The Box Wood
"Why! Why, they're all in boxes!" breathed Randy, as a group with
upraised and boxed fists advanced upon the newcomers.
"Chillywalla! Chillywalla!" yelled the Boxers, their voices coming
muffled and strange through the hat-boxes they wore on their heads.
"Chillywalla, Chillywalla, Chillywalla!" echoed Planetty, waving
cheerfully at the oncoming host.
"Shh-hh, pss-st, Princess, that may be a war cry," warned Randy,
drawing his sword and swinging it so swiftly round his head it
whistled. Thun, too astonished to move a step, stood with lowered
head, his flaming breath darting harmlessly into the moist floor of the
forest.
"Chillywalla! Chillywalla! Chillywalla!" roared the Boxers, keeping a
safe distance from Kabumpo's lashing trunk. "Chillywalla! CHILLYWALLA!"
Their voices rose loud and imploring. As Randy slid off the Elegant
Elephant's back to place himself beside Planetty, a perfectly enormous
Boxer came clumping out of the Box Wood to the left.
"Yes! Yes?" he grunted, holding on his hat-box as he ran. When he
caught sight of the travelers, he stopped short, and, not satisfied
with peering through the eyeholes in his hat-box, took it off
altogether and stood staring at them, his square eyes almost popping
from his square head. "Box their ears, box their ears! Box their heads
and arms and rears! Box their legs, their hands and chests, box that
fire plug 'fore all the rest! An IRON box!" screamed Chillywalla, as
Thun, with a soundless snort, sent a shower of sparks into a candy
box bush, toasting all the marshmallows in the boxes. "Oh, aren't you
afraid to go about in this barebacked, barefaced, unboxed condition?"
he panted, "exposed to the awful dangers of the raw outer air?"
Chillywalla hastily clapped on his hat box, but not before Randy
noticed that his ears were nicely boxed, too. Without waiting for an
answer to his question, the Boxer, with one shove of his enormous boxed
fist, pushed Thun under a Box Tree. Planetty had just time to leap
from his back when Chillywalla shook a huge iron box loose and it came
clanking down over the Thunder Colt. It was open at the bottom, and
Thun, kicking and rearing underneath, jerked it east and west.
"He'll soon grow used to it," muttered Chillywalla, jabbing a dozen
holes in the metal with a sharp pick he had drawn from a pocket in his
box coat. "Now, then, who's next? Ah! What a lovely lady!" Chillywalla
gazed rapturously at the Princess from Anuther Planet, then clapping
his hands, called sharply: "Bring the jewel boxes for her ears, flower
boxes for herself, a bonnet box for her head, candy boxes for her
hands, slipper boxes for those tiny silver feet. Bring stocking boxes,
glove boxes, and hurry! HURRY!"
"Oh, PLEASE!" Randy put himself firmly between Planetty and the
determined Chillywalla. "The outer air does not hurt us at all, Mister
Chillywalla; in fact, we like it!"
"Just try to find a box big enough for me!" invited Kabumpo, snatching
up the little Princess and setting her high on his shoulder.
"I think I have a packing box that would just fit," mused the Chief
Boxer, folding his arms and looking sideways at the Elegant Elephant.
"Pack him up, pack him off, send him packing!" chattered the other
Boxers, who had never seen anything like Kabumpo in their lives and
distrusted him highly. But Chillywalla himself was quite interested in
his singular visitors and inclined to be more than friendly.
"Better try our boxes," he urged seriously, as he took the pile of
bright cardboard containers an assistant had brought him. "Without
bragging, I can say that they are the best boxes grown--stylish, nicely
fitting and decidedly comfortable to wear."
"Ha, ha!" rumbled Kabumpo, rocking backward and forward at the very
idea. "Mean to tell me you wear boxes over your other clothes and
everywhere you go?"
"Certainly." Chillywalla nodded vigorously. "Do you suppose we want to
stand around and disintegrate? What happens to articles after they are
taken out of their boxes?" he demanded argumentatively. "Tell me that."
