Tatters Receives the Reward
Prince Tatters had little time to think of either the ship or the
fortune, for after a short march over the snow, Chin Chilly stepped
across a small neck of land and the little army found themselves on a
great block of ice, only connected with the island itself by the narrow
strip on which they had crossed. A messenger had already been dispatched
for the Princess and, standing first on one foot then on the other,
Tatters impatiently awaited her approach. Urtha, remembering Chin
Chilly’s distaste for flowers, kept perfectly still, holding fast to
Tatters’ coat-tails and peering anxiously in the direction the messenger
had taken.
“Just like the old days; just like the old days!” boasted Grampa,
stamping up and down to keep warm. But when, a moment later, the
Princess of Isa Poso actually appeared, the old soldier nearly fell from
under his hat. Yes, really! For the Princess was a maiden of ice and,
wrapped in her robes of snow, she stared at the Prince of Ragbad so
frigidly and with such cold and dreadful disdain that a chill ran down
his spine and icicles formed on his lashes.
“My boy,” stuttered Grampa, rushing over to his side, “I’m afraid we’ve
been a bit hasty. Let us consider this matter a little further.”
“None of that,” fumed Chin Chilly, bustling forward hastily. “None of
that. My word is my word. I insist upon keeping it.”
“We’ll take your word if you’ll keep your daughter,” began Grampa
quickly. But, advancing with mincing little steps, the icy Princess held
out her hand. Her nose was so long and sharp that it made Tatters squint
but before he could make any objection she seized his hand in her cold
clasp. At the same moment all the snow men except Chin Chilly sprang
back across the little neck of land.
“Run!” panted Grampa, tugging Tatters by the coat.
“Run!” gasped Urtha. But before Tatters could run there was a blinding
flash. Chin Chilly had raised his sword, snapped off his daughter’s hand
and, seizing her by the other one, he dragged her back across the strip
of land. Then, before a body could wink, the snow men with their sharp
axes chopped away this connecting link, leaving Grampa and his company
marooned on the desolate iceberg.
“You have my daughter’s hand, but she’s already grown another,” shouted
Chin Chilly maliciously. And so she had! The little party on the ice
could plainly see that for themselves. “You have my daughter’s hand and
_that_ is your half of the Kingdom,” shrieked the wretched old snow
King, nearly bending double at his own joke.
“Half the Kingdom and the Princess’ hand!” snorted the old soldier in a
fury. “I’ll snap off his whiskers! I’ll pound him to snow flakes!”
Gathering himself together, Grampa prepared to jump back to Isa Poso.
But Tatters, flinging the hand of the Princess as far as he could,
seized Grampa around the waist. And it is well that he did, for already
there was a great stretch of tumbling waters between the iceberg and the
island.
“He has no more honor than a swordfish!” spluttered Grampa, breaking
away from the Prince. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life!”
“Where is the golden ship?” demanded an indignant voice. “Where are the
diamonds? What have you done with the Princess?”
Dropping with a thud that sent a shower of ice splinters into the air,
the weather cock planted himself before Grampa. He had been looking all
over Isa Poso for Chin Chilly and had arrived just in time to see his
friends sailing off on the iceberg.
“Oh, Bill!” cried Urtha, giving the iron bird an impulsive hug, “I
thought you were lost!”
“Where is the golden ship? Where are the diamonds?” insisted the weather
cock, slipping out of Urtha’s embrace.
“Oh, go crack yourself some icicles,” muttered the old soldier crossly.
He did not like to be reminded of his cheerful prophecy. “Go crack
yourself some icicles, Bill, that’s all the diamonds you’ll get.”
“There isn’t any ship—nor any diamonds—nor anything!” said Tatters,
wrapping the skin of the old thread bear more tightly about him and
staring drearily over the tossing waters of the Nonestic Ocean.
“But you don’t have to marry the Princess,” Urtha reminded him softly,
“and even if this isn’t a golden ship couldn’t we dance and be happy?”
“Well, if we don’t dance, we’ll freeze,” fumed Grampa, beginning to
stamp up and down. “We’ll freeze anyway,” he predicted gloomily. “Look
pleasant, my boy. We might as well freeze as attractively as possible.
They’ll carve us a monument on a block of ice, no doubt: ‘Frozen in the
line of duty!’”
Tatters coughed plaintively and began to tramp sadly up and down after
Grampa.
“Don’t freeze,” begged the little flower fairy, clasping her hands in
distress and keeping step with the down-hearted adventurers. “Why,
where’s that funny bottle?” she asked suddenly.
“The medicine! What have you done with the wizard’s medicine?” crowed
the weather cock, flapping his wings. Now so much had happened to the
old soldier since the eruption that he had entirely forgotten Gorba’s
cure for everything. But at Urtha’s words he snatched it out and, there,
listed under colds, chills, frost bites and exposure, Grampa found a
remedy for their troubles.
“You’ve saved our lives, my dear,” sighed the old soldier, measuring out
four drops for Tatters on a spoonful of snow. And everything was better
after that, for as soon as Grampa and the Prince swallowed the marvelous
mixture they began to tingle with warmth and even an iceberg could not
long be cheerless with a little fairy like Urtha aboard. Everywhere she
stepped gay posies blossomed and soon there were circles and circles of
them bobbing in the bright sunshine. Urtha and Bill did not feel the
cold, and as Grampa and Tatters were now frost proof, their whole
outlook changed. The huge iceberg was sliding along through the choppy
waves at high speed and the sensation was not only pleasant but highly
exhilarating.
“Which way are we going?” asked the old soldier, sitting down recklessly
on a cake of ice.
“East,” announced the weather cock, after twirling around three times
like a top.
“That’s good,” sighed Grampa, “for East of us lies Oz and the nearer we
come to Oz, the farther we get from Isa Poso.”
