The Little Lost Laugh
Sara had always intended to take her dolls with her to the Garden, but
every morning before the sixth morning she forgot it. On the sixth
morning, however, her arms were so full of dolls that she could not
take off her dimples. She had not foreseen that difficulty.
She had not really intended to bring them all. But the Brown
Teddy-Bear looked so fiercely sad that she decided at the very outset
that she could not leave him. He was not really a doll, of course, but
as Sara kept him dressed in a kerchief and full skirt, he had the
effect of a doll--a sort of Wolf-Grandmother-of-Red-Ridinghood doll.
And the Billiken looked so cheerful that Sara decided that she must
surely take him along, to reward him for being so unfailingly
pleasant. And the Japanese doll had to go, because he was the newest,
and because he was the only one who was large enough to wear the pink
tulle lady-doll's hat Sara's aunt had sent her on her birthday. His
head was as bare as an egg, because the little rosette of black hair
that distinguishes a Japanese doll had come unglued. This made the
effect of the hat a little odd; still, he could wear it. The Kewpie
was just too cunning to leave--that was all there was to that; and no
right-minded mother ever left the baby. So that made it necessary to
take the Baby doll with the long clothes. (That is, she should have
been wearing long clothes, but Sara's dolls never wore the clothes
that belonged to them; and this morning the Baby was tastefully
attired in a wide red sash, with the Japanese doll's paper parasol
stuck through it, like the dagger in a comic opera.)
So there was Sara, with five dolls in her arms, and the Snimmy
shuddering deliciously from head to foot because he was beginning to
smell dimples in his sleep.
"What in the world shall I do?" wondered Sara, half aloud.
"What in Zeelup, my dear," corrected the Teacup, leaning out from her
perch with sympathetic interest.
And then, what do you think the Teacup saw? She saw the Kewpie, who
was always a friendly little soul, reach up and take off Sara's
dimples himself!
"I'll do it for Sara," he said, helpfully, as he dropped them safely
upon the whipped cream cushion.
And then what do you think happened? Why, the daintiest little
creature sprang right out from between Sara's lips and went skipping
and leaping and tumbling and running over the ice-cream bricks around
the pool, across the blue plush grass, and, before you could tell it,
disappeared around the turn of a little dim path Sara had never
followed.
Sara stood gazing after him. She had never seen anything that looked
like that before. Some of Avrillia's children came nearest to looking
like it: but not even they were so tinkly or so bubbly or so
altogether gay-looking. And how nimble it was--disappearing like a
drop of water trickling down a rock!
"What in the world?" breathed Sara again.
"--In Zeelup?" breathed the Teacup, quite as softly. But Sara hardly
heard her: she was so astonished at the babel of small voices that
started up about her feet. She had been so startled at the appearance
and the disappearance of that strange little creature that she had not
noticed that all the dolls were wriggling out of her arms and sliding
down her skirts and legs like schoolboys escaping from a burning
dormitory. Not that they were afraid of anything: it was only that
they were so glad to be able at last to move and talk.
"There he goes!" cried the Japanese doll, pointing excitedly: and
indeed they did catch one more glimpse of the fleeting sprite between
the shrubs. "He was mighty jolly," said the Brown Teddy-Bear enviously,
in his deep, mournful voice; and "Let's go catch him!" cried the Baby,
where it sat flat on the bricks, crowing and clapping its hands.
"I'll have to get off these togs, then," said the Billiken, who was
always fat and cheerful, but seldom spoke. He was driven to it this
time by the fact that Sara had dressed him in the Baby's long clothes.
"But what is it?" asked Sara, still bewildered.
"Why, it's your laugh, child," said the Echo of the Plynck, who, all
this time, had been watching the scene with much amusement. "Don't you
know your own laugh when you see it?"
"I never saw it before," said Sara with a wondering smile. "I guess
I've heard it."
"Now, isn't that odd--and interesting!" said the Echo to the Plynck.
"The child says she has heard it, but never seen it. Here," she added,
turning to Sara, and speaking in a louder tone, "we see a great deal
of laughter--but we never hear it."
"Well, and are you going to stand there all day staring?" suddenly put
in the wife of the Snimmy from the prose-bush. "Ain't you going to go
after it and ketch it? What'll your Maw say if you come home without
your laugh? And your Paw?"
Sara had not thought of that. But when she did think, she realized
that it would be dreadful. What would Father think when he told her
his funniest story and she did not laugh?
"But--but what shall I do?" she wondered, half to herself.
