Chapter III: Part 3

“This is what I call delightful!” replied that remarkable woman, tipping her tub until the water ran in and filled it with a deep gurgle. As she sank into the river she clapped her hands, whereupon there was a blinding flash and a peal of sharp thunder. A bigger wave than the rest washed Philippe, cradle and all, upon the shore. He was too dazed to understand for some moments just what had happened, but at length he spied Grandmother, already at some distance, riding the waves and swimming strongly with the current.

“Now I shall be in high time for the reunion!” she called back to him, the growing space between them making her voice very faint.

Poor, dear Grandmother! Whatever would become of her? She would drown most surely. But perhaps Uncle Pablôt, who had raced on down the bank, could save her——But no! He was strolling back; he had given up. Philippe ran to meet his uncle with tears in his eyes.

“Hello! So there you are, safe and sound and high and dry, eh? You see, I veered about; I thought we might take a little stroll together,” explained Uncle Pablôt airily.

“Save her!” pleaded Philippe tearfully.

“Who? Grandmother Rain? Be calm, my boy, she is quite in her element.”

“But unless we do something, the river will carry her far away!”

“Which is exactly what she wishes. She will be back again, never worry. She makes these little trips to the ocean quite frequently. Look, Philippe, the sun is coming out! The sun and Grandmother Rain do not get along well together; he always hides as soon as she has made her appearance, and when she has gone, he goes about mopping up the whole countryside.”

Uncle Pablôt’s calmness gave Philippe some comfort. He was grown up, and therefore wise; perhaps he knew the meaning of these strange things. “Do they always disagree, Grandmother and the sun?” asked Philippe.

“Not always. Sometimes, though rarely, you may see them together, and then they hang a rainbow flag across the sky as a sign of their truce. But come! We have much land to cover, we must hurry a little more.”

“Where are we going, Uncle Pablôt?”

“What a silly question! How am I to know? I go wherever it pleases me at the moment, sometimes for days in one direction, and at other times this way and that quicker than you can think. And please do not call me Uncle Pablôt; I am your Uncle Wind.”

Philippe felt rebuked; he trotted silently beside the tall, lean fellow, thinking him a not very pleasant companion. He would gladly have walked home alone, but he had no idea where he was, and he was afraid to be left alone. At length his Uncle Wind spoke to him:

“Do not think unkindly of me, little Philippe. If I was cross to you, it is because I am given to complaining at times, but I am a good fellow at heart. With Grandmother Rain’s help, I keep the world a nice clean place to live in. And do you know, Philippe, the best part of it is that I am such a humorous fellow; I am all the time playing the most amusing jokes! Why—once I mussed up the hair of a prince and ran off with the parasol of a duchess.... There now! I think I told you that once before, didn’t I? But where and when it is quite past my ability to remember. Well, that gives you the idea. Hats? There is nothing quite so much fun as hats! Snatch a hat and run, drop it until its owner is just about to pick it up, and then snatch and run again. There’s nothing that draws such a large and appreciative audience as the hat trick. Though, of course, umbrellas are great sport—but I need Grandmother Rain to help me with that trick. Maybe you think I am only a practical joker? Not at all! Do you remember that day you were sick, and your head felt as if it were on fire? Do you remember how I came and cooled it for you, and played with the tassels of the curtains until sundown to keep you amused? If I get a bit angry and rough at times, I am gentleness itself at others, and particularly am I loved in places that are hot and stuffy and saddened by ill health. I am one of the housekeepers of the earth, and I must be everlastingly at it to make things comfortable and shipshape. Oh! The dirt and the dust, the smoke and the foul smells people throw into my face in the cities, little dreaming that if it were not for me the earth would be unfit to live on. But I am strong without end and do my best. Yes, Philippe, I may bluster and blow and play tricks, but for all that I am a very excellent fellow. And I am a traveler and adventurer over land and sea, such as one has never read of in the most thrilling books! No one has seen more of the world than I. I have seen strange parts of the world, looked behind walls of ice, where no living thing has ever been. Only the other day——”

On and on talked Uncle Wind, and on and on traveled the two together. Over more meadows they went than Philippe thought could possibly be crowded into the world, and past innumerable herds of cows and flocks of sheep. It had grown warm with the coming of the sun, and often would workers in the fields spread wide their arms and speak words of welcome as they passed. The grass and the yellow wheat bowed as they stepped lightly over them and even the trees nodded in friendly recognition. Birds, stretching their wings, took rides on Uncle Wind’s shoulders. At times Uncle Wind would go quite fast, so that Philippe had to run, and again, so slowly that they were scarcely creeping, until, after a long time, they stopped quite still on the top of a high hill.

“I often lie down and rest at sunset,” explained Uncle Wind in a voice that was scarcely above a whisper.

