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The Gnome King of Oz

temper. Now the cotton-patches grew thinner and thinner, the little cottages farther and farther apart, and before they half realized it, the golden spool was rolling briskly down a yellow brick highway and the Kingdom of Patch lay far behind them.

“Stop!” grunted Piecer, letting go Scrapper’s coat tails to which he up to this time had dutifully clung.

“Stop! I can go no farther.”

“Don’t leave me,” wailed poor Scrapper, rolling his eyes backward in great distress. Neither of the Quilties had been out of Patch before and the prospect was truly terrifying. Now, whether the magic spool heard the two conversing is hard to tell but, quite suddenly, it stopped and sinking down by the roadway, Piecer and Scrapper began to mop their foreheads with their patched handkerchiefs and fanthemselves with their hats.

“Let’s go back,” quavered Piecer in a low voice.

“But we cannot go back without a ruler,” objected Scrapper, who was the bolder of the two. “If we do not find a ruler in four days you very well know that Patch and all of the Quilties will go to pieces. Do you want to go to pieces?” he asked severely.

“No!” said Piecer mournfully, “I don’t, but we'll go to pieces anyway, running on at this rate. Some-

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