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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How Trot would have felt if she had seen her poor doll being shaken and scolded by the old Gnome King! But Trot never knew. She hunted and hunted for her doll, and finally gave up in despair. Fortunately, Peg was well made, or she would have been shaken to bits, but her joints held bravely, and nothing-not even the terrible scolding of the bad old gnome-could change her pleasant expression.
Being the sole subject of so wicked a King, however, was wearing even for a wooden doll, and Peg was beginning to show signs of wear. Her nose was badly chipped, one pantalette was missing, and both sleeves had been jerked from her dress by the furious old gnome. If the rabbit was around, Ruggedo did not shake Peg as hard as he wanted to, but when the rabbit was gone, he pretended she was his old steward, Kaliko, and scolded and flung her about to his heart’s content.
When not carving his history or shaking Peg, Ruggedo had spent most of his time digging new tunnels and chambers, so that leading off from the main cavern was a perfect network of underground passages. In the back of Ruggedo’s head was a notion that some day he would conquer the Emerald City, regain his magic powers and then, after changing all the inhabitants to mouldy muffins, return to his dominions and oust Kaliko from his throne. Just how this was to be done, he had not decided, but the secret passages would be useful. So meanwhile he dug secret passages.
Above ground the little rascal went about so meekly and pretended to be delighted with his life among the inhabitants of the Emerald City, that Ozma really thought he had reformed. Wag, to whom he confided his plans, would shake his head gloomily and often planned to leave the services of the wicked old gnome. There was no real harm in Wag, but the rabbit had a weakness for collecting, and the spoons, cups and odds and ends that Ruggedo brought him from the Emerald City filled him with delight. He felt that they were not gotten honestly, but his work for Ruggedo was honest and hard, “and it’s not my fault if the old scrabble-scratch steals ‘em,” Wag would mumble to himself. In his heart he knew that he was doing wrong to stay with Ruggedo, but like all foolish creatures he could not make up his mind to go. So this very night, while the old gnome sat playing the accordion and howling doleful snatches of the Gnome National Air, Wag was gloating over his treasures. They quite filled his little dug-out room. There were two emerald plates, a gold pencil, a dozen china cups and saucers, twenty thimbles stolen from the work baskets of the good dames of Oz, scraps of silk, pictures and almost everything you could imagine.
“I’ll soon have enough to marry and go to housekeeping on,” murmured the rabbit, clasping his paws and twitching his nose very fast. He picked up a pair of purple wool socks that had once belonged to a little girl’s doll and regarded them rapturously. Out of all the articles Ruggedo had given him, Wag considered these purple socks the most valuable, perhaps because they exactly fitted him and were the only things he could really use. The squeaking of the accordion stopped at last and, supposing his wicked little master had retired for the night, Wag prepared to enjoy himself. Draping a green silk scarf over his shoulders, he strutted before the mirror, pretending he was a Courtier of Oz. Then, throwing down the scarf, he sat down on the floor and had just drawn on one of the socks when a loud shrill scream from Ruggedo made his ears stand straight on end in amazement.
“What now?” coughed the rabbit, seizing the candle. Ruggedo was on his knees before the rocking chair.
“As I was sitting here, playing and singing,” spluttered the old gnome, “I noticed a little ring in one of the rocks on the floor!”
“Well, what of it?” sniffed Wag, leaning down to pull up his socks. “What of it?” shrieked the gnome.
“What of it, you poor, puny earth worm! Look!” leaning over Ruggedo’s shoulder and dropping hot candle grease down the gnome’s neck, Wag peered into a square opening on the floor. There lay a small gold box. Studded in gems on the lid were these words:
Glegg’s Box of Mixed Magic.
“Mixed magic!” stuttered Wag, dropping the candle. “Oh, my socks and soup spoons!” Ruggedo said nothing, but his little red eyes blazed maliciously. Reaching down, he lifted out the box and, clasping it to his fat little stomach, shook his fist at the high domed ceiling of the cave.
“Now!” hissed Ruggedo triumphantly. “Now we shall see what mixed magic will do to the Emerald City of Oz!”
“Oh!” sighed Sir Hokus of Pokes and Oz, stretching his armored legs to the fire. “How I yearn to slay a giant! How it would refresh me! Hast any real giants in Oz, Dorothy?”
“Don’t you remember the candy giant?” laughed the little girl, looking up from the handkerchief she was making for Ozma.
“Not to my taste,” said the Knight, “though his vest buttons were vastly nourishing.”
“Well, there’s Mr. Yoo he’s a real blood-and-bone giant. There are plenty of giants, I guess, if we knew just where to find them!” said the little girl, biting off her thread.
“Find ‘em-bind ‘em,
Get behind ‘em!
Hokus Pokus
He don’t mind ‘em!”
screamed the Patch Work Girl, bounding out of her chair. “But why can’t you stay peaceably at home, old Iron Sides, and be jolly like the rest of us?”
