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Title: The Magic of Oz
Author: Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank)
Language: English
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[Illustration]
The Famous Oz Books
Since 1900, when L. Frank Baum introduced to the children of America THE
WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ and all the other exciting characters who inhabit
the land of Oz, these delightful fairy tales have stimulated the
imagination of millions of young readers.
These are stories which are genuine fantasy—creative, funny, tender,
exciting and surprising. Filled with the rarest and most absurd
creatures, each of the 40 volumes which now comprise the series, has
been eagerly sought out by generation after generation until today they
are known to all except the very young or those who were never young at
all.
When, in a recent survey, The New York Times polled a group of teen
agers on the books they liked best when they were young, the Oz books
topped the list.
_THE FAMOUS OZ BOOKS_
By L. Frank Baum:
THE WIZARD OF OZ
THE LAND OF OZ
OZMA OF OZ
DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ
THE ROAD TO OZ
THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ
THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ
TIK-TOK OF OZ
THE SCARECROW OF OZ
RINKITINK IN OZ
THE LOST PRINCESS OF OZ
THE TIN WOODMAN OF OZ
THE MAGIC OF OZ
GLINDA OF OZ
By Ruth Plumly Thompson:
THE ROYAL BOOK OF OZ
KABUMPO IN OZ
THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ
GRAMPA IN OZ
THE LOST KING OF OZ
THE HUNGRY TIGER OF OZ
THE GNOME KING OF OZ
THE GIANT HORSE OF OZ
JACK PUMPKINHEAD OF OZ
THE YELLOW KNIGHT OF OZ
PIRATES IN OZ
THE PURPLE PRINCE OF OZ
OJO IN OZ
SPEEDY IN OZ
THE WISHING HORSE OF OZ
CAPTAIN SALT IN OZ
HANDY MANDY IN OZ
THE SILVER PRINCESS IN OZ
OZOPLANING WITH THE WIZARD OF OZ
By John R. Neill:
THE WONDER CITY OF OZ
SCALAWAGONS OF OZ
LUCKY BUCKY IN OZ
By Jack Snow:
THE MAGICAL MIMICS IN OZ
THE SHAGGY MAN OF OZ
By Rachel R. Cosgrove:
THE HIDDEN VALLEY OF OZ
By Eloise Jarvis McGraw & Lauren McGraw Wagner:
MERRY GO ROUND IN OZ
Chicago THE REILLY & LEE CO. _Publishers_
[Illustration: This Book Belongs To]
[Illustration: _The Magic of Oz_]
[Illustration: Dorothy _and the_ Wizard]
THE MAGIC OF OZ
A Faithful Record of the Remarkable Adventures of Dorothy
and Trot and the Wizard of Oz, together with the
Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger and Cap’n
Bill, in their successful search for a Magical
and Beautiful Birthday Present for
Princess Ozma of Oz
BY
L. FRANK BAUM
“Royal Historian of Oz”
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN R. NEILL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
[Illustration]
Copyright 1919 By
L Frank Baum
All Rights Reserved
MADE IN U.S.A.
[Illustration]
I Dedicate this Book to the Children of our Soldiers, the Americans and
their Allies, with unmeasured Pride and Affection.
L. F. B.
[Illustration: THE HUNGRY TIGER AND THE COWARDLY LION]
[Illustration]
TO MY READERS
Curiously enough, in the events which have taken place in the last few
years in our “great outside world,” we may find incidents so marvelous
and inspiring that I cannot hope to equal them with stories of The Land
of Oz.
However, “The Magic of Oz” is really more strange and unusual than
anything I have read or heard about on our side of The Great Sandy
Desert which shuts us off from The Land of Oz, even during the past
exciting years, so I hope it will appeal to your love of novelty.
A long and confining illness has prevented my answering all the good
letters sent me—unless stamps were enclosed—but from now on I hope to be
able to give prompt attention to each and every letter with which my
readers favor me.
Assuring you that my love for you has never faltered and hoping the Oz
Books will continue to give you pleasure as long as I am able to write
them, I am
Yours affectionately,
L. FRANK BAUM,
“Royal Historian of Oz.”
“OZCOT”
at HOLLYWOOD
in CALIFORNIA
1919
[Illustration]
LIST OF CHAPTERS
1 Mount Munch 17
2 The Hawk 27
3 Two Bad Ones 34
4 Conspirators 48
5 A Happy Corner of Oz 53
6 Ozma’s Birthday Presents 65
7 The Forest of Gugu 81
8 The Li-Mon-Eags Make Trouble 87
9 The Isle of the Magic Flower 99
10 Stuck Fast 112
11 The Beasts of the Forest of Gugu 121
12 Kiki Uses His Magic 131
13 The Loss of the Black Bag 144
14 The Wizard Learns the Magic Word 157
15 The Lonesome Duck 169
16 The Glass Cat Finds the Black Bag 183
17 A Remarkable Journey 197
18 The Magic of the Wizard 209
19 Dorothy and the Bumble Bees 217
20 The Monkeys Have Trouble 226
21 The College of Athletic Arts 235
22 Ozma’s Birthday Party 240
23 The Fountain of Oblivion 255
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The Magic of Oz]
[Illustration: Mt. Munch]
Mount Munch
CHAPTER 1
On the east edge of the Land of Oz, in the Munchkin Country, is a big,
tall hill called Mount Munch. On one side, the bottom of this hill just
touches the Deadly Sandy Desert that separates the Fairyland of Oz from
all the rest of the world, but on the other side, the hill touches the
beautiful, fertile Country of the Munchkins.
