Chapter VIII The Vale of Tears
Such a thing had never happened before, and how it happened this time I am at a loss to understand: but when Sara entered the Garden on this particular morning her eyes were full of tears. She had to fumble blindly around for her dimples, and when she did find them they were buried quite deep in her little wet cheeks. She would have strayed right on into the Garden without removing them, except that as soon as she saw the Snimmy’s wife, absorbed in some simple domestic task, and sitting on her own toadstool at the door of the prose-bush with her tail wrapped so tightly around the base, she felt that she might smile after a while, and then it might be too late to save the dimples from the Snimmy. But before they had touched the whipped cream cushion in the bottom of the holder, two Gunki rushed forward in great excitement, and seizing her by the arms, began to hurry her through the Garden, crying hoarsely,
“She’s crying! She’s crying! She mustn’t cry here!”
Sara had never had a Gunkus touch her before; but, though they hurried her so fast that she was breathless, and the tears hung where they were on her lashes without having time to fall, they were as gentle with her as possible, and she understood that their anxiety was all on her account. She was further reassured when she saw the Teacup fluttering and hopping along—now on one side, now on the other, and now in front—and murmuring, “What in Zeelup, my dear?” with the utmost solicitude expressed on her gentle old face. Sara knew that the Teacup was timid, and seldom left the Garden; and she realized that her affection and concern for her must be very deep, to bring her fluttering along with her in this fashion, without stopping to ask the Plynck, or to think of the consequences to herself and her consanguineous handle.
By this time they had passed through the hawthorn hedge that bounded the Garden, and could see just below them a beautiful little Vale, with a rainbow arching over the entrance to it, like a gate. Inside the Vale the view was not very distinct, for streamers of light mist blew across its green moss, and its white boulders, and the little stream that wound down the middle of it. It was rather a sad-looking little place, of course, but not bitter-looking or very long; and now and then a sun-pencil struck across it, and for a moment made more rainbows like the one at the entrance.
As soon as they had passed through the hedge the Gunki stopped, breathing heavily and mopping their brows with their hatbands.
“Rest a minute, dear, and try to keep them from falling,” said the Teacup, who was also breathless, but very kind. “Of course, if they should fall here it wouldn’t be so bad; still, if you can keep them on your lashes till we reach the Vale—”
“What would they do,” asked Sara, in awe, “if they fell in the Garden?”
The Teacup and the Gunki looked at each other with wide, horrified eyes, each waiting for the other to speak.
“Well, you see, none ever have fallen in the Garden,” said the Teacup, at last, speaking in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. “Before my Saucer was broken—”
“She’s a widow, Miss,” explained the Gunki, whispering to Sara behind their hands. One whispered in baritone, one in bass.
“Before my Saucer was broken,” continued the Teacup, with a grateful look at the thoughtful Gunki, “I’ve heard him say that a little girl came into the Garden one day with tears in her eyes, and that one would have fallen, if a Gunkus had not caught it in his shoe. Haven’t you noticed the old, gray-haired Gunkus, who always wears a wooden medal on his coat-tail—”
“Our grandfather,” whispered the Gunki, behind their hands. This time they whispered in second bass and tenor.
“Yes, the grandfather of these dear boys,” said the susceptible old lady. “He was showing the little girl about the Garden, and so had his shoe in his hand out of respect for her; so he caught the tear in his shoe with the greatest presence of mind, and ran down here with it before any actual harm was done. What the child was crying about I can’t imagine; though, for that matter, why any nice child should bring tears into the Garden—”
“Would it be worse than the Fractions?” asked Sara, hastily.
“It would,” said the First Gunkus, in bass.
“It would,” said the Second Gunkus, in the solemnest second bass.
“Much, much worse,” said the Teacup, in her soft, anxious tremolo. “One snow remedied that, you see; but if a tear fell—but oh, dear, let’s don’t talk about it! My handle is so consanguineous, and I forgot to ask the Plynck—and—and—”
The poor old lady was evidently growing hysterical herself; so the faithful Gunki hastily put up their hatbands, seized Sara by the arm, and again began hurrying toward the Rainbow Gate. The Teacup, having again to put her mind on the task of keeping up with them, regained her composure—at least as much of it as she had ever had since her Saucer was broken.
Once inside the little arch, the Gunki stopped and relaxed their hold on Sara’s arm. “Now you can cry, Miss,” they said, with evident relief.
