Kabumpo to the Rescue
You have guessed that it was our old friend Humpy who had begged a breakfast of Tora, the tailor. You see the Elegant Elephant, travelling like the wind itself, had carried Dorothy and the dummy almost to the exact spot where Snip and Tora had fallen out of the Fare-well. Then, exceedingly fatigued by his unaccustomed exertion, Kabumpo had gone off in search of some lunch.
Snip had scarcely recovered from the shock of Humpy's sudden disappearance when back he came, holding Dorothy tightly by the hand. Now the little button boy had often seen pictures of Dorothy in the history books of Kimbaloo, but she had always been dressed as a Princess, so we cannot blame him for failing to recognize the shabby little girl who stood staring so earnestly at the tired tailor of Oz.
"Why he has no ears at all," cried Dorothy. Then, catching sight of Snip, she stopped short. "We were wondering whether you could lend us some lunch," faltered Dorothy, talking very fast to cover her embarrassment. "Kabumpo can eat tree-tops and Humpy does not eat at all, but I've had nothing but a tomato since breakfast and I'm very hungry."
"There's a breakfast bush over yonder," answered Snip, waving sulkily toward the grove. Tora had saved his face and he was not going to have him laughed at. Dorothy turned to see for herself and, as she did, Tora arose and moved quickly over to the dummy.
"You remind me of someone I used to know," sighed the tailor, fingering Humpy's green velvet robe dreamily. "Who are you? Are you real?"
"Well, not quite. You see," began Dorothy, "he's a moving picture dummy." Suddenly remembering that the tailor could not hear her, she turned back to Snip. "Where are his ears?" asked the little girl nervously.
"Here they come now!" cried Snip, forgetting his vexation and, setting down the two breakfast dishes, he waved his cap excitedly in the air. As Snip waved and pointed, Dorothy saw the tailor's ears whizz giddily over a lilac bush and then settle softly, one on each side of his head.
"Who did you say you were?" asked Tora calmly, continuing his conversation with Humpy and paying no more attention to his ears than we would pay to a couple of flies.
"A dummy!" whispered Humpy, blinking his painted eyes, while his voice grew fainter and fainter with astonishment. "I am a dummy, but what in Oz are you?"
"A tailor," answered Tora with a wink at Snip. "Well, that's a splendid cloak you're wearing, and a crown too. Are you a king, dummy?"
"No, he's a dummy king," explained Dorothy, looking longingly at the hot breakfasts. "If we could just sit down and have something to eat I could tell you all about him. Then, maybe, you would tell me a little about your—" Dorothy was going to say ears but, fearing this might not be quite polite, she changed it quickly to selves. The little girl cast a curious sidelong glance at Snip, but the button boy was gazing intently at the dummy.
"Why we're looking for a king," exploded Snip excitedly. "Oh Tora, do you suppose this could be he?"
"Why not do as this little lady suggests?" interrupted Tora, for he could see that Dorothy was weary as well as hungry. "Let's have breakfast together and then talk things over."
"Well, don't start until I come back," called the little boy, as Dorothy settled comfortably down beside the tailor. In a moment Snip had returned with another breakfast and, while Humpy looked on curiously, they opened the silver dishes Snip had picked from the breakfast bush. What could be cozier? Bacon, eggs, toast and a small sealed cup of coffee grew neatly in each one, but it never occurred to Dorothy, Snip or the tailor to be surprised at this, for breakfast bushes are quite common in Oz. Humpy, however, had seen nothing like this in the movies and kept up a low muttering to himself, as he watched them eat one and then another dainty from the dishes.
"Now then," smiled the tailor, after he had taken a long sip of coffee, "suppose you begin." He looked expectantly at Dorothy. "I think you must be the little girl my ears were telling me of a while back, but where is the elephant?"
"Mercy!" spluttered Dorothy, nearly choking on her coffee. "Do your ears tell you everything?"
"Oh no, just odds and ends of things," answered Tora, reaching up to touch them affectionately.
"Well, did they tell you about me?" inquired Humpy, straightening his crown importantly.
"No," smiled the old man. "That's just what we're waiting to hear, though I declare I have seen you somewhere before. Have you ever seen me?"
Humpy shook his head very positively and Dorothy, settling back against a tree, proceeded with her story. Introducing herself modestly and beginning with Wish Way, she related every single thing that had happened since her fall into California.
Snip was especially interested in Dorothy's sudden change in size. "Is that what tore your dress?" he asked curiously.
