Read Ebook: The Garden of the Plynck by Baker Karle Wilson Minard Florence Illustrator

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Ebook has 719 lines and 39945 words, and 15 pages

reathed and slept, rather like water or fire in a little wind; and with every ripple they seemed to shake out a faint perfume that drifted across Sara's face in waves. And they both looked so lovely that she could not think of disturbing them, either. So she looked about to see if there might be any one else who could enlighten her.

And there at her elbow, as luck would have it, stood a Koopf. Up to this time, Sara had not been able to tell a Koopf from a Gunkus. To be sure, there isn't any difference, really; but you would think that any fairly imaginative child ought to be able to tell one. However, Sara now saw that the ground was swarming with Gunki.

"Do you know who Schlorge is?" asked Sara, rather timidly.

At first the Koopf only grinned. "Guess I do," he managed to say at last. Then he surprised and rather startled her by winking his left ear at her. "He's the best dimplesmith ever," he said at last. "He's--he's--" he began looking all about him, vaguely and a little wildly. But, just as Sara was growing a little afraid of him, his attention suddenly came back to her with a kind, businesslike interest. "Need some repairs?" he asked. "Some fractured dimples, maybe?"

"Yes, sir," said Sara, earnestly. "I have most of them here in my hand." She opened her hand and showed him the pretty little pieces.

"Where's the rest?" he inquired, with another grin. "Your plump friend, here, sitting on 'em?"

Sara nodded.

The Koopf stooped and picked up one of the gum-drops that had rolled out of the Snimmy's vest-pocket. "Thought so," he said. "Happens every now and then. Only lately there ain't been anybody here that was dimpliferous, to speak of."

Then, suddenly, as if somebody had told him his house was on fire, he turned and set off down the path as fast as he could run. "Bring 'em to the shop!" he shouted back over his shoulder, excitedly. "Bring 'em to the shop!"

While Sara was looking after him, and wondering where the shop might be, and whether she dared try to get up without waking the Snimmy, the Koopf suddenly stopped running, and started thoughtfully back up the path toward her. "Don't know how I happened to forget it," he said, "but I--well, fact is, I'm--where's a stump? Where's a stump?" He looked hastily about him, and this time, seeing a stump near by, he clambered upon it, thrust one hand into his bosom and the other behind his back, like the pictures of Napoleon, and repeated, solemnly,

"I am Schlorge the Koopf, King of Dimplesmiths.

"Under the gright Gugollaph-tree The Dimplesmithy stands; The smith is harder than the sea And softer than the lands; He mends cheek-dimples frank and free, But will not work on hands."

And as soon as he had finished he started wildly down the path again, shouting back, "Bring 'em to the shop!"

Sara sat looking down the path, then at the dimples in her hand. "Well," she said aloud, "I'm glad they're cheek-dimples, anyhow. But what in the world shall I do about the onions?"

"What in Zeelup," corrected the Teacup gently, counting her stitches. "Milder than swearing, my dear, more becoming, and quite as effective."

Sara wanted to tell her she wasn't swearing, but just at that moment the wife of the Snimmy remarked, with some disgust in her voice,

"Well, if you'd of asked me sooner, I could of told you. I have them in the sugar-bowl, of course. Do you suppose I'd be without, and him subject to such fits?"

And so saying, she replaced the doorknob, which was now neatly hemmed, on the front door of the prose-bush, and came down the steps to Sara, carrying three large onions. She was not a bad-looking person, though an amnicolist.

She then proceeded to slice the onions very deftly with a tuning-fork, after which she rubbed the ice-cream of the pavement with the slices, making a circle all around the Teacup, and another all around Sara, somewhat like the ring they used to burn about a fire in the grass, to keep it from spreading. All this time she was talking to them grumblingly, though she never once looked up.

"I should think anybody'd know better than to bring dimples around where he is," she said, "and I have my opinion of such. A poor, hardworking man like him, that tries to act moral. I should think--"

She kept on saying things like this, that made Sara feel very uncomfortable. But at last she finished her work, and looking watchfully back over her shoulder at the sleeping Snimmy, she said grudgingly to them both, "Now get up careful."

Sara rose to her feet, and the Teacup lifted her dainty little skirt ever so slightly. The minute the perfume from the dimples reached the Snimmy , he sprang to his feet, quivering; but almost immediately he caught a whiff of the onions, and sank down again, entirely overcome, into a deep sleep.

The Teacup arose and shook out her skirts. She picked up the tiny, sparkling piece of dimple she had been protecting so long, and handed it prettily to Sara. "Now, my dear," she said, "I think I shall return to my mistress. I would suggest that you take your dimples to the shop immediately." So saying, she hopped up into the tree and settled quietly down beside the dreaming Plynck, taking great care not to disturb her. And Sara started down the path toward the Dimplesmithy.

The path turned presently into a wide road, very pleasant and peaceful-looking, and so deep with pollen-dust that Sara's shoes soon looked as if they were powdered with gold. Sunset sheep came wandering down the road now and then, and lines of white geese, and once she passed a little pond where green ducks were quacking and paddling; the road was so pretty, indeed, that it was hard for her to keep her mind on finding the Dimplesmithy. There were tall Gugollaph-trees all along the road, here and there, but Sara felt sure she would know the right one when she saw it. And sure enough, there it was, with the smithy in the shade of it, and the Koopf blowing up the fire in his forge with a pair of puff-ball bellows. She knew now why he had hurried home so fast: it was to put on his apron. It was of the finest mouse-hide, and he was plainly very proud of it.

He took the dimples from Sara at once, and showed a keen professional interest in them. He assured her that he had never seen a finer pair. "But you must take better care of them," he said.

