The Garden of the Plynck | Page 9

To Sara's joy they struck into the curliest of the little paths,
which slipped suddenly through a half-hidden arch in the hawthorn
hedge, and then skipped confidingly right up to Avrillia's door.
Avrillia's house was right on the Verge, but the Verge was quite wide at
this point, and very lovely. It was more like a beach than anything else;
and the sands, of course, like those of most beaches, were of gold; but
instead of being bare, like most beaches, it was sprinkled quite thickly
with lovely clumps of fog-bushes, which were of a different color every

hour of the day and every day of the year; and the shells had stems and
leaves, and were prettier even than most shells. And Avrillia's house
had sails, instead of curtains. Still, it was not a boat, because it had
star-vines climbing all over the terrace (the flowers were of all colors,
except square, and only opened in the evening) and it had the marble
balcony, with the box-trees in urns. For, without knowing it, it was
Avrillia's balcony that Sara had seen from the stump.
"Well, there's Pirlaps," said Schlorge, lifting his shoe politely and
turning back toward the Dimplesmithy. "He'll tell you where to find
Avrillia."
Sara was left looking at a middle-aged fairy-gentleman with a little
pointed beard, who was sitting on a sort of stool or box before an easel,
hard at work. He had on white tennis-flannels, and an odd but
becoming sort of cap. Usually Sara was very shy of strangers; but this
gentleman looked so pleasant that she had almost made up her mind to
speak to him when she saw Schlorge running wildly back up the path.
"Where's a stump?" he panted. "I forgot--where's a stump?"
He spoke so loudly that the gentleman in tennis-flannels heard him and
looked around. "Oh, it's you, Schlorge," he said. "Why, there isn't any
stump here, you know--but you may use my step, if you like."
He had lovely manners, even with a plain dimplesmith like Schlorge;
and he rose as he spoke, with his palette in his hand, and made a
pleasant gesture to indicate that Schlorge was quite welcome to it. But
Schlorge looked at it doubtfully; and, indeed, Sara saw that it was of
chocolate, and rather soft where the gentleman had been sitting on it. "I
don't want to soil my soul," mumbled Schlorge, standing on one foot
and looking down at the sole of the other, very much agitated and
embarrassed.
"That's true," said the gentleman politely; "I never stand on it." At that
Sara could not help showing that she noticed the large black spot left
by the chocolate on the seat of his trousers. He saw her look at it, and
spoke to her kindly.

"That's all right, little girl," he said. "Avrillia will have me change them
in a minute."
Then he noticed Schlorge's dreadful impatience for something to stand
on, and rang a little bell in his left ear.
Immediately a small servant, also of chocolate, came tumbling out of
the house. He was the most attractive-looking person you can imagine.
His eyes and teeth were exactly like the filling in a chocolate cream,
and how his eyes rolled and his teeth twinkled! But it was the inside of
his mouth that fascinated Sara most. It was of the lovely, violent red of
certain jelly-beans she had known, and she caught the most tantalizing,
cavernous glimpses whenever he grinned.
"Yassuh," said his master, "go at once and get a piece of plain white
satin for Mr. Schlorge to stand on. You'll find a bolt in the tool-box."
Yassuh scrambled off down the path. (He was very bow-legged,
because his mother had allowed him to go out in the sun too much,
when he was a baby, and, being of chocolate, his legs had softened into
that shape.) Almost immediately he came rolling back with the white
satin, which he spread on the box.
All this time Schlorge had been in an agony of impatience. Almost
stepping on Yassuh in his eagerness, he jumped upon the box, and,
arranging his hands as before, shouted loudly, "Pirlaps, this is Sara, a
little girl! Sara, this is Pirlaps, Avrillia's step-husband!" Then he sprang
down and went running down the path again, shouting excitedly, "See
you again, Sara! See you again!"
"Well, Sara," said the pleasant fairy-gentleman, taking her hand, "how
are you? Did you come to see Avrillia?"
"Yes, sir," said Sara, looking up at him from under her lashes and
thinking she had never see a shaving-person, except her own father, so
delightful.
"I think you'll find her on her balcony," said Pirlaps, kindly. "I just

heard a poem drop over the Verge. Here, Yassuh," he said, "take this
little girl to your