Kabumpo in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson (best books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📕
"Bombshells!" cried the King angrily.
"The cake disappeared before the party, your Majesty!" cried Eejabo.
Everyone jumped at the sudden interruption, and Eejabo, who had crept in unnoticed, stepped before the throne.
"Disappeared," continued Eejabo hoarsely, dripping blue water all over the royal rugs. "One minute there it was on the pantry table. Next minute- gone!" croaked Eejabo flinging up his hands and shrugging his shoulders.
"Then, before a fellow could turn around, it was back. 'Tweren't our fault if magic got mixed into it, and here we have been dipped for nothing!"
"Well, why didn't you say so before!" asked the King in exasperation.
"Fine chance I had to say anything!" sniffed Eejabo, wringing out his lace ruffles.
"eh-rr-you may have the day off, my good man," said Pompus, with an apologetic cough-- "
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On the face of the mirror as Kabumpo looked in two words appeared: Elegant elephant.
And when Pompus snatched the mirror, above his reflection stood the words: Fat Old King
Then Queen Pozy peeped into the mirror, which promptly flashed: Lovely Queen.
“Why, it’s telling the truth!” screamed Pompa, looking over his mother’s shoulder. At this the words “Charming Prince” formed quickly in the glass.
The Prince grinned at his father, who was now quite beside himself with rage.
“You think I’m fat and old, do you!” snorted the King flinging the gold mirror face down on the table. “this is a nice day, I must say! Scrolls, door knobs, mirrors and insults!”
“But what can P.A. stand for?” mused Queen Pozy thoughtfully.
“Plain enough,” chuckled Kabumpo, maliciously. “It stands for perfectly awful!”
“Who’s perfectly awful?” asked Pompus suspiciously.
“Why, Faleero,” sniffed the Elegant Elephant. “That’s plain enough to everybody!”
“Dip him!” shrieked Pompus. “I’ve had enough of this!! Dip him—do you hear?”
“That,” yawned Kabumpo, straightening his silk robe, “is impossible!” And, considering his size it was. But just that minute the Prime Pumper returned and in his interest to hear what the Princess Faleero had said the King forgot about dipping Kabumpo.
The courier from the Princess stepped forward.
“Her Highness,“puffed the Prime Pumper, who had run all the way, “Her Highness accepts Prince Pompadore with pleasure and will marry him to-mor-ow morning.”
Prince Pompadore gave a dismal groan.
“Fine!” cried the King, rubbing his hands together.
“Let everything be made ready for the ceremony, and in the meantime”—Pompus glared about fiercely—“I forbid anyone’s disappearing. I am still the King! Set a guard around the castle, Pumper, to watch for any signs of disappearance, and if so much as a fence paling disappears,”—he drew himself up—“notify me at once!” Then turning to the throne Pompus gave his arm to Queen Pozy and together they started for the garden.
“Do you mean to say you are going to pay no attention to the mirror or door knob?” cried Kabumpo, planting himself in the King’s path.
“Go away,” said Pompus crossly
“Oyes! Oyes! Way for their Majesties!” cried the Prime Pumper, running ahead with his silver staff, and the royal couple swept out of the banquet hall.
“Never mind, Kabumpo,” said the Prince, flinging his arm affectionately around the Elegant Elephant’s trunk, “I dare say Faleero has her good points—and we cannot let the old Kingdom disappear, you know!”
“Fiddlesticks!” choked Kabumpo. She’ll make a door mat of you, Pompa—Prince Pompadormat—that’s what you’ll be! Let’s run away” he proposed, his little eyes twinkling anxiously.
“I couldn’t do that and let the Kingdom disappear, it wouldn’t be right,” sighed the Prince, and sadly he followed his parents into the royal gardens.
“The King’s a Gooch!” gulped the Elegant Elephant unhappily. Then, all at once he flung up his trunk. “Somebody’s going to disappear around here,” he wheezed darkly, “that’s certain!” With a mighty rustling of his silk robe, Kabumpo hurried off to his own royal quarters in the palace.
