“Don’t make such long speeches, Snimmy,” said his wife, “and don’t beg anything.  Didn’t you blow as hard as any of ’em?”

But Schlorge was already deeply interested in the problem.  He began walking around among them, now and then turning one over with his foot.  Of course there had never been an ounce of flesh and blood among them; they were as dry as bones—­which, indeed, they much resembled.

“I could make them into first-class rules,” he said, picking up the waist-line of an Improper Fraction and snapping it easily across his knee.  “They’d keep the Plynck supplied a whole winter.”

The Plynck!  In the excitement of victory they had all momentarily forgotten the Plynck, though, when the fight was hottest, it had been the sight of her tragic drooping plumes among the blighted leaves that had nerved them to redoubled effort.  Now Avrillia stepped softly under the tree and called gently, “O Plynck, dear Plynck!  They’re all dead, and Schlorge is going to make them into rules for you to break!”

A shiver ran through the soft, rosy plumes of the Plynck; she opened her terrified eyes, and when she saw that the good tidings was indeed true, she began to shine and smile down upon them again like a convalescent rainbow.  The Gunki had already formed a line to Schlorge’s smithy, and were briskly sending scuttlefuls of the hateful fragments down the line.

“I—­I’m sorry I was so useless,” apologized the Plynck with deep humility, looking down upon her faithful friends.  But they one and all began to protest that she had not been needed in the least.  “It was for you as we done it, ma’am,” Schlorge assured her, looking up into her tree with his shoe in his hand; and the poor Snimmy was so overcome by emotion that he was compelled to lie down at the foot of the Gugollaph-tree, with his debilitating nose on his little cold paws, and sniffle frankly.

“But how will they get back the lovely grass and flowers?” asked Sara of Pirlaps, softly.  Her friends were saved; but her Garden still looked sadly afflicted.

“Well, perhaps it will snow,” said Pirlaps, hopefully.

“Snow?” asked Sara.  “Will that bring the grass and leaves back?”

“Why, certainly, Sara,” said Pirlaps, looking down at her with his kind, amused smile.  Pirlaps was often amused at her ignorance; but he was always so kind about it that Sara didn’t mind at all.

Chapter V Crumbs and Waffles

Sara beheld such an entrancing sight the next morning that her dimples nearly escaped from her control while she was putting them into the dimple-holder.  The Snimmy leaped up with a wild sniff, only to sink down again, trembling, as Sara shooed the little rollicking things safely down through the opening.