The Garden of the Plynck Part 15

"Bring her some b.u.t.ter!" he commanded.

At his command four of the courtiers drifted away, and presently returned carrying a silvery-white cloth, very rich and l.u.s.trous, woven of many thicknesses of milk-weed-silk. This they spread on the green-tiled floor in a corner of the throne-room, near a little fountain that trickled continually a sort of silver-colored syrup, which made a drowsy sound as it fell. Then they flew away again, and after a good while returned carrying a pat of b.u.t.ter in a large magnolia petal. The magnolia petal was about the size of Mother's best turkey-platter, and as white and fragrant as the magnolias at home.

And the pat of b.u.t.ter was about as large as a veal loaf. Of course it did not look in the least like a veal loaf; it looked exactly like b.u.t.ter--a delectable, golden yellow, and all dewy-looking, as it used to come out of the spring-house at Grandmother's.

"Sit," said the Monarch, briefly.

Sara sat.

"Eat," said the Monarch, in the same sleepy but authoritative voice.

Now, Sara was terribly uncomfortable. To be sure, nothing had ever looked more delicious, and Sara liked b.u.t.ter on bread--a great deal of it, in fact. But to eat all b.u.t.ter, without anything to go with it!

Yet she felt it would be dreadfully impolite to refuse; and she could not bear to be thought impolite by all these haughty and elegant persons. She was just about to say, humbly, "Please, might I have a little bread?" when it occurred to her that she might just taste it, at least. And oh, how glad she was that she did! For, of course, you have guessed that it was not just ordinary b.u.t.ter, though it looked exactly like it. It was not even the plain imaginary kind: it was enchanted b.u.t.terfly b.u.t.ter. And if you have ever seen a monarch b.u.t.terfly as big as a peac.o.c.k, sitting on a throne, you know what it tasted like. The nearest I can come to explaining is to say that it tasted a little like custard and a little like ice-cream and a little like a sort of candy Sara had forgotten the name of. And it had a fragrance something like that of isthagaria.

The Monarch went to sleep as soon as he saw that Sara had begun to eat; but just before she finished he was awakened by a court official who came in to announce, with a bored expression, that two ladies of high degree, members of families very prominent in the realm, desired an audience with His Majesty.

The Monarch sighed and rubbed his eyes with his feelers.

"Show them in," he said.

The two ladies came zigzagging in, talking and arguing excitedly; they were the first really animated persons Sara had seen in all this warm, s.h.i.+mmering place.

"The Princess Interrogation: the Countess Leaf-Wing," announced the courtier.

Then the two ladies, who had been talking to each other, both began talking at once to the king. In spite of their aristocratic, high-bred air, their long necks and waists and slender wrists and ankles, their high heels and gorgeous clothes, they were as angry as cooks.

"She was laying eggs on my food-plant!" cried the Princess.

"I wasn't!" shrilled the Countess. "What do I want with her old nettle? Don't I know Croton capita turn when I see it? I was just resting, and she came and pushed me off--"

"She had already come and stuck her long tongue into a lily I had just occupied," continued the Princess. "And I saw the eggs after she left--"

"They were your own old flat eggs," said the Countess contemptuously.

"You haven't mind enough to remember where you put them!"

"Oh, roses!" sighed the Monarch, "I suppose I'll never have any peace. Always on the verge of civil war! Yesterday it was the clover-caterpillars complaining that the zebras were eating their food--"

Sara was just thinking how shockingly unbecoming such conduct was, and how they were all behaving more like children than like the nice, unintelligent lower animals they ought to be, when another messenger came flying in in a state of actual excitement.

"Your Majesty!" he cried. "There's a strange animal attacking the caterpillars!"

Sara's heart sank. The Snoodle--she knew it must be the Snoodle! And she felt responsible for him!

She jumped up from her silver table-cloth and ran out of the palace door, with the whole court zigzagging excitedly after her. It was a noiseless chase, for the b.u.t.terflies (except when they quarrel) are very quiet; but there was much excitement nevertheless. Sara ran a little way from the palace before she came to the scene of the disturbance--and such a scene as it was! Caterpillars everywhere, bristling, smooth, green, pink, eye-marked and eyeless; caterpillars standing on their tails, or crouching in every conceivable att.i.tude of defense; and in their midst the little Snoodle, frisking and fawning and endeavoring to come to grips with the h.o.r.n.y and horrified worms.

