Part 4

“Soap is it, my angel?” asked his mother, lifting his face in her two wet hands. “Oh, but there is really no soap at all to speak about, just a bubble or two of suds. _There!_” and with the corner of her apron she wiped away the thick white lather around his eyelashes, so that Philippe looked like a little boy made of snow, except for his eyes which were large and brown and filled with tears from the painful smarting. From head to ankles he was covered with a froth of soapsuds, and his feet had stirred the warm water in the bottom of the wooden tub into rainbow-tinted mounds of bubbles which grew and grew and cascaded over the sides with a tiny fizzing sound.

“You are giving our young one a very thorough tubbing,” remarked Philippe’s father. He was sitting under the narrow window of their cottage, cutting the yellow-white sprouts from a bag of potatoes which he intended to plant in the dark of the next moon.

“Indeed I am. I shall scrub and rub and polish until he looks like a wax image, or as pink and shining as the inside of the seashell his Uncle Pablôt sent him from Paimpol.”

Philippe’s father held a large brown potato at arm’s length, and, regarding it with his head cocked to one side, said: “Very fine! Yes, very fine!”

“A good size,” agreed his wife, looking over her shoulder, while she absently bored into the ear of her long-suffering son with a bit of soapy rag.

“Yes—but I was thinking rather of Philippe’s Uncle Pablôt. It is he who is very fine, a grand gentleman who carries a gold-headed cane and has traveled far—to the very borders of our beloved France, and even beyond, so I hear.”

“Oh, very much beyond! He has been in every country in the world, according to the wonderful stories he tells, and the world, Pierre, I understand to be of a tremendous bigness; indeed, if what I am told is the truth, it must be three or four times as big as our own country!”

“Is that so?” replied Pierre doubtfully, starting to cut the pallid sprouts again with quick motions of his work-hardened hands. “It may all be the truth, my good wife, but I have always taken the words of Pablôt with a grain of salt; I think, for that matter, that he is a little inclined to blow.”

“‘Blow’?” asked Philippe from his tub. “I thought it was only the wind that could blow.”

But of course no one answered him, for he was only a little boy, and not expected to understand; instead, his father bent over his bag of potatoes to hide his smile, and his mother remembered that the _pot-au-feu_ (which is a thick soup made of odds and ends and bits and scraps and almost everything you can think of mixed with water in a large pot and left on the fire to bubble sluggishly for many hours) needed stirring right away.

“Take care,” warned her husband, “that you do not drop soap into the soup from your wet hands, for I know of nothing that gives it a more curious flavor.”

“Just the same,” said Philippe’s mother, turning from the hearth, her cheeks flushed rosy red by the bright, hot embers, “just the same, it is a good thing that our little one should be invited to meet such a fine gentleman. It will teach him how to say the most ordinary thing elegantly, and how to carry his head high as if he were a born dandy. Philippe, repeat to your father the little speech you are to say when you meet your uncle.”

“Good health to you, my dear and illustrated uncle! It gives——”

“No, no, my pet, ‘my dear and _illustrious_ uncle,’ and was there not something that you forgot?”

“Yes, Mother. I forgot to make my bow. Shall I make a new beginning?”

“Do so.”

Whereupon Philippe bent nearly double over the edge of the tub, scattering drops of water upon the floor.

“Good health to you, my dear and illustrious uncle. It gives me the most great pleasure to have—_eugh!_ soap in my mouth.... _Ptu!_——”

“Wait, then, until you are dressed in the new suit I have sewn for you,” and his mother, taking an earthen jar of water from the side of the fire where it had been put to warm, poured it over his head, leaving him no longer a snow boy, but a boy made of the shiniest china you can imagine. “Is that pleasant, my brave one?”

“It is warm, like rain,” said Philippe, lifting his arms above his head. “I will not need another washing for a long, long time, will I, Mother?”

