The Garden of the Plynck Part 4

Yes, the thermometer. Well, perhaps you do set the alarm-clock; but Avrillia was a poetess, and a fairy besides, and she set the alarm-thermometer. It sounded very pleasant to Sara, like soda-water running through a straw on a hot afternoon; but Avrillia seemed to find it rather nerve-racking.

"There it goes," was all she said, however. Sara noticed that her voice and manner were extremely quiet and controlled; but she had a suspicion that it was because her eyes were so very wild. Oh, yes, they were beautiful, but wild--wilder even than the Plynck's. The Teacup, however, had quite tame eyes; it must be confessed that, when Sara saw the effect of the thermometer upon Avrillia she wished for the Teacup, a little.

But Avrillia merely called Ya.s.suh in her sweet, controlled voice, and, when he appeared, said to him quietly,

"Go tell your master it's time for him to change his trousers and shave."

When Ya.s.suh was gone she turned to Sara again--rather as one entertains a visitor when one really wants to be doing something else--and said, politely, "I suppose you know he's my step-husband.

That makes it rather troublesome."

Sara, remembering Pirlaps and his white trousers, looked so eager and so uncomprehending that Avrillia evidently felt called upon to explain further.

"It makes it necessary for him to sit on the step constantly, you see.

And it's of chocolate. That's unfortunate, too, but it can't be helped. It's all right in winter, of course, but in summer it's a great deal of trouble. When we were first married he used to wear black trousers in summer; but I soon put a stop to that. I have him trained now so that he always wears white ones, and I set the thermometer and remind him to change them every two hours. That's my part of the bargain. He has forty-seven pairs. And, every time he changes them, he has to shave. That's part of the agreement, too."

"Why," began Sara, "I thought he had--"

"To be sure he has," said Avrillia, looking a little amused. "It grows so fast, you see."

Sara turned this over in her mind for several moments. Then her thoughts returned to the step. She simply couldn't help making suggestions to Avrillia. She seemed, for all her little haughty politenesses, so helpless.

"You might put something over it--" she began.

"I have suggested that," said Avrillia, "but he would not consent to it. He says it would be circ.u.mnavigating Nature. Of course, when it's necessary to offer it to guests--"

But just at that moment Pirlaps himself came out of the house, wearing a fresh, immaculate pair of trousers. His little pointed beard was gone; but Sara thought she could see it already coming back. Ya.s.suh came along behind him, carrying the step.

"You see, marriage is very civilizing, Sara," he said, in his gay, kind way. "I wouldn't do this for anybody but Avrillia. How's the poetry, Avrillia?"

"Doing nicely, thank you," said Avrillia, pleasantly. "How's the painting?"

"Flouris.h.i.+ng," said Pirlaps, cheerfully. "How are the children?"

"I haven't seen them this week," said Avrillia. "I vanished them last Roseday."

Pirlaps' face fell a little--perhaps an inch, altogether. But Sara cried out, clapping her hands again with impunity (try doing it that way, sometime--it's great fun),

"Oh, are there children?"

"Yes," said Avrillia.

"How many?"

"Oh, about seventy," said Avrillia, a little languidly.

"May--may I see them?" asked Sara.

"I hope so," said Avrillia. "Perhaps you'll come some day when they're not vanished."

Sara, somehow, felt herself to have been politely dismissed; and she soon found herself walking beside Pirlaps down the little marble stairs. She slipped her hand into his as she would into her own father's, and, looking up into his face, said, enthusiastically, "Oh, isn't she lovely?"

Pirlaps seemed very much pleased, and looked down upon her more kindly than ever. "You like Avrillia?" he said. "That's good. It isn't everybody that appreciates Avrillia."

He stopped before a lilac-colored fog-bush and put his step down before his easel. Sara did not dare remonstrate, but she cast an agonized look first at the step and then at his lovely white trousers.

"Is--is that what is meant by step-relations?" was all she could say.

"Why, yes," said Pirlaps, sitting firmly down on the chocolate. "Are you interested in relations?" he asked eagerly, after he had adjusted his easel. "Because, if you are, we'll go to see mine, some day. I have a lot."

Chapter III Relations

Sara was determined, when she shut the ivory doors behind her the next morning, to do two things, no matter what happened; first, she would put her dimples in the dimple-holder immediately; and, second, she would go right on to find Pirlaps, and not be beguiled into lingering around the pool by the fascinating talk of the Plynck and her Echo.

For, ever since she left him, she had been thinking of the offer Pirlaps had made to take her to see his relations; and she had been growing more and more curious and interested.

