Chapter III: Relations

Sara was determined, when she shut the ivory doors behind her the next morning, to do two things, no matter what happened; first, she would put her dimples in the dimple-holder immediately; and, second, she would go right on to find Pirlaps, and not be beguiled into lingering around the pool by the fascinating talk of the Plynck and her Echo. For, ever since she left him, she had been thinking of the offer Pirlaps had made to take her to see his relations; and she had been growing more and more curious and interested.

And this time she did remember her dimples; she saw them sparkling on the whipped cream cushion, all safe and contented, before she so much as lifted her eyes from the blue plush grass. But alas, for her resolution not to loiter! For although, on the other days, there had been such a variegated murmur of delighted sound--the Echo of the Plynck in the pool, and the lovely crackling of breaking rules, and the deep-blue singing of the Zizzes' wings, and the melodious snoring of the Snoodle (like that of a tuning-fork when it sleeps on its side) --yet everything had been as still and motionless to the eye as an April daydream. But this morning it was the other way around. Not a sound was to be heard; but what a scene! You see, for the first time, the Snoodle was awake, frisking soundlessly around the fountain; and the Plynck--the Plynck was flying!

Now, it is true that a Plynck at rest is a beautiful sight; but it is nothing to the charm and wonder of a Plynck in motion. (The same, as we shall see in a moment, is true in a lesser degree of a Snoodle.) Its long, rosy plumes, like those of an ostrich, only four times as long, went waving through the air with an indescribably dreamy grace; and now Sara could actually see the perfume, which before she had only smelled. It rained down through the air, as the Plynck circled slowly round and round the fountain, and looked rather like a sort of golden spice. And as Sara stood watching, spellbound and sniffing, she knew she had been mistaken in thinking that, there was no sound at all. There was just one: a little soft, straining sound the Plynck's cerulean Echo made as it circled round and round in the pool and tried to keep up with the Plynck. Her motions would have been exactly as lovely as those of the Plynck, if they had not been just a trifle labored, owing to the difficulty of flying under water; and her breathing was distinctly perceptible. Sara could hear it, too; and it sounded like the ghost of a dead breeze in a pine-top.

As soon as Sara could take her ravished eyes from the sight, she looked down to see what was nuzzling about her shoe-buttons; and, just as she had suspected, it was the Snoodle, frisking and tumbling and rolling about her feet to make her notice him. And, indeed, when he was awake, the Snoodle was irresistible. Not that he looked like anything Sara had ever seen before. He might, perhaps, have looked like a dog, except that he was so very long--his length, indeed, gave him a haunting resemblance to a freshly cooked piece of macaroni. (Sara was later to find out the reason for this; but at the moment she was puzzled, just as you are when you meet a stranger who looks like somebody else, and you can't remember who else it is.) And his head, which was not very clearly defined, was finished off with a neat little cap that looked like a snail-shell, and seemed to be fastened to him. His eyes, which stuck out several inches in front of his face on long prongs, were delightfully mischievous and confiding; and he was covered with the most beautiful snow-white, curly hair. But he had one drawback; and Sara discovered that when she started to pick him up. It was a sort of little window in the exact middle of his back, with an ising-glass cover, like the slide-cover of some boxes. The minute you touched him, this little slide drew back, and from within there escaped an odor of castor oil. It, too, was distinctly perceptible; Sara could even smell it. As soon as she did so, she herself drew back, and contented herself with looking admiringly at the confiding, playful little Snoodle.

As she stood watching his pretty antics she became aware that the Snimmy's wife had stopped her work and was watching them with a grim smile. Sara saw that she had just unscrewed the knob of the prose-bush, and was still holding the doorknob and the corkscrew in her hand. As far as Sara could tell, the doorknob seemed as neatly hemmed as ever; so, overcome by curiosity, she asked the Snimmy's wife what she was going to do with it.

"This is the day to unhem it," she answered rather glumly. "I unhem it every Pinkday, and hem it every Lilyday. I used to hem it only oncet a month, but Avrillia said that wasn't civilized, and whatever she says, goes. At least," she added, glancing up at the Plynck, who was still circling beautifully around the fountain, "she thinks so. And as long as I live neighbor to her it's sort-of up to me to respect her standards."

Avrillia! Ah, now Sara remembered! She had meant to go straight to find Pirlaps and Avrillia! She glanced around to see if she could find the curly little path; but she could not really start until she had asked a few questions about the darling little Snoodle.

"Is--isn't he lovely?" she began, aware of a vague necessity of pleasing the wife of the Snimmy, if one wanted to find out anything. However, she was quite honest; she really did think the Snoodle was lovely--except for his drawback.

"You think so?" answered the Snimmy's wife, trying hard not to show how foolishly pleased she really was. "He's the only child we have."