Philippe’s grandparents lived the distance of twelve fields, a small woods, three stiles, and the width of a brook from his own home. Just how far that is, is hard to say. You see it makes such a difference whom you ask. Ask the swallows and they will tell you airily that it is no distance at all, just a flick of the wing, and you are there. But ask the snails who live under the broad leaves of the flowering mulleins, and after pondering a long time, they will tell you that it gives them a headache to think of such a tremendous distance, that it would surely take several lifetimes to travel so far, and as for themselves, they would consider it very foolish to start out on such a dangerous adventure when there were plenty of young lettuces so close at hand! To a small boy of eight, it was quite a long journey, taken alone, particularly when he could not take the short cut by wriggling through the tangled copse for fear of tearing his new suit, or being covered with last year’s burrs and barbed seeds of the undergrowth. But he reached his Grandparents’ house at last.

It was a little house built by the side of a river, actually touching the water on one side, so that you could step out of a door, down a step, and into a rowboat. And there were white swans and yellow-breasted ducks with bronze-green backs swimming in the reflection of the pink walls. On the land side was a poplar tree, very tall and dressed in silvery blue leaves, standing erect like a giant soldier on guard before a toy house. Once Philippe’s Grandfather had explained to him how he could tell the time of day by the shadow this tree cast: when it struck across the chimney at the corner of the house, it was time to go into the fields; when it crossed the front door, it was time to enter therein for the midday meal, and when it pointed out toward the fields, that was a signal for Grandmother to ring the great bell that would call the workers home.

“And what,” Philippe had asked, “do you do, Grandfather, when the sun is under the clouds, and there is no shadow to tell the time?”

“Well, then we must needs look at the clock which ticks on the mantelshelf over the fire,” Grandfather said with a twinkle of his old, blue eyes, eyes half hidden by the tufts of white eyebrows.

Although the day had commenced unusually fine, and the calm, blue sea of sky had been without an island reef or bar of cloud to wreck the golden galleon of the sun, by the time Philippe had been tubbed, scrubbed, dressed in his best, had been rehearsed in his address to his uncle, kissed good-by, and given a little nosegay of pansies and lilies of the valley in a paper twist for his Grandmother, and had crossed the twelve fields and picked his way carefully through the woods to avoid the sharp brambles that reached out after him with long and sinuous arms—by the time all this had come to pass, and Philippe was actually in sight of his grandparents’ cottage, it began to rain from a sky as heavily gray as it had been brightly blue before. It started so suddenly that Philippe had to run across the last field to keep the big drops from ruining his new black velvet cap.

The inside of the house was very dark, with only two windows, like half-closed eyes, looking out on the world. Through these windows entered shafts of pale, watery light that cut blue paths in the wreaths of wood smoke creeping around the rafters. Pots, pans, and kettles of burnished copper hung from hooks in the ceiling, and mirrored in tiny points the flames leaping on the hearth. It was like another world, small but complete, inside Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s house: the floor was the earth itself, trampled until it was as hard as brick, the wreaths of smoke were thin clouds flung across a dark sky where yellow and red stars winked and twinkled. At one end of the room, where Grandmother and Anjou, the cat, were busy preparing dinner over the bright fire, it was gay and warm: _Day_; but at the farther end, where Grandfather sat stroking his long white beard, it was dark and chilly: _Night_.

When Philippe entered, he had to blink his eyes for some time before he could adjust himself to the darkness. Then he handed his Grandmother the bouquet he had carried so carefully, politely wishing her health and happiness.

There were tears in Grandmother’s eyes as she bent over and kissed her Grandson’s pink and shining cheek, but then there were always tears in Grandmother’s eyes—why, Philippe never could understand. Did she weep because of the stinging smoke that the chimney seemed too small to carry off? Or because she was sad? Not sad, thought Philippe, or Grandmother would not be all the time smiling.

“Hey-O!” sang Grandmother in her high little voice, dropping a tear in the yellow heart of a purple pansy. “What pretty flowers you have brought me, my Philippe, and see, here is a raindrop in one of them shining as prettily as a glass bead!”

Philippe did not like to tell her that it was her own tear.

“Then it is raining out?” she asked. “It will make a wet home-coming for your uncle, but it is lovely, nevertheless, and if it comes down hard enough, it will make the river flow along more happily than it has for a long day. Won’t that be beautiful, Philippe?”