And this time she did remember her dimples; she saw them sparkling on the whipped cream cus.h.i.+on, all safe and contented, before she so much as lifted her eyes from the blue plush gra.s.s. But alas, for her resolution not to loiter! For although, on the other days, there had been such a variegated murmur of delighted sound--the Echo of the Plynck in the pool, and the lovely crackling of breaking rules, and the deep-blue singing of the Zizzes' wings, and the melodious snoring of the Snoodle (like that of a tuning-fork when it sleeps on its side) --yet everything had been as still and motionless to the eye as an April daydream. But this morning it was the other way around. Not a sound was to be heard; but what a scene! You see, for the first time, the Snoodle was awake, frisking soundlessly around the fountain; and the Plynck--the Plynck was flying!

Now, it is true that a Plynck at rest is a beautiful sight; but it is nothing to the charm and wonder of a Plynck in motion. (The same, as we shall see in a moment, is true in a lesser degree of a Snoodle.) Its long, rosy plumes, like those of an ostrich, only four times as long, went waving through the air with an indescribably dreamy grace; and now Sara could actually see the perfume, which before she had only smelled. It rained down through the air, as the Plynck circled slowly round and round the fountain, and looked rather like a sort of golden spice. And as Sara stood watching, spellbound and sniffing, she knew she had been mistaken in thinking that, there was no sound at all.

There was just one: a little soft, straining sound the Plynck's cerulean Echo made as it circled round and round in the pool and tried to keep up with the Plynck. Her motions would have been exactly as lovely as those of the Plynck, if they had not been just a trifle labored, owing to the difficulty of flying under water; and her breathing was distinctly perceptible. Sara could hear it, too; and it sounded like the ghost of a dead breeze in a pine-top.

As soon as Sara could take her ravished eyes from the sight, she looked down to see what was nuzzling about her shoe-b.u.t.tons; and, just as she had suspected, it was the Snoodle, frisking and tumbling and rolling about her feet to make her notice him. And, indeed, when he was awake, the Snoodle was irresistible. Not that he looked like anything Sara had ever seen before. He might, perhaps, have looked like a dog, except that he was so very long--his length, indeed, gave him a haunting resemblance to a freshly cooked piece of macaroni.

(Sara was later to find out the reason for this; but at the moment she was puzzled, just as you are when you meet a stranger who looks like somebody else, and you can't remember who else it is.) And his head, which was not very clearly defined, was finished off with a neat little cap that looked like a snail-sh.e.l.l, and seemed to be fastened to him. His eyes, which stuck out several inches in front of his face on long p.r.o.ngs, were delightfully mischievous and confiding; and he was covered with the most beautiful snow-white, curly hair. But he had one drawback; and Sara discovered that when she started to pick him up. It was a sort of little window in the exact middle of his back, with an ising-gla.s.s cover, like the slide-cover of some boxes. The minute you touched him, this little slide drew back, and from within there escaped an odor of castor oil. It, too, was distinctly perceptible; Sara could even smell it. As soon as she did so, she herself drew back, and contented herself with looking admiringly at the confiding, playful little Snoodle.

As she stood watching his pretty antics she became aware that the Snimmy's wife had stopped her work and was watching them with a grim smile. Sara saw that she had just unscrewed the k.n.o.b of the prose-bush, and was still holding the doork.n.o.b and the corkscrew in her hand. As far as Sara could tell, the doork.n.o.b seemed as neatly hemmed as ever; so, overcome by curiosity, she asked the Snimmy's wife what she was going to do with it.

"This is the day to unhem it," she answered rather glumly. "I unhem it every Pinkday, and hem it every Lilyday. I used to hem it only oncet a month, but Avrillia said that wasn't civilized, and whatever she says, goes. At least," she added, glancing up at the Plynck, who was still circling beautifully around the fountain, "she thinks so. And as long as I live neighbor to her it's sort-of up to me to respect her standards."

Avrillia! Ah, now Sara remembered! She had meant to go straight to find Pirlaps and Avrillia! She glanced around to see if she could find the curly little path; but she could not really start until she had asked a few questions about the darling little Snoodle.

"Is--isn't he lovely?" she began, aware of a vague necessity of pleasing the wife of the Snimmy, if one wanted to find out anything.

However, she was quite honest; she really did think the Snoodle was lovely--except for his drawback.

"You think so?" answered the Snimmy's wife, trying hard not to show how foolishly pleased she really was. "He's the only child we have."

If Sara had thought a minute, she would not have asked the next question--certainly not of so formidable a person as the Snimmy's wife. But she didn't think. She just asked, eagerly,

"Is he a--a sort of--dog?"

"A sort of _dog_?" echoed the Snimmy's wife, in the most outraged italics.

"A--kind of--puppy?"

"A kind of--PUPPY?" said the Snimmy's wife, in perfectly withering small capitals. Then she said, in the loftiest large capitals Sara had ever seen,