CHAPTER 9
And now the
Patchwork Girl
came dancing out
of the wall again.
"Come on!" she called. "It isn't there. There isn't any wall at all."
"What! No wall?" exclaimed the Wizard.
"Nothing like it," said Scraps. "It's a make-believe. You see it, but it isn't. Come on into the city; we've been wasting time."
With this she danced into the wall again and once more disappeared. Button-Bright, who was rather venturesome, dashed away after her and also became invisible to them. The others followed more cautiously, stretching out their hands to feel the wall and finding, to their astonishment, that they could feel nothing because nothing opposed them. They walked on a few steps and found themselves in the streets of a very beautiful city. Behind them they again saw the wall, grim and forbidding as ever; but now they knew it was merely an illusion, prepared to keep strangers from entering the city.
But the wall was soon forgotten, for in front of them were a number of quaint people who stared at them in amazement, as if wondering where they had come from. Our friends forgot their good manners, for a time, and returned the stares with interest, for so remarkable a people had never before been discovered in all the remarkable Land of Oz.
Their heads were shaped like diamonds and their bodies like hearts. All the hair they had was a little bunch at the tip top of their diamond-shaped heads and their eyes were very large and round and their noses and mouths very small. Their clothing was tight-fitting and of brilliant colors, being handsomely embroidered in quaint designs with gold or silver threads; but on their feet they wore sandals, with no stockings whatever. The expression of their faces was pleasant enough, although they now showed surprise at the appearance of strangers so unlike themselves, and our friends thought they seemed quite harmless.
"I beg your pardon," said the Wizard, speaking for his party, "for intruding upon you uninvited, but we are traveling on important business and find it necessary to visit your city. Will you kindly tell us by what name your city is called?"
They looked at one another uncertainly, each expecting some other to answer. Finally a short one whose heart-shaped body was very broad replied: