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Avrillia responded to a thin slice, whose subject was "Nothing"; everybody clapped when this subject was announced, for they felt that the subject was in the hands of an authority, and would be handled in a masterly manner. Nor were they disappointed; Avrillia's speech was in the form of a long poem, which she recited from memory, looking very wild and lovely.
It was pink, this time, instead of curly, but that made it all the more attractive; so she struck into it at once, and went skipping happily toward the arch in the hawthorn hedge. Just before she reached it she heard Avrillia's thermometer go off, so she knew that she was on the right path. The minute she got through the hedge she saw Avrillia, and, oh, loveliest of wonders! What were those?
Pirlaps, at her side, said, "Good for you, Avrillia!" under his breath; and Schlorge glared at the Fractions with triumphant scorn and continued, "Like leaves of the forest when summer is green Our beautiful Garden at sunset was seen; Like leaves of the forest when autumn is flown, You see it this morning all withered and strown."
As far as Sara could tell, the doorknob seemed as neatly hemmed as ever; so, overcome by curiosity, she asked the Snimmy's wife what she was going to do with it. "This is the day to unhem it," she answered rather glumly. "I unhem it every Pinkday, and hem it every Lilyday. I used to hem it only oncet a month, but Avrillia said that wasn't civilized, and whatever she says, goes.
She had come this time especially to see Avrillia. "Do you know where she lives?" she asked Schlorge. "Avrillia? I should say so. Everybody knows Avrillia. At least I know her to speak to. As to what goes on inside of her, I can't say. She's queer. She writes poetry, you know." "But she's nice?" asked Sara anxiously. "Oh, she's pleasant-spoken," said Schlorge, "and pretty.
Very quietly then, while the Fractions were busy drinking, Schlorge and Pirlaps and Avrillia and Sara and the Snimmy and the Snimmy's wife slipped out of the Garden and down the path to the Dimplesmithy. They didn't think it necessary to tell the Plynck, who was too much crushed to be of use, or the Teacup, for whom they dreaded the slightest shock.
So, as she stood and gazed, she said, more in wonder than with any idea of correcting Avrillia, "And you said there were just seventy?" For a moment Avrillia's eyes again grew distraught and doubtful, and she answered, uncertainly, "I think there are just seventy."
"Oh, dear!" cried Avrillia, "how dreadful! The suet came quite a while ago, but while I was slicing it I thought of a poem about snow; and then I happened to think that maybe the air over the Verge might be a little warmer than it is here, and so the poem might melt a little as it fell, and, maybe, stick. But it didn't," she finished, growing abstracted again.
"I vanished them last Roseday." Pirlaps' face fell a little perhaps an inch, altogether. "Oh, are there children?" "Yes," said Avrillia. "How many?" "Oh, about seventy," said Avrillia, a little languidly. "May may I see them?" asked Sara. "I hope so," said Avrillia. "Perhaps you'll come some day when they're not vanished."
Sara wanted terribly to ask for a set of self-learning multiplication tables, but she knew Avrillia was right, and that her mother wouldn't like it. Besides, how could she ever get all that furniture home on the boat? So she assured Avrillia that she was more than satisfied as, indeed, being a dear child, she was.
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