“You are probably wondering about the change in Peg,” began Uncle Tozzyfog, as the Princess perched on the arm of his chair, “so I’ll try to tell my part of the story. Three years ago an ugly old peddlar climbed the path to Sun Top Mountain. He said his name was Glegg and, forcing his way into the castle, he demanded the hand of my niece in marriage.”
Peg shuddered and Uncle Tozzyfog blew his nose violently at the distressing memory. Then, speaking rapidly and pausing every few minutes to appeal to the Princess, he continued the story of Peg’s enchantment. Naturally the old peddlar had been refused and thrown out of the castle. That night as Uncle Tozzyfog prepared to carve the royal roast, there came an explosion, and when the Courtiers had picked themselves up Peg Amy was nowhere to be seen, and only a threatening scroll remained to explain the mystery. Glegg, who was really a powerful magician, infuriated by Uncle Tozzyfog’s treatment, had changed the little Princess into a tree.
“Know ye,” began the scroll quite like the one that had spoiled Pompa’s birthday, “know ye that unless ye Princess of Sun Top Mountain consents to wed J. Glegg she shall remain a tree forever, or until two shall call and believe her to be a Princess. J. G.”
The whole castle had been plunged into utmost gloom by this terrible happening, for Peg was the kindliest, best loved little Princess any Kingdom could wish for. Lord Tozzyfog and nearly all the Courtiers set out at once to search for the little tree and for two years they wandered over Oz, addressing every hopeful tree as Princess, but never happening on the right one. Finally they returned in despair and Sun Top Mountain, once the most cheerful Kingdom in all Oz, had become the gloomiest. There was no singing, nor dancing—no happiness of any kind. Even the flowers had drooped in the absence of their little Mistress.
“Why didn’t you appeal to Ozma?” demanded Pompa at this point in the story.
“Because in another scroll Glegg warned us that the day we told Ozma, Peg Amy would cease to even be a tree,” explained Uncle Tozzyfog hoarsely.
“Then how did she become a doll? Tell me that, Uncle Fozzytog,” gulped Wag, raising one paw.
“She’ll have to tell you that herself,” confessed Peg’s uncle, “for that’s all of the story I know.”
So here Peg took up the story herself. The morning after her transformation into a tree Glegg had appeared and asked her again to marry him. “I was a little yellow tree, in the Winkie Country, not far from the Emerald City,” explained Peg, “and every day for two months Glegg appeared and gave me the power of speech long enough to answer his question. And each time he asked me to marry him but I always said ‘No!’” The Princess shook her yellow curls briskly.