The Munchkin folks, however, merely stand off and look at Mount Munch
and know very little about it; for, about a third of the way up, its
sides become too steep to climb, and if any people live upon the top of
that great towering peak that seems to reach nearly to the skies, the
Munchkins are not aware of the fact.
But people _do_ live there, just the same. The top of Mount Munch is
shaped like a saucer, broad and deep, and in the saucer are fields where
grains and vegetables grow, and flocks are fed, and brooks flow and
trees bear all sorts of things. There are houses scattered here and
there, each having its family of Hyups, as the people call themselves.
The Hyups seldom go down the mountain, for the same reason that the
Munchkins never climb up: the sides are too steep.
In one of the houses lived a wise old Hyup named Bini Aru, who used to
be a clever Sorcerer. But Ozma of Oz, who rules everyone in the Land of
Oz, had made a decree that no one should practice magic in her dominions
except Glinda the Good and the Wizard of Oz, and when Glinda sent this
royal command to the Hyups by means of a strong-winged Eagle, old Bini
Aru at once stopped performing magical arts. He destroyed many of his
magic powders and tools of magic, and afterward honestly obeyed the law.
He had never seen Ozma, but he knew she was his Ruler and must be
obeyed.
There was only one thing that grieved him. He had discovered a new and
secret method of transformations that was unknown to any other Sorcerer.
Glinda the Good did not know it, nor did the little Wizard of Oz, nor
Dr. Pipt nor old Mombi, nor anyone else who dealt in magic arts. It was
Bini Aru’s own secret. By its means, it was the simplest thing in the
world to transform anyone into beast, bird or fish, or anything else,
and back again, once you knew how to pronounce the mystical word:
“Pyrzqxgl.”
Bini Aru had used this secret many times, but not to cause evil or
suffering to others. When he had wandered far from home and was hungry,
he would say: “I want to become a cow—Pyrzqxgl!” In an instant he would
be a cow, and then he would eat grass and satisfy his hunger. All beasts
and birds can talk in the Land of Oz, so when the cow was no longer
hungry, it would say: “I want to be Bini Aru again: Pyrzqxgl!” and the
magic word, properly pronounced, would instantly restore him to his
proper form.
Now, of course, I would not dare to write down this magic word so
plainly if I thought my readers would pronounce it properly and so be
able to transform themselves and others, but it is a fact that no one in
all the world except Bini Aru, had ever (up to the time this story
begins) been able to pronounce “Pyrzqxgl” the right way, so I think it
is safe to give it to you. It might be well, however, in reading this
story aloud, to be careful not to pronounce Pyrzqxgl the proper way, and
thus avoid all danger of the secret being able to work mischief.
Bini Aru, having discovered the secret of instant transformation, which
required no tools or powders or other chemicals or herbs and always
worked perfectly, was reluctant to have such a wonderful discovery
entirely unknown or lost to all human knowledge. He decided not to use
it again, since Ozma had forbidden him to do so, but he reflected that
Ozma was a girl and some time might change her mind and allow her
subjects to practice magic, in which case Bini Aru could again transform
himself and others at will,—unless, of course, he forgot how to
pronounce Pyrzqxgl in the meantime.
After giving the matter careful thought, he decided to write the word,
and how it should be pronounced, in some secret place, so that he could
find it after many years, but where no one else could ever find it.
That was a clever idea, but what bothered the old Sorcerer was to find a
secret place. He wandered all over the Saucer at the top of Mount Munch,
but found no place in which to write the secret word where others might
not be likely to stumble upon it. So finally he decided it must be
written somewhere in his own house.
Bini Aru had a wife named Mopsi Aru who was famous for making fine
huckleberry pies, and he had a son named Kiki Aru who was not famous at
all. He was noted as being cross and disagreeable because he was not
happy, and he was not happy because he wanted to go down the mountain
and visit the big world below and his father would not let him. No one
paid any attention to Kiki Aru, because he didn’t amount to anything,
anyway.
Once a year there was a festival on Mount Munch which all the Hyups
attended. It was held in the center of the saucer-shaped country, and
the day was given over to feasting and merry-making. The young folks
danced and sang songs; the women spread the tables with good things to
eat, and the men played on musical instruments and told fairy tales.
