drops, and they told her afterward\nthat the Snimmy had sat up all night to weep them. The Plynck\nfurnished the electricity by smiling every little while. This lit up\nthe pink and white gum-drops, till they looked like the tiny globes on\nthe Wooded Island at the Park. Of course this was in the daytime, but\nthe Plynck's smile was so much stronger than ordinary electricity that\neven in daytime it shone with quite a dazzling effect.\n\nAll of her friends were there except Avrillia. Pirlaps had come and\nbrought all seventy of the children; he said Avrillia was coming on in\na moment, and kept looking down the path for her. The minute the\nKewpie saw Avrillia's children, he slid out of Sara's arms and ran to\nthem; and all that day Sara could hardly pick him out from the rest of\nthem. The Baby, too, kicked and cried and stretched out his hands\nuntil one of the older children came and took him; and all day long\nthey passed him, too, from one to another, and he seemed perfectly\ncontented. The Teddy-Bear sat down in a quiet corner and shaded his\neyes from the lights; the Billiken strolled about with his hands in\nhis pockets, smiling at everything; and the Japanese doll went over\nand took a seat on the steps of the prose-bush, where he was soon\ndiscussing with Mrs. Snimmy the best way to stew onions.\n\nThere were so many of Avrillia's children and so many of the Gunki\nthat the Garden had a delightfully animated appearance. Yassuh was\nthere, carrying Pirlaps' step and the hand-bag with his shaving-things\nand extra trousers; but as Avrillia hadn't come yet he hadn't used his\nstep, and his clothes were quite immaculate.\n\nHe now stepped up to Sara, who stood looking about her with surprise\nand wonder, and said, \"Well, Sara, this is your day. You are the guest\nof honor, and we're all proud of you. We hope you'll have the\npleasantest time you ever had.\"\n\nSara was as charmed as she was bewildered. She didn't say anything at\nfirst, because she didn't want them to know that she didn't quite\nunderstand what it was all about. But presently she couldn't stand not\nknowing any longer, so she whispered to Pirlaps,\n\n\"Is--is it a sort of birthday?\"\n\n\"Well,--yes, I suppose you might call it that,\" answered Pirlaps,\nlooking at her in the kind, indulgent way he had when she showed her\nodd little ideas and her inexperience. \"Didn't you announce yesterday\nthat you were older than the Snoodle?\"\n\nFor a moment Sara felt as if she ought to explain that that was only\nthe beginning of her speech, and that, if they had not interrupted her,\nshe had meant to tell them that she was sorry that she had not taken\nmore responsibility for the Snoodle, and reminded him to ask\npermission from the Snimmy's wife before he left the Garden. But, on\nreflection, she realized that they did not blame her in the least, so\nthere was no need to make excuses; and they all seemed so delighted to\nfind that she was older than the Snoodle! A birthday is too charming a\nthing to refuse, even if it's a special sort of birthday one doesn't\nexactly understand; so Sara decided to accept hers with a thankful\nheart. Besides, it must be confessed that she had caught glimpses of\nparcels here and there. The Plynck, she was sure, had one under her\nright wing; and there was no doubt that one was sticking out from\nunder the coat-tails of the First Gunkus.\n\n\"We are to celebrate all day in your honor, Sara,\" added Pirlaps. \"And\nthis evening, when you are ready to go home, Schlorge will made you an\naddress of welcome. But what can be keeping Avrillia?\"\n\nThey all looked down the pathway, but no Avrillia was in sight.\nSuddenly the Echo of the Plynck spoke from the pool.\n\n\"The guest of honor always goes and fetches anybody who doesn't come,\"\nshe said.\n\n\"Does she?\" asked Sara, opening her eyes wide; but Pirlaps said, \"To\nbe sure! I had forgotten. Come on, Sara. Let's go bring Avrillia.\"\n\nSara was always glad to go to Avrillia's lovely house, though she\ncouldn't help thinking as she ran that this was one manner Mother\nfailed to remind her of, whenever she was overhauling her manners for\nany especial use.