“What a pretty creature,” chirped the Scissor Bird, who had flown over Piecer’s head. “Is this the new Queen?”
Scrapper nodded.
“She knows almost as many cross words as the last one,” he chuckled admiringly. “But she refuses to work.”
“Oh, I think she’ll work now,” smiled Piecer. With a significant wink at his companion, he thrust a broom into Scraps’ hands and, turning to the Scissor Bird, said quietly: “If her Majesty refuses to clean the castle, just cut off her head!”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure,” chortled the bird, and snapping his scissor bill hungrily, he swooped down upon Scraps and snipped an inch off her yarn hair.
“Help!” screamed the Patchwork Girl. “Help! Help!” But there was no one to help her and, as the Scissor Bird took another snip at her yarn, she seized the broom and fell to sweeping for dear life.
“When you finish sweeping, you may wash the windows,” said the Chief Scrapper and, taking the arm of the Prime Piecer, passed pompously out into the garden. All day, pursued relentlessly by the Scissor Bird, Scraps flew from one task to another. Being made of cotton she did not grow tired, but as she had never in her whole life done anything she did not wish to do, you can imagine how furiously angry she became.
“Wait till Ozma hears of this!” she raged, shaking her scrubbing brush under the Scissor Bird’s bill. “Just wait!”
“I’ll wait!” yawned the Scissor Bird, “but you’ll have to wait too, and while we’re waiting suppose you go on with the scrubbing.”
Poor Scraps, she could have wept with anger, but she had not been constructed for crying and having not a tear in her cotton constitution was forced to express her indignation in groans, shouts and threatening verses. To these the Scissor Bird paid no attention whatsoever and by night-fall Scraps had not even energy enough to make verses. After complaining bitterly about their dinner, and it must be confessed that Scraps, having had no experience, proved a poor cook, the two Quiltie Ministers locked her securely in the palace sitting-room and went off to tell their fellow townsmen about the Emerald City. They took the Scissor Bird with them and, left to her own devices at last, the Patchwork Girl sank into a broken chair and began to rock to and fro.