“You don’t understand, Scraps,” put in Dorothy gravely. “Sir Hokus is a Knight and it is a true Knight’s duty to slay giants and dragons and go on quests!”
“That it is, my Lady Patches!” boomed Sir Hokus, puffing out his chest. “I’ve rusted here in idleness long enough. Tomorrow, with Ozma’s permission, I shall start on a giant quest.”
“I’d go with you, only I’ve promised to help Ozma count the royal emeralds,” said the Scarecrow, who had ridden over from his Corn-Ear residence to spend. a week with his old friends in the Emerald City.
“Giants, Sir, are bluff and rude
And might mistake a man for food!
Hokus Pokus, be discreet,
Or you will soon be giant meat!”
chuckled the Patch Work Girl, crooking her finger under the Knight’s nose,
“Nonsense!” blustered Sir Hokus, waving Scraps aside. Rising from his green arm chair, he strode up and down the room, his armor clanking at every step. Straightway the company began to tell about wild giants they had read of or known. Trot and Betsy Bobbin held hands as they sat together on the sofa, and Toto, Dorothy’s small dog, crept closer to his little mistress, the bristles on his back rising higher as each story was finished, “Giant stories are all very well, but why tell ‘em at night?” shivered Toto, peering nervously at the long shadows in the corners of the room.
It was the evening after Ruggedo’s strange discovery of the mixed magic and in the royal palace Ozma and most of the Courtiers had retired. But a few of Princess Dorothy’s special friends had gathered in the cozy sitting-room of her apartment to talk about old times. They were very unusual and interesting friends, not at all the sort one would expect to find in a royal palace, even in Fairyland. Dorothy, herself, before she had become a Princess of Oz, had been a little girl from Kansas but, after several visits to this delightful country, she had preferred to make Oz her home.
Trot and Betsy Bobbin also had come from the United States by way of shipwrecks, so to speak, and had been invited to remain by Ozma, the little fairy Princess who ruled Oz, and now each of these girls had a cozy little apartment in the royal palace. Toto had come with Dorothy, but the rest of the company were of more or less magic extraction.
The Scarecrow, a stuffed straw person, with a marvelous set of mixed brains given to him by the Wizard of Oz, was Dorothy’s favorite. In fact she had discovered him herself upon a Munchkin farm, lifted him down from his bean pole and brought him to the Emerald City. Tik Tok was a wonderful man made entirely of copper, who could talk, think and act as well as the next fellow when properly wound. You would have been amazed to hear the giant story he was ticking off at this very minute. As for Scraps, she had been made by a magician’s wife out of old pieces of patchwork and magically brought to life. Her bright patches, yarn hair and silver suspender button eyes gave Scraps so comical an expression that just to look at her tickled one’s funny bone. Her head was full of nonsense rhymes and she was so amusing and cheerful that Ozma insisted upon her living with the rest of the celebrities in the Emerald City.
Sir Hokus of Pokes was a comparative newcomer in the capital city of Oz. Yet the Knight was so old that it would give me lumbago just to try to count up his birthdays. He dated back to King Arthur, in fact, and had been wished into the Land of Oz centuries before by an enemy sorcerer. Dorothy had found and rescued him, with the Cowardly Lion’s help, from Pokes, the dullest Kingdom of Oz. As there were no other Knights in the Emerald City, Sir Hokus was much stared at and admired. Even the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, the one and only soldier and entire army of Oz-yes, even the soldier with the Green Whiskers saluted Sir Hokus when he passed. Ozma, herself, felt more secure since the Knight had come to live in the palace. He was well versed in adventure and always courageous and courteous, withal.
But, while I’ve been telling you all this, Tik Tok had finished his story of a three-legged giant who lived in Ev.
“And where is Ev?” puffed Sir Hokus, planting himself before Tik Tok.
“Ev,” began Tik Tok in his precise fashion, “is to the northwest of here on the other side of the im-” There was a whirr and a click and the copper man stood motionless and soundless, his round eyes fixed solemnly on the Knight.
“Passable desert,” finished the Scarecrow, jumping up and kindly winding all of Tik Tok’s keys as if nothing had happened.
“Passable desert,” continued the Copper Man.
“That’s where the old Gnome King used to live,” piped Betsy Bobbin, bouncing up and down upon the sofa, “under the mountains of Ev, and he threw us down a tube and tried to melt you in a crucible, didn’t he, Tok Tok?”
“He was a ve-ry bad per-son,” said the Copper Man.
“Ruggedo was a wicked King,
‘Tho’ now he’s good as pie,
But none the less,
I must confess,
He has a wicked eye!”
burst out Scraps, who was tired of sitting still listening to giant Stories.
But Sir Hokus could not be got off the subject of giants. “To Ev!” thundered the Knight, raising his sword. “Tomorrow I’m off to Ev to conquer this terrible monster. Large as
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