I'm transparent, except for my exquisite red heart and my lovely pink brains--you can see 'em work.""Shoo-shoo-shoo!" cried Scraps, dancing around and laughing."And your horrid green eyes, Miss Bungle! You can't see your eyes, but we can, and I notice you're very proud of what little color you have.Shoo, Miss Bungle, shoo-shoo-shoo!
If you were all colors and many colors, as I am, you'd be too stuck up for anything." She leaped over the cat and back again, and the startled Bungle crept close to a tree to escape her.This made Scraps laugh more heartily than ever, and she said:
"Whoop-tedoodle-doo!
The cat has lost her shoe.
Her tootsie's bare, but she don't care, So what's the odds to you?""Dear me, Ojo," said the cat; "don't you think the creature is a little bit crazy?""It may be," he answered, with a puzzled look.
"If she continues her insults I'll scratch off her suspender-button eyes," declared the cat.
"Don't quarrel, please," pleaded the boy, rising to resume the journey."Let us be good comrades and as happy and cheerful as possible, for we are likely to meet with plenty of trouble on our way."It was nearly sundown when they came to the edge of the forest and saw spread out before them a delightful landscape.There were broad blue fields stretching for miles over the valley, which was dotted everywhere with pretty, blue domed houses, none of which, however, was very near to the place where they stood.Just at the point where the path left the forest stood a tiny house covered with leaves from the trees, and before this stood a Munchkin man with an axe in his hand.He seemed very much surprised when Ojo and Scraps and the Glass Cat came out of the woods, but as the Patchwork Girl approached nearer he sat down upon a bench and laughed so hard that he could not speak for a long time.
This man was a woodchopper and lived all alone in the little house.He had bushy blue whiskers and merry blue eyes and his blue clothes were quite old and worn.
"Mercy me!" exclaimed the woodchopper, when at last he could stop laughing."Who would think such a funny harlequin lived in the Land of Oz? Where did you come from, Crazy-quilt?""Do you mean me?" asked the Patchwork Girl.
"Of course," he replied.
"You misjudge my ancestry.I'm not a crazy-quilt; I'm patchwork," she said.
"There's no difference," he replied, beginning to laugh again."When my old grandmother sews such things together she calls it a crazy-quilt; but Inever thought such a jumble could come to life.""It was the Magic Powder that did it," explained Ojo.
"Oh, then you have come from the Crooked Magician on the mountain.I might have known it, for--Well, I declare! here's a glass cat.But the Magician will get in trouble for this; it's against the law for anyone to work magic except Glinda the Good and the royal Wizard of Oz.If you people--or things--or glass spectacles--or crazy-quilts--or whatever you are, go near the Emerald City, you'll be arrested.""We're going there, anyhow," declared Scraps, sitting upon the bench and swinging her stuffed legs.
"If any of us takes a rest, We'll be arrested sure, And get no restitution 'Cause the rest we must endure.""I see," said the woodchopper, nodding; "you're as crazy as the crazy-quilt you're made of.""She really is crazy," remarked the Glass Cat.
"But that isn't to he wondered at when you remember how many different things she's made of.
For my part, I'm made of pure glass--except my jewel heart and my pretty pink brains.Did you notice my brains, stranger? You can see em work.""So I can," replied the woodchopper; "but Ican't see that they accomplish much.A glass cat is a useless sort of thing, but a Patchwork Girl is really useful.She makes me laugh, and laughter is the best thing in life.There was once a woodchopper, a friend of mine, who was made all of tin, and I used to laugh every time I saw him.""A tin woodchopper?" said Ojo."That is strange.""My friend wasn't always tin," said the man, "but he was careless with his axe, and used to chop himself very badly.Whenever he lost an arm or a leg he had it replaced with tin; so after a while he was all tin.""And could he chop wood then?" asked the boy.
"He could if he didn't rust his tin joints.But one day he met Dorothy in the forest and went with her to the Emerald City, where he made his fortune.He is now one of the favorites of Princess Ozma, and she has made him the Emperor of the Winkies--the Country where all is yellow.""Who is Dorothy?" inquired the Patchwork Girl.
"A little maid who used to live in Kansas, but is now a Princess of Oz.She's Ozma's best friend, they say, and lives with her in the royal palace.""Is Dorothy made of tin?" inquired Ojo.
"Is she patchwork, like me?" inquired Scraps.
