"Oh, no thank you, and I really must go now." Holding the strawberries carefully, Betsy smiled up into the pleasant face of Mr. Carter Green. He was so curious and exciting she hated to leave him, but Dorothy and Ozma would surely think her lost, so with a little skip she turned about. "Don't forget the shoes," she reminded him gaily. "Good-bye! Good--gracious!" "Hold tight, Betsy! Hold tight! Celery and cinnamon! What's the matter here?" Seizing his cart with one hand and the little girl with the other, the Vegetable Man teetered backward and forward in the road. And no wonder! It had suddenly ripped itself loose and was rushing along at such a rate that trees and fences simply whizzed past. Betsy's hat blew off at the first curve and strawberries, beets and bananas flew out in every direction. "I--was--afraid--of--this!" panted the Vegetable Man. "I--should--have--taken--the--regular--road!" "Isn't this a reg-u-lar--road!" called Betsy, hanging on to Carter with both hands. "What's--it--doing?" "Winding!" shrieked the Vegetable Man, trying to keep the rest of his vegetables from bouncing out of the cart. "It's--a--winding--road--Betsy! Shut--your eyes, quick!" Betsy was glad enough to obey, for the road was going round like a top, round and round like a merry go-round, in and out of trees, past lakes and forests, till the whole world tilted topsy-turvey. Then as suddenly as it had started to wind, it stopped, and when Betsy opened her eyes she was sitting on a small sand dune entirely surrounded by cabbages. A short distance away lay the Vegetable Man, still clutching his cart. While Betsy was still trying to catch her breath, Carter jumped up and shading his eyes looked in all directions. "Well, it's gone," he exclaimed ruefully and he was perfectly right. There was no sign of a road anywhere. It had cruelly gone off and left them in a wilderness of sand and scorched desert grass. "Why, I never knew there was a winding road near the Emerald City?" Betsy jumped up indignantly. "Where did it come from?" "Never can tell," sighed the Vegetable Man, beginning to collect his cabbages. "They just come and go, these winding roads of Oz; pass themselves off as regular roads till they catch a few travellers and you never can tell where they will take you." "Well, I don't think much of this place," groaned Betsy, rubbing her elbow, which had been severely skinned during the journey over the winding road. "Then let's go some other place," proposed the Vegetable Man cheerfully. All the strawberries and bananas had spilled out of the cart, but there were plenty of cabbages and apples left and he was busily rearranging these all the time he was talking to Betsy. "Have a cabbage?" he invited pleasantly. "Nothing like cabbages for a ship-wreck." "It was something like a ship-wreck," mused Betsy thoughtfully. "But I'd rather have an apple, if you don't mind. Do you think we'll ever find the way back to the Emerald City, Mr. Green?"