Walking slowly at first, and then more briskly, Peter and his
companions hurried on in the direction Scraps had pointed out. Grumpy
was very helpful, for whenever they were in doubt, the little bear
would climb a tree and, after looking all around, would guide them to
the best and widest of the roads that ran hither and thither through
the pleasant land of the Winkies. After his last climb, Grumpy had
reported a village ahead and, quite cheerfully, they trudged along
under the banana trees that edged the roadway.
“Even if Ruggedo has reached the Emerald City,” remarked Scraps, waving
to a Winkie farmer at work in the fields, “we’ll find some way to
capture him. Our wizard is very clever, boys. Perhaps he has captured
him already!”
“But with the magic cloak, Ruggedo will be invisible,” answered Peter
gravely, “all but the patch, and no one will know that he is there. I
hope he’s still in Zamagoochie. Do you think Ozma will be able to send
me back to Philadelphia, Scraps?”
“Of course!” chuckled the Patchwork Girl, skipping at the mere mention
of the little Queen. “Ozma can do anything.”
“Well, I hope she sends me back in time for the game,” sighed Peter.
“It’s only three days off and I’m pitcher. And I wish I could take
Grumpy back for a mascot. Would you like to be our mascot, Grumpy?”
“It doesn’t sound safe,” mumbled Grumpy, wiggling his nose very fast.
“What is a mascot, Peter?”
“Oh, a kind of pet to bring one luck,” explained the little boy. “You
could come to all the games and have all the cake and peanuts you
wanted.” Grumpy considered the matter for a few moments, then, dropping
on all fours, shook his head.
“I belong to Scraps,” he announced, looking up admiringly at the
Patchwork Girl. “I’m her pet. Besides, I’ll never leave Oz.”
“Why not?” asked Peter in surprise.
“Oh, because--” Rearing up on his hind legs, Grumpy waved his paw
solemnly. “In your country, Peter, I could only be a bear, but in Oz,
I’m a bear and a person, too. That’s why it’s more fun to be an animal
in Oz than a person. Look at me,” he exclaimed complacently. “I can do
everything a boy can do and everything a bear can do, so, of course, I
have twice as much fun! Can you do this, for instance?” Drawing himself
up into a ball, Grumpy started rolling down a grassy slope at the side
of the road.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Scraps, running after Grumpy, “he has you there,
Peter.”
“Yes, but we shouldn’t have turned off the road,” objected Peter,
hurrying after the Patchwork Girl. “Stop! Scraps, stop!”
From a gentle slope, the hillside dropped suddenly downward and now
none of them could stop. Faster and faster rolled Grumpy, faster and
faster ran Scraps and Peter, catching at trees and bushes to keep from
falling. Instead of grass, the ground beneath their feet grew smooth
and slippery as ice and from an incline the hill turned to a regular
mountain side. It reminded Peter of the time he had tried skiing and,
after several frantic attempts to keep his balance, he fell flat on
his face and finished the slide on his stomach. Scraps, too, after
a few wild spins and flourishes, sat down hard and, in a state of
breathless surprise, they reached the foot of the mountain. Grumpy had
travelled most of the way on his ear and was growling terribly in his
own language. He was covered with a fine yellow powder and, as Scraps
and Peter slid past, he began to lick his fur furiously. But one taste
was enough.
“Soap!” coughed the little bear, wrinkling up his nose. “Yellow soap,
too!”
“No wonder it was so slippery,” said Peter slowly. “Now how are we
going to climb up again?”
“We’re not!” announced Scraps, rising to her feet with great
difficulty. “Might as well try to walk up a looking glass. Why, what
funny trees!”
“They’re rubber,” announced Grumpy, giving himself a shake, “and every
branch is a spray.”
“A bath spray,” marveled Peter, staring up at the snakelike mass of
tubes overhead. They had landed directly under one of the rubber trees
and, as Peter spoke, from every spray a perfect shower of warm water
sprinkled down upon them. Covered with soap from their slide down
the mountain, they were soon in a fine lather, especially the little
bear. When they tried to dash out from under the rubber tree, they
immediately slipped and fell, for the ground was green soap and even
more slippery than Soap Mountain. Spluttering with surprise and shock,
they finally crawled on their hands and knees out of the tree’s range.
[Illustration]
“Water!” groaned Scraps dolefully.
“Water makes my spirits sink,
It’s very bad for me, I think,
I know I’ll fade, perhaps I’ll shrink.”
