“Vassals, fetch my rolling chair
Your Queen desires to take the air!”
“Stuff and Nonsense!” sputtered Scrapper, amazed at the Patchwork Girl’s audacious verse. “Don’t you know the coronation is over and it’s time to get to work?”
“Work?” shrilled Scraps, catching hold of a patched portiere to steady herself. “Queens are not supposed to work. Where are the servants?”
“There are no servants,” answered Scrapper calmly. “The Queen does all the work here. Just read off the list of her Majesty’s duties, Piecer, old fellow.”
Putting on his specs, Piecer drew a long sheet of paper from his patched pocket and began: “The Queen of Patch, on arising, shall prepare the breakfast of her two chief advisers (meaning us),” explained Piecer, looking severely at the Patchwork Girl over his spectacles. “She shall make the beds,” he continued complacently, his voice growing higher with each item, “sweep the floors, dust the furniture, scrub the steps, wash the windows, sort the patches, count the cotton spools, separate the old clothes for mending, feed the Scissor Bird, help pick tomato pin-cushions, scold the Patch-workers—and—”
“Stop!” commanded Scraps, flinging up her arm imperiously.
“But I’m not nearly finished,” objected Piecer, rattling the paper impatiently.
“Well, I am!” The Patchwork Girl’s suspender buttons glittered angrily behind the steel spectacles. “Get some one else to be your sovereign,” she cried. “You don’t want a Queen, you want a cook, a housekeeper and a Grandma!” Snatching the work basket from her head, she dashed it to the floor and jumping on it with both feet shouted defiantly:
“Eeejee, weejee, squeejee, squb!