“Yes, Grandmother Marianne,” Philippe agreed politely, and then asked: “When will my Uncle Pablôt be here? Mother has taught me what to say when I make my bow to him, and if he is too long in coming, I am afraid that I may forget it.”

“He will come,” said Grandmother, “when he has a mind to.”

“And is he coming from a great distance, maybe all the way from Paris?” (Philippe thought that Paris was the only city in the world, built on the world’s very edge.)

“Maybe, and then maybe not,” Grandmother told him. “There is no telling where your uncle will come from; he is apt to blow in from any quarter.”

“Ah, then that explains it!” remarked Philippe innocently. “Father said he always thought Uncle Pablôt was a little inclined to blow.”

“Now did he!” Grandmother was frowning and smiling at one and the same time. “Have you spoken to your Grandfather yet?”

“I did not know that Grandfather Joseph was home; I did not see him,” said Philippe truthfully.

“Use your young eyes sharply and look into every corner,” advised Grandmother. “Anjou!” she cried warningly, “you will burn your nose if you get too close to that roasting duck.”

Philippe gazed into the farthest corner of the room where he saw two dim spots of white glowing like snow in the night; he had to advance quite near before he could be sure that what he saw was the long white hair and the long white beard of Grandfather.

“Good day, Grandfather Joseph,” said Philippe, bowing low before the old man who sat huddled in a chair, the arms of which were worn shiny by the grip of thin fingers.

“‘Good day’? A very _bad_ day, Grandson. Though I no longer hear nor see as I used to, I can feel that it is raining. Tell me, is it raining?”

“Yes, Grandfather,” replied Philippe from the top of a churn where he had climbed to look out of the small window at the river. “It is falling so hard that the raindrops are bouncing from the surface of the water.” Remembering what his Grandmother had told him, he added, “It will make the river flow along more happily than it has for a long time, and that will be very beautiful!”

“_Horrible!_” said Grandfather with a sigh that was almost too soft to be heard. “It makes me feel weak clear through,” he continued. “Give me the sharp cold and the sparkling frost when the river freezes so hard that it cracks and roars like a cannon. When I was a boy, I used to spread my cape and let the wind push me across the slippery ice—— This soft weather will be the end of me!”

There were three people living in the house that Philippe visited; besides Grandmother and Grandfather, there was little Avril, their grandniece, and therefore Philippe’s cousin. Avril was a child of tender beauty, younger than Philippe, quite a baby in the sight of eyes that were eight long years old. Avril was very shy, so shy that she had hidden under the table when Philippe had entered the door, and it was not until he had paid his respects to Grandmother and Grandfather that he saw her there, peeking out at him like a flower from the dark shadow of a garden wall. “Hello, my little cousin,” said Philippe with a grand and grown-up air. “Would you like to play a very important game with me that I have just thought of?”

Avril laughed her pleasure.

It was a most excellent game, so Philippe thought. He was King, enthroned on the churn, and Avril was his slave, and had to bring him anything he might request, with the penalty of having her head chopped off if she failed. King Philippe had just commanded the brightest star in the heavens to be brought him, when there was all at once a loud rapping and rattling of the wooden latch. The door flew open before anyone had time to answer, and a gust of chilly wind swept through the room, breaking the weaving rings of smoke, making the fire leap up the chimney, causing Grandmother in her excitement to drop the wooden spoon into the pudding, and even waving Grandfather’s beard like a white flag.

“_Behold!_ I am here!” cried Uncle Pablôt from the threshold, withdrawing his right arm from the voluminous folds of his cape and making a magnificent sweeping gesture ending with his fingertips being pressed lightly against his expanded chest.

“So I see,” said Grandfather in a thin, complaining voice from his dark corner. “Close the door,” he pleaded, tucking the end of his waving beard into his blue smock. “Close the door—the rain makes me feel very weak——”

But no one paid the least bit of attention to him. Grandmother ran forward with squeaking noises of delight, throwing her arms around the newcomer, draping him with a link of sausage, which she had forgotten to put down in her hurry, in the manner of a necklace. Avril shyly retreated beneath the table again, and Philippe tried desperately to remember the pretty sentences with which he was to address the great man. He was in the very middle of trying to remember when his Grandmother took him by the hand.