Kiki Aru usually went to these festivals with his parents, and then sat
sullenly outside the circle and would not dance or sing or even talk to
the other young people. So the festival did not make him any happier
than other days, and this time he told Bini Aru and Mopsi Aru that he
would not go. He would rather stay at home and be unhappy all by
himself, he said, and so they gladly let him stay.
But after he was left alone Kiki decided to enter his father’s private
room, where he was forbidden to go, and see if he could find any of the
magic tools Bini Aru used to work with when he practiced sorcery. As he
went in Kiki stubbed his toe on one of the floor boards. He searched
everywhere but found no trace of his father’s magic. All had been
destroyed.
Much disappointed, he started to go out again when he stubbed his toe on
the same floor board. That set him thinking. Examining the board more
closely, Kiki found it had been pried up and then nailed down again in
such a manner that it was a little higher than the other boards. But why
had his father taken up the board? Had he hidden some of his magic tools
underneath the floor?
[Illustration]
Kiki got a chisel and pried up the board, but found nothing under it. He
was just about to replace the board when it slipped from his hand and
turned over, and he saw something written on the underside of it. The
light was rather dim, so he took the board to the window and examined
it, and found that the writing described exactly how to pronounce the
magic word Pyrzqxgl, which would transform anyone into anything
instantly, and back again when the word was repeated.
Now, at first, Kiki Aru didn’t realize what a wonderful secret he had
discovered; but he thought it might be of use to him and so he took a
piece of paper and made on it an exact copy of the instructions for
pronouncing Pyrzqxgl. Then he folded the paper and put it in his pocket,
and replaced the board in the floor so that no one would suspect it had
been removed.
After this Kiki went into the garden and sitting beneath a tree made a
careful study of the paper. He had always wanted to get away from Mount
Munch and visit the big world—especially the Land of Oz—and the idea now
came to him that if he could transform himself into a bird, he could fly
to any place he wished to go and fly back again whenever he cared to. It
was necessary, however, to learn by heart the way to pronounce the magic
word, because a bird would have no way to carry a paper with it, and
Kiki would be unable to resume his proper shape if he forgot the word or
its pronunciation.
So he studied it a long time, repeating it a hundred times in his mind
until he was sure he would not forget it. But to make safety doubly sure
he placed the paper in a tin box in a neglected part of the garden and
covered the box with small stones.
By this time it was getting late in the day and Kiki wished to attempt
his first transformation before his parents returned from the festival.
So he stood on the front porch of his home and said:
“I want to become a big, strong bird, like a hawk—Pyrzqxgl!” He
pronounced it the right way, so in a flash he felt that he was
completely changed in form. He flapped his wings, hopped to the porch
railing and said: “Caw-oo! Caw-oo!”
Then he laughed and said half aloud: “I suppose that’s the funny sound
this sort of a bird makes. But now let me try my wings and see if I’m
strong enough to fly across the desert.”
For he had decided to make his first trip to the country outside the
Land of Oz. He had stolen this secret of transformation and he knew he
had disobeyed the law of Oz by working magic. Perhaps Glinda or the
Wizard of Oz would discover him and punish him, so it would be good
policy to keep away from Oz altogether.
Slowly Kiki rose into the air, and resting on his broad wings, floated
in graceful circles above the saucer-shaped mountain-top. From his
height, he could see, far across the burning sands of the Deadly Desert,
another country that might be pleasant to explore, so he headed that
way, and with strong, steady strokes of his wings, began the long
flight.
[Illustration]
THE HAWK
CHAPTER 2
Even a hawk has to fly high in order to cross the Deadly Desert, from
which poisonous fumes are constantly rising. Kiki Aru felt sick and
faint by the time he reached good land again, for he could not quite
escape the effects of the poisons. But the fresh air soon restored him
and he alighted in a broad table-land which is called Hiland. Just
beyond it is a valley known as Loland, and these two countries are ruled
by the Gingerbread Man, John Dough, with Chick the Cherub as his Prime
Minister. The Hawk merely stopped here long enough to rest, and then he
flew north and passed over a fine country called Merryland, which is
ruled by a lovely Wax Doll. Then, following the curve of the Desert, he
turned north and settled on a tree-top in the Kingdom of Noland.
Kiki was tired by this time, and the sun was now setting, so he decided
to remain here till morning. From his tree-top he could see a house near
by, which looked very comfortable. A man was milking a cow in the yard
and a pleasant-faced woman came to the door and called him to supper.
That made Kiki wonder what sort of food hawks ate. He felt hungry, but
didn’t know what to eat or where to get it. Also he thought a bed would
be more comfortable than a tree-top for sleeping, so he hopped to the
ground and said: “I want to become Kiki Aru again—Pyrzqxgl!”
Instantly he had resumed his natural shape, and going to the house, he
knocked upon the door and asked for some supper.
“Who are you?” asked the man of the house.
“A stranger from the Land of Oz,” replied Kiki Aru.
“Then you are welcome,” said the man.