\n\nAll was still about the beautiful little house where Avrillia lived,\nand Sara looked at it lovingly, for she had a sort of feeling\nsomewhere deep under her little apron that she would not see it again\nfor a long while. Pirlaps, who knew Avrillia pretty well, did not look\nin the pink bed-room, or the kitchen, or the sitting-room; no, he went\nstraight to the balcony. And there sat Avrillia, in a mist of her\nbright, wild hair, so intent upon her writing that she did not see\nthem, or hear them speak.\n\n\"Sh--sh--\" said Pirlaps, in a low tone, when he saw how absorbed she\nwas. \"We'll wait till she finishes that one. Why didn't I bring my\nstep?\"\n\nAs he didn't have it, however, he leaned against the alabaster wall,\nand waited patiently; though Sara, it must be confessed, was quite\nrestless. After what seemed to her a very long time, Avrillia drew a\ndeep breath and shook back her golden hair, and moving like a lost\nbird to the balustrade, leaned far out and let her new poem flutter\nfrom her hand. For another long time she did not move, straining her\neyes down into the abyss. At last she straightened up with a long sigh,\nand, seeing them, smiled.\n\n\"Did it stick?\" asked Pirlaps, eagerly.\n\n\"No,\" was all Avrillia said, but her voice made Sara's heart quiver,\nfor in the sound of it she seemed to hear the temple-bells, and the\nfairy hand-organ she had heard in the steep street at Zinariola, and\nthe drowsy tinkle of the fountain in the Butterfly Palace, and the\nlittle Laughs that leaped about the mountain, and the morning and\nevening sheep-bells, all gathered together into one sound that seemed\nto say that presently she would have to say good-by to Avrillia. But\nAvrillia, seeing her suddenly sad little face, stooped and kissed her\nas she had done that other morning, and patted her cheek, and said,\n\"Oh, but I have a present for you, Sara! This is your day--we must all\nbe very merry!\" And with that she picked up something that was wrapped\nin several layers of silver fog and tied with a ripple, and seizing\nthem both by the arm, went dancing with them down the path to the\nGarden.\n\nEverybody applauded when they saw Pirlaps and the guest of honor\nreturning with Avrillia; and the Teacup, unable longer to restrain her\nexcitement, fluttered down to the rim of the pool and cried excitedly,\n\"Now let's give the presents!\"\n\nThen something happened that came near turning the fete into a tragedy;\nfor the Teacup lost her balance in the excitement, and splashed right\nover into the pool! The Plynck screamed, Schlorge whistled, the Gunki\ncame running from every direction; but it was the Echo who saved the\nTeacup's life. With great presence of mind she spread out her cerulean\nplumes so that the Teacup settled upon them harmlessly, instead of\ncrashing down upon the hard emerald bottom and shattering to bits.\nThen, of course, Schlorge could very easily reach down and draw her\nout.\n\nThe poor Teacup was naturally very much upset. \"If my handle had not\nbeen so consanguineous--\" she quavered, again and again. But, on the\nwhole, considering her age and her timid disposition, they were all\nrather surprised at her fortitude.\n\nSchlorge, who was still holding her, was looking very grave. \"Sara\nwill have to frown on her,\" he said, \"as she did on the Zizz.\"\n\n\"But I can't frown, today,\" cried Sara, in dismay.\n\n\"I know it's hard,\" said Schlorge.\n\n\"Or at the Teacup!\" pleaded Sara.\n\n\"It's your duty, Sara,\" said the Echo.\n\n\"Oh, dear, it's putting off the presents!\" sighed one of the oldest of\nAvrillia's children; then, as she looked at the poor little gentle,\nbedraggled Teacup, with her consanguineous handle, she felt ashamed of\nherself, and hid behind her mother's drapery.\n\nAs for Sara, she was indeed in distress. \"If some of you would only\nthink of something to make me frown--I can't even think of any\ndisagreeable things today!\"\n\n\"You're frowning now!\" suddenly cried the First Gunkus, waving his\nshoe; and they all forgave him his lack of respectfulness, because he\nwas plainly so excited.\n\n\"Hold her up, Schlorge!