“I must have been away a long time for my garden to have grown so big,”
Philippe told himself.
Standing inside the gate was little Avril in a new green smock prettily
embroidered with wreaths and garlands of flowers. She curtsied so low
before him that the hem of her dress brushed the young shoots of grass;
and she smiled at him tenderly.
“And who are you?” asked Philippe warily.
“Why, Philippe! Don’t you know me?”
“Yes, I think I do; but I thought that I knew Grandmother Marianne and
she turned out to be Grandmother Rain. Uncle Pablôt, it seems, was not
Uncle Pablôt at all, but Uncle Wind. And my Grandfather Joseph is
Grandfather Snow and lies just above us on the hill. It is very
puzzling; can I be sure that you have not changed your name?”
“I have quite a number of names,” explained the little girl. “Some call
me Spring, some call me Flora, but you may call me Avril. Avril:
April—it is all the same. Would you like me to show you your garden? It
is very lovely, and I have worked hard to get it all in readiness for
your coming.”
“You?”
“Yes. I am your gardener, but I have had a lot of help. Every one has
been so kind! Uncle Wind helped me plant it, Grandfather Snow prepared
the ground in fine shape, and Grandmother Rain has been here often and
often, giving my little plant babies their bottles. It has been a lot of
worry and care, Philippe,” Avril told him in a curiously grown-up voice,
“but when you see my beautiful children, I am sure that you will think
that it was worth while.
“Now here,” she said, smiling happily and taking him by the hand, “are
some of my first babies: the snowdrops, named in honor of their
godfather, Grandfather Snow. And here——”
[Illustration: From flower to flower they wandered.]
From bed to bed, from border to border they wandered, looking at the
flowers, breathing the sweet perfume, and watching the clumsy but clever
bees, out marketing for honey which they would pay for with golden
pollen dust carried on their velvet backs. There were soft-petaled
pansies as dark as midnight, as purple as a queen’s dress, as yellow as
the sun, and sometimes of many colors curiously combined to form impish
and laughing faces. There were lilies of the valley and violets,
stonecrop and candytuft, peonies and roses, larkspur and bridal
wreath—so many flowers that Philippe could not remember their names, but
gave himself up to the enjoyment of their soft and gorgeous colors,
their delicate and magnificent shapes. Farther along the maze of paths
where he was led by Avril, the flowers were still furled in tight buds,
and at length they came to beds where the dark loam was scarcely more
than broken by lifting sprouts. “These are for later,” explained his
fairylike guide.
“And these?” asked Philippe, when they had entered into a new part of
the garden where straight rows of green-growing things were marked off
in beds of checkerboard design.
“These funny little fellows,” Avril told him, “are not as beautiful and
proud as the flowers; they hold their heads less high, but they are all
extremely worthy and one would find it difficult to get along without
them.”
“They look good enough to eat,” said Philippe, who was beginning to feel
very empty.
“They are,” said Avril.
“And is all this garden mine?” asked Philippe.
“Yes,” answered the little girl, curtsying again before him, and added:
“All yours—King Philippe!”
“Oh, you mustn’t call me ‘King,’ that is, when we’re not playing games,
you know,” Philippe warned her, rather shocked. “Kings are grand people
with treasures hidden away in strong chests, and they wear crowns of
gold and have thousands of servants. I know, because I have read all
about them in a book which my mother gave to me. I am a farmer’s son,
and can never be so wonderful a person as a King.”
His companion looked at him very thoughtfully, and at last spoke:
“You are a King, Philippe. Sun, Moon, and Stars shine down upon your
head a crown; the whole earth is yours, the great strong chest of hidden
treasures. From the time the first small star hung like a lonely spark
in space, your servants have been preparing for you a kingdom, the
kingdom of Earth, than which there is only one greater. And that
kingdom, too, will be yours some day if you rule wisely and well in
this, and are kind, and strong-and gentle.”
“It may be true,” said Philippe, rather bewildered by the wonderful
things he was hearing. “But I am quite sure that I have no servants;
why—little though I am, even I must help my father in the fields.”
“We are all your servants. Is it not true, Grandmother Rain?”
