“Faster! faster!faster!”
“Faster! faster!faster!”
“Faster! faster!faster!”
“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 becamecovered 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? Speakout 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
PHILIPPE’S GARDEN
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 UnclePablôt 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 flower to flower they wandered.
From flower to flower they wandered.
From flower to flower they wandered.
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 worthyand 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, willbe 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 hisgreat 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 ownlooks 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 valleysand forests, the voice of water through the land, sky and earth—all,allwere 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.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESSilently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
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