\" cried Pirlaps, running forward.\n\"There--Sara--hold that expression--just a moment. Fix your eyes\nhere--on this leaf! And keep your mind firmly on this thought: 'The\nDisagreeable Necessity of Frowning in the Presence of Presents.'\"\n\nSara remembered how brave and useful she had been the day before, and\nconcentrated her mind by a really tremendous effort. And she was soon\nrewarded; for in a few minutes everybody was clapping hands and waving\nhandkerchiefs and crying, \"She's dry! She's dry! Three cheers for\nSara!\"\n\nSure enough, the little Teacup was dry enough to flutter back to her\nperch, on which she sat throwing kisses to Sara. And then Pirlaps came\nforward, and taking Sara by the hand, said, \"Come, Sara.\"\n\nHe then began leading her in a sort of triumphal march around the pool,\nwhile the rest fell in behind them and formed a procession. As there\nwere so many of the Gunki and Avrillia's children it was quite a long\nprocession, so that the only way they could tell the head from the\ntail of it was by remembering that Sara was the head and that the\nSnimmy's wife was the tail. The Echo, who could not leave the pool to\nmarch, spread out the lyre-shaped feathers on the top of her head and\nplayed the most beautiful rippling chords for them to march by.\n\nAnd suddenly, when they had gone three times around the fountain,\nPirlaps said, \"Take the seat of honor, Sara, and receive our gifts.\"\nAnd there, in front of the Gugollaph-tree, was an enormous frosted\ncake, as big around as a wagon-wheel. Sara was sure it had not been\nthere when the march began. She would have rubbed her eyes, had she\nnot felt that such a conventional proceeding would be wholly\ninadequate.\n\n\"Take your seat, Sara,\" said Pirlaps kindly, enjoying her delight and\nastonishment.\n\nSara came to herself with a start. \"Wh-where?\" she asked. She was\nanxious not to appear awkward, but she did not see any particular\nplace to sit.\n\n\"On the cake, dear, of course,\" said Pirlaps, who seemed never to tire\nof smiling at her odd little questions.\n\nSara had never done this before, but she was willing to try; and she\nwas just about to climb upon the cake when another thought deterred\nher.\n\n\"But the candles? Won't my dress catch?\"\n\n\"Try and see,\" said Pirlaps; but Avrillia whispered in her ear, \"They\naren't flames, dear: they're only colored perfumes.\"\n\nSo, reassured, Sara took her seat on the cake; and at once she saw\nthat it made a very nice sort of throne. The frosting was resilient,\nbut firm; and she now saw that the candles were arranged so that they\nmade a sort of semicircle about her. Just as Avrillia had said, she\ncould pass her hands across their wicks without being burned at all;\nthey only winked and breathed out sweet odors--each flame a different\ncolor and scent. They were as tall as her head, as she sat among them;\nand the one at her right ear was of isthagaria, while the one on the\nleft faintly suggested tinnulalia-flowers.\n\nBefore she had finished examining the candles, the Plynck flew down\nwith the first present. \"A lock of my hair,\" she said, looking eager,\nbut a little embarrassed; and she actually perched on the rim of the\npool while Sara unwrapped it, so that she might see whether or not she\nwas pleased. But I do not need to tell you that Sara was; for it was\none of her loveliest tail-feathers, a rich, curling plume of the\ndeepest rose, from which sweet odors were shaken out as Sara lifted it\nto the light. Weeks afterward, when Sara astonished her mother by\nbegging for the pink plume on her prettiest hat, what she was really\npining for was a lock of the Plynck's hair.\n\nAvrillia came next with her present. It was a little urn of jade and\nivory, and it was full to the top of dried poems written on\nrose-leaves. Have you ever seen the quaint rose-jars some\nold-fashioned ladies have in their parlors? Well, some one of them,\nwhen she was little, saw one of Avrillia's poem-jars; and she made\nthese others in a homesick effort to imitate it. And the\nfragrance--like nothing else you ever smelled--is the perfume of\nAvrillia's poems, as nearly as that little old-fashioned lady, after\nshe grew up, could remember it.