Kiki was given a good supper and a good bed, and he behaved very well,
although he refused to answer all the questions the good people of
Noland asked him. Having escaped from his home and found a way to see
the world, the young man was no longer unhappy, and so he was no longer
cross and disagreeable. The people thought him a very respectable person
and gave him breakfast next morning, after which he started on his way
feeling quite contented.
Having walked for an hour or two through the pretty country that is
ruled by King Bud, Kiki Aru decided he could travel faster and see more
as a bird, so he transformed himself into a white dove and visited the
great city of Nole and saw the King’s palace and gardens and many other
places of interest. Then he flew westward into the Kingdom of Ix, and
after a day in Queen Zixi’s country went on westward into the Land of
Ev. Every place he visited he thought was much more pleasant than the
saucer-country of the Hyups, and he decided that when he reached the
finest country of all he would settle there and enjoy his future life to
the utmost.
In the Land of Ev he resumed his own shape again, for the cities and
villages were close together and he could easily go on foot from one to
another of them.
Toward evening he came to a good Inn and asked the inn-keeper if he
could have food and lodging.
“You can if you have the money to pay,” said the man, “otherwise you
must go elsewhere.”
This surprised Kiki, for in the Land of Oz they do not use money at all,
everyone being allowed to take what he wishes without price. He had no
money, therefore, and so he turned away to seek hospitality elsewhere.
Looking through an open window into one of the rooms of the Inn, as he
passed along, he saw an old man counting on a table a big heap of gold
pieces, which Kiki thought to be money. One of these would buy him
supper and a bed, he reflected, so he transformed himself into a magpie
and, flying through the open window, caught up one of the gold pieces in
his beak and flew out again before the old man could interfere. Indeed,
the old man who was robbed was quite helpless, for he dared not leave
his pile of gold to chase the magpie, and before he could place the gold
in a sack and the sack in his pocket the robber bird was out of sight
and to seek it would be folly.
Kiki Aru flew to a group of trees and, dropping the gold piece to the
ground, resumed his proper shape, and then picked up the money and put
it in his pocket.
“You’ll be sorry for this!” exclaimed a small voice just over his head.
[Illustration]
Kiki looked up and saw that a sparrow, perched upon a branch, was
watching him.
“Sorry for what?” he demanded.
“Oh, I saw the whole thing,” asserted the sparrow. “I saw you look in
the window at the gold, and then make yourself into a magpie and rob the
poor man, and then I saw you fly here and make the bird into your former
shape. That’s magic, and magic is wicked and unlawful; and you stole
money, and that’s a still greater crime. You’ll be sorry, some day.”
[Illustration]
“I don’t care,” replied Kiki Aru, scowling.
“Aren’t you afraid to be wicked?” asked the sparrow.
“No, I didn’t know I was being wicked,” said Kiki, “but if I was, I’m
glad of it. I hate good people. I’ve always wanted to be wicked, but I
didn’t know how.”
“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed someone behind him, in a big voice; “that’s the
proper spirit, my lad! I’m glad I’ve met you; shake hands.”
The sparrow gave a frightened squeak and flew away.
[Illustration]
Two Bad Ones
CHAPTER 3
Kiki turned around and saw a queer old man standing near. He didn’t
stand straight, for he was crooked. He had a fat body and thin legs and
arms. He had a big, round face with bushy, white whiskers that came to a
point below his waist, and white hair that came to a point on top of his
head. He wore dull-gray clothes that were tight fitting, and his pockets
were all bunched out as if stuffed full of something.
“I didn’t know you were here,” said Kiki.
“I didn’t come until after you did,” said the queer old man.
“Who are you?” asked Kiki.
“My name’s Ruggedo. I used to be the Nome King; but I got kicked out of
my country, and now I’m a wanderer.”
“What made them kick you out?” inquired the Hyup boy.
“Well, it’s the fashion to kick kings nowadays. I was a pretty good
King—to myself—but those dreadful Oz people wouldn’t let me alone. So I
had to abdicate.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means to be kicked out. But let’s talk about something pleasant. Who
are you and where did you come from?”
“I’m called Kiki Aru. I used to live on Mount Munch in the Land of Oz,
but now I’m a wanderer like yourself.”
The Nome King gave him a shrewd look.
“I heard that bird say that you transformed yourself into a magpie and
back again. Is that true?”
Kiki hesitated, but saw no reason to deny it. He felt that it would make
him appear more important.
“Well—yes,” he said.
“Then you’re a wizard?”
“No; I only understand transformations,” he admitted.
“Well, that’s pretty good magic, anyhow,” declared old Ruggedo. “I used
to have some very fine magic, myself, but my enemies took it all away
from me. Where are you going now?”
“I’m going into the inn, to get some supper and a bed,” said Kiki.
“Have you the money to pay for it?” asked the Nome.
“I have one gold piece.”
“Which you stole. Very good. And you’re glad that you’re wicked. Better
yet. I like you, young man, and I’ll go to the inn with you if you’ll
promise not to eat eggs for supper.”
“Don’t you like eggs?” asked Kiki.
“I’m afraid of ’em; they’re dangerous!” said Ruggedo, with a shudder.