If Sara had thought a minute, she would not have asked the next question--certainly not of so formidable a person as the Snimmy's wife. But she didn't think. She just asked, eagerly,

"Is he a--a sort of--dog?"

"A sort of _dog_?" echoed the Snimmy's wife, in the most outraged italics.

"A--kind of--puppy?"

"A kind of--PUPPY?" said the Snimmy's wife, in perfectly withering small capitals. Then she said, in the loftiest large capitals Sara had ever seen,

"HIS MOTHER WAS A SNAIL--SHE HELD THE WORLD'S RECORD FOR SLOWNESS. AND HIS FATHER WAS A PEDIGREED NOODLE."

Sara looked at him in awe; now she understood the cap, and the prongs, and the extreme length. But, in spite of the Snimmy's wife's indignant mood, she had to ask one more question.

"But you said he was your child," was the way she put it.

"I didn't," retorted the Snimmy's wife, with undisguised contempt. "I said he was the only child we have. We have him, haven't we?" And with that she sat down with her back to Sara on her own toadstool, and curled her long white tail around the base with quite unnecessary tightness. Her nose was not quite so debilitating as the Snimmy's; still, it nearly stuck into the doorknob as she hemmed.

Sara saw there was nothing further to be got out of her, and she did not wish to pick up the Snoodle on account of his drawback; so she decided to go on to Avrillia's without further delay, and began to look around her again for the little curly path. It was pink, this time, instead of curly, but that made it all the more attractive; so she struck into it at once, and went skipping happily toward the arch in the hawthorn hedge. Just before she reached it she heard Avrillia's thermometer go off, so she knew that she was on the right path.

The minute she got through the hedge she saw Avrillia, and, oh, loveliest of wonders! What were those? Flying around her hair, clinging to her silken skirts, dancing among the shell-flowers, swarming over the balcony, playing a dainty game up and down the marble stairs--oh, it was the children! The children were at home!

And when Avrillia saw Sara she came toward her with the loveliest look of welcome, the children hanging all around her like rose-garlands. And if Sara had loved Avrillia the day before, she could simply find no words now to express her adoration. For Avrillia knelt down among the shell-flowers, and held out her arms (which were like the necks of swans) to Sara; and she really seemed to see her this time. And when she smiled at her, her eyes were hardly at all wild, but quite playful and gentle; and so sweet that Sara, for a moment, had a dizzy conviction that if she were a Zizz she would fly right into them. (Though, of course, the Zizzes' tails were bitter.) Besides, Avrillia held her at that minute tight to her breast, which was as soft as her own perfect, contrary mother's, and had, besides a most entrancing, faint perfume of isthagaria.

When she had finished hugging Sara, she held her off at arms' length, and said to her, smiling, in that lovely voice,

"Well, Sara, you see the children are here. Aren't they nice?"

And once more Sara could find no words to express their niceness. And she could no more have described them to you than if they had been so many endearing young charms. But one of the queerest, prettiest things she was sure about: their faces were all dimples! Moreover, they were much more becoming to them than ordinary features would have been.

"How old are they?" asked Sara, in the most delighted bewilderment. The friendly little things fluttered and chattered and chirruped around her in the most distracting way, brushing her face with their wings in their eagerness to get acquainted, and even getting their silver sandals tangled in her hair.

"Well," said Avrillia with great exactitude--Sara had already discovered that Avrillia had a weakness for being considered practical--"fourteen of them are six and three of them are two and thirty are seven and ten are nine, and five are six months."

"My!" said Sara, in doubt and wonder. And right there she had a suspicion that that was one reason she had loved Avrillia from the first: she couldn't do arithmetic! To be sure, Sara herself couldn't add all that mixture in her head--at least not with all those lovely children about--but it sounded like a great deal more than seventy; and there certainly looked to be a million. So, as she stood and gazed, she said, more in wonder than with any idea of correcting Avrillia, "And you said there were just seventy?"

For a moment Avrillia's eyes again grew distraught and doubtful, and she answered, uncertainly, "I think there are just seventy." Then she called to Pirlaps, who was sitting on his step in the light of a glorious flame-colored fog-bush, hard at work, "Pirlaps, have we had any children since Sara was here yesterday?"

"Not one," said Pirlaps, smiling at her with a look of pleasant amusement. "Don't you remember that you dropped poems over the Verge all day?"

"I thought so," said Avrillia, with relief, "but Sara seemed to think there were more than seventy." Then her eyes fell upon the trousers of Pirlaps, who had risen and was coming toward them now, with Yassuh rolling along behind with the step.

"O Pirlaps," said Avrillia, her sweet voice full of reproach, "you haven't changed your trousers! That's just the way things go," she added, beginning to look wild and worried and distraught, "when the children are here! I can't keep up with everything! And the thermometer went off fifteen minutes ago! I heard it, but I was busy with the children. And your shaving-water will be perfectly cold!" She grew more and more agitated.