The dolls at her feet set up a clamor of plans, but as they were all
talking at once (except the Brown Teddy-Bear, who looked even more
pessimistic than usual) their suggestions were not very helpful. Sara
and her other friends stood knitting their brows in perplexity. (Sara
was just learning to knit, so she had her needles and a ball of yarn
sticking out of her apron pocket. She was delighted to find brows so
much easier to knit than yarn.)
Suddenly the Snimmy's wife spoke again. "Send for Schlorge," she said.
"He'll know what to do."
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than they saw a Gunkus
running down the path toward the Dimplesmithy to tell Schlorge.
"In the meantime, Sara, you'd better dress me more suitably,"
suggested the Billiken kindly. Sara had never heard him object before
to wearing the Baby's long dress; but he was evidently looking forward
to a race and did not wish to be handicapped.
So Sara sat down on the blue plush grass, and undressed the Billiken
while they waited for Schlorge. She had time now to notice that the
snow had melted and left everything beautifully fresh and bright, just
as Pirlaps had assured her it would do. She had never seen the Garden
look so lovely and spring-like. She was glad, too, to see that the
stump had grown back exactly as it was; they had even removed the
ropes and scaffolding.
She took the Baby's clothes off the Billiken, and left him all free
and unimpeded in his own, fat, white, furry body. You see, she always
called the Teddy-Bear the Brown Teddy-Bear because the Billiken was
his first cousin, and had a white Teddy-Bear body; it was only their
colors and their heads that were different. Oh, yes,--and their
dispositions; for the Billiken was a supremely cheerful person, while
the Brown Teddy-Bear was a misanthrope. Sara had always known that he
had something very depressing on his mind; and she was planning, now
that he had learned to talk, to ask him what it was at the first
suitable opportunity.
When she had got the clothes off the Billiken, she started to put them
on the Baby; but the Baby behaved as it had never done before. It had
always been a good baby, adapting itself amiably to any schedule its
mother saw fit to adopt. Sara saw at once that animated babies are not
so easy to manage as inanimate ones; for the Baby kicked and cried and
positively refused to be dressed. So Sara, who was really a very young
mother, and had not yet trained herself to be firm and self-willed and
contrary, put the Baby's clothes in her pocket with the yarn and
knitting needles and a ginger-snap she had brought, and set the
stubborn Baby down on the blue plush grass, where it rolled around
quite happily again in its red sash and parasol.
And just at that moment she saw good old Schlorge hurrying down the
path from the Dimplesmithy with the Gunkus at his heels.
Of course they all had to tell Schlorge about it at once, even the
dolls (all except the Brown Teddy-Bear), so that Schlorge looked quite
wild, and scratched his head a good deal before he was finally quite
clear what had happened. Then he turned and looked thoughtfully down
the path they had pointed out to him, and scratched it some more.
Finally he said slowly,
"I tell you what we'll have to do,"--and then, looking about him all
at once very wildly,--"where's the stump--I'll have to tell Sara!
Where's the--"
But this time he found it without loss of time; and scrambling upon it,
he adjusted his hands and shouted loudly,
"Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
We'll have to follow everywhere,
If Sara's laughter we would snare.
I will go and lead the van,
You may follow if you can.
Sara's would be an awful plight
To go home laughterless tonight."
Then he sprang from the stump and went rushing straight down the
little dim path, shouting back over his shoulder, "Come along, all of
you! Sara, ask the Plynck to come, too!"
Down the path they went tumbling--the Snimmy, his wife, a crowd of
Gunki, and all the dolls. Sara and the faithful little Teacup stayed
behind to see if the Plynck would come, and the Snoodle was still
asleep.
"Will you come with us, dear Madame Plynck?" asked Sara, softly,
looking up into the tree; and "Do you think you could stand it?"
fluttered the Teacup solicitously.
"It's against my rules to leave the Garden," said the Plynck, and
Sara's heart sank; for she really thought the search would be a sort
of picnic, and she had hoped that the lovely Plynck would go, too. It
sank clear to the bottom of the pool, and the Plynck's Echo fished it
up and handed it back to her, all wet and shiny, just as the Plynck
finished her sentence, "So I think I'll go."