“But I don’t want to, now,” said Sara, wonderingly.
“Treatment successful,” said the First Gunkus.
“That’s what usually happens,” explained the Teacup. “At least I’ve heard my Saucer say that that’s what happened to the other little girl. But here, boys, you must attend to these two she’s already cried.”
The two Gunki stepped up with alacrity, a little ashamed of having to be reminded of their duties.
“Mad or sad?” they asked.
“Wh-what?” stammered Sara.
“Mad or sad?” repeated the Gunki, twirling their thumbs.
“They mean, my dear,” explained the Teacup, “were you crying because you were angry, or for some more or less legitimate reason—because you cut your finger, for instance, or broke one of the charming children you had with you the other day? Because—”
“It was because Jimmy wouldn’t play what I wanted—” began Sara, hanging her head, and thinking she might as well get it out and over with.
“Mad!” commented the Gunki in unison, with great professional interest. “Then they’ll have to go to the fishes. Steady, now—”
As he said the last words the First Gunkus stepped up and deftly removed the tear from Sara’s right eyelashes, while the Second Gunkus, with almost equal skill, captured the one from her left ones. They ran with them toward the little stream, and Sara was so curious to know what they meant to do with them that she followed unconsciously.
Now this was, indeed, the saddest little stream Sara had ever seen. Its source was hidden in mist, and after it passed through the rainbow arch it disappeared somewhere, as if the earth had swallowed it. But all along its banks, where Sara could see it, sat great frogs, with their green pocket handkerchiefs to their eyes; and every now and then the most dismal sounds escaped them. Sara did not need to be told that they were Sobs—anybody would have known it.
Looking closely, Sara could see in the water hundreds of little black fish, decorated with silver dots and streaks. As the Gunki approached the stream with Sara’s tears, all the Sobs began to sob at once, and at the sound the little black fish all stuck their wide, greedy mouths up out of the water. The Gunki fed the tears to the two nearest, and then they all sank again, with a great splashing and flouncing.
“You see, Miss,” explained the First Gunkus (who seemed to have taken a great liking to Sara, in spite of all the trouble she had caused him), “we have to feed ’em all the mad tears. The sad ones turn into these.”
Sara looked where he pointed, and there, at her feet, she saw numbers of little blue-eyed flowers. They were extremely pretty, and by far the pleasantest things she had seen in this Vale; but even they had a sad little fragrance, and each eye had a dewdrop on it. Sara found that, if she looked at them long, she felt a lump coming in her throat; and at last she turned to her friends and said what she had been trying to get up courage to say from the first, “Please—I don’t like this place! I want to go!”
“There, there, dear,” said the Teacup, soothingly, looking as if she had been dreading the worst, and it had come.
“We has orders, Miss,” said the First Gunkus, stepping up, “that we must keep you here three-quarters of an hour, and show you the whole Vale, Miss.”
“Whose orders?” faltered Sara.
For a moment the Gunki looked quite wild and disorganized. Then the First Gunkus collected himself and said quite firmly,
“Just orders, Miss—without any whose.”
“But I can tell you why, dear,” interrupted the Teacup soothingly, as if she hoped to distract Sara’s mind. “I’ve heard my Saucer say why. It’s so children can understand what kind of a place mothers have to stay in, when they cry. So cheer up, dear, and try to enjoy the scenery. The trip through the Vale won’t last long.”
Sara felt a good deal like crying again—but it was like carrying coals to Newcastle to cry in a place like this! Besides, she was thinking of what the Teacup had said about mothers. Was it possible that she brought anything like this on her own dear, self-willed Mother every time she indulged in a few natural tears?
And the more she thought of it, the more strongly she decided that she just wouldn’t cry. And just at that moment one of those lovely pencils of sunlight, that looked brighter in this misty green place than anywhere she had ever been, fell across her path.
“What’s that?” she asked the Teacup.
“Why, dear, that comes from the Smiles. They live just over the way, you know. We’ll go by and see them on our way home.”
Here was good news, indeed! Sara had never felt more relieved. But at that very moment she drew back; for she had seen several disheveled, cross, black-browed children peering at her out of a sort of cave in the rock. Behind them was a very ill-natured-looking old man.
“Those are the Frowns,” said the Teacup, holding Sara’s hand reassuringly. “They live in that cave with their step-father, Old Man Scowl. Just come on by, as if you didn’t notice them. But remember how they look. And listen to those sighs!”