“All right,” agreed Kiki; “I won’t ask for eggs.”
“Then come along,” said the Nome.
When they entered the inn, the landlord scowled at Kiki and said:
“I told you I would not feed you unless you had money.”
Kiki showed him the gold piece.
“And how about you?” asked the landlord, turning to Ruggedo. “Have you
money?”
“I’ve something better,” answered the old Nome, and taking a bag from
one of his pockets he poured from it upon the table a mass of glittering
gems—diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
The landlord was very polite to the strangers after that. He served them
an excellent supper, and while they ate it, the Hyup boy asked his
companion:
“Where did you get so many jewels?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” answered the Nome. “When those Oz people took my
kingdom away from me—just because it was my kingdom and I wanted to run
it to suit myself—they said I could take as many precious stones as I
could carry. So I had a lot of pockets made in my clothes and loaded
them all up. Jewels are fine things to have with you when you travel;
you can trade them for anything.”
“Are they better than gold pieces?” asked Kiki.
“The smallest of these jewels is worth a hundred gold pieces such as you
stole from the old man.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” begged Kiki, uneasily. “Some one else might hear
what you are saying.”
After supper they took a walk together, and the former Nome King said:
“Do you know the Shaggy Man, and the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, and
Dorothy, and Ozma and all the other Oz people?”
“No,” replied the boy, “I have never been away from Mount Munch until I
flew over the Deadly Desert the other day in the shape of a hawk.”
“Then you’ve never seen the Emerald City of Oz?”
“Never.”
“Well,” said the Nome, “I knew all the Oz people, and you can guess I do
not love them. All during my wanderings I have brooded on how I can be
revenged on them. Now that I’ve met you I can see a way to conquer the
Land of Oz and be King there myself, which is better than being King of
the Nomes.”
“How can you do that?” inquired Kiki Aru, wonderingly.
“Never mind how. In the first place, I’ll make a bargain with you. Tell
me the secret of how to perform transformations and I will give you a
pocketful of jewels, the biggest and finest that I possess.”
“No,” said Kiki, who realized that to share his power with another would
be dangerous to himself.
“I’ll give you _two_ pocketsful of jewels,” said the Nome.
“No;” answered Kiki.
“I’ll give you every jewel I possess.”
“No, no, no!” said Kiki, who was beginning to be frightened.
“Then,” said the Nome, with a wicked look at the boy, “I’ll tell the
inn-keeper that you stole that gold piece and he will have you put in
prison.”
Kiki laughed at the threat.
“Before he can do that,” said he, “I will transform myself into a lion
and tear him to pieces, or into a bear and eat him up, or into a fly and
fly away where he could not find me.”
“Can you really do such wonderful transformations?” asked the old Nome,
looking at him curiously.
“Of course,” declared Kiki. “I can transform you into a stick of wood,
in a flash, or into a stone, and leave you here by the roadside.”
The wicked Nome shivered a little when he heard that, but it made him
long more than ever to possess the great secret. After a while he said:
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will help me to conquer Oz and to
transform the Oz people, who are my enemies, into sticks or stones, by
telling me your secret, I’ll agree to make _you_ the Ruler of all Oz,
and I will be your Prime Minister and see that your orders are obeyed.”
“I’ll help do that,” said Kiki, “but I won’t tell you my secret.”
The Nome was so furious at this refusal that he jumped up and down with
rage and spluttered and choked for a long time before he could control
his passion. But the boy was not at all frightened. He laughed at the
wicked old Nome, which made him more furious than ever.
“Let’s give up the idea,” he proposed, when Ruggedo had quieted
somewhat. “I don’t know the Oz people you mention and so they are not my
enemies. If they’ve kicked you out of your kingdom, that’s your
affair—not mine.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be king of that splendid fairyland?” asked
Ruggedo.
“Yes, I would,” replied Kiki Aru; “but you want to be king yourself, and
we would quarrel over it.”
“No,” said the Nome, trying to deceive him. “I don’t care to be king of
Oz, come to think it over. I don’t even care to live in that country.
What I want first is revenge. If we can conquer Oz, I’ll get enough
magic then to conquer my own kingdom of the Nomes, and I’ll go back and
live in my underground caverns, which are more home-like than the top of
the earth. So here’s my proposition: Help me conquer Oz and get revenge,
and help me get the magic away from Glinda and the Wizard, and I’ll let
you be King of Oz forever afterward.”
[Illustration]
“I’ll think it over,” answered Kiki, and that is all he would say that
evening.
In the night when all in the Inn were asleep but himself, old Ruggedo
the Nome, rose softly from his couch and went into the room of Kiki Aru
the Hyup, and searched everywhere for the magic tool that performed his
transformations. Of course, there was no such tool, and although Ruggedo
searched in all the boy’s pockets, he found nothing magical whatever. So
he went back to his bed and began to doubt that Kiki could perform
transformations.
Next morning he said:
“Which way do you travel to-day?”