\n\nYou would not expect me to remember all of the presents Sara got that\nday. But a good many I can remember. Pirlaps brought her a picture he\nhad painted; a very beautiful view of Nothing from Avrillia's balcony.\nYassuh brought her a delicious Crumb; it was wrapped in a sticky paper\ncovered with his finger-prints, but inside the paper was one of\nAvrillia's exquisite napkins of embroidered mist. The First Gunkus,\nremembering how she had loved the mountain, brought her a little live\nLaugh. He had climbed the mountain and trapped it for her, and made\nher a little cage to take it home with. It was very funny to hear it\ntittering about inside. The rest of the Gunki had clubbed together and\nbought her a gold-headed tuning-fork, so that she might be sure their\nanswers were in tune. The Snimmy's wife brought her three large onions,\nneatly hemmed and tied in a bouquet with purple ribbon; the Snimmy\nhimself a striped paper bag full of gum-drops. And the Snoodle's\npresent was too cunning for anything! It was a little silver\nplum-extractor. With it a child could extract all the fattest raisins\nfrom her piece of mince-pie or portion of rice pudding without having\nto bother with the uninteresting remainder and being reprimanded; for\nthe ingenious little instrument was invisible to adults. All the other\npresents were marked \"For Sara, with our congratulations, because she\nis older than the Snoodle.\" But this one was marked, in a round,\nchildish hand, \"For my dear Sara--because she is older than me.\"\n\nBut the grand surprise came when, near the last, four Gunki hurried in\nbearing a large chest, which they placed at Sara's feet. \"It came by\nthe Gahoppigas Express, Miss, with no message,\" they explained. And\nwhen Sara opened it she found that it was full of butterfly money--the\nloveliest pieces of gold and silver that the frittilaries and papilios\nhad collected from their own wings. Just inside the lid was a lily\nleaf bearing the inscription,\n\n               \"For Sara, from a grateful Nation,\n                Because she is older than the Snoodle.\"\n\n\n\n\nSara distributed handfuls of the beautiful little coins among them and\nagain they cheered her for her generosity. Sara felt that she really\ndid not deserve the cheering, however, as she seemed to have as many\nas ever--even after she had filled Mrs. Snimmy's apron and a shoe\napiece for each Gunkus.\n\nWhen the excitement over the money had subsided a little, Pirlaps\nannounced; \"The Banquet is now ready!\" and again offering Sara his arm,\nhe led her at the head of another procession three times around the\nfountain; and the third time, as before, there beside the cake was the\nbanquet table--all spread and loaded down and glittering. Of course it\nwas quite a long table, with a good many covers; there had to be one\nfor each of Avrillia's children and for every one of the Gunki. The\ncovers were very thin (being made of cobweb, of course) still, having\nso many, spread one on top of the other, made the table quite high, so\nthat there were step-ladders instead of chairs. As there was a\nstep-ladder for each guest, and as they were made of gold and silver,\narranged alternately, the effect was very unique and elaborate.\n\nSara, being the guest of honor, was assigned the most inconspicuous\nplace, three step-ladders south of the centre. When they were seated,\nand Sara's mouth was fairly watering at the sight of all the fairy\ndelicacies the table displayed, Pirlaps, as master of ceremonies, rose\nand said, \"You understand, Sara, that, on occasions like this, the\nguest of honor eats nothing but Toast.\"\n\nNow, just imagine how disappointed Sara was! She really was having a\nhard time to wink back the tears, when Avrillia, who often understood\nmore than the others, leaned over and whispered in her ear, \"Wait till\nyou taste it, Sara!\"\n\nAvrillia's eyes sparkled so that Sara was quite reassured; besides,\nshe suddenly remembered the butterfly butter, and how her distress had\nbeen turned into rapture on that occasion. And when Avrillia added,\n\"Besides, you have Birdsong wine with it!