So that was the doleful noise she had been hearing, up in the little pine-trees? Sara looked up, and for a minute could see them quite distinctly—little wispy, gray creatures, blowing about in the wind. They were better than the Frowns and the Sobs, she decided,—but dear me! Why should anybody be so dismal?
They had now followed the windings of the little Vale till they came to a great wall of rock that rose across it. In the rock was an opening closed by a sagging, worm-eaten door, and in front of the door hung a rusty black curtain.
“Children don’t go in there, dear,” said the Teacup, as Sara stood gazing at it, fascinated. But indeed she had no wish to go in; and it was with a skip of joy that she heard the First Gunkus say, “Time’s up, Miss!”
At that word, back they all went scampering through the Vale, till they came to a bridge, which was made of another rainbow. On this bridge they crossed the stream, and found themselves at the entrance of a little opening between the hills that shut in the Vale. The sunshine streamed through it, and looking down it Sara could see that it opened into a meadow full of daffodils and buttercups and black-eyed Susans. There seemed to be children playing in it, and a few lambs; and down the path toward it waddled a long line of snowy geese. Altogether, it seemed to Sara she had never beheld so peaceful and ravishing a scene.
“This way out,” said the First Gunkus, touching Sara’s arm, and pointing up to a signpost, marked “Exit,” beside the path. Drops of water, like tears, dripped continually from this sign; but the sunshine falling upon them from beyond the valley made them look like jewels.
The Teacup had told Sara that the Smiles lived in a peaceful village just beyond the valley; so she knew that the children playing among the flowers were their children. She would have been glad to stop and join in the gay, fairy-like games the little Smiles were playing; but she could see that the Teacup was getting a little nervous, and anxious to be back in the Garden. And, since the kind little Teacup had broken into her regular habits, and braved so many dangers and discomforts just to keep her company through the dismal Vale, she felt that she ought to be very considerate. So she followed her down the path, which was now turning into a little lane, though she walked backward part of the way, with her eyes on the children and the lambs.
When she turned around she could see a lovely little old village ahead of her. It nestled at the foot of a mountain, and it had vine-covered cottages with thatched roofs, and spreading trees that made a velvety shade underneath and winked in the sunshine above. The air was full of the prettiest sounds; and Sara, listening, thought they must come from the mountain. The mountain itself looked like Fairyland; it was covered with ferns and blossoming laurel and festoons of jessamine; and the sounds that seemed forever playing and skipping about from wall to wall and rock to rock were like the echoes (or was it the reflection?) of happy bells. Sara thought she ought to know what they were, but she could not quite make out.
“Why, that’s where Laughter lives, my dear,” said the Teacup when she asked her. “That’s where your own little Laugh was making off to, the day you caught him. Listen—there are some as little as he was.”
And indeed Sara could distinguish many sorts—small, gurgly Baby-Laughs, dimpled Little-Girl Laughs, Chuckles like Jimmy’s, soft Laughs like Mother’s, and—almost the pleasantest of all,—deep, delighted Father-Laughs that almost made her homesick. They seemed to be having such a very good time up there that she would have liked to listen to them forever; besides, she kept thinking she might catch sight of one. But, though she several times saw the vines swaying, or something flashing behind a laurel-bush, she was obliged to go on without really seeing any.
At the shady door of almost every cottage a pleasant Smile in a very white, old-fashioned kerchief and cap sat spinning at a queer sort of wheel; and the Teacup explained to Sara that this was where the dimples were made.
“It’s the chief occupation of the women,” said the Teacup. “The thread they use is something like spun-glass, and this is the only place in the world where the secret of making it is known. They weave it into this fabric that looks something like cloth, and then cut it into the different shapes with their scissors. You see now why dimples are so fragile.”
The Smiles all spoke to them with pleasant looks, and gladly stopped their work to talk to Sara, as she stood admiringly beside their wheels. She saw a good many gentleman Smiles going happily about their work—drawing water, watering the flowers, or (since it was getting late) milking the little buttercup-colored cows. Here and there, too, a happy Smile, too little to go with the other children, rolled about and gurgled at its Mother’s feet like a Cupid escaped from a Valentine.
