Chapter IV The Invaders
When Sara dropped the curtains behind her the next morning she pausedin horror, with her hand poised above the dimple-holder. What hadhappened to her lovely Garden in the night?
It looked exactly as her own little garden was accustomed to lookthree days after a hard freeze. Blighted--that was the word: it wasblighted. The leaves hung limp and brown from the trees; the blueplush grass, and even the blue bark of the Gugollaph-tree, had turneda most sickly green. The water was frozen in the pool; and, imprisonedbelow it, she could see the Echo of the Plynck, perfectly stiff, andlooking as if she were in some sort of awful trance. The Plynck, onthe other hand, drooped on her accustomed branch like the leaves onthe trees, as if she hardly had strength to hold her loosened plumestogether. The Snimmy's wife sat on her own toadstool, rigid andangry-looking, with her tail wound tightly around the base, and withthe half-hemmed doorknob forgotten in her lap; the Snimmy laywatchfully at the door of the prose-bush, with his long, debilitatingnose on his paws, shivering terribly; and the Snoodle looked as ifsomebody had put salt on his mother. And the poor, timid Teacup lookedlike a gentle, fat little old lady who has just been shot out of avolcano.
Avrillia and Pirlaps were standing together in the little arch,looking with passionate and indignant eyes upon the general distressand havoc, and especially upon the insolent creatures who had causedit. For Sara saw, after a few minutes of bewilderment, that thebeautiful place with its gentle inhabitants had been overrun in thenight by a horde of Fractions.
For there they sat, grouped insolently around the fountain, drinkingtears out of mugs of enormous sighs, and hammering with their fistsupon the peculiarly disagreeable-looking tables at which they sat.These tables were of various sizes, but they were all very ponderousand slippery-looking; and observing them closely, Sara saw that herinstinctive aversion was well founded--for they were multiplicationtables. The Two-Times table was nearest to her, being placed just tothe left of the dimple-holder; and they increased regularly in size upto the Twelve-Times table, at which the officers were sitting.The whole crowd of invaders were disgustingly haughty andself-important--worse even than the Strained Relations, Sara thought;but the officers were the worst of all. From the Least Common Multipleup to the Greatest Common Divisor, from the thin, poker-like Quotientwith the fierce white moustache to the enormous, puffy Multiplicand,Sara thought they were the most pompous lot she had ever seen. However,since they were officers and units, she could imagine that they mighthave some excuse; but what possible excuse could there be for conceitin the Fractions, every one of whom had something missing about him?Some of them, of course, lacked only an ear or a little finger; butnumbers of them had only one leg or one arm, and many of them weremuch worse off! Why, at the farthest side of the Three-Times tableSara saw a Fraction who consisted entirely of one eye!
There was one table, to be sure, the Eleven-Times, the noisiest of all,that was occupied entirely by Improper Fractions; but aside from theirtable-manners and general behavior, which were shocking, Sara thoughtthey looked even worse than the proper ones. For one of them had twofaces, another three feet, and a third one had as many arms as anoctopus. Sara positively refused to look at them.
While Sara stood gazing in horror and dismay, and feeling so grievedfor her friends that she could not bring herself to ask anybody whathad happened or what could be done, she saw Schlorge coming at a rundown the path from the Dimplesmithy. He looked as wild and distractedas any of them, but Sara felt a great relief when she saw him, becauseshe knew he was so clever and practical. She felt, too, that she couldask him what the trouble was and he could bear it--better than theTeacup, for instance, who, she feared, would go all to pieces, or theEcho of the Plynck, who was clearly all in. So she ran up to him andtouched his elbow and asked, almost crying, "What is it, Schlorge? Howdid it happen?"
Schlorge, even in his excitement, was comforted by her sympathy, andevidently very glad to see another ally. "Why--a--" he began, and then,remembering, he cried excitedly, "Where's the stump--where's thestump? I have to tell Sara about it!"
But alas, the invaders had razed the stump to the ground, apparentlyout of wanton malice, for they had made no use of it. All over andaround it were strewn plus-signs, minus-signs, and other weapons; andSara noticed that the dots from the divided-by signs were rollingabout everywhere on the withered grass. Manifestly, Schlorge could notget upon the fallen stump, through such a thicket of debris, and hedared not move them nor step on them; besides, it is doubtful if hecould have told Sara about it unless the stump were right side up.
At this juncture, however, Pirlaps stepped boldly forward and oncemore offered Schlorge his step. Schlorge sprang upon it withoutnoticing the chocolate, but he was so agitated that he put his lefthand into his bosom and his right behind his back, instead of theother way around. However, it was in a loud, firm voice, with fierce,defiant looks at the invaders, that he informed Sara:
"The Fractions came down like a wolf on the fold: Their ears are acute but their noses are cold. They know nothing of poetry, music or art-- So why in Sam Hill should they think they're so smart?"
The Garden of the Plynck Page 5