“Don’t shrink,” begged Peter in alarm. “Shake yourself, old girl.”
Balancing herself with difficulty, the Patchwork Girl began shaking
herself vigorously and wringing out her skirts, while Peter, rubbing
the soap from his own eyes, saw that they were in a strange and amazing
village, where everything was soap. The houses were built of small,
square cakes and the walks laid out in large blocks of green soap.
Turkish towel trees edged all the avenues and, stepping cautiously to
the nearest one, Peter picked a towel and wiped his dripping face.
Grumpy soon followed his example. Then both went to help Scraps, who
was feeling both damp and discouraged. They were fanning her briskly
with dry towels, when a procession of villagers came skating down the
main street.
“So that’s how they manage it,” whistled Peter, taking a few skating
steps himself to see how it was done.
“More soap?” grumbled Grumpy. “Let’s run!”
“No, let’s wait and see what they have to say,” whispered Peter.
The villagers were quite close by this time and Peter was amazed to see
that they also were entirely made of soap. They wore turbans and robes
of turkish toweling and, with their arms tucked comfortably in their
flowing sleeves, came skating toward the travellers. Some of them were
pink, some green, some white and others violet, and they were all about
the size of ten-year-old children.
“Hello!” said Peter politely, as the first soapman came to an abrupt
stop before him. “How do you do?”
“As I please, mostly,” retorted the soapman shortly, “but I’m afraid
you won’t do at all. Who cut you out, anyway?”
“Oh, fall down!” advised Grumpy, picking up his towel and beginning to
fan Scraps again. “Fall down, why don’t you?”
“Who are you?” sniffed the Patchwork Girl, wringing her hands. They
were still full of water.
“We are Suds,” answered the villager proudly. “But we will have to take
you to the Sultan. Are you hard or soft?” he asked, turning again to
Peter.
“Hard!” cried the little boy, stamping his foot defiantly. He regretted
this action almost immediately, for his heel, slipping on the soap
sidewalk, threw him down on the back of his head. At this the Suds
simply bubbled over with amusement and scorn. Then one Sud seized
him by the left arm, another by the right, and started skating down
the street. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Scraps and Grumpy
were being treated in the same sudden fashion. But soon he grew so
interested in his surroundings that he almost forgot his indignation.
The cottages of smooth green and pink soap were really charming. The
gardens were full of soap-bubble bushes and vines and the bubbles, with
their shining colors, sparkled and shimmered in the sunshine. Fountains
of perfume filled the air with fragrance and, besides the turkish towel
and rubber trees, there were bushes covered with snowy powder puffs.
As they reached the stately green soap palace it began to snow and,
catching one of the flakes on the back of his hand, Peter discovered it
was a soap flake. Hurrying them through the soap stone gates, the Suds
pounded upon the castle door. It was immediately opened by a tar soap
slave in a yellow robe and turban.
“Take these interlopers to Shampoozle,” said the Sud who had first
spoken to Peter.
“Whoozle?” gasped the Patchwork Girl, shaking the soap flakes from her
hair. No one deigned to answer her question, but at the Sud’s command
two more slaves appeared and, bowing out the villagers, closed the
castle door.
“Follow me, interlopers,” said the slave and, skimming expertly over
the polished soap floor, he started down the royal hallway.
[Illustration]
“I suppose we might as well,” giggled Peter and, taking Grumpy’s paw,
began sliding after the slave. The two other slaves slid gravely behind
and, as they reached two royal purple soap doors, the first slave threw
up his arm and cried impressively:
“Give three salaams for the Sultan of Suds!” and, jerking open the
door, he fell flat upon his nose. It was so unexpected that Peter and
Grumpy lost their balance and salaamed in spite of themselves, but the
Patchwork Girl slid defiantly up to the throne itself.
“I don’t give three slams for anyone!” announced Scraps, snapping her
fingers under Shampoozle’s nose. “Show us the way out of here.”
“What!” snorted the Sultan, rising shakily from his throne. “You refuse
to salaam? Caka! Bara!” He clapped his hands sharply. “Salaam her!” At
his command, the two slaves behind Scraps seized her arms and, forcing
her downward, touched her cotton nose to the floor three times.
While Scraps was still choking and spluttering with rage, Peter and
Grumpy regained their footing and stared curiously at Shampoozle. He
was sitting on an ivory soap throne with red sponge cushions. He seemed
to be made of green soap and his towel turban was twice as high as the
turbans of the other Suds.
