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eyes on the fringe of his robe. "And I think it best we hurry along, my
good fellow. Ho, whither away? It would never do to have a spoiled King and
Princess and a bad horse and elephant on your hands."
"Oh, if you'd ONLY wear our boxes!" begged Chillywalla, almost ready to cry
at the prospect of his visitors spoiling on the premises. Then as Kabumpo
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shook his head again, the Big Boxer started off at a rapid shuffle, anxious
to have them out of the woods as soon as possible. Thun, during all this
conversation, had been kicking and bucking under his iron box, but now
Planetty tapped out a reassuring message with her staff and the Thunder
Colt quieted down. On the whole, he behaved rather well, following the
signals his little mistress tapped out, and pushing the iron box along
without too much discomfort or complaint, though occasional indignant and
fiery protests came puffing out of his iron container.
Randy considered the journey through the Box Wood one of their gayest and
most entertaining adventures. The woodmen, in their brightly decorated
boxes, shuffled cheerfully along beside them, stopping now and then to
point with pride to their square box-like dwellings set at regular
intervals under the spreading boxwood trees. The whole forest was covered
by an enormous wooden box that shut out the sky and gave everything an
artificial and unreal look. It was in one side of this monster box that
Thun had burned the hole to admit them. Randy and Planetty, riding sociably
together on Kabumpo's back, picked boxes from branches of all the trees
they could reach, and it was such fun and so exciting they paid scarcely
any attention to the remarks of Chillywalla. Even the Elegant Elephant
snapped off a box or two and handed them back to his royal riders.
"Oh, look!" exulted Randy, opening a bright blue cardboard box. "This is
just full of chocolate candy."
"Oh, throw that trash away," advised Chillywalla contemptuously. "We think
nothing of the stuff that grows inside; it's the boxes themselves we are
after."
"But this candy is good," objected Randy after sampling several pieces. "And
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mind you, Kabumpo, Planetty has just picked a jewel box full of real
chains, rings and bracelets."
"Oh, they are netiful, netiful," crooned the Princess of Anuther Planet,
hugging the velvet jewel box to her breast.
"Keep them if you wish," sniffed Chillywalla, "but they're just rubbish to
us. When we pick boxes, we toss the contents away."
"Now, that's just plain foolishness," snorted Kabumpo, aghast at such a
waste, as Randy picked a pencil box full of neatly sharpened pencils and
Planetty a tidy sewing kit fitted out with scissors, needles and spools of
thread. The thimble was not quite ripe, but as Planetty had never stitched
a stitch in her royal life, she did not notice or care about that. Indeed,
before they came to the other side of the Box Wood, she and Randy were
sitting in the midst of a high heap of their treasures, and Kabumpo looked
as if he were making a lengthy safari, loaded up and down for the journey.
Randy had stuffed most of the boxes into big net bags Kabumpo always brought
along for emergencies, and these he tied to the Elegant Elephant's harness.
There were bread boxes packed with tiny loaves and biscuits, cake boxes
stuffed with sugar buns and cookies, stamp boxes, flower boxes, glove
boxes, coat and suit boxes. Last of all, Randy picked a Band Box and it
played such gay tunes when he lifted the lid, Planetty clapped her silver
hands, and even Kabumpo began to hum under his breath. Traveling through
the Box Wood with kind-hearted Chillywalla was more like a surprise party
than anything else. To Planetty it was all so delightful, she began to
wonder how she had ever been satisfied with her life on Anuther Planet.
"Are all the countries down here as different and happy as this?" she asked,
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