“And here is your little nephew,” said Grandmother, “who has come all by himself a great distance to welcome you.”

Philippe stared dumbly, wishing that he had had the presence of mind to slip under the table with Avril.

“_Come!_ What do you say to your uncle, Philippe?” asked Grandmother.

“I forget what I say,” answered Philippe miserably, “but I am very glad to see you, my—my——Ah! Now it comes to me!” And he started again: “Good health to you, my dear and illustrious uncle. It gives me the most——”

“Fiddlesticks!” interposed Uncle Pablôt, laughing.

“—the most great pleasure to welcome you, and——”

“Yes, yes—” said Uncle Pablôt, cutting him short again. “But what do you say to this?” and he reached into the folds of his cape and handed Philippe something small and shining.

“What is it?” asked Philippe.

“Ho! That is better. At least you did not learn that by heart, did you, my boy? Here, I will show you.” Whereupon he put the bright present to his lips and blew a shrill blast that rattled the pots and made Grandmother drop her sausages in alarm. (She dusted them very carefully before putting them in the hot pan that was waiting to cook them.)

“A _whistle_!” shouted Philippe, dancing with joy. Then he ducked under the table to show his beautiful new present to Avril.

“And here is a present for the other little one,” said Uncle Pablôt, handing the shyly smiling girl a toy spade with a bright green handle and a wreath of early spring flowers painted on the tiny blade.

What a feast they had in honor of their distinguished guest!

“I suppose,” said Grandmother to Uncle Pablôt, “that you have traveled a great distance since last you visited us?”

“Yes, yes,” said Uncle Pablôt, flourishing the wing of a duck. “I have breezed about a bit, here, there, and everywhere. Would you like to hear a little about my travels?”

“Oh, _please_!” begged Philippe, although the question had not been addressed to him.

“Now there is India,” commenced Uncle Pablôt, “a very hot country, but as gay as a circus——” And over the roast duck he told them many things in his soft and flowing voice, of elephants, their enormous bodies painted brilliantly in curlicues, circles, and zigzags, swaying through narrow streets like clumsy ships of the land, ridden by dark-skinned potentates robed in ivory satin and scarlet brocades, wearing precious jewels more sparkling than broken bits of colored glass ... of softly stepping and treacherous tigers prowling in deep jungles, of lions and leopards, crouching panthers and laughing hyenas and all manner of beasts ... of birds with emerald crests, sapphire wings, breasts of flaming orange, long, sweeping tails and screaming falsetto voices that seemed to shatter the air into sharp and hurtling splinters ... of gorilla fathers with so terrible a power in their long arms that they could uproot a tree as easily as one would pick a dandelion, and gorilla mothers holding babies to their breasts as gently and lovingly as any human mothers ... of chattering pink monkeys shouting in derisive laughter from their hiding places in the tree tops at passers-by. Leaving the wildness of the tropic forests, he told them of queer-shaped temples and pagodas, lifting to the blue of the sky, made of stone carved as beautifully as lace, where lived the leering and laughing gods of the heathen.

By the time Grandmother had put the crisp green lettuces on the table, Uncle Pablôt had carried his little audience to far-away China and, without so much as a “by your leave,” into the gardens of mandarins and emperors where jasmine filled the air with sweetness, and rose and white peonies bowed their heavy heads around the lily ponds. Far away and far away they flew on Uncle Pablôt’s winged words: over snowy mountains tinted with the pink and lavender radiance of the dawn, through the fiery furnace of desert sands where haughty camels plodded their weary course to the beat of Arab drum and the mystical rhythm of Arab song, up broad rivers where crocodiles basked in the sun ... past cities with towers and turrets, through the courtyards of palace and castle, into the riot of crowded markets with their laughter and shouting, buying and selling, into a land where the streets were water, where the buildings had wings that turned and turned, where the men and boys wore tight little jackets of velvet fastened with brass buttons, and trousers as big as two sacks sewn together. “Oh, yes,” said Uncle Pablôt, “and they all wear wooden shoes so that they can walk safely across the streets of water without sinking.”