"Never mind, Avrillia," said Pirlaps, soothingly, and Sara noticed that his pleasant, cheerful ways always had a wonderfully calming effect upon Avrillia. "I'm going right in now to change; and then I have a plan that will straighten things out and please everybody."

"What is it?" asked Avrillia, looking more hopeful.

"It's too soon to tell yet," said Pirlaps, with a delightfully wise air, and he went on up the steps, with Yassuh tumbling after him, leaving them all feeling very much relieved.

Avrillia, making a brave effort to recover her composure, began playing with the children again, and they were having almost as delightful a time as if nothing distressing had occurred, when Pirlaps reappeared, all fresh-shaven and immaculate.

"Put the step out in the sun where it will keep soft, Yassuh," he said. "I shan't need it this afternoon."

They all stopped playing and looked at him in wonder.

"I'm going to take Sara to see my relations, as I promised her I would," he explained, taking Sara kindly by the hand.

"Oh, that's lovely," said Avrillia, looking at Pirlaps gratefully out of her speaking eyes. "There's nobody like you, Pirlaps."

Pirlaps looked wonderfully pleased with himself; and, since there was not a bit of chocolate on his trousers, he looked unusually spruce and handsome, too. Sara skipped along beside him delightedly; only, sometimes when she looked back, she wished she could stay with Avrillia while she was in such a lovely mood, and all those interesting children. Still, Sara's dear, self-willed mother had taught her to be a considerate little girl, and she reflected that she really ought not to bother Avrillia with another child, when she already had seventy to look after. The thoughts of Pirlaps also seemed to be running in the same channel (indeed, Sara could catch glimpses of them, trickling along under that thin, funny cap he always wore), and he presently said,

"It's too bad to bring you away when the children are at home, Sara, but you know they are a great deal of care to Avrillia, and when they're at home I try to do everything I can to relieve her. Now, you see, she won't have to bother about my trousers for the whole afternoon."

"But how can you get along without your step?" asked Sara. She knew this was a personal question, but she felt, somehow, that Pirlaps would not think her impolite.

He looked down at her and smiled, just as her own father did when she asked questions which showed her youth and inexperience.

"I'm not a step-man, Sara," he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement at her lack of information, "only a step-husband. When I'm away from Avrillia I don't need the step."

All this time they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed that they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very pleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of hollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored hills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre. There were not so many Gugollaph-trees as there were in the Garden and along the road to the Dimplesmithy, owing to the different topography of the country; instead, there were a good many poker-bushes.

"My relations live in a colony," said Pirlaps. "There used to be nearly seven hundred of them; but now there are only eight hundred and three."

And just at that moment they came in sight of the colony. It consisted in a large number of odd, attractive-looking little houses grouped around an open space covered with pleasant red grass, which Pirlaps told her was an uncommon. In the middle of the uncommon was a sort of platform, and upon the platform there was something which Sara, at first glance, took to be an enormous statue. But even at that distance she could see it move; so she hastened to ask Pirlaps what it was.

"Why, that's my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather," said Pirlaps, with a good deal of pride. "He occupies the Post of Honor in the colony, you know, because he's the oldest and the largest. He's really great, and quite pleasant; you'll enjoy meeting him."

By this time they were going down a little shady road that led straight to the uncommon. Sara was so struck by the large number of curious and interesting people she saw on all sides, going quietly about their regular occupations, that she could hardly look where she was going. But Pirlaps led her right to the foot of the post, and the first thing she knew he was introducing her. "This is Sara, Great-Great-Great-Great," he was saying; and Sara looked up and saw, sitting in a sort of easy chair on top of the post, the very largest person she had ever seen. In size he was a veritable giant, or even an ogre; but anybody could see that in disposition he was as far as possible from being either. Indeed, his disposition was evidently very like that of her own grandfather (who wasn't great at all, at least not in comparison with this one), even to the bag of marshmallows in his pocket. Sara could see it sticking out--but such enormous marshmallows! Why, each one was larger than the biggest, fattest sofa-pillow Sara had ever seen. And, of course, beside the marshmallows, the Great-Great-Great-Great had beautiful white hair, and twinkling eyes, and all the usual equipment of a grandfather.

"Why, good afternoon, Pirlaps," said the Great-Great-Great-Great, in a little high, cracked voice that seemed very odd. ("As they get greater, their voices get smaller," explained Pirlaps, who had noticed that Sara jumped when the old gentleman spoke.) "Would you like a marshmallow?" he continued, tossing one down to her; and Sara saw that it would have tipped her over, as Jimmie's missiles sometimes did when they had a pillow-fight, if Pirlaps had not caught it. While she was wondering what would be the polite way to eat so huge a marshmallow, she saw the other Grandfathers coming toward her. She knew them because there were four of them, marching in single file, with their hands on each other's shoulders. The Great-Great-Great, who was next in size to the one on the Post of Honor, was leading, and they were arranged in order down to the plain Grandfather, who was not much above the usual height.

