"Couldn't we stop for a few greens?" puffed Nox, looking longingly over the fence at a field of cabbages.
"Not here, dear—ear!" Red faced and breathless, the Goat Girl ran on. "Wait till we cross this river—iver."
"But I'm not used to this—sort—of—thing," complained Nox peevishly. "Running races before breakfast on an empty stomach. No bath—no brush—no rub down!"
"Well, here's your brush," gasped Handy, picking her way through a dense thicket as the highway ended in a small wood, "and yonder's your bath, Mister. My—y, what a blue river!"
"Everything's blue in the Munchkin Country of Oz," Nox told her sulkily, as sharp briers and thorns reached out to scratch his satiny hide.
"Even the Royal Ox of Keretaria," hinted Handy with a sly wink. "Oh the river's blue and the houses are blue and even the wind blew—Hoo Hoo! Come on."
"Don't try to be funny," with heaving sides, the Ox stopped on the edge of the gleaming blue stream. "Don't try to be funny, I beg."
"Oh, I don't have to try, I am!" laughed Handy, flinging the axe, the rake, the spade, the sword, the gun and the broomstick across the river.
"Wait!" snorted the Ox, as Handy, having got rid of her load, raised all of her hands above her head and prepared to dive in. "Wait, can you swim?"