Sara clapped her hands, and to add to her pleasure she heard just then
the most delicious crashing sound: the kind of sound she had imagined
when she stood at the top of the basement steps at home with the glass
pitcher in her hands, wishing she could hurl it down upon the cement
because Mother would not let her wear her new short-sleeved dress. She
saw at once that the Plynck had broken the largest rule she had, and
dropped it upon the pile at the foot of the tree; and now she was
moving her plumes softly for flight, so that the golden spice was
falling in Sara's hair. The Teacup was looking intensely pleased and
flustered, and both of them had forgotten the poor Echo, who was
scrambling about the rim of the pool like a swimmer trying to draw
himself out of the water by a slippery bank. When she saw Sara looking
at her, however, she stopped trying, and sat down stiffly in her usual
place.
"I can't go, of course," she said with dignity, "but go ahead--don't
mind me."
"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry!" said the Plynck, hovering over her
softly. "I wish you could!"
"Go ahead," said the Echo, trying hard not to look sulky and virtuous;
and so Sara ran down the path after the others, with the Plynck and
the Teacup fluttering gracefully over her head. As she passed through
the hedge she cast a backward look at the Garden, which was now so
still that she thought it looked like a picture in a dream--shimmering
and bright and clear, without a soul left at home but the Plynck's
cerulean Echo and the sleeping Snoodle.
As soon as they passed through the hedge they found themselves in a
picturesque broken country, rather difficult to traverse, but very
prettily decorated with rocks, streams, and waterfalls. Little groves
of cedars, the exact size and shape of Christmas-trees, grew out of
the rocks; the candles were already full-grown, but Schlorge sent the
Japanese doll running back to tell Sara that she must not light them,
as they would not be ripe till Christmas Eve. Sara had never seen a
prettier place, but she was rather worried by a maternal anxiety about
the dolls. For it was certainly not a very safe place for them. Of
course the Brown Teddy-Bear and the Billiken were all right, though
the latter might come to grief if he should fall on his head. The
Japanese doll, who had lost a hand, was unbreakable; but unbreakable
only means that you may be dropped from a reasonable height upon
hard-wood floors, but not from a second-story window on concrete or
asphalt. That was how the Japanese doll had lost his hand (it would
have been his head, but for the fact that the accident happened while
he was indisposed from neuralgia, and had his head pinned up in the
Baby's flannel petticoat). And these rocks certainly looked as hard as
any pavement. And even as Sara worried, the worst happened: she heard
a dreadful cracking sound, followed by a shrill clamor from the dolls
and a hoarse cry from Schlorge, and the grim, excited voice of the
Snimmy's wife. It was by no means a pleasant sound, like the cracking
of breaking rules: no, it was the familiar, heart-rending sound that
makes the heart of any mother of dolls turn cold. Sara went leaping
and scrambling down the rocks, with the Plynck and the Teacup hovering
anxiously over her. In a few moments she reached the scene of the
accident, and found them all gathered around the Kewpie, who lay in
the lap of the Snimmy's wife with both legs broken. Sara ran and knelt
beside her.
"Now, here, don't you go and burst into tears," said Schlorge,
speaking in the gruff tone an anxious doctor uses toward an excitable
patient. "I'll have my hands full mending your baby here, without
having to mend you. He has no internal injuries," he added, turning
the Kewpie upside down and peering down the stumps of his legs (which
were hollow) into a perfectly pink and smooth and healthy-looking
interior, "and you might have. Besides, we'll fix it up all right."
"Can you really, Schlorge?" asked Sara. There were tears in her voice,
but, by trying very hard, she did keep from bursting into them.
"Of course I can!" said Schlorge, speaking quite crossly to conceal
his sympathy. "Here--you Gunki! A stretcher!"
So the Gunki came running with a stretcher made out of a large
mullein-leaf, and they put the Kewpie and his legs tenderly upon it.
He was a trifle pale, but still smiling, and insisted that he did not
suffer at all.
"Only it's inconvenient, you know, not to be able to walk," he
explained, "and I didn't want to miss the fun. Would it be too much
trouble--could you take me this way? These gentlemen, now--"
"Sure!" said the four Gunki at once, in tenor, baritone, bass, and
second bass. Sara, even in her distress, was charmed; for that was the
first time she had heard a Gunkus speak.
"Are you sure you won't faint from loss of air?" asked Schlorge
looking at the patient anxiously; and indeed the air was pouring in a
steady stream out of the Kewpie's inside.
"I'll be all right--only take me along," maintained the Kewpie,
valiantly.
So they all started on again across the rough, uncharted country.
Now, all this time they had not had so much as a glimpse of Sara's
laugh. The Snimmy ran along ahead with his long, quivering,
debilitating nose to the ground; and two or three times he raised it,
and said in an excited undertone, to Schlorge, "It touched here." And
then they would all look anxiously about, under every rock, and behind
every stump, without finding a trace of it.