“I think I shall visit the Rose Kingdom,” answered the boy.
“That is a long journey,” declared the Nome.
“I shall transform myself into a bird,” said Kiki, “and so fly to the
Rose Kingdom in an hour.”
“Then transform me, also, into a bird, and I will go with you,”
suggested Ruggedo. “But, in that case, let us fly together to the Land
of Oz, and see what it looks like.”
Kiki thought this over. Pleasant as were the countries he had visited,
he heard everywhere that the Land of Oz was more beautiful and
delightful. The Land of Oz was his own country, too, and if there was
any possibility of his becoming its King, he must know something about
it.
While Kiki the Hyup thought, Ruggedo the Nome was also thinking. This
boy possessed a marvelous power, and although very simple in some ways,
he was determined not to part with his secret. However, if Ruggedo could
get him to transport the wily old Nome to Oz, which he could reach in no
other way, he might then induce the boy to follow his advice and enter
into the plot for revenge, which he had already planned in his wicked
heart.
“There are wizards and magicians in Oz,” remarked Kiki, after a time.
“They might discover us, in spite of our transformations.”
“Not if we are careful,” Ruggedo assured him. “Ozma has a Magic Picture,
in which she can see whatever she wishes to see; but Ozma will know
nothing of our going to Oz, and so she will not command her Magic
Picture to show where we are or what we are doing. Glinda the Good has a
Great Book called the Book of Records, in which is magically written
everything that people do in the Land of Oz, just the instant they do
it.”
“Then,” said Kiki, “there is no use our attempting to conquer the
country, for Glinda would read in her book all that we do, and as her
magic is greater than mine, she would soon put a stop to our plans.”
“I said ‘people,’ didn’t I?” retorted the Nome. “The book doesn’t make a
record of what birds do, or beasts. It only tells the doings of people.
So, if we fly into the country as birds, Glinda won’t know anything
about it.”
[Illustration]
“Two birds couldn’t conquer the Land of Oz,” asserted the boy,
scornfully.
“No; that’s true,” admitted Ruggedo, and then he rubbed his forehead and
stroked his long pointed beard and thought some more.
“Ah, now I have the idea!” he declared. “I suppose you can transform us
into beasts as well as birds?”
“Of course.”
“And can you make a bird a beast, and a beast a bird again, without
taking a human form in between?”
“Certainly,” said Kiki. “I can transform myself or others into anything
that can talk. There’s a magic word that must be spoken in connection
with the transformations, and as beasts and birds and dragons and fishes
can talk in Oz, we may become any of these we desire to. However, if I
transformed myself into a tree, I would always remain a tree, because
then I could not utter the magic word to change the transformation.”
“I see; I see,” said Ruggedo, nodding his bushy, white head until the
point of his hair waved back and forth like a pendulum. “That fits in
with my idea, exactly. Now, listen, and I’ll explain to you my plan.
We’ll fly to Oz as birds and settle in one of the thick forests in the
Gillikin Country. There you will transform us into powerful beasts, and
as Glinda doesn’t keep any track of the doings of beasts we can act
without being discovered.”
“But how can two beasts raise an army to conquer the powerful people of
Oz?” inquired Kiki.
“That’s easy. But not an army of _people_, mind you. That would be
quickly discovered. And while we are in Oz you and I will never resume
our human forms until we’ve conquered the country and destroyed Glinda,
and Ozma, and the Wizard, and Dorothy, and all the rest, and so have
nothing more to fear from them.”
“It is impossible to kill anyone in the Land of Oz,” declared Kiki.
“It isn’t necessary to kill the Oz people,” rejoined Ruggedo.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” objected the boy. “What will happen
to the Oz people, and what sort of an army could we get together, except
of people?”
“I’ll tell you. The forests of Oz are full of beasts. Some of them, in
the far-away places, are savage and cruel, and would gladly follow a
leader as savage as themselves. They have never troubled the Oz people
much, because they had no leader to urge them on, but we will tell them
to help us conquer Oz and as a reward we will transform all the beasts
into men and women, and let them live in the houses and enjoy all the
good things; and we will transform all the people of Oz into beasts of
various sorts, and send them to live in the forests and the jungles.
That is a splendid idea, you must admit, and it’s so easy that we won’t
have any trouble at all to carry it through to success.”
“Will the beasts consent, do you think?” asked the boy.
“To be sure they will. We can get every beast in Oz on our side—except a
few who live in Ozma’s palace, and they won’t count.”
[Illustration]
Conspirators
CHAPTER 4
Kiki Aru didn’t know much about Oz and didn’t know much about the beasts
who lived there, but the old Nome’s plan seemed to him to be quite
reasonable. He had a faint suspicion that Ruggedo meant to get the best
of him in some way, and he resolved to keep a close watch on his
fellow-conspirator. As long as he kept to himself the secret word of the
transformations, Ruggedo would not dare to harm him, and he promised
himself that as soon as they had conquered Oz, he would transform the
old Nome into a marble statue and keep him in that form forever.
