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 cushion, all safe and contented, before she so much
as lifted her eyes from the blue plush grass. 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-buttons; 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-shell, and seemed to be fastened
to him. His eyes, which stuck out several inches in front of his face
on long prongs, 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-glass 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 knob of the prose-bush,
and was still holding the doorknob and the corkscrew in her hand. As
far as Sara could tell, the doorknob 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,
"HIS MOTHER WAS A SNAIL--SHE HELD THE WORLD'S RECORD FOR SLOWNESS. AND
HIS FATHER WAS A PEDIGREED NOODLE."
Sara looked at him in awe; now she understood the cap, and the prongs,
and the extreme length. But, in spite of the Snimmy's wife's indignant
mood, she had to ask one more question.
"But you said he was your child," was the way she put it.
"I didn't," retorted the Snimmy's wife, with undisguised contempt. "I
said he was the only child we have. We have him, haven't we?" And with
that she sat down with her back to Sara on her own toadstool, and
curled her long white tail around the base with quite unnecessary
tightness. Her nose was not quite so debilitating as the Snimmy's;
still, it nearly stuck into the doorknob as she hemmed.
Sara saw there was nothing further to be got out of her, and she did
not wish to pick up the Snoodle on account of his drawback; so she
decided to go on to Avrillia's without further delay, and began to
look around her again for the little curly path. It was pink, this
time, instead of curly, but that made it all the more attractive; so
she struck into it at once, and went skipping happily toward the arch
in the hawthorn hedge. Just before she reached it she heard Avrillia's
thermometer go off, so she knew that she was on the right path.
The minute she got through the hedge she saw Avrillia, and, oh,
loveliest of wonders! What were those? Flying around her hair,
clinging to her silken skirts, dancing among the shell-flowers,
swarming over the balcony, playing a dainty game up and down the
marble stairs--oh, it was the children! The children were at home!
And when Avrillia saw Sara she came toward her with the loveliest look
of welcome, the children hanging all around her like rose-garlands.
And if Sara had loved Avrillia the day before, she could simply find
no words now to express her adoration. For Avrillia knelt down among
the shell-flowers, and held out her arms (which were like the necks of
swans) to Sara; and she really seemed to see her this time. And when
she smiled at her, her eyes were hardly at all wild, but quite playful
and gentle; and so sweet that Sara, for a moment, had a dizzy
conviction that if she were a Zizz she would fly right into them.
(Though, of course, the Zizzes' tails were bitter.) Besides, Avrillia
held her at that minute tight to her breast, which was as soft as her
own perfect, contrary mother's, and had, besides a most entrancing,
faint perfume of isthagaria.
When she had finished hugging Sara, she held her off at arms' length,
and said to her, smiling, in that lovely voice,
"Well, Sara, you see the children are here. Aren't they nice?"
And once more Sara could find no words to express their niceness. And
she could no more have described them to you than if they had been so
many endearing young charms. But one of the queerest, prettiest things
she was sure about: their faces were all dimples! Moreover, they were
much more becoming to them than ordinary features would have been.
"How old are they?" asked Sara, in the most delighted bewilderment.
The friendly little things fluttered and chattered and chirruped
around her in the most distracting way, brushing her face with their
wings in their eagerness to get acquainted, and even getting their
silver sandals tangled in her hair.
"Well," said Avrillia with great exactitude--Sara had already
discovered that Avrillia had a weakness for being considered
practical--"fourteen of them are six and three of them are two and
thirty are seven and ten are nine, and five are six months."
"My!" said Sara, in doubt and wonder. And right there she had a
suspicion that that was one reason she had loved Avrillia from the
first: she couldn't do arithmetic! To be sure, Sara herself couldn't
add all that mixture in her head--at least not with all those lovely
children about--but it sounded like a great deal more than seventy;
and there certainly looked to be a million. So, as she stood and gazed,
she said, more in wonder than with any idea of correcting Avrillia,
"And you said there were just seventy?"
For a moment Avrillia's eyes again grew distraught and doubtful, and
she answered, uncertainly, "I think there are just seventy." Then she
called to Pirlaps, who was sitting on his step in the light of a
glorious flame-colored fog-bush, hard at work, "Pirlaps, have we had
any children since Sara was here yesterday?"
"Not one," said Pirlaps, smiling at her with a look of pleasant
amusement. "Don't you remember that you dropped poems over the Verge
all day?"
"I thought so," said Avrillia, with relief, "but Sara seemed to think
there were more than seventy." Then her eyes fell upon the trousers of
Pirlaps, who had risen and was coming toward them now, with Yassuh
rolling along behind with the step.
"O Pirlaps," said Avrillia, her sweet voice full of reproach, "you
haven't changed your trousers! That's just the way things go," she
added, beginning to look wild and worried and distraught, "when the
children are here! I can't keep up with everything! And the
thermometer went off fifteen minutes ago! I heard it, but I was busy
with the children. And your shaving-water will be perfectly cold!" She
grew more and more agitated.