A shower suddenly passed over the garden, decking the flowers in crystal
splendor, and from a small cloud overhead Philippe could distinctly hear
the voice of Grandmother: “Yes. I have worked for Philippe’s father and
his grandfathers from the very beginning of things, and I hope to work
for his children and his childrens’ children for time evermore. Do not
think badly of me, Philippe, if I do not come and go just to your
liking, for I am very busy, with much important work to attend to.”
“Is it not true, Grandfather Snow?”
“Aye, so it is!” came a voice from the bright hill beyond the garden
wall.
“Is it not true, Uncle Wind?”
“Well, well! I am just in time,” remarked Uncle Wind, sauntering up the
garden path, the flowers nodding to him as he passed. He had cast aside
his great cloak, but even then looked a little warm. “Just wandered up
from the Southlands,” he continued. “Yes, my little darling, it is true
enough what you are telling Philippe, but of course we are not to be
bossed about like ordinary servants; we serve and yet we keep our
independence; we have been at our various tasks so long that we know
exactly what to do without being told, and if we seem a little lazy at
times, or a little too enthusiastic at others, remember that we may have
our own very good reasons. Yes, indeed,” he went on, commencing to
bluster a bit, “there are often reasons hidden in the strangest things
we do. Did I ever tell you how once I mussed up the hair of a prince and
ran off with the parasol of a duchess——”
“The wind is capable of being a little monotonous at times,” Avril
whispered into Philippe’s ear, but he could hardly hear her, for the
garden was being filled with other voices, coming from here, there, and
everywhere—from the grass, and the flowers, and the vegetables, and the
trees, from the stones, and even from the brown earth itself, and they
all were saying in their own way, the one thing: “We serve!”
“Please listen to us a moment,” pleaded the fragile voices of the
flowers. “We serve too, though many consider us too delicate and
concerned about our own looks to be of much use. But do not forget us,
Philippe! Do not forget us when you are grown up and your mind is
crowded with worries and cares and a lot of things that will seem more
important to you than they really are. Keep a place for us in your mind
and heart, and we will repay you in our mysterious way a hundredfold and
more. Do as we ask; treasure beauty, purity, and truth—for though you
may love us now, you will not understand the full importance of our
message until you have grown up. Do not forget——”
“The flowers are very talkative to-day,” remarked one little lettuce to
another.
“The flattery of the bees has quite turned their heads,” agreed a radish
who was notably sharp, whereupon some of the more sensitive flowers who
had overheard blushed deeply.
But Philippe heard none of this chatter of the vegetables, for it seemed
that the whole world, the ox and the ass, the horse and the cow, the
tame beasts of the fields and the wild beasts of the spaces beyond, the
fox and the rabbit, the mouse and the beetle, the creatures that crawled
and the creatures that ran, the cricket and the grasshopper and the
inhabitants of air and ocean, the little hills and high hills, the
valleys and forests, the voice of water through the land, sky and
earth—all, _all_ were joining in a great, droning chant: “We serve—we
serve—we serve——”
“What utter nonsense!” shouted a little bird saucily, flying from the
low branches of a tulip tree. “I serve no one; I just have lots of fun,
and I’m going to have an exciting fly—and that’s something little boys
can’t do, for they haven’t even any pin feathers!”
The cocky way the little bird flapped her wings and tossed her head made
Philippe double up with laughter.
“See!” said the little rebel’s mate, flying close. “You have made the
King laugh, so your empty boasting has broken like a bubble, for
laughter is one of the greatest services in the world! And as for going
on your wild flight, have you forgotten our pretty blue eggs in their
soft brown nest?”
“I am a King!” said Philippe in a daze of wonderment. “My darling Avril,
tell me what I can do to show my gratitude to all my servants.”
“They love nothing better than that you use them, Philippe. Use them
wisely and well, and not only for yourself—but for others.” And gentle
Spring kissed him upon the lips, filling his heart with love and
happiness.
“It is high time,” said Philippe’s mother to Philippe’s father, “that
our little one was back. Soon it will be dark.”
She went to the doorway and gazed across the fields.
“Here comes Pablôt,” she called back into the room, “and he is carrying
the child in his arms.”
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” breathed Uncle Pablôt, drawing close. “Take your son
gently into your arms; he has been sleeping bravely all the way from his
grandparents’. And here,” said Uncle Pablôt, “is his little silver
whistle, by which I hope that he will remember me when he wakes up and
finds me gone.”
[Illustration]
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