All this time Sara had been struggling with a plan that had been shaping itself in her mind as she looked at basket after basket full of shimmering, shining dimples, sitting beside the spinning wheels. After trying to start several times, she finally managed to ask of one of the pleasantest Smiles,
“Do you—do you sell them?”
“Well, we don’t usually sell them here,” she answered doubtfully. “We ship them, you see, to the Stork. He takes our entire output. But, if you like, I could let you have a dozen for a kiss or two.”
Sara clapped her hands, and drew the Teacup aside. “I’d like to take some to the Snimmy,” she explained. “He wanted mine so. Do you think I might?”
“Why, bless the child!” cried the Teacup. She looked pleased and flustered and doubtful, all at once; for she wasn’t used to taking so much responsibility. “That’s very dear and generous of you, I’m sure. It’s never been done, has it?” she asked, turing to the Gunki, who, for their part, were so surprised that they only blinked. “No, I’m sure it’s never been done; but I don’t see how it can do the least harm. Why, yes, my dear—I wouldn’t refuse you the pleasure.”
So Sara picked out a dozen of the largest dimples, and paid gladly with two kisses. Then, though she could hardly bear to leave the pretty village, with the laughter always echoing over it like bells, she grew all at once terribly impatient to take the Snimmy his dimples.
“It will be such fun to feed him,” she said.
For a while Sara was too much absorbed in anticipation to notice that something was the matter with the Gunki. Then, all of a sudden, she noticed that they were looking crestfallen and chagrined.
Sara was sorry to notice this because they had been very kind to her all through this rather trying day. She began to feel sure that she had in some way hurt or offended them; and while she was wondering how she could have done it, and how she might make amends, the First Gunkus saw her looking at him.
“I’d be willing to do anything I could for you, Miss,” he blurted out, turning his shoe awkwardly round and round in his hand.
“What’s more, we done all we could,” said the Second Gunkus, looking deeply hurt.
“Oh!” said Sara, who now understood. “Why-why! You’ve been so kind to me! I’d love to repay you in some way! I haven’t any money with me,” she went on doubtfully,—“or any postage stamps,—or any ginger-snaps— Do you—do you like kisses?”
The First Gunkus drew the back of his hand across his mouth and giggled.
The Second Gunkus dropped his shoe, and fumbled about trying to pick it up.
“Don’t we, though!” said both of them, at last.
So Sara gave the faithful creatures two kisses apiece, which left them beaming.
“Do—do you like them as well as dimples?” she asked. “Because, if you’d like dimples, I’ll give you some of the Snimmy’s.”
But the Gunki felt themselves honored beyond any Snimmy who had ever sniffed. They stuck their noses into the air and strutted along like drum-majors.
“Dimples is for folks with tails,” said the First Gunkus.
It was blue dusk and starlight when they reentered the Garden. Sara, with her friends standing a little apart to enjoy the fun, slipped unseen quite close to the prose-bush, where the Snimmy lay with his long debilitating nose on his paws, looking up at the stars. Sara waited until the nose began to quiver and twitch; and then she suddenly emptied her whole handkerchief full of dimples out before him.
Sniff-gobble-gulp! Was there ever such haste and excitement? Sara jumped up and down with delight, and everybody in the Garden laughed. As for the Snimmy, he was quite overcome, and began to shed gum-drops of joy.
“For once he’s had a full meal,” said his wife, grimly indulgent. As for Sara, she ran off, laughing, to tell Jimmy how funny he had looked.
The Plynck waked up from her first nap and rustled her fragrant plumes.
“Was that Sara?” she asked of her Echo.
“Of course,” said the Echo. “You’ve been asleep.”
“Then it wasn’t Sara this morning—the strange child with the tears?”
Her more practical Echo shrugged her wings. “Go explain to her,” she said to the Teacup.
So the little Teacup, very glad to be safe at home again, fluttered up to her place beside her mistress; and they talked about Sara and her strange adventures far into the night.
Chapter IX Cheers and Butter
You would have followed the Snoodle, too, if he had wagged himself at you in that delightful, insinuating fashion, rolled over and over across your foot, and then gone frisking down the path, looking back beguilingly over his shoulder.
So of course Sara did, as soon as she had properly disposed of her dimples. She went skipping along so eagerly that she did not notice that it was an entirely different path—neither pink nor curly—until she had gone through a new arch in the hedge and found herself in the meadow, with the Equine Gahoppigas, all saddled and bridled, waiting for her.
