"
"We blow differently," said his sister.
"Then they don't really tell the time," said Peter Paul.
"Oh yes, they do--the fairy time." And the little girls got more
clocks, and turned their backs to the wind in imitation of Peter Paul,
and went on blowing. But the boy went up to his mother.
"Mother, why do dandelion clocks keep different time? It was only two
o'clock by Anna's, and three o'clock by Leena's, and five by mine. It
can't really be evening with me and only afternoon with Anna. The
days don't go quicker with one person than another, do they?"
"Drive Daisy and Buttermilk nearer this way," said his mother; "and if
you must ask questions, ask your Uncle Jacob."
There was a reason for sending the boy to Uncle Jacob with his
difficulties. He had been born after his father's death, and Uncle
Jacob had taken up the paternal duties. It was he who had chosen the
child's name. He had called him Peter Paul after Peter Paul Rubens,
not that he hoped the boy would become a painter, but he wished him to
be called after some great man, and--having just returned from
Antwerp--the only great man he could think of was Peter Paul.
"Give a boy a great name," said Uncle Jacob, "and if there's any stuff
in him, there's a chance he'll live up to it."
This was a kindly way of putting the proverb about giving a dog a bad
name, and Uncle Jacob's strongest quality was kindness--kindness and
the cultivation of tulips.
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