The little girl nodded and Tora, ruffling up his silver locks and looking first at Dorothy and then at Humpy, murmured over and over: "Well, I can hardly believe my ears, I can hardly believe my ears!"
Dorothy could not help thinking that the tailor's ears were hard for anyone to believe, but feeling it would be rude to say so, went hurriedly on with her adventures, telling of her meeting with the Scooters and with the Elegant Elephant, whom she described at some length.
"And now," concluded the little girl, finishing off the last of the toast, "we're going straight to the Emerald City. Where are you going?"
"Why we're going to the Emerald City too!" burst out Snip, "and maybe Dorothy can help us find Pajuka and warn Ozma!"
"Warn Ozma?" cried Dorothy, jumping up in a hurry. "Why, what is the matter?"
"Better tell her," advised the tailor gravely, while Humpy edged close to the little button boy and looked earnestly up into his face.
"Well," began Snip, feeling a bit shy in the presence of a person as important as Princess Dorothy of Oz, "Mombi is trying to find the lost King of Oz and turn Ozma to a piano. Pajuka, he's a goose, I mean a Prime Minister, and he's trying to find the King too, and if we don't get to the Emerald City first that old witch will steal all the magic and capture everybody."
"Why this is a regular thriller," puffed the dummy, pushing back his crown. "Witches, geese, lost kings and everything. Oh, I'm enjoying this picture immensely. Couldn't I fall for this lost king, Dorothy?"
"I thought you were the King, yourself, at first," explained Snip, "but of course, if Dorothy found you in America, you couldn't possibly be the King of Oz. Besides, I don't believe Mombi would turn the King to a dummy, do you?"
"Oh, anything can happen in the pictures," said Humpy carelessly.
No one had time to tell Humpy he was not in a picture, for Dorothy, shuddering at the mere mention of old Mombi, insisted on Snip telling all over again just how he had discovered the witch's wicked plans. This Snip did, from the strange conversation between Pajuka and Mombi in the castle kitchen of Kimbaloo to his encounter with the Blanks and his escape with the tired tailor of Oz. When he came to the part in the story where Mombi had flung him down the well, Humpy fell over backwards and Dorothy gasped with indignation.
"Oh, we'll have to hurry, we'll have to hurry!" exclaimed the little girl, clasping her hands anxiously, "for if Mombi reaches the Emerald City first something dreadful will happen. I'm glad the King of Oz is alive, but I'm not going to have Ozma turned to a piano. Oh dear! Oh dear! Why doesn't Kabumpo hurry back?"
"Hadn't we better start anyway?" asked Snip, who was growing more and more worried about Pajuka. He felt sure Mombi meant to get rid of the goose as soon as she found the King. "Let's go without the elephant," he proposed eagerly.
"No, we'd better wait," advised Dorothy, "for Kabumpo can travel a hundred times faster than we can, and a hundred times faster than Mombi can."
"While we are waiting," suggested Tora, who had been carefully threading his needle, "I'll mend your frock, my dear. Have you any more buttons, Snip?"
Snip felt in his pockets and brought out a handful of gold and silver buttons and as Dorothy stood shading her eyes and keeping an anxious lookout for Kabumpo, Tora sewed them neatly in place.
"It must have been mighty queer, growing up all at once," observed the old tailor, biting off his thread and giving the little girl an affectionate pat on the shoulder.
"It was," answered Dorothy, groaning at the recollection. "I can't imagine what happened to me, but then everything's very queer lately."
With her frock neatly buttoned, Dorothy began to feel more like herself. She thanked Tora sweetly and smilingly invited him to tell them something about himself.
"Yes, do," urged Snip, coming to stand beside her.
"Well," sighed the old man, sticking his needle back in his lapel and taking off his specs, "there's not much to tell. I'm a tailor, as you can readily see. How I got to Blankenburg, I don't know, but there I've been for so long that it gives me rheumatism to think of it. But it's all over now. When we reach this marvelous city you two young people speak of, I shall set up a shop and live happily ever afterward."
"What? With those ears?" shouted Humpy, falling up against a tree. "Oh, I don't believe it!"
"Hush," begged Dorothy and, turning apologetically to the tailor, she whispered earnestly: "You really mustn't mind Humpy. You see his head is stuffed with hair and it makes him kind of ridiculous." The tailor chuckled under his breath and Snip giggled outright.