She had known from the first, just from his general expression, that the Snoodle was going to lead her to something interesting; but she was not prepared for this.
It was clear, of course, that she was expected to ride the creature; but what it was she could not at first make out. It was about the size of a large hobby-horse, and, in respect to its beautiful, wavy mane and tail, much resembled it. Otherwise, it was exactly like a grasshopper. And it was rearing and snorting in a most alarming manner. As Sara stood considering, however, she caught a backward look out of its wild eyes that said, “Oh, come on; it’s all a joke.”
So Sara took her seat in the saddle. Just as she gathered up the reins the Snoodle leaped up behind her—exactly as the trained dog in the circus leaps up behind the monkey on the big Newfoundland. (Only, don’t fall into the error of thinking that the Snoodle was a dog; you remember his mother was a snail.)
It was a novel and exhilarating sensation to Sara (that means the way you feel when you shoot the chutes at the Park) to go bounding through the sunny air on the back of the Gahoppigas. The soft wind whistled through her hair, and blew past her so strongly that she was not even conscious of the Snoodle’s drawback, though he sat so close to her. At the end of every leap the Gahoppigas rested for an instant upon a daisy head, and Sara saw that the heads of these daisies were as big as her own.
Now, though Sara was really a nice child, there were two things she had always been rather greedy about: and they were flowers and butterflies. She had often wished, of a spring morning, wandering along her own garden paths, and gazing at the velvety brightness of the daisies, and the marvelous patterns of the butterflies who uncoiled their long tongues above them, that she might some day discover a meadow full of flowers as large as moons, perpetually fluttered over by butterflies as big as peacocks! Here, at last, were just such flowers; and since the grasshoppers were as large as hobby-horses—no, it was not a grasshopper, it was an Equine Gahoppigas! Still, it was more like a grasshopper than anything else she had ever seen.
You must not be surprised that Sara’s thoughts were quite jerky and disconnected, for she had never before traversed a meadow in soaring leaps, with only a minute now and then to take breath—and even that minute spent among the flying yellow hair of a swaying daisy. Still, all through the enjoyment and excitement, she managed to keep tight hold of one wish—if only there would be butterflies as big as peacocks!
Well, there were, of course; on that side of the ivory doors you cannot wish for anything as hard as Sara did without getting your wish. To be sure, they must have been there long before Sara wished; for the Butterfly Country on which Sara now rested her astonished eyes had the look of a long-settled community. I need not tell you that it was so beautiful it fairly took your breath: you would know that it had to be, with those great flowers nodding everywhere, and those great gay wings drifting, and sailing, and soaring, and zigzagging, and crossing over them. But, all of a sudden, Sara made a discovery that stopped her heart in a breath. In a country where the butterflies were as big as peacocks, the caterpillars were as big as boa-constrictors! Sara didn’t know the exact size of a boa-constrictor, having met them only in her Geography: but surely they couldn’t be any bigger than these! Certainly they were big enough to swallow her as easily as the big black snake Jimmy had killed swallowed the egg.
Now, if you can imagine a country inhabited by sea-serpents, of bright green and brown and pink and yellow, with all kinds of assorted horns and knobs and prickles, you can imagine what Sara saw as the Gahoppigas took its last flying leap and alighted on a flaming marigold at the foot of the palace-steps. Well, of course you would have to imagine the palace, too; and part of it would be quite hard to imagine. It was a gorgeous place, of a beautiful amber color, and was built of solid blocks of honey-comb,—which, however, had been treated by the builders so that they had a hard glaze, to prevent the wings and feet of the butterflies from sticking when they touched the walls. The roof was a woven affair, very cunningly made so that the top surface was a sort of thatch of flower-stems, while the ceiling was a solid sheet of flowers. Of course, in this climate, they were always fresh. The butterflies had their beds on the ceiling; indeed, as Sara arrived rather early, a few roistering young blades who had been out late the night before were still hanging with closed wings from the roof, fast asleep.
Sara could see all this through the open door, which was made of an enameled lily-pad (extra-size, like the other things in this luscious place). But the thing that startled her most, and that you would have found it most difficult to imagine, was the strange way in which the roof was supported.
A very elegant butterfly, who seemed to be an officer in uniform, was standing on his hind legs at the right of the entrance. His waist was very slim, his wings were very rich, and he was curling and uncurling his proboscis languidly. Sara slid off the Gahoppigas and approached as near as she dared.