He seemed so kind and interested that Sara thought perhaps he would help her with a problem she had been revolving in her mind ever since the accident. So she asked the Koopf, quite respectfully,

"What ought I to do with them, when I shut the doors and come in?"

"Well," said the Koopf, judiciously, "the Plynck's Echo should have seen to that, first thing. Ought to have had a dimple-holder at the gate. Ought to know the Snimmy, by this time. A good fellow--can't help his failing. We used to keep a dimple-holder there all the time, but it's been so long, as I told you, since we've had anybody come along that was dimpliferous, to speak of. We've got sort of careless, I guess. I've got a very nice stock, here; I'll put one up before you go, so you'll know where to find it next time." As he spoke he took down from a shelf behind him a sort of receptacle which looked rather like a soap-bubble, rather like a gazing-globe; except that it had a tiny opening at the top, and a cushion of whipped cream in the bottom. Then he picked up from his bench the dimples, which he had been mending as he talked.

"It's a good thing the Snimmy can't see 'em now," he said, holding them off at arm's length and looking at them with frank admiration. "They're as good as new. Now let me show you what to do with 'em next time you come."

So saying, he dropped them into the holder, where they looked very pretty sparkling on the whipped cream cushion.

"Now," he said, "you carry them, and I'll bring the pedestal."

He tucked the pedestal under his arm, and they started back down the road together. It was very lovely to be trudging along under the late clear sky, through the sweet-smelling pollen-dust, and now and then meeting the sunset sheep, who, by this time, had found their little lambs. When they got back to the Garden, and stood in front of the gate through which Sara had entered, Schlorge had Sara sit down at once. It was really an unnecessary precaution, he said, since the holder was a non-conductor of dimple-waves, and not even the Snimmy could detect their presence when they were inside of it. "Still," said Schlorge, "I'll feel safer about 'em when they're on the pedestal out of his reach," and with that he took the globe from Sara's hands and fastened it deftly on the pedestal. Sara had never enjoyed herself more than she did as she sat by the amber waters in the fading light, watching the kind, clumsy Koopf place the pretty globe with so much pride and pleasure. She kept sniffing, meanwhile, at the tantalizing perfume that seemed to sift downward from the feathers of the Plynck, as she stirred, ever so softly, in her dreams.

At last the Koopf took a large slice of onion, which the Snimmy's wife had left convenient, and rubbed it all around the base of the pedestal.

"Now," he said, "if you'll always remember to stand inside of that circle, when you take 'em off and put 'em on, there won't be any more trouble. And take 'em off as soon as you shut the doors. If you dilly-dally a minute--"

At that moment the Plynck awoke and saw Sara. She stretched her warm, shimmering feathers and smiled.

"Avrillia's at home," she said, gently.

"I make it a rule," the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtain behind her the next morning, "to fly around the fountain at least twice every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a bundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree, something that looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easily with one golden claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out with careless grace for another.

"Oh," breathed Sara, clasping her hands. And she could not help adding, shyly, "If I could only see you when you fly--Madame Plynck!"

Sara was very proud of herself after she had said that. She had never called anybody "Madame" before, but she had read it in books, and it seemed just the title for a creature so beautiful and gentle and stately as the Plynck. It seemed so suitable that it gave her courage to repeat, "If I could only see you fly!"

"But I don't do it often, you see," answered the Plynck, quietly.

"Why--!" exclaimed Sara. "I thought you just said--" Not for worlds would she have seemed rude or impolite to the Plynck, but she was completely puzzled.

The Plynck looked very kind. "I said I make it a rule," she said, gently. "I didn't say--you explain it to her," she said suddenly to her Echo in the pool, who had been looking on with rather an amused expression.

The Echo fluffed out her deep blue plumes a little and took up the task. "What are rules for, my dear?" she began.

"Why--to keep, I guess," ventured Sara, a little flustered. "Aren't they?"

The Echo glanced up at the Plynck with a twinkling smile. "Do you hear that?" she asked. "Bless the child! She says rules are made to keep!" She laughed to herself a little longer, then she turned to Sara more soberly. "As far as your country is concerned, my dear, you are doubtless right, and I suppose it's important for you to keep that fact in mind. But here it's very different. Our rules are made to break. Don't you hear the Plynck breaking them?"

So that was what she was doing! For the first time, Sara understood why she had so enjoyed the delightful little snapping sounds, which made her think of corn dancing against the lid of a corn-popper--or of the snapping of little dry twigs under the pointed shoes of a brownie, slipping through the woods alone on Christmas Eve. She thought it was the most completely satisfying sound she had ever heard. She thought, too, that the broken rules under the tree made a charming litter, and wished that the Gunki who were raking them up would leave them there instead. But they went on piling them into wheelbarrows and trundling them down the road toward the smithy.

"They are taking them to be mended," said the Echo of the Plynck, who had been watching her. "We believe in conservation, you see. Schlorge mends them one day, and she breaks them the next, and so we usually have plenty."

Sara was charmed. But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she remembered what she had heard her say as she came in. "Will--will she fly?" she whispered to the Echo.

"Well, I don't know," said the Echo of the Plynck. "There's a rule that she must, and so it's quite an effort. And there's a rule that she must not sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree. So of course she usually sits there. You wouldn't think, yourself, that she'd want to sit there, day after day, if there wasn't--would you?"

Sara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed so reasonable and familiar should sound so strange. But it was a blissful wonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rules continued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the still air of the Garden. All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by the Plynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,

"Look! Be careful! Oh, dear, oh, dear, it's in!"

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