Just at this moment Kabumpo, magnificent in his pearls and velvet robes, swung ponderously into view.
"Dorothy," trumpeted the Elegant Elephant, stopping a good twenty feet from the little group and elevating his trunk haughtily, "what are you doing with those shabby fellows? Don't you realize you're a Princess? A tailor! Great Grump! Do you expect me to associate with a tailor?"
"But gaze upon his ears," cried Humpy, waving his cloak triumphantly at Tora. "They wag, wiggle and fly off by themselves. And we're hunting a king, a witch and a goose. Hurry up, you elegant old thing, we need you in this picture."
"No we don't, we'll go on by ourselves." Snip looked angrily at Kabumpo and, taking Tora's arm, began to walk off.
"Oh wait!" gasped Dorothy, more embarrassed by Kabumpo's rudeness than by the dummy's ridiculousness. "Kabumpo doesn't mean that. He's really awfully jolly when you get to know him better."
"Don't bother, my dear," Tora smiled, a little sadly. Reaching up he took off both his ears and put them quietly into his pocket. "I never listen to unpleasant conversations," explained the old man simply.
"Good-bye," said Snip, bowing rather stiffly to Dorothy. "If you reach the Emerald City before we do, be sure to tell Ozma about her father."
"Now please don't go," begged Dorothy. "Wait! Wait!" In great distress she dashed over to the Elegant Elephant and poured out the whole story of the lost King of Oz and of Mombi's wickedness.
When Tora had so unexpectedly taken off his ears Kabumpo's little eyes had fairly rolled in his head and now, as he listened to Dorothy's strange recital, they began to snap and sparkle with interest. If there was one thing Kabumpo enjoyed, it was being mixed up in a royal adventure. Finding the lost King of Oz would be a very creditable thing, even for an elephant so elegant as himself. It might even gain him an important position at court, thought Kabumpo craftily. And what a choice bit of news to carry home to Pumperdink—that Ozma was not the Queen at all, and that he, Kabumpo the Magnificent, had helped find the real monarch and had been present at the coronation. Already his imagination leaped ahead to this important event.
Concealing, in his pompous and provoking fashion, his real interest and excitement, Kabumpo set Dorothy upon his back and started in a dignified and stately manner toward Tora and Snip.
"I understand you are friends of the lost King of Oz," wheezed Kabumpo grandly, as he came up beside them. "Are you going on to the Emerald City? Care to ride?" he asked graciously. This was as near an apology as Kabumpo ever got.
"Hear! Hear!" spluttered the dummy, who was walking stiffly behind the tailor.
Of course Tora could not do this, as his ears were still in his pocket, but Snip, looking inquiringly up at Dorothy saw her motion earnestly for him to yield. He decided to overlook the elephant's rudeness and gave Kabumpo a signal to lift him up.
"Did she say you were a mutton boy?" asked Kabumpo, as he placed Snip beside the little girl.
"No, a button boy," corrected Dorothy hastily, "from the Kingdom of Kimbaloo, you know."
"Ah yes," grunted Kabumpo condescendingly, "I remember hearing of Kimbaloo—a buttony sort of place across the mountains from Pumperdink."
Snip was about to retort with something short and sassy, when Kabumpo lifted up the tailor and as Tora seemed terribly alarmed by the suddenness of his transit through the air, Snip helped him to settle comfortably instead of talking. He just got Tora firmly seated in time to catch Humpy, whom the Elegant Elephant tossed aloft as carelessly as he would a bale of hay.
"All ready?" boomed Kabumpo importantly. "Well, then here we go." And before anyone could answer he was off, moving swiftly and surely as a battleship through the waving billows of wheat.
"What did you find for lunch?" called Humpy curiously. Snip and Tora hadn't breath to say anything, and Dorothy was too worried about Ozma to want to talk. But Kabumpo, instead of answering, threw up his trunk, sending forth such a volley of shrill bellows that Snip's hair rose on end and the ears in Tora's pocket gave a terrified bounce. Humpy chuckled, as he listened to the shrill trumpeting of the Elegant Elephant. He had thought of a joke!
"Ah, he has eaten a trumpet vine," mused the dummy dreamily, as the noise died away. But it ceased for only a moment, for trumpeting was Kabumpo's way of clearing a path for himself and, determined to reach the capital before Mombi, the witch, he travelled as never before and, clinging to each other and to Kabumpo's harness and robe, the four riders made the best they could of the worst journey they had ever taken.