Far, far away, Philippe saw, through a twilight haze of gold, what he had never seen before: the deep ocean where Grandmother Rain was holding her family reunion. The crimson sun was rolling over the blue edge of the world into its sparkling heart. He sat down in the crevice of a rock and thought long and wonderingly of the things that had come to pass that day, and he tried to see, in the land that was spread like a map before his eyes, the red roof and clump of trees that would be his own home. He did so long to be with his darling mother again! And very soon it would be dark.... Silver stars began to shine in a pale green sky.... Golden stars were lit in a sky of deepening purple.... More and more stars in a sky dark blue. Night had suddenly closed in around him, and he was frightened and started to cry.

“Uncle Pablôt—I mean, Uncle Wind—I want to go home!”

But where was Uncle Wind? There was no answer, no sound, and search as carefully as he would, Philippe could find no trace of him. It was as if he had utterly vanished, which, indeed, he had, for the time being.

What was poor Philippe to do? The hilltop stones that surrounded him took menacing forms; he was sure that he saw the shining eyes, green and glowing, of prowling beasts. He summoned all his courage and bravely started to walk—where? Downhill, for he remembered that Grandmother Rain had told him, as they floated along the river, that that was the only way any sensible person would ever care to travel. Besides, when you were on the top of a hill, unless you stayed there, there was no other choice. Where else he was bound for he had no idea, but anything would be better than the unbroken stillness of the haunted rocks. How far he walked, at times ran, through the dark night, falling over roots and tearing his way through scratching brambles, pursued by unseen terrors of darkness, before he came to the old man, he had no idea.

At first he was timid of approaching the bent figure sitting huddled on a stump, so dim under the starlight. But loneliness and the longing for companionship overcame his fear.

“Please, sir,” he said, drawing slowly closer, “please, sir, could you tell me—— _Grandfather Joseph! Grandfather Joseph!_”—and he flung his arms around Grandfather’s neck, the hot tears streaming down his cheeks. But how cold Grandfather was! The touch of Grandfather’s face against Philippe’s burned like ice.

“Watch out!” said Grandfather sharply, “You are so insufferably warm you will melt me, if I do not succeed in freezing you first. And, young Philippe, be careful the names you call people. Look carefully at me again; do you not know me?”

Philippe was doubtful. Surely it was Grandfather Joseph, and yet—Grandfather had never been so cold, nor so strange in his behavior. Did he know him?

“Yes—no,” answered Philippe, not being able to decide.

“Yes, _Snow_, that is right! I am Grandfather Snow.”

“It’s very upsetting!” remarked the puzzled boy.

“Is it?” replied Grandfather Snow coldly.

“But I may stay here with you, Grandfather? I was so frightened alone in the black night. I was out walking with Uncle Wind, and—and he seemed to disappear, and then I lost my way.”

“You may stay if you do not come too close. So Uncle Wind vanished, did he? Your Uncle Wind is a fickle, changeable, unreliable fellow, but he has a will of his own and will turn up in time. I am very dependent on Uncle Wind; I can do nothing but lie around, without him.”

“He is very nice, isn’t he, Grandfather?” ventured Philippe.

“Aye, sometimes,” replied the old man. “He was all gentleness this afternoon, but wait until you see him to-night! If I’m not mistaken in the signs, he will be in a fury. Then watch out for yourself, Young Impudence! When Uncle Wind is in a fury, he is a hard master and drives every one before him with a stinging lash. You’ll see!”

Since Grandfather was in such a chilling mood, Philippe did not bother to talk with him, but sat at a little distance, thankful for companionship, and watched the winking of the stars, which, even as he watched them, sparkled and went out like sparks in the soot of a chimney, or as if a black curtain were being drawn across the black sky. After a long while, after the last star had vanished and the noiseless quiet of the night hemmed them in like an invisible wall, Grandfather Snow sprang to his feet and stood tensely listening with his hand to his ear.

“What is it, Grandfather?” Philippe asked, alarmed.

“Hush!... Hush!... Ah—now I hear it plainly!”

Philippe put his hand to his ear as he had seen Grandfather do, and listened intently, holding his breath that he should not miss the tiniest sound. Nothing. Yes—a far away and tiny sound. It sounded to Philippe like the little gasping noises he had made when he was learning to whistle, before ever he had been able to attempt a tune, the noise of air breathed in and out through rounded lips.

“_He is coming!_” Grandfather told him in a voice trembling with excitement. “And he is perfectly furious; seldom have I heard him whistle more beautifully. _Listen!_”

Philippe no longer had to strain to hear the far-away whistling; it was growing nearer every second, and as it approached it became high and shrill. “Is that my Uncle Wind making all that noise, Grandfather?”

“Aye!” said Grandfather shortly, crouching close to the ground in the position of a runner about to start a race.