Ruggedo, on his part, decided that he could, by careful watching and
listening, surprise the boy’s secret, and when he had learned the magic
word he would transform Kiki Aru into a bundle of faggots and burn him
up and so be rid of him.
This is always the way with wicked people. They cannot be trusted even
by one another. Ruggedo thought he was fooling Kiki, and Kiki thought he
was fooling Ruggedo; so both were pleased.
“It’s a long way across the Desert,” remarked the boy, “and the sands
are hot and send up poisonous vapors. Let us wait until evening and then
fly across in the night when it will be cooler.”
The former Nome King agreed to this, and the two spent the rest of that
day in talking over their plans. When evening came they paid the
inn-keeper and walked out to a little grove of trees that stood near by.
“Remain here for a few minutes and I’ll soon be back,” said Kiki, and
walking swiftly away, he left the Nome standing in the grove. Ruggedo
wondered where he had gone, but stood quietly in his place until, all of
a sudden, his form changed to that of a great eagle, and he uttered a
piercing cry of astonishment and flapped his wings in a sort of panic.
At once his eagle cry was answered from beyond the grove, and another
eagle, even larger and more powerful than the transformed Ruggedo, came
sailing through the trees and alighted beside him.
“Now we are ready for the start,” said the voice of Kiki, coming from
the eagle.
Ruggedo realized that this time he had been outwitted. He had thought
Kiki would utter the magic word in his presence, and so he would learn
what it was, but the boy had been too shrewd for that.
As the two eagles mounted high into the air and began their flight
across the great Desert that separates the Land of Oz from all the rest
of the world, the Nome said:
“When I was king of the Nomes I had a magic way of working
transformations that I thought was good, but it could not compare with
your secret word. I had to have certain tools and make passes and say a
lot of mystic words before I could transform anybody.”
“What became of your magic tools?” inquired Kiki.
[Illustration]
“The Oz people took them all away from me—that horrid girl, Dorothy, and
that terrible fairy, Ozma, the Ruler of Oz—at the time they took away my
underground kingdom and kicked me upstairs into the cold, heartless
world.”
“Why did you let them do that?” asked the boy.
[Illustration]
“Well,” said Ruggedo, “I couldn’t help it. They rolled eggs at
me—_eggs_—dreadful eggs!—and if an egg even touches a Nome, he is ruined
for life.”
“Is any kind of an egg dangerous to a Nome?”
“Any kind and every kind. An egg is the only thing I’m afraid of.”
A Happy Corner of Oz
CHAPTER 5
There is no other country so beautiful as the Land of Oz. There are no
other people so happy and contented and prosperous as the Oz people.
They have all they desire; they love and admire their beautiful girl
Ruler, Ozma of Oz, and they mix work and play so justly that both are
delightful and satisfying and no one has any reason to complain. Once in
a while something happens in Oz to disturb the people’s happiness for a
brief time, for so rich and attractive a fairyland is sure to make a few
selfish and greedy outsiders envious, and therefore certain evil-doers
have treacherously plotted to conquer Oz and enslave its people and
destroy its girl Ruler, and so gain the wealth of Oz for themselves. But
up to the time when the cruel and crafty Nome, Ruggedo, conspired with
Kiki Aru, the Hyup, all such attempts had failed. The Oz people
suspected no danger. Life in the world’s nicest fairyland was one round
of joyous, happy days.
In the center of the Emerald City of Oz, the capital city of Ozma’s
dominions, is a vast and beautiful garden, surrounded by a wall inlaid
with shining emeralds, and in the center of this garden stands Ozma’s
Royal Palace, the most splendid building ever constructed. From a
hundred towers and domes floated the banners of Oz, which included the
Ozmies, the Munchkins, the Gillikins, the Winkies and the Quadlings. The
banner of the Munchkins is blue, that of the Winkies yellow; the
Gillikin banner is purple, and the Quadling’s banner is red. The colors
of the Emerald City are of course green. Ozma’s own banner has a green
center, and is divided into four quarters. These quarters are colored
blue, purple, yellow and red, indicating that she rules over all the
countries of the Land of Oz.
This fairyland is so big, however, that all of it is not yet known to
its girl Ruler, and it is said that in some far parts of the country, in
forests and mountain fastnesses, in hidden valleys and thick jungles,
are people and beasts that know as little about Ozma as she knows of
them. Still, these unknown subjects are not nearly so numerous as the
known inhabitants of Oz, who occupy all the countries near to the
Emerald City. Indeed, I’m sure it will not be long until all parts of
the fairyland of Oz are explored and their peoples made acquainted with
their Ruler, for in Ozma’s palace are several of her friends who are so
curious that they are constantly discovering new and extraordinary
places and inhabitants.
One of the most frequent discoverers of these hidden places in Oz is a
little Kansas girl named Dorothy, who is Ozma’s dearest friend and lives
in luxurious rooms in the Royal Palace. Dorothy is, indeed, a Princess
of Oz, but she does not like to be called a princess, and because she is
simple and sweet and does not pretend to be anything but an ordinary
little girl, she is called just “Dorothy” by everybody and is the most
popular person, next to Ozma, in all the Land of Oz.