"Never mind, Avrillia," said Pirlaps, soothingly, and Sara noticed
that his pleasant, cheerful ways always had a wonderfully calming
effect upon Avrillia. "I'm going right in now to change; and then I
have a plan that will straighten things out and please everybody."
"What is it?" asked Avrillia, looking more hopeful.
"It's too soon to tell yet," said Pirlaps, with a delightfully wise
air, and he went on up the steps, with Yassuh tumbling after him,
leaving them all feeling very much relieved.
Avrillia, making a brave effort to recover her composure, began
playing with the children again, and they were having almost as
delightful a time as if nothing distressing had occurred, when Pirlaps
reappeared, all fresh-shaven and immaculate.
"Put the step out in the sun where it will keep soft, Yassuh," he
said. "I shan't need it this afternoon."
They all stopped playing and looked at him in wonder.
"I'm going to take Sara to see my relations, as I promised her I would,"
he explained, taking Sara kindly by the hand.
"Oh, that's lovely," said Avrillia, looking at Pirlaps gratefully out
of her speaking eyes. "There's nobody like you, Pirlaps."
Pirlaps looked wonderfully pleased with himself; and, since there was
not a bit of chocolate on his trousers, he looked unusually spruce and
handsome, too. Sara skipped along beside him delightedly; only,
sometimes when she looked back, she wished she could stay with
Avrillia while she was in such a lovely mood, and all those
interesting children. Still, Sara's dear, self-willed mother had
taught her to be a considerate little girl, and she reflected that she
really ought not to bother Avrillia with another child, when she
already had seventy to look after. The thoughts of Pirlaps also seemed
to be running in the same channel (indeed, Sara could catch glimpses
of them, trickling along under that thin, funny cap he always wore),
and he presently said,
"It's too bad to bring you away when the children are at home, Sara,
but you know they are a great deal of care to Avrillia, and when
they're at home I try to do everything I can to relieve her. Now, you
see, she won't have to bother about my trousers for the whole
afternoon."
"But how can you get along without your step?" asked Sara. She knew
this was a personal question, but she felt, somehow, that Pirlaps
would not think her impolite.
He looked down at her and smiled, just as her own father did when she
asked questions which showed her youth and inexperience.
"I'm not a step-man, Sara," he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement
at her lack of information, "only a step-husband. When I'm away from
Avrillia I don't need the step."
All this time they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed
that they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very
pleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of
hollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored
hills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre. There
were not so many Gugollaph-trees as there were in the Garden and along
the road to the Dimplesmithy, owing to the different topography of the
country; instead, there were a good many poker-bushes.
"My relations live in a colony," said Pirlaps. "There used to be
nearly seven hundred of them; but now there are only eight hundred and
three."
And just at that moment they came in sight of the colony. It consisted
in a large number of odd, attractive-looking little houses grouped
around an open space covered with pleasant red grass, which Pirlaps
told her was an uncommon. In the middle of the uncommon was a sort of
platform, and upon the platform there was something which Sara, at
first glance, took to be an enormous statue. But even at that distance
she could see it move; so she hastened to ask Pirlaps what it was.
"Why, that's my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather," said Pirlaps,
with a good deal of pride. "He occupies the Post of Honor in the
colony, you know, because he's the oldest and the largest. He's really
great, and quite pleasant; you'll enjoy meeting him."
By this time they were going down a little shady road that led
straight to the uncommon. Sara was so struck by the large number of
curious and interesting people she saw on all sides, going quietly
about their regular occupations, that she could hardly look where she
was going. But Pirlaps led her right to the foot of the post, and the
first thing she knew he was introducing her. "This is Sara,
Great-Great-Great-Great," he was saying; and Sara looked up and saw,
sitting in a sort of easy chair on top of the post, the very largest
person she had ever seen. In size he was a veritable giant, or even an
ogre; but anybody could see that in disposition he was as far as
possible from being either. Indeed, his disposition was evidently very
like that of her own grandfather (who wasn't great at all, at least
not in comparison with this one), even to the bag of marshmallows in
his pocket. Sara could see it sticking out--but such enormous
marshmallows! Why, each one was larger than the biggest, fattest
sofa-pillow Sara had ever seen. And, of course, beside the
marshmallows, the Great-Great-Great-Great had beautiful white hair,
and twinkling eyes, and all the usual equipment of a grandfather.
"Why, good afternoon, Pirlaps," said the Great-Great-Great-Great, in a
little high, cracked voice that seemed very odd. ("As they get greater,
their voices get smaller," explained Pirlaps, who had noticed that
Sara jumped when the old gentleman spoke.) "Would you like a
marshmallow?" he continued, tossing one down to her; and Sara saw
that it would have tipped her over, as Jimmie's missiles sometimes did
when they had a pillow-fight, if Pirlaps had not caught it. While she
was wondering what would be the polite way to eat so huge a
marshmallow, she saw the other Grandfathers coming toward her. She
knew them because there were four of them, marching in single file,
with their hands on each other's shoulders. The Great-Great-Great, who
was next in size to the one on the Post of Honor, was leading, and
they were arranged in order down to the plain Grandfather, who was not
much above the usual height.
