The Garden of the Plynck | Page 4

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 couldn't smell those in Sara's hand, of course, so long as she was sitting down), 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