Left alone, Prince Pompa threw himself down at the foot of the throne, and gazed sadly into space.
Once in his own apartment, Kabumpo pulled the bell rope furiously.
“My pearls and my purple plush robe! Bring them at once!” he puffed when his personal attendant appeared in the doorway.
“Yes, Sir! Are you going out, Sir?” murmured the little Pumperdinkian, hastening to a great chest in the corner of the big marble room, to get out of the robe.
“Not unless disappearing is going out,” said Kabumpo more mildly, for he was quite fond of this little man who waited on him. “But I’m liable to disappear any minute. So are you. So is everybody, and I, for my part, wish to do the thing well and disappear with as much elegance as possible. Have you heard about the magic scroll, Spezzle?”
“Yes Sir!” quavered Spezzle, mounting a ladder to adjust the Elegant Elephant’s pearls and gorgeous robe of state. “Yes, Sir, and my head’s going round and round like—”
“Like what?” asked Kabumpo, looking approvingly at his reflection in the long mirror.
“I can’t rightly say, Sir,” sighed Spezzle. “This disappearing has me that mixed up I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Well, don’t start by losing your head,” chuckled Kabumpo. “there—that will do very well.” He lifted the little man down from the ladder.
“Goodbye, Spezzle. If you should disappear before I should see you again, try to do it in style.”
“Yes, Sir!” gulped Spezzle. Then taking out a bright red handkerchief he blew his nose violently and rushed out of the room.
Kabumpo walked up and down before the mirror, surveying himself from all angles. A very gorgeous appearance he presented, in his purple plush robe of state, all embroidered in silver, and his head bands of shining pearls. In the left side of his robe there was a deep pocket. Into this the Elegant Elephant slipped all the jewels he possessed, taking them from a drawer in the chest.
“I must get that gold door knob,” he rumbled thoughtfully. “And the mirror.” Noiselessly(for all his tremendous size, Kabumpo could move without a sound) he made his way back to the banquet hall and loomed up suddenly behind the Prime Pumper. The old fellow was staring with popping eyes into the gold mirror.
“Ho, Ho!” roared Kabumpo. “Ho, Ho! Kerumph!”
“No wonder! Above the shocked reflection of the foolish statesman stood the words “Old Goose!”
“A truthful mirror, indeed,” wheezed the Elegant Elephant.
“Heh? What?” stuttered the Prime Pumper slapping the mirror down on the table in a hurry. “Where’d you come from? What are you all dressed up for?”
“For my disappearance,” said Kabumpo, sweeping the door knob and mirror into his pocket. “I’m getting ready to disappear. How do I look?”
Before the Prime Pumper had time to answer, the elegant Elephant was gone.
Back in his own room, Kabumpo paced impatiently up and down waiting for night. “I do not see how she could refuse us,” he mumbled every now and then to himself.
That was an anxious afternoon and evening in thepalaceofPumperdink. Every few minutes the Courtiers felt themselves nervously to see if they were still there. The servants went about on tip-toe, looking fearfully over their shoulders for the first signs of disappearance. As it grew darker the gates and windows were securely barred and not a candle was lighted. “The less the castle shows, the less likely it is to disappear,” reasoned the King.
The darkness suited Kabumpo. He waited until everyone in the palace had retired and a full hour longer. Then he stepped softly down the passage to the Prince’s apartment. Pompadore, without undressing, had flung himself upon a couch and fallen into an uneasy slumber.
Without making a sound, Kabumpo took the Prince’s crown from a dressing cabinet, slipped it carefully into the pocket of his robe, and then carefully lifted the sleeping Prince in his curling trunk and started cautiously down the great hall. Setting him gently on the floor as he reached the palace doors, he pushed back the golden bolts and stepped out into the garden.
The voices of the watchmen calling to each other from the great wall came faintly through the darkness, but the Elegant Elephant hurried to a secret unguarded entrance known only to himself and Pompadore and passed like a great shadow through the swinging gates. Once outside, he swung the sleeping Prince to his broad back and ran swiftly and silently through the night.