At the same moment she saw the Grandmothers coming from the
opposite direction, in the same manner. Only, the mate to the
Great-Great-Great-Great was leading, and they were coming straight
toward the vacant Post. Sara watched them with extreme interest. They,
too, were of quite the usual grandmotherly pattern, but were equally
variable and extraordinary in size. When they reached the Post they
made a sort of living stepladder, like the acrobats in the circus; that
is, the plain Grandmother stooped over, like a boy playing leapfrog,
and the Great mounted on her back; then the Great-Great mounted on her
back, and so on, until finally the Great-Great-Great-Great got upon the
very top and so stepped upon the Post. She took her seat in an
arm-chair like the one on the other Post, and Sara noticed that her
kerchief was exactly the size of one of Mother's hemstitched sheets.
She was indeed a handsome, venerable and distinguished-looking old
lady, if you stood far enough away to see her all at once.
"Well, Sara, should you like to see the cousins?" asked Pirlaps, when
this interesting manoeuvre had been completed and the other
Grandmothers began to disperse. "We'll be just about in time for the
drill."
"Yes, indeed," cried Sara, who was very fond of watching drills. So
Pirlaps led her to a level place which he told her was the cousins'
drill-ground. It was hard and smooth, and marked off with lines like a
tennis-court, only much more intricately. And there were numbers of
cousins standing about, each one looking very erect and alert, with
his hand on the back of a chair. Just as Sara came up, the captain of
the cousins stepped out in front and called, "Attention!"
The cousins looked so attentive it was almost painful.
Then he called out, "First Cousin once removed!" and the First Cousin
marched out very stiffly and set his chair down accurately on the
first mark, after which he sat down in it with military precision.
Then the captain called, "Second Cousin once removed!" and the Second
Cousin marched out and sat down in the right place quite as
impressively.
Well, you can imagine how it went on, as far as Tenth Cousin eighth
removed; and after they had gone through it straight the captain began
skipping them around. It was very lively and exciting; but when
Pirlaps heard Sara give a little sigh, and asked her, with a twinkle,
how she liked it, she was obliged to answer, "I like it, but--it makes
my head turn around. It's so much like arithmetic."
"That's what Avrillia says," answered Pirlaps, smiling. "Well, let's
walk around a bit. And then I'll show you the Strained Relations."
Sara thought that sounded very interesting; and, besides, she was glad
to walk after standing still so long. So they strolled about, enjoying
the pleasant afternoon, and the oddity of the people and their ways.
There were any number of step-relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers
and sisters, sitting around on their various steps, or carrying them
jauntily under their arms. She noticed that none of them had a servant
to carry them, however, from which she concluded that they were not so
well-to-do as Pirlaps. But then, none of the steps were of chocolate.
They were of various materials, however, even yellow.
Once, in crossing the uncommon, they met one of Pirlaps' half-sisters.
She was divided lengthwise, and so had only a profile; but, as her
profile was very pretty, the effect was not at all unpleasant. While
they were talking to her, one of his half-brothers came up, but he was
divided crosswise, and so had no back. However, from the front, of
course, you hardly noticed it.
"Well," said Pirlaps, at last, glancing at the small clinical
thermometer he carried, "we'll just have time to take a look at the
Strained Relations, and then I must get back and help Avrillia vanish
the children."
He led Sara to a distant corner of the uncommon that was fenced off
from the rest by a high wire netting. It looked rather like the high
nets about a tennis-court, except that it was made of silver wire,
with a mesh as fine as a milk-strainer. Inside the wire, in a sort of
little private park, she could see a number of very haughty-looking
persons moving about.
"Don't speak to them," said Pirlaps, as they drew near. "They're
entirely too snobbish to be spoken to."
Sara approached in awe, and they stood gazing at the pale,
supercilious-looking creatures, who returned their gaze through
monocles, lorgnettes, and other contemptuous media.
"You see," explained Pirlaps, "nobody speaks to them. Every time they
go in or out, they pass through the strainer, and that strains out all
of their red corpuscles and leaves only the blue. That's why they are
so superior and exclusive. Of course, too, it makes them very thin,
and gives them that sheer, transparent look." And, indeed, Sara
noticed that she could see quite through one of the thinnest ones, who
wore a very high-necked dress buttoned in the back.
Pirlaps was now growing anxious to be at home, so after saying good-by
to the important personages on the Posts of Honor, they started back.
As they drew near, they saw Avrillia in the rose-garden near the
balcony, looking very lovely as she moved among the flowers.
"Ah," said Pirlaps, "she's already vanished them. She's gathering
rose-leaves for tomorrow's poems."
As he spoke, Avrillia, looking up, waved a blue rose to them, and
disappeared within the house. In a moment she reappeared, wearing the
sweetest smile Sara had ever seen.
Pirlaps looked greatly pleased and touched. And no wonder; for
Avrillia was coming out to meet him, bringing him his step with her
own hands.