Page:The Gnome King of Oz.djvu/51

This page needs to be proofread.

The Gnome King of Oz

As the door slammed upon Piecer, the Chief Scrapper faced the Patchwork Girl. “Go on, get as madas you please,” he urged cheerfully. ‘The madder you are the better we like you. The crosser you grow the better queen you'll make for Patch, our Queens must be good scolders,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands gleefully together.

“I’m not your queen,” screamed Scraps, stamping one foot and then the other. “Take me back to the Emerald City, you miserable ragamuffin. I am a free subject of Ozma of Oz.”

“Oh, no! You’re Queen of Patch, now,” corrected Serapper, picking up the waste basket and jamming it down upon her cotton forehead. ‘You were chosen by the royal Spool of Succession to be our ruler!”

While Scraps listened in amazement, he explained how the former queen had gone to pieces and how the golden spool had led them to the Emerald City.

“And you think, just because your silly spool tagged me, that I’m going to stay and do all your work?” exclaimed Scraps, snapping her cotton fingers under Scrapper’s nose. “Kazupp-kazick, you make me sick!” Rushing to the door, she jerked it open, bumped against Piecer, on his way in, and sat down with a thud.

54

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.