“Remarkable!” said Grandmother.

“If true,” said Grandfather, but he spoke so low that every one thought that he was merely choking, and paid no attention to him.

“More!” pleaded Philippe.

“And I was in England the other day,” continued Uncle Pablôt, who needed little urging, “where I visited the Royal Family. That is nothing,” he said, in answer to a look of proud astonishment from Grandmother. “I have a great many acquaintances in all walks of life. Once I mussed up the hair of a prince and ran off with the parasol of a duchess, just by way of a little joke, you know. Did I ever tell you——”

But if he ever had, he told them again, and at such length that, though the dinner had come to an end, and Grandmother had cleared away the dishes and given Anjou a saucer of milk and a bone, he was still telling them this and other monstrous adventures in his quick, easy voice. How thrilling it all was to Philippe. It seemed to him that the gay words flew from his uncle’s mouth and over his head like flocks of wild birds. Some of them were quite ordinary little words, as sparrows are ordinary little birds, but others were long and strange like the queer birds his uncle had told him about. Or again—this tale of other lands and peoples was like music to which the crackling of the fire and the drip, drip of the rain outside made a soothing accompaniment. He tried hard to keep his eyes and ears wide open, but, to tell the truth, he had eaten very heartily of Grandmother’s delicious dinner, and that, with the darkness of the room, the lullaby singsong of his uncle’s voice, and the soft purring of Anjou, made him heavy-headed and in danger of falling into sleep at any moment. Voices came to him through the fog of smoke, sounding far, far away. He heard his uncle say, “But you, Grandfather Joseph, you should go about the world a bit and see for yourself these wonderful things.”

“I am content,” replied a soft, old voice.

“Yes, you are content to stay where you are put, or at best to drift around a bit, eh?”

And then the old man saying, “I drift—I drift—I drift——”

Maybe it was then that Philippe went to sleep, or, on the other hand, maybe it was then that Philippe overcame his drowsiness and woke up to a new interest in things. Certainly, strange and exciting happenings took place in rapid succession.

It started with Grandmother going to the window where she stood on tiptoe and looked out at the river. “Oh,” she cried, and her voice was younger and happier than Philippe had ever heard it before. “Oh! The river has grown up; never before have I seen my darling child so strong and beautiful. And how he runs and laughs! In another minute he will be at the sill of the window. I will open the door and invite him in.”

“No, no!” cried Grandfather weakly, jumping up from the chair and staring wildly about the room. “It will be the end of me.”

“But think, Joseph, how my child will love it! He will splash and laugh—why, even now I can see him creeping under the door in his eagerness.”

Without a word, gathering the baby Avril into his arms, Grandfather dashed out of the other door; and they watched him running across the fields and meadows, his white hair and beard flying back over his shoulders in the mad speed of his flight.

“Now there is a strange man,” Grandmother said to Uncle Pablôt.

Pablôt only whistled softly and looked wise.

“One would think,” continued Grandmother, “that he would be grateful for a nice trip on the back of my child. He will come to my way of thinking all in good time.” She looked around her critically. “The fire!” she said. “How fiercely the fire is burning! It quite makes me boil with anger; I won’t have it, I hate it!” and she ran upon it, scattering the embers with a great hissing sound. “There now!” turning again to Pablôt. “Do you think that the room is in readiness for my son? Shall I open the floodgates and let him in?”

“How about Anjou?” asked Uncle Pablôt.

“Anjou can ride in his basket.”

“And Philippe?”

“The little cradle by the bed that Avril sleeps in—an excellent boat! Jump in, Philippe, run and jump in, for we are going to make a voyage. I—let me see—this tub will suit me nicely; I have a fondness for tubs; and you, Pablôt, can run along the bank. Into your basket, Anjou, _quick_! You look strangely unhappy, my pet. Are we all ready? _Enter, my son!_”