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the great feather wheels.
"Isn't this fun?" cried Bob, giving the clown a little hug as he sat down in
the seat ahead. "Well," chuckled Notta, "I don't usually fly before breakfast,
but I'd fly from Un any time." Snorer, who still held the lever, beamed over
his shoulder at the clown.
"Didn't I manage well?" he chirped happily. "I say, when anything's to
be done just leave it to old Nickadoodle."
"We can never thank you enough," declared Notta. "But how will you
get back? Will you fly?" "I'm not going back," exulted Snorer, flapping his
wings. "I'd be unusual anywhere and I am never going to leave you, you
beautiful creature."
"Then our fortune is made," said the clown, with a wink at Bob, "for in a
circus you'd be more than half the show."
"I'll show them how to snore," chuckled Nick. "I do that better than
anything else. But I'd do anything for you, for I love you with all my heart,"
continued Snorer calmly, "and the boy, too. And I love-"
"Don't you dare love me," rumbled the Cowardly Lion, wrathfully
jerking his head from beneath the seat. "I won't allow it!"
"All right," sighed Nick, adjusting his nose. "I'll try not to love you, but
it's going to be hard work, you're so handsome."
"There! There!" interrupted the Cowardly Lion gruffly, but he couldn't
help looking pleased. "You may like me if you wish," he added mildly. "Any
land in sight?"
Notta leaned far over the edge of the bus. "I think I see a village of some
kind far down below. Here, Bob, you come help steer." So, while Nick grasped
the lever to hold the bus steady, Bob sat in the high seat and turned the great
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goose head as Notta directed, now to the left and now to the right, and in less
than an hour, they were floating slowly over a quaint blue city.
"We're still in the Munchkin country," rumbled the Cowardly Lion,
standing on his hind legs and looking over the side.
"Well, we'll just fly over this town and land in one of those fields,"
puffed Notta uneasily. He was not sure he wouldn't impale the Flyaboutabus
on a steeple, or run over some of the inhabitants, if he attempted to land in
the city itself. As it was they flew quite a distance before he located all the
buttons necessary to make a landing. The Flyaboutabus came to earth with
such a bounce that they all flew up like rubber balls, while the bus continued
to fly and bump around the field until Notta ran after it and tied it to a tree.
"And now what?" asked Nick, carefully putting his troublesome nose on
its hook.
"Breakfast!" wheezed the Cowardly Lion, rolling out of a huge bramble
bush. "Aren't you hungry, Bob?"
Bob nodded. "But where are we going to get it?" he asked, looking
rather puzzled.
"One never knows in Oz, but if we look carefully, we'll be sure to find
something," answered the lion easily.
"Let's make it a game," suggested Notta, patting his figure in various
important places to see whether his disguises were still safe. "Now then, all
ready for a breakfast hunt. I'll take this field, Nick can take the air and Bob
and the Cowardly Lion may have the woods." Bob smiled a little to himself.
Hunting breakfast in the woods did seem ridiculous but, as the Cowardly Lion
went poking his head in bushes and sniffing around trees in a business-like
manner, Bob began to look too. There were plenty of flowers in the woods,
and for a time Bob found nothing else. At last pushing through a tangle of
vines, the little boy found himself standing under a stout little tree that rattled
curiously when the wind passed through its branches. There was a sign on the
tree. Standing on his toes Bob spelled it out laboriously. Then he called Notta
in excited little shrieks.
"What is it?" panted the clown, breaking through the vines with the
Cowardly Lion one leap behind him. "Are you hurt?"
"No," cried Bob, "but I've won!" He pointed gleefully to the tree.
'Travelers' Tree,' " read Notta, " 'planted by the Wizard Wam in the year
1120 0. Z.' Well, hurrah for Wam!" chortled the clown, and began walking all
around the tree, while the Cowardly Lion sat down and panted a little from
his long run.
The lower branches were gay with many pink cups and on the next,
poised over the cups, were the sauciest little tea, cocoa and coffee pots
imaginable. Higher up grew clusters of covered dishes of every kind. In the
very top of the tree was a large nest of some sort. Snorer, who came flying
back just then, declared it was full of eggs. Instead of leaves, the tree flaunted
many bright paper napkin blossoms.
"Be sure to plant your dishes when you have finished eating," directed
another sign quite sternly. With a happy little chuckle, Bob picked a napkin
for each, and three for the Cowardly Lion. Then Notta broke a coffee cup from
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its stem, and no sooner had he touched the cup than the coffee pot on the next
branch tilted gently and filled the cup with fragrant hot coffee. The clown was
so startled that he accidentally brushed off another cup, at which a cocoa pot
poured a cup full of cocoa over his head before he had time to duck.
Spluttering and coughing, Notta drew back, but that was the only accident,
and as the clown said, it saved him from washing his face. The Cowardly Lion
drank a dozen cups of coffee, one right after the other. Bob had two cups of
cocoa, and Snorer, holding a tea cup in one claw, sipped the beverage
suspiciously, then flew off to find something more to his taste. Next, Notta
picked five dishes of Ozish stew for the Cowardly Lion, a plate full of meat
hash for himself and a chop and baked potato for Bob Up. Nothing could have
been jollier than that breakfast. The Cowardly Lion forgot to worry about his
feathers, Bob forgot he had ever been an orphan, and Notta forgot that he was
lost in a strange magic country and in the power of the wicked monarch of
Mudge. When they could not eat another bite, Snorer flew to the top of a tree
and brought down dozens of eggs from the nest. Strangely enough, they were
hard boiled and Bob filled his blouse with them, for as Notta said, there was
no telling where they would be by noon. The Cowardly lion now dug a deep
hole and they buried all the dishes, which was lots less trouble than washing
them, then back they went to the Flyaboutabus.
Bob chattered quite gaily to Nickadoodle, but Notta and the Cowardly
Lion walked along in silence. Notta, after the valiant way the lion had
defended them from the Uns, could not bear the idea of betraying this strange
new friend. Better a thousand times turn blue than have the kind-hearted
Cowardly Lion fall into the merciless hands of Mustafa.
"Perhaps the old Mudger's ring will not work any way," reflected Notta
uncomfortably. "Perhaps it was just a threat to frighten us." If they could just
reach this wonderful Emerald City and tell their story to Dorothy, everything
would turn out happily. And that, decided Notta, was what he would do.
The Cowardly Lion, on his part, was thinking how terrible it would have
been had he eaten Notta on that first morning of their meeting. He felt guilty
every time he looked at the jolly, companionable clown. The more he thought
about the Patchwork Girl's suggestion, the more ashamed of himself he felt.
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