There was one old Hickory Horn-Devil in particular, who had come out in front of the others like Goliath before the ranks of the Philistines; and the Snoodle was dancing around him in an ecstasy of antic.i.p.ation. Though he was so excited, he looked so good-natured that Sara could not believe that he wished to harm even these fierce-looking brutes; indeed, there was a sort of resemblance between them, except for the expression. And, as she thought that, it flashed into Sara's mind that the Snoodle did not really want to hurt them, at all, but only to embrace them! So she ran forward and cried to the excited populace (who were spinning this way and that, wildly coiling and uncoiling their springs and crying, "What in b.u.t.ter shall we do?),

"He won't hurt them--he won't hurt them! He only wants to embrace them! He thinks they're his relatives--his father was a noodle!"

At this the people grew calmer, and began to gather around her head, asking cautious questions. The caterpillars did not seem to understand, and looked as frightened and agitated as ever; for Sara was unconsciously speaking the b.u.t.terfly language, and the caterpillars spoke a different dialect.

"Give me a chance to prove my theory!" continued Sara, in the b.u.t.terfly language. "Here, Snoodle!" she called, soothingly.

"Here--Horn-Devil!" It took a great deal of courage for Sara to speak soothingly to the giant caterpillar; but you see the b.u.t.terfly people were beginning to think her a very wise, brave person, and that made it rather necessary for her to be one. So she gave a little gulp which the spectators took for a sign of bravery, and drawing nearer by inches, actually laid her hand on the rearing, plunging, panic-stricken creature! He lurched and snorted terribly when her hand first touched him, but as he did nothing worse, Sara grew braver and more hopeful, and began to pat and stroke him and say soothing words.

Of course he could not understand the words, but he seemed to understand the tone, for presently he stopped rearing, and at last stood quite quiet, only breathing hard and trembling a little.

"Now, Snoodle, come here!" cried Sara, nerving herself for the supreme test of her theory.

The Snoodle sprang forward at the word, and, as Sara had foretold, threw his paws about the Horn-Devil's neck. The Horn-Devil sprang into the air, making a sort of wild, whinnying sound (the only sound Sara ever heard, then or afterward, from a caterpillar); but as Sara patted him kindly and the Snoodle only wagged himself ecstatically, he grew quiet again, and allowed himself to be hugged without further protest.

Then the Snoodle, having finished his embrace, released his long-lost relative and sat down on his long hinder-parts, looking about at the spectators with an air that said, "There! I'm satisfied! I didn't do any harm, did I?"

And at that the populace went wild. You never saw such a change come over a nation of people in your life. They showered attentions upon Sara until she was so delighted that she scarcely knew how to deport herself. They proclaimed her a heroine; they brought a sort of sedan chair, borne, not by the common cabbage b.u.t.terflies who usually carried them, but by a Chrysopha.n.u.s hypophlaeas and a Lavatera a.s.surgentiflora. And when they had put her into it they carried her at the head of a procession to the royal gardens behind the palace, where no mortal had ever entered; and there they crowned her with flowers which have no name in our language, but which the b.u.t.terflies call tinnulalia. And they fed her--not with b.u.t.ter this time--but with honey-dew. They fanned her with their enormous wings (as big as peac.o.c.ks') and hovered over her, and murmured compliments in her ears, until it was hard for her to believe that they were the same lovely but supercilious race who had received her so coolly in the morning.

And when, suddenly, the temple-gong sounded, and the Equine Gahoppigas, saddled and bridled, and champing his bit, appeared at the entrance to the royal gardens, they all took out their cobweb handkerchiefs and wept bitterly.

And, indeed, Sara was loth to go; for this strange land was an enchanting place when its people were kind. But she saw that it was growing late; and, as the shadows began to lengthen, she suddenly remembered that she had followed the Snoodle away without telling anybody. She was certainly older than the Snoodle; he was so young and irresponsible. Ought she not to have told the Snimmy's wife? Perhaps he was running away!