“What are we doing?” murmured the Prince drowsily in his sleep.
“Disappearing,” chuckled Kabumpo under his breath. “Disappearing from Pumperdink, my lad.”
“Ouch!” Prince Pompadore stirred uneasily and rolled over. “Ouch!” he groaned again, giving his pillow a fretful thump. “Ouch!” This time his eyes flew wide open, for his knuckles were tingling with pain.
“A rock!” gasped the Prince sitting up indignantly.
“A rock under my head! No wonder it aches! Great Gilikens! Where am I?” He stared about wildly. There was not a familiar object in sight. Indeed he was in a dim, deep forest, and from the distance came the sound of someone sawing wood.
“Oh! Oh! I know!” muttered the Prince, rubbing his head miserably. “it’s that wretched scroll. I’ve disappeared and this is the place I’ve disappeared to.” Stiffly he got to his feet and started to walk in the direction of the sawing, but had only gone a few steps before he gave a cry of joy, for there, learning up against a tree, snoring like twenty wood-cutters at work, was Kabumpo.
“Wake up!” cried Pompadore, pounding him with all his might. “Wake up, Kabumpo. We’ve disappeared!”
“Have we?” yawned the Elegant Elephant, opening one eye. You don’t say? Hah, Hoh, Hum!” with a tremendous yawn he opened the other eye and began to chuckle and shake all over.
“We stole a march on ‘em, Pompa I’d like to see the King’s face when he finds us gone. Old Pumper will be Oyezing all over the palace. He’ll think we’ve disappeared by magic.”
“Well, didn’t we?” asked Pompadore in amazement.
“Not unless you call me magic. I carried you off in the night. Did you suppose old Kabumpo was going to stand quietly by while they married you to a fagotty old fairy like Faleero? Not much,” wheezed the Elegant Elephant. “I have other plans for you, little one!”
“But this is terrible!” cried the Prince, catching hold of a tree. “Here you have left my poor old father, my lovely mother, and the wholeKingdomofPumperdinkto disappear. We’ll have to go right straight back—right straight back to Pumperdink. Do you hear?”
“Do have a little sense!” Kabumpo shook himself crossly. “You can’t save them by going back. The thing to do is to go forward, find the Proper Princess and marry her. No scroll magic takes effect for seven days, anyway!”
“How do you know?” asked Pompa anxiously.
“Read it in a witch book,” answered Kabumpo promptly. “Now, that gives us plenty of time to go to the Emerald Cityand present ourselves to the lovely ruler of OZ. There’s a Proper Princess for you, Pompa!”
“But suppose she refuses me,” said the Prince uncertainly.
“You’re very handsome, Pompa, my boy.” The Elegant Elephant gave the Prince a playful poke with his trunk. “I’ve brought all my jewels as gifts and the magic mirror and door knob as well. If she refuses you and the worst comes to the worst”— Kabumpo cleared his throat gravely—“well—just leave it to me!”
After a bit more coaxing and after eating the breakfast Kabumpo had thoughtfully brought along, Pompa allowed the Elegant Elephant to lift him on his head and off they set at Kabumpo’s best speed for the Emerald City of Oz.
Neither the Prince nor the Elegant Elephant had ever been out of Pumperdink, but Kabumpo had found an old map of Oz in the palace library. According to this map, the Emerald Citylay directly to the South of their own country. “So all we have to do is to keep going South,” chuckled Kabumpo softly. Pompadore nodded, but he was trying to recall the exact words of the mysterious scroll:
“Know Ye, that unless ye Prince of ye ancient and honorableKingdomof Pumperdinkshall wed ye Proper Fairy Princess in ye proper span of time yeKingdomofPumperdinkshall disappear forever and even longer from ye Gilliken Country of Oz. J.G.”
Pompadore repeated the words solemnly; then fell a-thinking of all he had heard of Ozma of Oz, the loveliest little fairy imaginable.
“She wouldn’t want one of her Kingdom to disappear,” reflected Pompadore sagely. Now, as it happened, Ozma did not even know of the existence of
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