They were half way across the sudsy lake before any of the Suds
themselves appeared. Then a whole company of them rushed down to the
shore. Peter waved his cap cheerfully and, redoubling his efforts with
the soap bar, pushed their raft toward the opposite bank.
“I’m afraid we’ve wasted a lot of time,” puffed Peter, as the raft slid
in toward the beach.
“Never mind,” grinned Scraps, “we’ve something new to talk about. I’m
glad we met the Suds, Peter.”
“Humph!” sniffed Grumpy, balancing himself carefully. “I’m glad they
met us. Now they’ll have something new to talk about, something worth
while.” Peter chuckled a little at this and, seizing Scraps’ hands,
helped her to rise, for little waves were rippling aboard and he
did not want the Patchwork Girl to fade or shrink. But without any
accidents or spills the raft washed up on the beach and they all jumped
off.
“Do you think you still know which direction to take?” asked Peter
anxiously.
“Which direction to take, which direction to take,
I lost my direction out there in the lake!
We’ll have to start on and just trust to good luck;
What kind of a desert is this we have struck?”
Throwing up her arms, Scraps looked around in dismay.
“A wilderness!” quavered the little bear, sitting down resignedly on a
tree stump. Shading his eyes, Peter stared off in the distance. As far
as he could see, there was nothing but a barren stretch of desert, with
here and there a tree or jagged rock.
“Let’s start toward that tall pine,” suggested Peter, pulling his cap
down hard over his left eye and waving toward a pine tree just visible
on the sky line. “If we keep walking we’re bound to come out somewhere,
but I’m afraid we’ll never catch up with Ruggedo now.”
“Maybe he’s lost, too,” said Grumpy, ambling along beside Scraps on all
fours.
[Illustration]
“Yes, but he has a magic cloak to help him,” sighed Peter, “and all
we have is an emerald we don’t know how to work.”
“Which tree are we walking toward?” asked Scraps, blinking her
suspender button eyes rapidly. “I don’t see any pine tree now, Peter.”
“Neither do I,” growled Grumpy, rising up on his hind legs, and neither
did Peter when he looked again. As he strained his eyes for a glimpse
of the missing tree, all the stumps and stones around them began to
change places as naturally as if it were quite the usual thing to do,
while the sand beneath their feet began to slip and slide uncomfortably.
“Wouldn’t this make your hair curl?” Breathing hard, Grumpy edged close
to Scraps. As he did, a whole cluster of bushes jumped up and, seizing
branches, danced madly about the three travellers.
“Here we go ’round the mulberry bush--mulberry bush--mulberry bush!”
chanted Scraps, putting her hands up to her eyes.
“You mean, here they go ’round us!” mumbled Peter dizzily. “Stop! Stop!
Go away, I never saw anything so silly.”
The bushes, however, went gaily on with their dance, but when they had
circled around the travellers at least a hundred times, they seemed to
tire of the sport and all of them skipped off together.
“This makes me cross,” growled Grumpy, scowling terribly.
“Well, it makes me cross-eyed,” acknowledged Scraps, starting forward
uncertainly. “Look out for that tree, Peter, it’s going to trip you if
it can. I’ll tell you, let’s shut our eyes and run!” Trying to walk
straight ahead with trees, rocks and bushes jumping about like colts
was certainly a problem and, closing their eyes, they did begin to run.
But a young tree, dropping across their path, soon put a stop to that
and they all fell sprawling together. Rubbing his knees, Peter sat up.
“Wish we had Kuma’s hand to guide us through this place,” muttered the
little boy, brushing his hand wearily across his forehead.
“What we need is blinkers,” sniffed Grumpy. “Hello, I see something
that hasn’t moved for a whole minute.”
“Where?” Peter and Scraps spoke in the same breath. Swallowing hard,
Grumpy waved his paw toward a great feathery bush, with three main
branches. Without a word they kept their eyes fixed upon it for several
minutes. Then Peter, jumping up determinedly and giving no heed to the
skipping stones and slipping sands, ran straight for the bush. As
fast as they could, Grumpy and the Patchwork Girl followed him. It was
quite a distance and Scraps was tripped up several times on the way,
but at last they stood before the only stationary object in that whole
whirling wilderness.
“Feathers!” gasped Peter, pushing back his cap.
“And it’s alive,” cautioned Grumpy, moving back a few steps. “See, it
has feet.”
“It looks like--it may be--why, it _is_!” Rushing forward, Scraps
tapped the strange creature smartly on the leg. Peter had supposed it
had three legs and no head, but at the Patchwork Girl’s tap, a head
burst through the sandy soil and, rearing its long neck, an Oztrich
looked at them inquiringly. Now an Oztrich, I don’t mind telling you,
is quite like an ostrich, except that it has green feathers and blue
eyes.
“Well?” hissed the oztrich, looking sadly from one to the other. “Where
do you think you’re going?”
“That’s what we want to know,” cried Scraps, for Peter was too
surprised to speak. “Where are we going, how do we get there and what
is your name?”
“My name is Ozwold,” answered the great bird gently. “How do you feel?”
