"Oh, never mind," choked Randy, holding his sides at the very idea of such a thing. "Even if I were starving, I couldn't eat a hat. But look, old Push-the-Foot, isn't that a barn showing over the top of that hill?"
"Barn!" wheezed Kabumpo, lifting his trunk joyfully. "Why, so it is! Ho! This is something like!" And hiccoughing excitedly, from the effects of the hat, no doubt, Kabumpo went galloping over the brow of the little hill.
A pleasant valley dotted with small farms stretched out below. Randy was relieved to note that its inhabitants were usual-looking beings like himself. Children rode gleefully on wagons piled high with hay. Farmers in wide-brimmed yellow hats, rather like those worn by the Winkies in Oz, worked placidly in the fields. Everyone seemed contented, calm and happy; that is, until Kabumpo, delighted to find himself again in a land of plenty, came charging down the hill trumpeting like a whole band of music.
"Oh, too bad, you've frightened them nearly out of their wits," mourned Randy, hanging on to Kabumpo's collar to keep his balance as the Elegant Elephant, forgetting his elegance, made a dash for the nearest hayrick.
"Help Hi—stop! Now see what you've done!"
To tell the truth, the havoc ensuing was not all Kabumpo's fault. No one in this tranquil valley of Ix had ever seen an elephant before, and the sight of one rushing down upon them was so unnerving and strange they fled in every direction, leaping into barns and houses, and barring and double-barring the doors against this terrifying monster. Horses hitched to their hay wagons cantered madly east and west, and the air was filled with loud shrieks, neighs and the bellows of stampeding cattle.
"Such dummies!" panted Kabumpo, coming to a complete standstill. "Well," he gave a tremendous sniff, "if they don't want to meet a King, a Prince and the most elegant elephant in Oz, what do we care? I've invited myself to breakfast anyhow, and they can like it or Kabump it. Just wait till I load away one stack of this hay, my boy, and I'll find you a breakfast fit for a King and Traveler."
And the Elegant Elephant was good as his word. After tossing down a great mound of new-mown hay, he swaggered over to the nearest farmhouse. Pushing in the kitchen window with his trunk, he handed up to Randy everything the little farmer's wife had on her kitchen table—a bowl of milk, a pat of butter, a loaf of bread, a cold half chicken and three hard-boiled eggs.