oo," he said.

"Don't my colors run whenever I run?" she asked.

"Not in the way I mean. If they get wet, the reds and greens and yellows
and purples of your patches might run into each other and become just a
blur--no color at all, you know."

"Then," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'll be careful, for if I spoiled my
splendid colors I would cease to be beautiful."

"Pah!" sneered the Glass Cat, "such colors are not beautiful; they're
ugly, and in bad taste. Please notice that my body has no color at all.
I'm transparent, except for my exquisite red heart and my lovely pink
brains--you can see 'em work."

"Shoo--shoo--shoo!" cried Scraps, dancing around and laughing. "And your
horrid green eyes, Miss Bungle! You can't see your eyes, but we can, and
I notice you're very proud of what little color you have. Shoo, Miss
Bungle, shoo--shoo--shoo! If you were all colors and many colors, as I
am, you'd be too stuck up for anything." She leaped over the cat and
back again, and the startled Bungle crept close to a tree to escape her.
This made Scraps laugh more heartily than ever, and she said:

"Whoop-te-doodle-doo!
The cat has lost her shoe.
Her tootsie's bare, but she don't care,
So what's the odds to you?"

"Dear me, Ojo," said the cat; "don't you think the creature is a little
bit crazy?"

"It may be," he answered, with a puzzled look.

"If she continues her insults I'll scratch off her suspender-button
eyes," declared the cat.

"Don't quarrel, please," pleaded the boy, rising to resume the journey.
"Let us be good comrades and as happy and cheerful as possible, for we
are likely to meet with plenty of trouble on our way."

It was nearly sundown when they came to the edge of the forest and saw
spread out before them a delightful landscape. There were broad blue
fields stretching for miles over the valley, which was dotted everywhere
with pretty, blue domed houses, none of which, however, was very near to
the place where they stood. Just at the point where the path left the
forest stood a tiny house covered with leaves from the trees, and before
this stood a Munchkin man with an axe in his hand. He seemed very much
surprised when Ojo and Scraps and the Glass Cat came out of the woods,
but as the Patchwork Girl approached nearer he sat down upon a bench and
laughed so hard that he could not speak for a long time.

This man was a woodchopper and lived all alone in the little house. He
had bushy blue