“Because we have to,” confided the Chief Scrapper mysteriously. “We take you for what you are, a Queen. Three cheers for the Queen of the Quilties!” wheezed Scrapper, signaling slyly to Piecer. And while the Patchwork Girl fell back, stiff with astonishment, Piecer clapped the bag over her head. Then together the two little Quilties shook her down into the bottom and pulled the string tight. It was the frightened scream of Scraps, as she disappeared into the rag bag that Dorothy and Ozma had heard, but by the time they reached the window, she was out of the garden. Thrusting a sharp stick through the neck of the sack, the Ministers of Patch hoisted it to their shoulders and, with the bag itself swinging violently between them, started on a run for the gates. They would never have succeeded in kidnapping Scraps nor escaping unobserved had it not been for the foot-path. After a short nap it had grown curious about the two strangers it had brought to the city and pattering into the royal garden began to search for them. Usually the Wizard of Oz kept this mischievous piece of property tied up when not in use, but to-day he had forgotten to do so and, enjoying its holiday, the little foot-path was running perfectly wild. Coming upon Piecer and Scrapper as they dashed headlong over flower beds and borders, it scooped them neatly up and by a short, little known route carried them straight out of the Emerald City.
For a time the Quilties were too shocked to realize what had happened. Then Scrapper, shaken out of his stupor by a terrible jolt as the foot-path jumped over a boulder, gasped weakly. “Why, it’s the same flying path that brought us to the capital!”
“Yes, but where is it flying now?” wailed Piecer, tightening his hold upon the rag bag. Inside Scraps was thrashing around in a frantic effort to escape, her screams and threats somewhat muffled by the collection of pieces already in the bag. “Can’t we steer it?” panted the Prime Piecer wildly, “or stop it or something?” Scrapper shook his head violently, then catching sight of a green card tacked on the rustic railing fairly pounced upon it.
“Write directions here,” advised the card. There was a pencil attached to the railing by a long cord, so Scrapper seized the pencil and wrote hastily, “Take us to the Kingdom of Patch.”
The foot-path jiggled so frightfully while he wrote ’tis a wonder it could understand the directions at all, but as he let the pencil drop, it turned sharply in its tracks and started racing in the opposite direction, tripping and stumbling in its eagerness to get ahead. By the time they reached the Quilty Kingdom, the three travellers were so shaken up and down they tumbled off the path in a perfect heap of exhaustion. Even Scraps, in her imprisoning bag, had nothing at all to say. Not satisfied with shaking them nearly to bits, the foot-path gave Piecer a playful kick with its forty-ninth foot and then, jumping over a green cotton patch, gaily took its departure. Now, ever since morning, the Patch-workers had been anxiously awaiting the return of their ministers and, as the two exhausted sovereign seekers rolled through the gates, a great crowd of Quilties came hurrying to meet them.
“What have you bagged? Who is our ruler? Show us the Imperial Potentate,” they cried, clattering their shears and shaking their sewing boxes. Seeing that nothing would satisfy them but an immediate sight of the Queen, Scrapper scrambled wearily to his feet and began fumbling with the strings of the bag.
“Will your Imperial Highness deign to step out?” suggested Scrapper, sticking his head cautiously into the bag.
