“Do you think you were alive before?” asked Kabumpo, squinting down his long trunk at Peg Amy. She had begged him to take off his plush robe and, spreading it on the grass, was beating it briskly with the branch of a tree. “Yes,” sighed the Wooden Doll, pausing with uplifted stick and regarding Kabumpo solemnly, “I must have been alive before ’cause I keep remembering things.” “What kind of things?” asked the Elegant Elephant, rubbing himself lazily against a tree. “Well, this for instance,” said Peg, holding up a corner of the purple plush robe. “I once had a dress of it. I’m sure I had a dress of this stuff.” “When you were a little doll?” asked Kabumpo curiously. “No,” said Peg, giving the robe a few little shakes, “before that. And I remember this country, too, and the sun and the wind and the sky. If I’d only been alive one day I wouldn’t remember them, would I?” “Queer things happen in Oz,” said Kabumpo comfortably. “But why bother? You are alive and very jolly. You are traveling with the most Elegant Elephant in Oz and in the company of a Prince. Isn’t that enough?” Peg Amy did not reply but kept on beating the plush robe with determined little thumps and staring off through the trees with a very puzzled expression in her painted blue eyes. They had traveled swiftly all morning through the fertile farmlands of the Winkies and had paused for lunch in this little grove. Peg, not needing food, and Kabumpo, finding plenty of tender branches handy, had remained together while Wag and the Prince sought more nourishing fare. Many a little Winkie farmer had stared in amazement as Peg and Pompa passed that morning but so fast did Kabumpo and Wag travel that before the Winkies were half sure of what they had seen there was nothing but a cloud of dust to wonder over and exclaim about. “If you had a pair of scissors, I could cut off the burned part of your robe and make it more tidy,” said Peg, when she had finished beating the dust out of Kabumpo’s gorgeous blanket. “There might be a pair in my pocket,” said the Elegant Elephant. “Here, let me get them,” he added hastily. “For suppose she should look into the Magic Mirror,” he thought suddenly. “It might tell her something terrible!” Even in this short time Kabumpo had grown fond of queer wooden Peg and careless as he was somehow he did not want to hurt her feelings again. Sure enough, there was a pair of silver scissors in with the jewels he had tumbled into his pocket before leaving Pumperdink. So Peg carefully cut away all the scorched part of Kabumpo’s robe and pinned under the rough edges with three beautiful pearl pins. “Now lift me up into that small tree and I’ll drop it over you,” she laughed gaily. This Kabumpo did quite easily and after Peg Amy had smoothed and adjusted the robe, she crept out on the end of the branch and straightened the Elegant Elephant’s pearl head dress and brushed all the dust from his forehead with a handful of damp leaves.