\" she felt as happy as ever,\nand quite confident that there would be some delightful surprise about\nit.\n\nWhen Pirlaps announced the first Toast, however, and the first\nslice walked heavily out from behind the little screen at the\ntoastmaster's elbow, Sara again felt a sinking of the heart; for,\nexcept that he walked on his lower right-hand corner, as he had been\ntrained to do, and made a rather awkward and laborious bow when his\nname was announced, he looked otherwise so exactly like a plain, brown,\nfat, every-day-in-the-year piece of breakfast toast that it was hard\nto be enthusiastic about him--at least in the presence of all the\nexotic-looking dainties the other guests were to have! However, Sara\nmade a great effort, and settled herself to listen to the Toasts\npolitely. The name of this Toast was \"Sara's Day--Because She is Older\nthan the Snoodle,\" and the Plynck responded to it. The way she\nresponded was this: the Toast balanced himself with difficulty on his\nlower corner, and said, in a throaty voice, \"How do you do, Madame\nPlynck?\" and the Plynck bowed (much more gracefully) and responded,\n\"How do you do, Toast?\" And then she made a speech on the Toast's\nsubject. While she was making the speech (which was lovely--she fairly\nsoared) the Toast tottered over to Sara's plate and lay down in it,\nwithout any further sign of life or animation. Avrillia leaned over\nand Whispered, \"Eat it, Sara,\" and then Sara did. And she didn't have\nany trouble keeping from being disappointed, after that. For, just as\nAvrillia had hinted, the toast, in spite of its appearance, was really\nAngel Food cake; and as she ate it, Sara found at her elbow a bottle\nmarked \"Birdsong Wine--Bluebird.\" As the Gunki were all eating, they\ncouldn't wait on her, so she poured it into her glass herself; and\nwhen she had taken a sip, it tasted just like April! You may imagine\nthat, from that time on, Sara had no further anxiety about what she\nwas to eat, and that her mind was now entirely free to enjoy the\nToasts. The second Toast was announced, indeed, before she had\nrecovered from her first surprise and delight. The subject of this\nToast was, \"Sara's Dimples--May I Never Get Them\"; and of course it\nwas responded to by the Snimmy. There was no variety either in the\nlooks or in the performance of the Toasts; I must admit that they were\nvery heavy, awkward, and short of breath, and were as much alike as\nthe trained sea-lions at a circus. However, you felt that, like the\nsea-lions, they were doing very well to perform at all. (Avrillia\nwhispered to Sara that Pirlaps, as toastmaster, had spent days and\ndays preparing them; so Sara suspected that Pirlaps, at least, had\nknown all along that she was older than the Snoodle.) The speeches, on\nthe other hand, were marvels of variety and interest. The Snimmy's, of\ncourse, was sad--even heartrending; and he was sniffing before he had\nfinished saying, \"How do you do, Toast?\" and shedding gum-drops like\nhail-stones before he was half through. His Toast, however, was\norange-cake, unusually delicious; and the wine served with it was a\nsparkling cherry-colored beverage marked \"Cardinal.\" It was so heady\nthat it even had a topknot, and it served admirably to counteract the\ndepressing effect of the Snimmy's speech. The next Toast was responded\nto by the First and Second Gunki; and its subject was, \"Sara's\nTears--May There Be No Mad and Few Sad.\" The speech was in the form of\na duet, rendered by the Gunki with deep feeling, and accompanied by\nthe Plynck and her Echo with liquid-sounding arpeggios on their lyres,\nthat were most appropriate. The Toast was old-fashioned jelly-cake,\nwith Robinsong wine. Avrillia responded to a thin slice, whose subject\nwas \"Nothing\"; everybody clapped when this subject was announced, for\nthey felt that the subject was in the hands of an authority, and would\nbe handled in a masterly manner. Nor were they disappointed;\nAvrillia's speech was in the form of a long poem, which she recited\nfrom memory, looking very wild and lovely. The Toast was silver-cake,\nwith Veerie wine. Pirlaps himself, although he was toastmaster,\nresponded to a Toast called \"Sara's Questions--Bless Their Hearts!