At that moment a little gong sounded somewhere (like a temple-gong in a Japanese fairy-story) and the Butterfly-Officer straightened up and called out in a sharp, military voice, “Shift Three!”
Instantly the caterpillars that were supporting the roof began wriggling out from under it, and a new relay that appeared as if by magic began taking their places, planting their tails firmly on the floor and adjusting their heads against the ceiling, and pressing upward by making their long bodies very stiff and straight. Of course they did not all do it at once, or the roof would have floated off into the sky; on the other hand, they relieved each other a few at a time, with admirable precision and with no disorder whatever, as if they had had long drill in this complicated manoeuvre.
The caterpillars who had been relieved seemed to be very much relieved indeed; they stretched out their long, cramped bodies luxuriously, and went lumbering off together by twos and threes, with their hands in their pockets. Sara started to follow a bristly comma-caterpillar who went off alone, but he was so big that she just couldn’t make up her mind so do it. She had once fed one for three weeks in a fruit jar, and she knew that kind couldn’t hurt her—still— She felt she was just compelled to talk to somebody; but she believed she would rather try the Butterfly-Officer who was on duty at the entrance. He looked bored and supercilious, but his wings were beautiful.
She drew near after a while and said, as pleasantly as she could,
“Good-morning!”
“Yes,” said the officer, without looking around.
Sara was a little taken aback, but he looked so conceited, as he stood there coiling and uncoiling his watch-spring tongue, that she suddenly felt herself growing quite provoked.
“That isn’t the right answer,” she said.
The Butterfly-Officer turned his lazy eyes and looked her over for some time without speaking.
“You said it was a good morning, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And I agreed, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” said Sara.
“Well, then,” said the Butterfly-Officer, turning away and beginning to coil and uncoil his spring.
This was not a very promising beginning. Sara would never learn anything at this rate. She must be more direct.
“Whose palace is this?” she asked.
“The Monarch’s.”
“Might—might I go in?”
“Certainly.”
What a baffling person! He agreed to anything, apparently, and yet one never learned anything. Sara wandered past him, presently, quite subdued by his elegant scorn.
She strayed on into the palace. She was speechless with admiration—even if there had been anybody to talk to. There were numbers of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting about, but nobody seemed in the least surprised to see her, and they all seemed too languid to talk. Sara heard them exchange a word occasionally, but for the most part they simply stood about, fanning themselves and coiling and uncoiling their springs. Never, however, had Sara seen such sumptuous costumes. Such court-trains, and velvet breeches, and rainbow-colored cloaks!
Presently, since nobody seemed to mind, Sara wandered straight into the throne-room; and there sat the Monarch dozing on his throne, while fourteen courtiers took turns in fanning him with their wings. At Sara’s entrance, however, he awoke with a start; and Sara was terribly startled herself, because it was the first time anybody had really taken any notice of her.
“Bring her some butter!” he commanded.
At his command four of the courtiers drifted away, and presently returned carrying a silvery-white cloth, very rich and lustrous, woven of many thicknesses of milk-weed-silk. This they spread on the green-tiled floor in a corner of the throne-room, near a little fountain that trickled continually a sort of silver-colored syrup, which made a drowsy sound as it fell. Then they flew away again, and after a good while returned carrying a pat of butter in a large magnolia petal. The magnolia petal was about the size of Mother’s best turkey-platter, and as white and fragrant as the magnolias at home. And the pat of butter was about as large as a veal loaf. Of course it did not look in the least like a veal loaf; it looked exactly like butter—a delectable, golden yellow, and all dewy-looking, as it used to come out of the spring-house at Grandmother’s.
“Sit,” said the Monarch, briefly.
Sara sat.
“Eat,” said the Monarch, in the same sleepy but authoritative voice.
Now, Sara was terribly uncomfortable. To be sure, nothing had ever looked more delicious, and Sara liked butter on bread—a great deal of it, in fact. But to eat all butter, without anything to go with it! Yet she felt it would be dreadfully impolite to refuse; and she could not bear to be thought impolite by all these haughty and elegant persons. She was just about to say, humbly, “Please, might I have a little bread?” when it occurred to her that she might just taste it, at least. And oh, how glad she was that she did! For, of course, you have guessed that it was not just ordinary butter, though it looked exactly like it. It was not even the plain imaginary kind: it was enchanted butterfly butter. And if you have ever seen a monarch butterfly as big as a peacock, sitting on a throne, you know what it tasted like. The nearest I can come to explaining is to say that it tasted a little like custard and a little like ice-cream and a little like a sort of candy Sara had forgotten the name of. And it had a fragrance something like that of isthagaria.