But after they had gone a long way, and were all getting tired and
thirsty (not to say hungry) they came to a most inviting little grove
around a spring; and here, with one accord, they all threw themselves
down to rest. The Teacup, with an arch look, dropped down to the
spring, filled herself with water, and fluttered up to Sara's lips,
saying softly, "Allow me, my dear!" Sara drank, in delight and wonder,
and found that the spring was not made of water, but of a sort of
super-lemonade, the most delicious beverage she had ever tasted. After
she had drunk, the Teacup took a drink to the Plynck, explaining to
her with an apologetic smile, "I served her first, my dear, because
she was the guest of honor--so to speak," and the Plynck assented most
graciously. Then the kind-hearted and democratic little Teacup
performed the same gracious office for the whole company, one after
the other--even the Baby doll and the Gunki who bore the stretcher.
But the Billiken did look very funny drinking out of the Teacup; and
it was just at that moment that they were startled by a little
gurgling sound in the tree above them (as if a Brownie had overturned
a blue honey-pitcher, and the little drops were tumbling over each
other upon a silver floor) and Sara's lost laugh sprang from the top
of the tree to the ground, and went tinkling off again among the
rocks. They all looked after it with their mouths open, as a fisherman
gazes at the hook from which he has just lost the largest fish that
ever was on sea or land.
"There, now! If we had only been more watchful!" exclaimed the
Japanese doll. The pink tulle lady-doll hat had slipped far back on
his perspiring head; he looked as if he had come a long way.
"I thought I saw something moving up in the tree--I was just going to
speak about it," said the plucky little Kewpie, who, being compelled
to lie on his back, had been gazing straight up into the branches.
"Well!" said Schlorge grimly. "It won't do that again."
They all saw that Schlorge had something on his mind, and began to
watch him as he took his gimlet out of his pocket and began to cut a
small willow wand.
"What are you going to do, Schlorge?" asked the Japanese doll, who was
a good sort of a person, but a little lacking in tact.
"Never mind me," said Schlorge, "the rest of you take a nap!"
Sara saw that his professional pride, as the leader and practical man
of the party, had been hurt by the escape of her laugh; and he spoke
so crossly that they all turned around and began to try to make
conversation to cover their embarrassment. But they didn't succeed
very well; and presently the Baby spoke the thought that was uppermost
in everybody's mind.
"I'm hungry!" he said.
Alas, so were they all! It was no use trying to disguise it! So the
Snimmy said, almost tearfully, "Why didn't we think to bring some
lunch?"
"Humph!" retorted his wife. "You'd never think of anything--except
dimples!"
So saying, she took down a large hamper which she had been carrying on
her head, and removed the cloth which was tucked neatly over it. They
had all noticed the hamper, but supposed it was Avrillia's wash, which
the Snimmy's wife always took home on Poppyday.
Now it proved to be packed full of a rich and varied picnic luncheon,
the sight and aroma of which made even the Brown Teddy-Bear look
eager. The Snimmy's wife set all the viands out on the grass, and the
Plynck graciously drifted down and took her place at the head of the
table. There was a trifle too much sand in the sandwiches, but
everything else was perfect; and they all ate as immoderately as
people do at picnics.
Sara found herself seated next to the Brown Teddy-Bear. After he had
eaten a pickle or two and begun to look cheerful, she asked him,
tactfully, what he had had so long on his mind.
"I'll tell you, Sara," said the Brown Teddy-Bear candidly and
mournfully. "I'm so ephemeral."
Sara opened her eyes, and looked at him carefully. What new affliction
was this? "Do you mean you're sick?" she asked, after a while.
"No, Sara," said the Teddy-Bear, smiling sadly. "You don't understand.
What I mean is, I'm already old-fashioned; I've had my day. Twenty
years from now, nobody will know what you mean when you speak of a
Teddy-Bear."
"I will," said Sara, squeezing his paw affectionately.
"Well, perhaps you will, Sara," admitted the Teddy-Bear, "because
you'll remember. But the children won't, and they're the only ones
that matter."
"I'll tell mine," insisted Sara stoutly.
"Ah, yes, Sara," said the Teddy-Bear, still more sadly, "but such
loyalty as yours is rare. I have but a frail hold upon posterity. The
same is true of many of my colleagues--the Billiken, for instance, and
the Kewp. But the Billiken is a philosopher, and doesn't care; and the
Kewp is a careless child. But I feel it, Sara; I have to confess to
you that I am a prey to the 'last infirmity of noble minds.'" After a
moment he added, less sadly but more irritably, "That creature, now,
brainless as it is, is just a doll. And dolls are immortal."