So she gathered up the reins and saw him leap safely up behind her; then she turned to wave good-by to the b.u.t.terfly Country and its strange, changeable, elegant inhabitants. And as long as she could see anything she watched the pulsing, many-colored wings waving regretfully over the royal garden with the strange flowers.

The ride home through the cool of the evening was as delightful as the morning's ride had been; but not quite so breathless and exciting, because it seemed to Sara by this time quite natural to ride upon a Gahoppigas. But when she slid off her charger at the entrance of the Plynck's Garden her ears were a.s.sailed by an unspeakable clamor of mournful sound; it sounded a little like a Swiss yodler with a broken heart, and a little like a dog howling because the yodler was singing.

And it went "Snoodle-oodle-oodle-ooo!!" And Sara knew, with a sinking heart, that it was the Snimmy's wife lifting up her voice in lamentation for her lost child.

Therefore, for the first time, she was a little afraid to go into the Garden. But she had already been so brave that day that she had rather contracted the habit; so she drew a long breath, and, saying calmly, "Come, Snoodle!" she walked straight up to the pool.

And such a clamor of rejoicing as arose at their appearance! The Plynck was so surprised that she crowed like a rooster; and then apologized to everybody (half-laughing and half-crying) for being so unladylike. The Teacup fluttered, the Snimmy sniffed; and the Snimmy's wife--that grim, undemonstrative woman--rushed out from the prose-bush and gathered her darling, and Sara, too, to her heart.

But Sara was not through being brave. She stepped up upon Schlorge's stump, and, swallowing hard, said in a clear voice,

"Perhaps it was my fault. I'm older than the Snoodle--"

"Hurrah for Sara! She's older than the Snoodle!" cried the First and Second Gunki. And at that the whole Garden went wild over her just as the b.u.t.terflies had done. The Gunki carried her around on their shoulders; the Snimmy and his wife pelted her with moon-flowers; the Plynck and the Teacup kept up an agitated patter of feminine hand-clapping; and Schlorge came running down the path from the Dimplesmithy, cheering wildly.

When they finally put her down beside the dimple-holder, very rumpled and bright-eyed and flushed, Sara felt her little heart swell with pride. For twice that day she had been acclaimed a heroine--once because she had tamed a caterpillar, and once because she was older than the Snoodle.

Chapter X Sara's Day

Something told Sara, the next morning, to take every one of her dolls.

And the minute she entered the Garden she was glad that she had.

It was clear that something very unusual was afoot. She had never seen her dear Garden look so festive. It was lavishly decorated with sun-shafts and rainbows, and everywhere waved streamers of pink sunrise and violet mist. Over the fountain, in front of the tree where the Plynck sat, had been stretched a large electric sign. It read,

"In Honor of Sara. Because She is Older than the Snoodle!"

It was made of white and pink gum-drops, and they told her afterward that the Snimmy had sat up all night to weep them. The Plynck furnished the electricity by smiling every little while. This lit up the pink and white gum-drops, till they looked like the tiny globes on the Wooded Island at the Park. Of course this was in the daytime, but the Plynck's smile was so much stronger than ordinary electricity that even in daytime it shone with quite a dazzling effect.

All of her friends were there except Avrillia. Pirlaps had come and brought all seventy of the children; he said Avrillia was coming on in a moment, and kept looking down the path for her. The minute the Kewpie saw Avrillia's children, he slid out of Sara's arms and ran to them; and all that day Sara could hardly pick him out from the rest of them. The Baby, too, kicked and cried and stretched out his hands until one of the older children came and took him; and all day long they pa.s.sed him, too, from one to another, and he seemed perfectly contented. The Teddy-Bear sat down in a quiet corner and shaded his eyes from the lights; the Billiken strolled about with his hands in his pockets, smiling at everything; and the j.a.panese doll went over and took a seat on the steps of the prose-bush, where he was soon discussing with Mrs. Snimmy the best way to stew onions.

There were so many of Avrillia's children and so many of the Gunki that the Garden had a delightfully animated appearance. Ya.s.suh was there, carrying Pirlaps' step and the hand-bag with his shaving-things and extra trousers; but as Avrillia hadn't come yet he hadn't used his step, and his clothes were quite immaculate.