The Garden of the Plynck | Page 6

the kind, clumsy
Koopf (who was yet so skilful at his own work) place the pretty globe
with so much pride and pleasure. She kept sniffing, meanwhile, at the
tantalizing perfume that seemed to sift downward from the feathers of
the Plynck, as she stirred, ever so softly, in her dreams.
At last the Koopf took a large slice of onion, which the Snimmy's wife
had left convenient, and rubbed it all around the base of the pedestal.
"Now," he said, "if you'll always remember to stand inside of that circle,
when you take 'em off and put 'em on, there won't be any more trouble.
And take 'em off as soon as you shut the doors. If you dilly-dally a
minute--"
At that moment the Plynck awoke and saw Sara. She stretched her
warm, shimmering feathers and smiled.
"Avrillia's at home," she said, gently.
Chapter II
Avrillia
"I make it a rule," the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtain
behind her the next morning, "to fly around the fountain at least twice
every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a bundle that

lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree, something that
looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easily with one golden
claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out with careless grace for
another.
"Oh," breathed Sara, clasping her hands. And she could not help adding,
shyly, "If I could only see you when you fly--Madame Plynck!"
Sara was very proud of herself after she had said that. She had never
called anybody "Madame" before, but she had read it in books, and it
seemed just the title for a creature so beautiful and gentle and stately as
the Plynck. It seemed so suitable that it gave her courage to repeat, "If I
could only see you fly!"
"But I don't do it often, you see," answered the Plynck, quietly.
"Why--!" exclaimed Sara. "I thought you just said--" Not for worlds
would she have seemed rude or impolite to the Plynck, but she was
completely puzzled.
The Plynck looked very kind. "I said I make it a rule," she said, gently.
"I didn't say--you explain it to her," she said suddenly to her Echo in
the pool, who had been looking on with rather an amused expression.
The Echo fluffed out her deep blue plumes a little and took up the task.
"What are rules for, my dear?" she began.
"Why--to keep, I guess," ventured Sara, a little flustered. "Aren't they?"
The Echo glanced up at the Plynck with a twinkling smile. "Do you
hear that?" she asked. "Bless the child! She says rules are made to
keep!" She laughed to herself a little longer, then she turned to Sara
more soberly. "As far as your country is concerned, my dear, you are
doubtless right, and I suppose it's important for you to keep that fact in
mind. But here it's very different. Our rules are made to break. Don't
you hear the Plynck breaking them?"
So that was what she was doing! For the first time, Sara understood

why she had so enjoyed the delightful little snapping sounds, which
made her think of corn dancing against the lid of a corn-popper--or of
the snapping of little dry twigs under the pointed shoes of a brownie,
slipping through the woods alone on Christmas Eve. She thought it was
the most completely satisfying sound she had ever heard. She thought,
too, that the broken rules under the tree made a charming litter, and
wished that the Gunki who were raking them up would leave them
there instead. But they went on piling them into wheelbarrows and
trundling them down the road toward the smithy.
"They are taking them to be mended," said the Echo of the Plynck, who
had been watching her. "We believe in conservation, you see. Schlorge
mends them one day, and she breaks them the next, and so we usually
have plenty."
Sara was charmed. But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she
remembered what she had heard her say as she came in. "Will--will she
fly?" she whispered to the Echo.
"Well, I don't know," said the Echo of the Plynck. "There's a rule that
she must, and so it's quite an effort. And there's a rule that she must not
sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree. So of course she
usually sits there. You wouldn't think, yourself, that she'd want to sit
there, day after day, if there wasn't--would you?"
Sara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed so
reasonable and familiar should sound so strange. But it was a blissful
wonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rules
continued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the