The Monarch went to sleep as soon as he saw that Sara had begun to eat; but just before she finished he was awakened by a court official who came in to announce, with a bored expression, that two ladies of high degree, members of families very prominent in the realm, desired an audience with His Majesty.
The Monarch sighed and rubbed his eyes with his feelers.
“Show them in,” he said.
The two ladies came zigzagging in, talking and arguing excitedly; they were the first really animated persons Sara had seen in all this warm, shimmering place.
“The Princess Interrogation: the Countess Leaf-Wing,” announced the courtier.
Then the two ladies, who had been talking to each other, both began talking at once to the king. In spite of their aristocratic, high-bred air, their long necks and waists and slender wrists and ankles, their high heels and gorgeous clothes, they were as angry as cooks.
“She was laying eggs on my food-plant!” cried the Princess.
“I wasn’t!” shrilled the Countess. “What do I want with her old nettle? Don’t I know Croton capita turn when I see it? I was just resting, and she came and pushed me off—”
“She had already come and stuck her long tongue into a lily I had just occupied,” continued the Princess. “And I saw the eggs after she left—”
“They were your own old flat eggs,” said the Countess contemptuously. “You haven’t mind enough to remember where you put them!”
“Oh, roses!” sighed the Monarch, “I suppose I’ll never have any peace. Always on the verge of civil war! Yesterday it was the clover-caterpillars complaining that the zebras were eating their food—”
Sara was just thinking how shockingly unbecoming such conduct was, and how they were all behaving more like children than like the nice, unintelligent lower animals they ought to be, when another messenger came flying in in a state of actual excitement.
“Your Majesty!” he cried. “There’s a strange animal attacking the caterpillars!”
Sara’s heart sank. The Snoodle—she knew it must be the Snoodle! And she felt responsible for him!
She jumped up from her silver table-cloth and ran out of the palace door, with the whole court zigzagging excitedly after her. It was a noiseless chase, for the butterflies (except when they quarrel) are very quiet; but there was much excitement nevertheless. Sara ran a little way from the palace before she came to the scene of the disturbance—and such a scene as it was! Caterpillars everywhere, bristling, smooth, green, pink, eye-marked and eyeless; caterpillars standing on their tails, or crouching in every conceivable attitude of defense; and in their midst the little Snoodle, frisking and fawning and endeavoring to come to grips with the horny and horrified worms. There was one old Hickory Horn-Devil in particular, who had come out in front of the others like Goliath before the ranks of the Philistines; and the Snoodle was dancing around him in an ecstasy of anticipation. Though he was so excited, he looked so good-natured that Sara could not believe that he wished to harm even these fierce-looking brutes; indeed, there was a sort of resemblance between them, except for the expression. And, as she thought that, it flashed into Sara’s mind that the Snoodle did not really want to hurt them, at all, but only to embrace them! So she ran forward and cried to the excited populace (who were spinning this way and that, wildly coiling and uncoiling their springs and crying, “What in butter shall we do?),
“He won’t hurt them—he won’t hurt them! He only wants to embrace them! He thinks they’re his relatives—his father was a noodle!”
At this the people grew calmer, and began to gather around her head, asking cautious questions. The caterpillars did not seem to understand, and looked as frightened and agitated as ever; for Sara was unconsciously speaking the butterfly language, and the caterpillars spoke a different dialect.
“Give me a chance to prove my theory!” continued Sara, in the butterfly language. “Here, Snoodle!” she called, soothingly. “Here—Horn-Devil!” It took a great deal of courage for Sara to speak soothingly to the giant caterpillar; but you see the butterfly people were beginning to think her a very wise, brave person, and that made it rather necessary for her to be one. So she gave a little gulp which the spectators took for a sign of bravery, and drawing nearer by inches, actually laid her hand on the rearing, plunging, panic-stricken creature! He lurched and snorted terribly when her hand first touched him, but as he did nothing worse, Sara grew braver and more hopeful, and began to pat and stroke him and say soothing words. Of course he could not understand the words, but he seemed to understand the tone, for presently he stopped rearing, and at last stood quite quiet, only breathing hard and trembling a little.