“I shall run and meet him,” cried Philippe, delighted at the idea of seeing his old friend again, who was now evidently very close. He had not run twelve steps when something spinning through the dark ran squarely into him, bowled him off his feet and rolled him along the ground as easily as if he had been made of thistledown. It was a terrific struggle he had to gain his feet again, and even when he had, and would have liked to stop to catch his breath and dust off the new suit his mother had made for him, he found himself being shoved roughly from behind.

“Faster! Faster! _Faster!_” screamed a voice in his very ears. And if he tried to slow up ever so little, “Rush! Rush! _Rush!_” the voice would command.

“Please, Uncle Wind—oh, please, Uncle Wind—I can’t go any faster—my legs aren’t long enough!”

“_Faster!_” screamed Uncle Wind in anger, prodding poor Philippe so hard that he was fairly lifted off his feet.

Above them, and all around them, there was the noise of tearing leaves and crashing branches, there was the groaning of tortured trees as Uncle Wind lashed them with his invisible cat-o’-ninetails. Dim shadows streaked past like flying beasts. “Rush!” shrieked Uncle Wind, “R-U-SHSHSHshshshshsh——”

Something cold and stinging struck across Philippe’s face, and it was then, in spite of his breathless panic at the mad flight, that he wanted to burst out laughing, for he saw that Grandfather, who had all this time been running at his side, was going so fast that he was actually losing his whiskers! “Your whiskers, Grandfather! The wind is tearing your whiskers off!” But the old man, who was speeding along more lightly than any rabbit, paid no attention. In truth, it seemed no great calamity, for as fast as Uncle Wind would tear off his whiskers and his hair and scatter them on the ground, new would grow immediately—and so thick and fast they grew that the ground became covered with white. But whiskers were not cold and wet when they brushed across one’s face: they scratched and tickled, as Philippe had found out on occasions when he had kissed Grandfather. This was snow! Grandfather Snow was spreading his white blanket over the earth.

All night long Uncle Wind and Grandfather Snow sped across the dark country like mad men, and when little Philippe grew too tired to stand it any longer, Uncle Wind would lift him up in his strong arms and carry him. And the snow grew deep, and eddied and twisted into great mounds and high drifts with sharp, curved edges like the thin crests of waves—so that in the cold, pale light of the coming morning, the world looked like a beautiful dream cut from marble.

And with the coming of dawn, Uncle Wind suddenly stopped driving them.

“That was a great run!” said Uncle Wind. “It has left me completely out of puff. Philippe, my boy, I hope it hasn’t tired you too much? Grandfather Snow, didn’t I drive you beautifully?”

“Aye.”

“And you have not done so badly. It will be some days before we are in shape for another run like that. Well, good-by! I think I shall do my famous vanishing act again. How about you, Grandfather?”

“Not quite yet. I shall linger on a bit. There are a few touches, a few light touches I neglected in my hurry last night that I would like to attend to this morning. You see,” he explained to Philippe when Uncle Wind had vanished, “I am quite an artist. Some people think I am very little use and only good for lying around. Not at all! I make excellent snowballs, for one thing, and Uncle Wind is not the only member of our family who has knocked a hat off! But of course I would never tell you of such a thing if I did not know that you were too much of a gentleman to use me for such a purpose. No, no, my child, I work as hard for the things that grow, in my own way, as Grandmother Rain does in hers, but chiefly I delight to make things beautiful. See that naked gray tree? How bare and cold it looks! It needs a few high lights that I could not stop to give it last night—” whereupon Grandfather Snow touched each branch and twig with a powdering from his white beard, and the twig and branch of every tree around, until the whole world above the level of the ground was a tracery of gleaming, fairy lace. “Not bad, Philippe, not a bit bad! Can you see anything else that needs touching up? Speak out before it is too late, for my supply is nearly exhausted.”

“Please, Grandfather, it is beautiful, but I am cold and tired, and I would like to go where it is warm.”

“Of course you would, my child. Look! Below us in the valley it is green, and even from here one can see that there are flowers. Run on down——”

“I don’t want to run; I’m tired of running!”

“Well, well,” laughed Grandfather, “walk then, if you wish. After a while, when the warm sun comes to view my handiwork, I, too, will slip down into the valley, but I shall not stop there. No, I have a long way to travel before I join Grandmother Rain once more.”

Philippe turned slowly away, touched by the purity and peace that surrounded him. “Good-by.... Good-by ...” said Grandfather Snow gently, very, very gently!

As Philippe reached the green valley below, the sun broke through a thin veil of silver clouds. It had risen brilliant and white from its all night dip into the distant ocean, and its cheering warmth was gratefully received by the tired adventurer. A fragrance, mingled of evergreens and flowers, herbs and damp earth, filled the motionless air, and from the end of the grass-grown lane, along which he walked lazily, there was an amazing confusion of sounds, as if thousands of birds were singing at one time. The lane led him to a gate, and on the gate was a sign which said:

PHILIPPE’S GARDEN

“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——”

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.”

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.