“That will teach you how to treat a Sultan,” sniffed Shampoozle,
shaking a finger severely at the Patchwork Girl.
“Sultan!” cried Scraps, giving Caka and Bara each a push. “You’re not a
Sultan, you’re an Insultan.”
Shampoozle’s eyes grew round with displeasure and Peter and Grumpy had
some difficulty to conceal their mirth.
[Illustration]
“There, there!” said the Sultan testily, “don’t be impertinent. Kindly
answer my questions, so I can put you in your proper places. What kind
of soap are you made of, hard or soft, laundry or tub--are you floaters
or sinkers?”
“We’re not soap at all,” declared Peter indignantly. “I should think--”
“Tut! Tut!” interrupted Shampoozle loftily, “I _am_ thinking. Don’t
talk so fast, we’ll soon make good soap of you. Why, we can make soap
of anything, even rubbish,” he finished proudly. “Caka! Bara! Just see
how they lather.”
Before Peter or the others had time to object, the two slaves, with
three wet sponges, were rubbing vigorously at their cheeks.
“No lather at all,” sighed Shampoozle in evident disappointment. “Never
mind, I’ll use you somehow. That creature,” he pointed contemptuously
at Grumpy, “that creature, flattened out and rolled down, will make an
excellent bath mat. The rag girl can be ripped up into wash cloths and
the boy boiled down to soap fat.”
“Bath mat!” roared the little bear, putting back his ears. “Why, you
can’t make a bath mat out of me. Don’t you know I’m a pet? You’d better
not touch Scraps either, she’s a Queen and Peter’s a pitcher!”
“Pause!” commanded the Sultan, extending his arm wearily.
“I’ll pause and claw you!” threatened Grumpy, doubling up his furry
fists. “We’re on our way to the Emerald City to save the Queen and
you daren’t stop us!” While Grumpy was saying, or rather growling
all this, Peter had noticed an open window at the back of the throne
room. Signaling to Scraps, he pushed aside the soap slaves and, seizing
Grumpy’s paw, made a grand slide for freedom. Scraps reached the window
first and recklessly jumped. Then Peter and Grumpy, without one look,
jumped down after her. Fortunately, Scraps landed first so that the
little bear and the little boy had something soft to fall upon. The
drop from the window was nearly thirty feet and they looked around
rather breathlessly.
[Illustration]
“Did we hurt you?” asked Peter, hopping up quickly and pulling Grumpy
to his feet.
“No!” puffed the Patchwork Girl, raising her head experimentally, “but
I feel rather flat. Shake me up, boys, and then we’d better run.” So
Grumpy took one of her arms and Peter the other and they shook with all
their might. Scraps’ cotton stuffing was still damp from the rubber
tree’s shower and her face had a wrinkled and rough-dry look but, quite
cheerfully, she patted herself into shape. They had fallen on a flat
gray beach and, leaning down to examine the soil, Peter discovered it
was sand soap. Without stopping to discover anything more, they started
to run along the shore of a deep blue lake. As the waves broke on the
shore, they frothed and foamed beautifully and dancing soap bubbles
formed and floated over the waves. At any other time Peter would have
liked to stop and admire the view but, fearing pursuit, they all ran
along as fast as they could. Cliffs of soap stone rose steeply in
places and there seemed no way to cross the lake nor to escape from
the slippery clutches of the Sultan of Suds. Finally rounding a large
cliff, they came to an abandoned soap building. White soap bricks were
lying about in orderly piles and stacked against the building itself
were several huge slabs of soap, evidently intended for doors. Picking
up one of the soap bricks, Peter hurled it into the lake and, as it
floated jauntily off, threw his cap into the air.
“I have it!” cried Peter gaily. “This soap floats. We’ll drag one of
the big pieces down to the edge of the lake and float across.”
It was hard work, for the slab they chose was both thick and heavy,
but at last, after much pulling, tugging, grunting and pushing, they
managed to launch their queer raft. Peter and Grumpy carried Scraps
out so she would not get wet again, then, climbing carefully aboard
themselves, sat down on the slippery surface. Peter had sensibly
brought along a long bar of green soap and, using this as a pole, he
pushed the raft out into the current.
“Good-bye to Suds!” yelled Scraps, as they slipped smoothly over the
blue waters of the lake,
“Good-bye to soap and water, too,
Shampoozle, you’re a sham--shampooh!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]