The Garden of the Plynck | Page 3

ever get it out, Sara. It
will take at least three onions to anaesthetize the Snimmy."
Now, this was indeed dreadful. Sara had been conscious enough before
this announcement of the havoc she had wrought by her carelessness;
and now to have brought down upon herself a word like that! She was
almost ready to cry; and to keep from being quite ready, she suggested,
tremulously, "Do you suppose I could go after the onions?"
The Plynck looked at her in surprise. "Why, didn't you bring them with
you?" she said. Then, suddenly, she noticed how threateningly the
Snimmy was dancing and squeaking around Sara's feet, and how Sara
was shrinking away from him.
"He won't hurt you," she began. "He's perfectly kind and harmless,
aside from his mania for dimples. He still smells the piece under the
Teacup." Then, all at once, she grew rigid, and her golden eyes began
to leap up and down like frightened flames.

"It's the ones in your hand!" she shrieked. "In your hand! Sit down for
your life!"
Sara at first thought she had said, "Run for your life," and had indeed
taken two-elevenths of a step; but when she realized that the Plynck
had said, "Sit down for your life," she sat down precisely where she
was, as if Jimmy had pulled a chair out from under her, on the very
ice-cream brick her feet stood on. She realized that in a crisis like this
obedience was the only safe thing. And the instant she touched the
pavement, the Snimmy gave a great gulping sob and hid his face in his
hands; and small, grainy tears the size of gum-drops began to trickle
through them and fall into his vest-pocket.
The Echo of the Plynck in the water gave a rippling laugh of relief.
"Well," she said, "it's a mercy you remembered that. Perhaps you don't
know, my dear," she said, turning to Sara, "that no Snimmy can endure
to see a mortal sit down. It simply breaks their hearts. See, he's even
forgotten about the dimples."
And indeed, the Snimmy was standing before her, overcome by
remorse. He was holding his shoe in his hand in the most gentlemanly
manner, and Sara forgave him at once when she saw how sorry and
ashamed he was.
"I--hope you'll try to--to--to excuse me, Miss," he sobbed, humbly
offering her a handful of gum-drops. "Them dimples--" here, for a
moment, his nose began to wink and his feet pranced a little, but he
looked closely to see that she was still sitting down, and controlled
himself. "Them dimples--" he began again; but he could say no more.
The gum-drops began falling all around like hail-stones, so fast that
Sara felt that she ought to help him all she could--without getting up--to
get them into his vest-pocket.
The clatter of the gum-drops again attracted the attention of the
Plynck's Echo, who said, kindly, "Go and take a nap, now, Snimmy,
and you'll feel better."
The Snimmy lifted his shoe and tried to reply, but he only gave a

respectful sob. So he turned away and crept back to his home in the
prose-bush--where, all this time, his wife had been sitting in plain sight
on her own toadstool, grimly hemming the doorknob. At her feet lay
her faithful Snoodle.
Up to this time, Sara had not ventured to address the Teacup. But, as
she looked around and saw her still sitting there, so pleasant and bland
and fragile, and with such a consanguineous handle, she felt a sudden
certainty that the Teacup would always be kind and helpful; so she
suggested timidly,
"Then we shan't need the onions?"
"Oh, dear, yes," answered the Teacup, in a soft, wrinkled voice. "We'd
never in Zeelup be able to get the pieces of the dimple to Schlorge
without first anaesthetizing the Snimmy."
Sara jumpled: that awful word again! Her head reeled (exactly as heads
do in grown-up stories) as she realized how many things there were in
this strange place that she didn't know. Who was Schlorge, for example?
And how was she to get anything to anybody without getting up? And
"anaesthetize"?
She hated to disturb the Teacup; she was knitting so placidly, and
murmuring over and over to herself, "Never in Zeelup." She looked up
into the tree; the Plynck, too, had fallen asleep, worn out by the
unwonted excitement of the morning; and her lovely Echo also slept in
the amber pool. Sara now noticed that, though the Plynck was
rose-colored, her Echo was cerulean.
The great, soft, curled plumes of the Plynck and her Echo rippled as
they breathed and slept, rather like water or fire in a little wind; and
with every ripple they seemed to shake out a faint perfume that drifted
across Sara's