“Now, Snoodle, come here!” cried Sara, nerving herself for the supreme test of her theory.
The Snoodle sprang forward at the word, and, as Sara had foretold, threw his paws about the Horn-Devil’s neck. The Horn-Devil sprang into the air, making a sort of wild, whinnying sound (the only sound Sara ever heard, then or afterward, from a caterpillar); but as Sara patted him kindly and the Snoodle only wagged himself ecstatically, he grew quiet again, and allowed himself to be hugged without further protest. Then the Snoodle, having finished his embrace, released his long-lost relative and sat down on his long hinder-parts, looking about at the spectators with an air that said, “There! I’m satisfied! I didn’t do any harm, did I?”
And at that the populace went wild. You never saw such a change come over a nation of people in your life. They showered attentions upon Sara until she was so delighted that she scarcely knew how to deport herself. They proclaimed her a heroine; they brought a sort of sedan chair, borne, not by the common cabbage butterflies who usually carried them, but by a Chrysophanus hypophlaeas and a Lavatera assurgentiflora. And when they had put her into it they carried her at the head of a procession to the royal gardens behind the palace, where no mortal had ever entered; and there they crowned her with flowers which have no name in our language, but which the butterflies call tinnulalia. And they fed her—not with butter this time—but with honey-dew. They fanned her with their enormous wings (as big as peacocks’) and hovered over her, and murmured compliments in her ears, until it was hard for her to believe that they were the same lovely but supercilious race who had received her so coolly in the morning. And when, suddenly, the temple-gong sounded, and the Equine Gahoppigas, saddled and bridled, and champing his bit, appeared at the entrance to the royal gardens, they all took out their cobweb handkerchiefs and wept bitterly.
And, indeed, Sara was loth to go; for this strange land was an enchanting place when its people were kind. But she saw that it was growing late; and, as the shadows began to lengthen, she suddenly remembered that she had followed the Snoodle away without telling anybody. She was certainly older than the Snoodle; he was so young and irresponsible. Ought she not to have told the Snimmy’s wife? Perhaps he was running away!
So she gathered up the reins and saw him leap safely up behind her; then she turned to wave good-by to the Butterfly Country and its strange, changeable, elegant inhabitants. And as long as she could see anything she watched the pulsing, many-colored wings waving regretfully over the royal garden with the strange flowers.
The ride home through the cool of the evening was as delightful as the morning’s ride had been; but not quite so breathless and exciting, because it seemed to Sara by this time quite natural to ride upon a Gahoppigas. But when she slid off her charger at the entrance of the Plynck’s Garden her ears were assailed by an unspeakable clamor of mournful sound; it sounded a little like a Swiss yodler with a broken heart, and a little like a dog howling because the yodler was singing. And it went “Snoodle-oodle-oodle-ooo!!” And Sara knew, with a sinking heart, that it was the Snimmy’s wife lifting up her voice in lamentation for her lost child.
Therefore, for the first time, she was a little afraid to go into the Garden. But she had already been so brave that day that she had rather contracted the habit; so she drew a long breath, and, saying calmly, “Come, Snoodle!” she walked straight up to the pool.
And such a clamor of rejoicing as arose at their appearance! The Plynck was so surprised that she crowed like a rooster; and then apologized to everybody (half-laughing and half-crying) for being so unladylike. The Teacup fluttered, the Snimmy sniffed; and the Snimmy’s wife—that grim, undemonstrative woman—rushed out from the prose-bush and gathered her darling, and Sara, too, to her heart.
But Sara was not through being brave. She stepped up upon Schlorge’s stump, and, swallowing hard, said in a clear voice,
“Perhaps it was my fault. I’m older than the Snoodle—”
“Hurrah for Sara! She’s older than the Snoodle!” cried the First and Second Gunki. And at that the whole Garden went wild over her just as the butterflies had done. The Gunki carried her around on their shoulders; the Snimmy and his wife pelted her with moon-flowers; the Plynck and the Teacup kept up an agitated patter of feminine hand-clapping; and Schlorge came running down the path from the Dimplesmithy, cheering wildly.
When they finally put her down beside the dimple-holder, very rumpled and bright-eyed and flushed, Sara felt her little heart swell with pride. For twice that day she had been acclaimed a heroine—once because she had tamed a caterpillar, and once because she was older than the Snoodle.