"It's a Baby doll," said Sara, wishing to offer consolation, but
really not knowing what to say.
"Humph," said the Brown Teddy-Bear disgustedly. "Babies are as
universal as dolls."
Sara was still trying to think of something pleasant to say to him,
when she noticed that the Plynck, having finished her luncheon, had
flown up to a bough of the tree just over the spring; and suddenly she
heard her speak.
"Well!" she said in astonishment. "Where did you come from?"
And looking down, Sara saw the Echo of the Plynck in the water. She
looked quite imperturbable again, and quite cerulean. "Oh, I have ways
of doing things," she answered, preening her feathers. And the Plynck
was so mystified that she did not say another word.
Really, she didn't have time, for Schlorge strolled back into their
midst at that moment, carrying a butterfly net he had just finished.
The stick was made of the willow wand Sara had seen him cut; and the
bag was made of two thicknesses of spider's web. "Now I'll get him,"
said Schlorge grimly. "Pack up now, and let's start out again."
So all together they started out, climbing hills, and jumping across
tumbling streams, and scrambling over rocks. It was quite hard for the
stretcher-bearers, but they bore up manfully; and the Kewpie never
lost his arch, heroic smile.
Suddenly Schlorge, who was ahead, came stealing back to them. "Hist!"
he cried, and all the Gunki hissed venomously. "I saw it light in an
am-bush just to the left of that big rock. Now, I want you all to
spread out and form a large circle, with the bush in the centre; then,
if I miss it, everybody must try to shoo it back toward the middle.
Don't let it pass over you."
So they all stole to the places Schlorge indicated, and then waited
breathlessly while he stealthily approached the am-bush. The little
laugh, feeling over-confident, must have been dozing; for it did not
see him until he was within a few feet. Then it flew out wildly, with
a sound like that made by the wings of a mother bird who leaves her
nest at the last moment. But it was caught at last. With one skilful,
triumphant swoop Schlorge had it.
And then how it did titter and twitter and giggle and struggle! It
fanned its wings as furiously as a Zizz; it was as wild as a moon-moth
in a net, or a bird you hold in your hand. And all the time, it was
about to die with amusement.
They all gathered around to see what a darling little thing it was.
Even Schlorge admired it openly; and the Snimmy's wife said grudgingly,
"It sure is pretty." As for the Snimmy, he buried his face in his
hands. "I can't stand it!" he groaned, and the gum-drops began to
squeeze through his fingers. "It makes him think of dimples," his wife
explained, in a low tone, to Sara.
"'So near and yet so far,' you know," fluttered the Teacup,
sympathetically.
The next thing was to decide how to get their captive home. Schlorge
was quite sure it couldn't break the net; still, he thought it best to
accept the Brown Teddy-Bear's suggestion that they put it, net and all,
into the Snimmy's wife's basket, and tie the lid securely.
"'Specially since we have to go around by the Smithy," he added, "and
patch up our brittle friend, here."
So they made the little laugh secure in the basket, and went on toward
the Smithy. It kept them all amused by the happy, ridiculous little
sounds it made, giggling and scuttling and fluttering about in the
basket. Even the Brown Teddy-Bear smiled once or twice.
Toward sundown they reached the Smithy, and Schlorge had soon turned
his anvil into an operating table, on which they laid the
uncomplaining little sufferer. The Snimmy's wife said there were
plenty of onions at home in the sugar-bowl, and Schlorge offered to
send a Gunkus after them; but the Kewpie would not hear of it, so
Schlorge mended him quite quickly and neatly without an anaesthetic at
all. He declared himself able to walk, at once, but they persuaded him
to let the Gunki carry him to the gate on the stretcher. And so they
all escorted Sara and her dolls back to the dimple-holder in state.
The Snoodle was awake, and howling lonesomely; but he was soon
frisking happily about their feet. The Plynck flew at once to her
branch and looked into the pool, and there sat her Echo.
"Have a pleasant day?" the latter asked, inscrutably.
But the Plynck was so puzzled that she said nothing at all. However,
when she was leaving the Garden, Sara heard her say to the Teacup, as
she slipped on an iris-colored kimono and shook down her back plumes,
"I think I won't break any rules tomorrow. I think I'll just rest."