\"\nand his Toast was chocolate-cake, with Wren wine. The Snoodle was too\nyoung to make a speech, but they had taught him to respond to a simple\nlittle Toast, \"On Being Older than Snoodles,\" and it was very charming\nto hear him lisp, \"How do you do, Toast?\" like the others. His Toast\nwas a plum-cake; and you should have seen how pleased he was when Sara\ntook out the little silver plum-extractor, and used it like an adept!\nAnd the Teacup, having responded to a Toast with the subject, \"If Only\nMy Saucer Could Have Known Sara,\" made a very graceful but agitated\nlittle speech that brought out many cobweb pocket-handkerchiefs.\n\nOf course that is not all the Toasts, nor even half of them; they kept\nit up until it was growing quite late, and at last Pirlaps said,\n\n\"Sara, Schlorge did not bring you a present or respond to a Toast,\nbecause he has made you an address of welcome. You have spent many\nhappy days with us, and will soon be leaving. The time has come at\nlast for us to bid you welcome. We will not dwell on the natural\nsadness of the occasion; rather, let us rejoice in the delights we\nhave enjoyed together, and hope for a recurrence of these fair and\nmemorable days. Sehlorge!\"\n\nSchlorge, overcome with pride and embarrassment, rose from his seat.\nHe started around the pool with much dignity; then his composure\nsuddenly gave way. \"Where's the stump?\" he began to shout wildly.\n\"Where's the--where's the--\"\n\n\"There, there, Schlorge, you're walking right to it,\" said Pirlaps,\nsoothingly, hastening after him and laying a hand upon his arm. Then,\nas Schlorge scrambled upon it, Pirlaps raised his hand to command\nattention.\n\n\"Schlorge wishes me to state,\" he said, in his pleasant, clear voice,\n\"that the gesture he will now make goes with the first line of his\naddress. He cannot make it at that point because his hands will be\nalready arranged. But I will request that you all observe it carefully,\nand hold it in mind until it is needed.\"\n\nThereupon Schlorge made a large, deliberate, comprehensive gesture. It\nincluded the pool, the Gugollaph-tree, the prose-bush--not only the\nwhole Garden, in fact, but the lovely amphitheatre beyond it. Moreover,\nit seemed to Sara to include even more distant things; the Rainbow\nVale and the Butterfly Country, and the colony where lived the\nrelations of Pirlaps, and the Laughter Mountain and Avrillia's house\nand the magic toy City of Zinariola.\n\nAt last, having concluded his gesture, Schlorge arranged his hands and\nbegan in a loud voice:\n\n               \"A little girl's mind is a place like this--\n                At least, that of one little dear girl is:\n                Full of quaint little thoughts made of sugar and spice,\n                And queer little notions like little white mice.\n\n               \"But a little boy's mind is not nearly so neat,\n                And a little boy's fancies are scarcely so sweet:\n                So we'll give you a tale next, if fortune avails,\n                Full of snapses and snailses and puppy-dog's tails.\"\n\n\nThen, for the last time, Schlorge went running wildly down the dear,\nfamiliar path toward the Dimplesmithy.\n\n\"Come again, Sara!\" he shouted back, excitedly, over his shoulder.\n\"Come again! And bring Jimmy!\"\n\nSara knew that he could not bear to tell her good-by; and, suddenly,\nshe felt the same way about them all. They had been so kind to her! So\nshe began to throw kisses to them all, and then, suddenly, slipped\ndown from her step-ladder. Her dollies jumped down and gathered about\nher, and with them all at her heels she went running past the\ndimple-holder and out through the ivory gates.\n\nAnd the last thing she saw, when she turned to throw her last kiss,\nwas the Echo, who, overcome by emotion, had at last climbed clear out\nupon the rim of the pool, where she sat waving her plumes to Sara in\nplain sight of them all.","title":"The Garden of the Plynck","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":39576}