"Why," said Randy, thoughtfully, "they're worn, or sold, or eaten, or
spoiled--"
"Exactly." Chillywalla snapped him up quickly. "They are worn out;
they lose their freshness and their newness. Well, we intend to save
ourselves from such a fate, and we do," he added complacently.
"You're certainly fresh enough," chuckled Kabumpo with a wink at Randy.
"But might not these boxes be fun to wear?" inquired Planetty, looking
rather wistfully at the bright heap the Boxer Chief had intended for
her.
"No, No and NO!" rumbled Kabumpo positively. "No boxes!"
"As you wish." Chillywalla shrugged his shoulders under his cardboard
clothes box. "Shall I unbox the horse?"
"Better not," decided Randy, looking anxiously at the sparks issuing
from the punctures in Thun's box. "But perhaps you would show us the
way through this--this--"
"Box Wood," finished Chillywalla. "Yes, I will be most honored to
conduct you through our forest. And you may pick as many boxes as you
wish, too," he added generously. "I'd like to do something for people
who are so soon to spoil and wither."
"Ha, ha! Now, I'm sure that's very kind of you," roared Kabumpo, wiping
his eyes on the fringe of his robe. "And I think it best we hurry
along, my good fellow. Ho, whither away? It would never do to have a
spoiled King and Princess and a bad horse and elephant on your hands."
"Oh, if you'd ONLY wear our boxes!" begged Chillywalla, almost ready
to cry at the prospect of his visitors spoiling on the premises. Then
as Kabumpo shook his head again, the Big Boxer started off at a rapid
shuffle, anxious to have them out of the woods as soon as possible.
Thun, during all this conversation, had been kicking and bucking under
his iron box, but now Planetty tapped out a reassuring message with
her staff and the Thunder Colt quieted down. On the whole, he behaved
rather well, following the signals his little mistress tapped out, and
pushing the iron box along without too much discomfort or complaint,
though occasional indignant and fiery protests came puffing out of his
iron container.
Randy considered the journey through the Box Wood one of their gayest
and most entertaining adventures. The woodmen, in their brightly
decorated boxes, shuffled cheerfully along beside them, stopping now
and then to point with pride to their square box-like dwellings set at
regular intervals under the spreading boxwood trees. The whole forest
was covered by an enormous wooden box that shut out the sky and gave
everything an artificial and unreal look. It was in one side of this
monster box that Thun had burned the hole to admit them. Randy and
Planetty, riding sociably together on Kabumpo's back, picked boxes
from branches of all the trees they could reach, and it was such fun
and so exciting they paid scarcely any attention to the remarks of
Chillywalla. Even the Elegant Elephant snapped off a box or two and
handed them back to his royal riders.
"Oh, look!" exulted Randy, opening a bright blue cardboard box. "This
is just full of chocolate candy."
"Oh, throw that trash away," advised Chillywalla contemptuously.
"We think nothing of the stuff that grows inside, it's the boxes
themselves we are after."
"But this candy is good," objected Randy after sampling several pieces.
"And mind you, Kabumpo, Planetty has just picked a jewel box full of
real chains, rings and bracelets."
"Oh, they are netiful, netiful," crooned the Princess of Anuther
Planet, hugging the velvet jewel box to her breast.
"Keep them if you wish," sniffed Chillywalla, "but they're just rubbish
to us. When we pick boxes we toss the contents away."
"Now, that's plain foolishness," snorted Kabumpo, aghast at such a
waste, as Randy picked a pencil box full of neatly sharpened pencils
and Planetty a tidy sewing kit fitted out with scissors, needles and
spools of thread. The thimble was not quite ripe, but as Planetty had
never stitched a stitch in her royal life, she did not notice nor care
about that. Indeed, before they came to the other side of the Box
Wood, she and Randy were sitting in the midst of a high heap of their
treasures, and Kabumpo looked as if he were making a lengthy safari,
loaded up and down for the journey.