“I never want to see it again! And if that is a sample of your
Princesses, I’ll be like you, Grampa, and never marry,” said the Prince,
taking a seat beside the old soldier. “I think, myself, that if we can
find my father’s head, we’d better just go home anyway. We could work
hard in the gingham gardens, raise bigger crops and—”
“And I’ll help you,” smiled Urtha, drifting about over the ice like an
old-fashioned bouquet and filling the frosty air with a lovely
fragrance.
“But the fortune,” objected Bill, staring at the Prince in horror. “We
have to find the fortune.”
“That’s right,” agreed the old soldier, remembering Mrs Sew-and-Sew’s
words about refurnishing the castle. “We mustn’t give up yet, just
because we’ve bumped into some odd and chilly places. Just wait—there
are lots of Princesses in Oz, and fortunes too!”
“Well I prefer fairies,” sighed Tatters, with a smile at Urtha.
“Look!” cried the little flower girl delightedly. “Let’s pretend this
is a silver ship and there—” as a spray of crystal drops dashed over the
side of the iceberg—“there are the diamonds! Let’s dance!” She looked
so coaxing and so cunning that Tatters sprang up impulsively and the two
went skipping, sliding and twirling all over the ice until they were
dancing on a perfect carpet of flowers.
“Teach her the Ragbad quadrille,” called Grampa. “If we’re going back
with a fortune, there’ll be high old times in the red castle and Urtha
will want to know the dances the same as the other girls. Wait, I’ll
play it for you.”
Seizing his drum sticks, the old soldier broke into the spirited
measures of the Ragbad quadrille and soon Tatters and Urtha were bowing
and gliding, turning three times to the left and four to the right,
pretending to change partners with a dozen imaginary courtiers—all
troubles and dangers forgotten.
“This reminds me of old times,” said Grampa, stopping at last from lack
of breath. “And you’ll never be a wall-flower, my dear!” chuckled the
old soldier, wagging his finger at the little fairy.
“Let’s play scrum,” proposed Tatters, who was perfectly breathless too.
“Oh let’s!” cried Urtha. So Grampa obligingly unfastened his game leg,
and the Prince and little flower girl were soon deep in the mysteries of
the queer old game of scrum, Bill keeping score on the ice and the old
soldier, with half closed eyes, thinking of the good old days when he
was a lad and a hero to all the pretty girls in Ragbad.
“First peaceful moment we’ve had since we left the old country,” mused
Grampa and, reaching down, he picked up his pipe and tobacco. Tatters
had removed them from the game leg before they started to play. Absently
Grampa filled his pipe from one of the pouches—the blue pouch he had
taken from Vaga, the bandit. All this time it had lain forgotten in
Grampa’s game leg. Without realizing that he had used the robber’s
tobacco, Grampa felt for a match. At the same moment Urtha and Tatters
finished their fifth game of scrum and, closing up the game leg, they
buckled it back in place.
“Now tell me all about Ragbad,” begged Urtha, leaning against Grampa’s
knee. This Tatters was only too delighted to do, for the young Prince
was heartily homesick and, as he could not be in Ragbad, talking about
it was the next best thing. So he told little Urtha all about his
pigeons and the Redsmith and Pudge’s tower—where you could see clear out
into Jinxland—and of the fun he and Grampa had in the old castle and of
Mrs Sew-and-Sew’s garden. The old soldier nodded from time to time and
at last, taking up his pipe, he began to smoke. I say began, for at the
third puff a simply astonishing thing happened. Bill vanished instanter
[and you know how quick that is]. Tatters turned to a great black
crow, Urtha to a crow of vari-colored feathers, and Grampa, himself, to
an old crow with a game leg.
“Help!” cawed the old soldier, dropping the pipe from his bill and
beginning to hop wildly over the ice.
“Daisies and dahlias, I can fly!” twittered Urtha, circling aloft.
“Come on Tatters and try it!”
“He’s a crow!” shrieked Grampa. “I’m a crow, you’re a crow! What’s
happened and where’s Bill?”
“Here I am,” screamed a frightened voice. But though they stared and
stared they could see nothing at all—for Bill had turned to a cock’s
crow, which of course can only be heard and not seen.
“Poor Bill, there’s nothing left but his crow,” cawed Grampa.
“It’s magic,” gasped Tatters.
“It’s that pesky wizard,” added the old soldier, stamping his game foot
and ruffling up all his feathers, for Grampa did not realize he’d smoked
Yaga’s tobacco.
“But now that we’re crows why not fly?” asked Urtha merrily. She did not
seem to mind her feathers at all. “Let’s fly back to Oz!”
“Why, so we can!” cried Tatters. “All the way over the Nonestic Ocean
and sandy desert, straight to the Emerald City itself. Someone’s helping
us, Grampa,” finished the Prince of Ragbad, fluttering into the air.
“Wish they’d mind their own business,” croaked Grampa crossly. “Being a
crow is no help to me. But come on. We might as well fly while we can.
Bill, you lead the way and see that you keep us pointed East and crow
every few minutes, will you, so we can hear where you are.”
“All right,” agreed the weather cock readily, and they could tell from
the flutter of his iron wings that the puzzled bird had gotten under
way.
“Here I go by the name of Bill!” he crowed loudly. “Invisi-Bill!”
chortled the old soldier, rising into the air. “Come on crows!”
Tatters quickly followed Grampa and after Tatters flew Urtha, higher and
higher and higher, until the iceberg became only a tiny speck, bobbing
up and down in the blue waters of the Nonestic Ocean.
For a time the adventurers flew in silence, each one pondering the
strange events that had crowded upon them in the past few hours.
“Invisi-Bill” continued to lead the way, Grampa, Prince Tatters and
Urtha winging after him.