At the same moment she saw the Grandmothers coming from the opposite direction, in the same manner. Only, the mate to the Great-Great-Great-Great was leading, and they were coming straight toward the vacant Post. Sara watched them with extreme interest. They, too, were of quite the usual grandmotherly pattern, but were equally variable and extraordinary in size. When they reached the Post they made a sort of living stepladder, like the acrobats in the circus; that is, the plain Grandmother stooped over, like a boy playing leapfrog, and the Great mounted on her back; then the Great-Great mounted on her back, and so on, until finally the Great-Great-Great-Great got upon the very top and so stepped upon the Post. She took her seat in an arm-chair like the one on the other Post, and Sara noticed that her kerchief was exactly the size of one of Mother's hemstitched sheets. She was indeed a handsome, venerable and distinguished-looking old lady, if you stood far enough away to see her all at once.

"Well, Sara, should you like to see the cousins?" asked Pirlaps, when this interesting manoeuvre had been completed and the other Grandmothers began to disperse. "We'll be just about in time for the drill."

"Yes, indeed," cried Sara, who was very fond of watching drills. So Pirlaps led her to a level place which he told her was the cousins' drill-ground. It was hard and smooth, and marked off with lines like a tennis-court, only much more intricately. And there were numbers of cousins standing about, each one looking very erect and alert, with his hand on the back of a chair. Just as Sara came up, the captain of the cousins stepped out in front and called, "Attention!"

The cousins looked so attentive it was almost painful.

Then he called out, "First Cousin once removed!" and the First Cousin marched out very stiffly and set his chair down accurately on the first mark, after which he sat down in it with military precision. Then the captain called, "Second Cousin once removed!" and the Second Cousin marched out and sat down in the right place quite as impressively.

Well, you can imagine how it went on, as far as Tenth Cousin eighth removed; and after they had gone through it straight the captain began skipping them around. It was very lively and exciting; but when Pirlaps heard Sara give a little sigh, and asked her, with a twinkle, how she liked it, she was obliged to answer, "I like it, but--it makes my head turn around. It's so much like arithmetic."

"That's what Avrillia says," answered Pirlaps, smiling. "Well, let's walk around a bit. And then I'll show you the Strained Relations."

Sara thought that sounded very interesting; and, besides, she was glad to walk after standing still so long. So they strolled about, enjoying the pleasant afternoon, and the oddity of the people and their ways. There were any number of step-relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sitting around on their various steps, or carrying them jauntily under their arms. She noticed that none of them had a servant to carry them, however, from which she concluded that they were not so well-to-do as Pirlaps. But then, none of the steps were of chocolate. They were of various materials, however, even yellow.

Once, in crossing the uncommon, they met one of Pirlaps' half-sisters. She was divided lengthwise, and so had only a profile; but, as her profile was very pretty, the effect was not at all unpleasant. While they were talking to her, one of his half-brothers came up, but he was divided crosswise, and so had no back. However, from the front, of course, you hardly noticed it.

"Well," said Pirlaps, at last, glancing at the small clinical thermometer he carried, "we'll just have time to take a look at the Strained Relations, and then I must get back and help Avrillia vanish the children."

He led Sara to a distant corner of the uncommon that was fenced off from the rest by a high wire netting. It looked rather like the high nets about a tennis-court, except that it was made of silver wire, with a mesh as fine as a milk-strainer. Inside the wire, in a sort of little private park, she could see a number of very haughty-looking persons moving about.

"Don't speak to them," said Pirlaps, as they drew near. "They're entirely too snobbish to be spoken to."

Sara approached in awe, and they stood gazing at the pale, supercilious-looking creatures, who returned their gaze through monocles, lorgnettes, and other contemptuous media.

"You see," explained Pirlaps, "nobody speaks to them. Every time they go in or out, they pass through the strainer, and that strains out all of their red corpuscles and leaves only the blue. That's why they are so superior and exclusive. Of course, too, it makes them very thin, and gives them that sheer, transparent look." And, indeed, Sara noticed that she could see quite through one of the thinnest ones, who wore a very high-necked dress buttoned in the back.

Pirlaps was now growing anxious to be at home, so after saying good-by to the important personages on the Posts of Honor, they started back.

As they drew near, they saw Avrillia in the rose-garden near the balcony, looking very lovely as she moved among the flowers.

"Ah," said Pirlaps, "she's already vanished them. She's gathering rose-leaves for tomorrow's poems."

As he spoke, Avrillia, looking up, waved a blue rose to them, and disappeared within the house. In a moment she reappeared, wearing the sweetest smile Sara had ever seen.

Pirlaps looked greatly pleased and touched. And no wonder; for Avrillia was coming out to meet him, bringing him his step with her own hands.