“Dizzy!” groaned Grumpy weakly.
“Bewildered,” sighed Scraps, jumping aside to let three rocks roll by.
“I thought so.” The Oztrich shook its head in a satisfied manner. “This
is a Bewilderness, you know. Bury your heads like I do,” he advised
calmly.
[Illustration]
“But we want to go to the Emerald City,” put in Peter, “and if we bury
our heads we’d smother. Couldn’t you carry us to the Emerald City on
your back?” he asked daringly.
“Oh, Ozzy, if you only would!” Clasping her hands, Scraps rolled her
suspender button eyes pleadingly at the huge bird.
“Who’d take care of my child?” objected the Oztrich, blinking its eyes
very fast and indicating with its bill an enormous egg lying beside it
in the sand.
“Haven’t you a wife?” asked Peter in surprise.
“She’s gone home to visit her mother,” explained the Oztrich in an
embarrassed tone. “I must stay here till the egg hatches.”
“Couldn’t we take it with us?” proposed Peter eagerly. “Think how proud
you’d be to have your child hatch out in the capital!”
“Ozma would give it a hatchday present, too,” added Scraps coaxingly.
“If you stay here, a rock will probably rush by and break it to pieces.
It’s a wonder to me it hasn’t been broken long ago,” sniffed Grumpy,
leaning over to touch the egg with his paw.
“Great moguls! I never thought of that!” Shifting from one foot to the
other, the oztrich looked nervously down at his child. “If you carry
my egg I _will_ go away from here,” he murmured in a troubled voice.
“Might as well go to the Emerald City. I’ve always wanted to see the
Capital. Just wait though, till I get my bearings!” Burying his head
in the sand again, the oztrich stood perfectly motionless for nearly
ten minutes. Fidgeting with impatience and dodging trees and rocks as
best they could, Peter and his companions waited anxiously for the head
to re-appear. It came up so suddenly, when it did come, that Grumpy
fell over backward.
“Don’t speak,” warned Ozwold in a tense voice. “Don’t speak or I’m
lost. Climb up and we’ll start at once!”
Scraps, taking a running jump, landed safely on the oztrich’s back.
Then Peter carefully handed up the egg and, boosted by the little
bear, took his place behind Scraps. Grumpy himself climbed aloft with
no difficulty and before they were fairly settled the oztrich began
pounding across the Bewilderness. It missed all the trees and rocks
very cleverly and, as it travelled nearly a mile a minute, conversation
was out of the question. Scraps, for greater security, wound her long
arms about its neck, Peter had his arms round Scrap’s waist, the egg
balanced carefully in his lap and Grumpy, blinking and gasping, bounced
up and down behind Peter.
“I hope it knows where it’s going,” thought Peter, as the wind whistled
through his hair and the desert sand stung his cheeks and eyelids.
For almost a half hour the oztrich rushed along like an express, then
changing its gait began to travel more slowly. They had come to the
end of the Bewilderness by now and Peter was relieved to see again the
yellow farms and fields of the Winkies.
“I’ve thought of something!” exclaimed Peter, leaning forward to
whisper in the Patchwork Girl’s ear. “If Ruggedo is afraid of hen’s
eggs wouldn’t an oztrich egg frighten him much more?”
“Hurrah! hurray, well I should say!” Squirming round, Scraps looked
delightedly at the huge egg in Peter’s lap. “As soon as you see
Ruggedo, throw it at his head,” advised Scraps, in an excited whisper.
“But I promised to keep it safe for the oztrich,” objected Peter
uneasily, “and I can’t break my promise, can I?”
“You’d be breaking the egg, not your promise,” said Scraps earnestly.
“Besides, Ozma’s more important than an oztrich egg.”
“I’ll threaten to throw it,” decided Peter. “Anyway, we’ll wait till
we come to the Emerald City. Hello, what’s this?” Looming up ahead was
a high yellow wall. With a snort of displeasure, the oztrich came to a
halt.
“Do you see any gate?” he wheezed, curling his long neck around at
Peter.
“I see something over there to the right,” answered the little boy,
“but are you sure this is a safe place to go through?”
[Illustration]
“No,” admitted the Oztrich hoarsely, “but unless we go through, how are
we to go on to the Emerald City?”
[Illustration]
“I’ll open the gate,” volunteered Scraps, slipping easily to the
ground. Running over to the right, Scraps soon found the hollowed
out space Peter had noticed, but instead of a gate, an upright piano
was wedged into the opening. Scraps tried to see over the top, but it
was too tall. Then she tried to shove it aside, but it was too heavy.
So shrugging her shoulders and tossing back her yarn, Scraps sat down
at the piano and started to play the Grand March of Oz, which she had
been practicing faithfully on Dorothy’s piano back at the palace. At
the first chord, the piano, as if moved on an invisible hinge, fell
backwards and Scraps, taken entirely by surprise, jumped over the top.
The oztrich was not slow to follow and he had barely jumped over the
fallen piano before it snapped back into its upright position, shutting
them into the queerest city Peter had yet seen.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]