Randy had stuffed most of the boxes into big net bags Kabumpo always
brought along for emergencies, and these he tied to the Elegant
Elephant's harness. There were bread boxes packed with tiny loaves
and biscuits, cake boxes stuffed with sugar buns and cookies, stamp
boxes, flower boxes, glove boxes, coat and suit boxes. Last of all,
Randy picked a Band Box and it played such gay tunes when he lifted
the lid, Planetty clapped her silver hands, and even Kabumpo began to
hum under his breath. Traveling through the Box Wood with kind-hearted
Chillywalla was more like a surprise party than anything else. To
Planetty it was all so delightful, she began to wonder how she had ever
been satisfied with her life on Anuther Planet.
"Are all the countries down here as different and happy as this?" she
asked, fingering the necklace she had taken from the jewel box. "All
our countries are greyling and sad. No birds sing, no flowers grow, and
people are all the same."
"Oh, just wait till you've been to OZ," exclaimed Randy, shutting
the band box so he could talk better. "Oz countries are even more
surprising than this, and wait till you've seen Ev and Jinnicky's Red
Glass Castle!"
"You'll never reach it," predicted Chillywalla, shaking his hat box
gloomily. "You'll spoil in a few hours now, especially the big one,
loaded down with all that stuff and rubbish. Throw it away," he begged
again, looking so sorrowful Randy was afraid he was going to burst out
crying. "Toss out that rubbish and wear our boxes before it is too
late!"
"Rubbish!" Randy shook his finger reprovingly at the Boxer. "Why, all
these things are terribly nice and useful. If we go through enemy
countries, we can placate the natives with cakes and cigars, and if
we go through friendly countries, we'll use the suits and flowers
and candy for gifts. Really, you've been a great help to us, Mr.
Chillywalla, and if you ever come to Regalia, you may have anything in
my castle you wish!"
"Are there any boxes in your castle?" Chillywalla peered up at Randy
through the slits in his hat box.
"Not many," admitted Randy truthfully. "You see, in my country we keep
the contents and throw the boxes away."
"Throw the boxes away!" gasped Chillywalla, jumping three times into
the air. "Oh, you rogues! You rascals! You--YOU BOXIBALS! Lefters!
Righters! Boxers all! Here! Here at once! Have at these Box-destroying
savages!"
"Now see what you've done," mourned Kabumpo, as hundreds of the Boxers,
heeding Chillywalla's call, darted out of their dwellings and came
leaping from behind the box bushes and trees. "You've started a war!
That's what!"
"Box them! Box them good!" shrieked Chillywalla, raining harmless
blows on Kabumpo's trunk with his boxed fists. A hundred more boxed
both Thun and the Elegant Elephant from the rear, and so loud and angry
were their cries Planetty covered her ears.
"Too bad we have to leave when everything was so pleasant," wheezed
Kabumpo. "But never mind, here's the other side of the Box Wood.
Flatten out, youngsters, and I'll bump through."
And bump through he did, with such a splintering of boards it sounded
like an explosion of cannon crackers. Thun, at three taps from
Planetty, bumped after him, and before the Boxers realized what was
happening they were far away from there.
"I'll soon have that box off you!" panted Kabumpo. And putting his
trunk under Thun's iron box, he heaved it up in short order, screaming
shrilly as he did, for the Thunder Colt's breath had made the metal
uncomfortably hot.
"I thank you, great and mighty Master!" Thun sent the words up in a
perfect shower of sparks. "Let us begone from these noxious boxers."
"Oh, they're not so bad," mused Randy, as Planetty signaled for Thun to
go left. "Just peculiar. Imagine keeping the boxes and throwing away
all the lovely things inside. And imagine a country where everything
grows in boxes!" he added, standing up to wave at Chillywalla and his
square-headed comrades, who were looking angrily through the break in
the side of their wall.
"Good-bye!" he called clearly. "Good-bye, Chillywalla, and thanks for
the presents!"
"Boxibals!" hissed the Boxer Chief and his men, shaking their fists
furiously at the departing visitors.
"And that makes us no better than cannibals, I suppose," grunted
Kabumpo, looking rather wearily at the stretch of forest ahead. He had
rather hoped to find himself in open country.