[Illustration]
One morning Dorothy crossed the hall of the palace and knocked on the
door of another girl named Trot, also a guest and friend of Ozma. When
told to enter, Dorothy found that Trot had company, an old sailor-man
with one wooden leg and one meat leg, who was sitting by the open window
puffing smoke from a corn-cob pipe. This sailor-man was named Cap’n
Bill, and he had accompanied Trot to the Land of Oz and was her oldest
and most faithful comrade and friend. Dorothy liked Cap’n Bill, too, and
after she had greeted him, she said to Trot:
“You know, Ozma’s birthday is next month, and I’ve been wondering what I
can give her as a birthday present. She’s so good to us all that we
certainly ought to remember her birthday.”
“That’s true,” agreed Trot. “I’ve been wondering, too, what I could give
Ozma. It’s pretty hard to decide, ’cause she’s got already all she
wants, and as she’s a fairy and knows a lot about magic, she could
satisfy any wish.”
“I know,” returned Dorothy, “but that isn’t the point. It isn’t that
Ozma _needs_ anything, but that it will please her to know we’ve
remembered her birthday. But what shall we give her?”
Trot shook her head in despair.
“I’ve tried to think and I can’t,” she declared.
“It’s the same way with me,” said Dorothy.
“I know one thing that ’ud please her,” remarked Cap’n Bill, turning his
round face with its fringe of whiskers toward the two girls and staring
at them with his big, light-blue eyes wide open.
“What is it, Cap’n Bill?”
“It’s an Enchanted Flower,” said he. “It’s a pretty plant that stands in
a golden flower-pot an’ grows all sorts o’ flowers, one after another.
One minute a fine rose buds an’ blooms, an’ then a tulip, an’ next a
chrys—chrys—”
“—anthemum,” said Dorothy, helping him.
“That’s it; and next a dahlia, an’ then a daffydil, an’ on all through
the range o’ posies. Jus’ as soon as one fades away, another comes, of a
different sort, an’ the perfume from ’em is mighty snifty, an’ they
keeps bloomin’ night and day, year in an’ year out.”
“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Dorothy. “I think Ozma would like it.”
“But where is the Magic Flower, and how can we get it?” asked Trot.
“Dun’no, zac’ly,” slowly replied Cap’n Bill. “The Glass Cat tol’ me
about it only yesterday, an’ said it was in some lonely place up at the
nor’east o’ here. The Glass Cat goes travelin’ all around Oz, you know,
an’ the little critter sees a lot o’ things no one else does.”
“That’s true,” said Dorothy, thoughtfully. “Northeast of here must be in
the Munchkin Country, and perhaps a good way off, so let’s ask the Glass
Cat to tell us how to get to the Magic Flower.”
So the two girls, with Cap’n Bill stumping along on his wooden leg after
them, went out into the garden, and after some time spent in searching,
they found the Glass Cat curled up in the sunshine beside a bush, fast
asleep.
[Illustration]
The Glass Cat is one of the most curious creatures in all Oz. It was
made by a famous magician named Dr. Pipt before Ozma had forbidden her
subjects to work magic. Dr. Pipt had made the Glass Cat to catch mice,
but the Cat refused to catch mice and was considered more curious than
useful.
This astonishing cat was made all of glass and was so clear and
transparent that you could see through it as easily as through a window.
In the top of its head, however, was a mass of delicate pink balls which
looked like jewels but were intended for brains. It had a heart made of
a blood-red ruby. The eyes were two large emeralds. But, aside from
these colors, all the rest of the animal was of clear glass, and it had
a spun-glass tail that was really beautiful.
“Here, wake up,” said Cap’n Bill. “We want to talk to you.”
Slowly the Glass Cat got upon its feet, yawned and then looked at the
three who stood before it.
“How dare you disturb me?” it asked in a peevish voice. “You ought to be
ashamed of yourselves.”
“Never mind that,” returned the Sailor. “Do you remember tellin’ me
yesterday ’bout a Magic Flower in a Gold Pot?”
“Do you think I’m a fool? Look at my brains—you can see ’em work. Of
course I remember!” said the cat.
“Well, where can we find it?”
“You can’t. It’s none of your business, anyhow. Go away and let me
sleep,” advised the Glass Cat.
“Now, see here,” said Dorothy; “we want the Magic Flower to give to Ozma
on her birthday. You’d be glad to please Ozma, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” replied the creature. “Why should I want to please
anybody?”
[Illustration]
“You’ve got a heart, ’cause I can see it inside of you,” said Trot.
“Yes; it’s a pretty heart, and I’m fond of it,” said the cat, twisting
around to view its own body. “But it’s made from a ruby, and it’s hard
as nails.”
“Aren’t you good for _any_thing?” asked Trot.
“Yes, I’m pretty to look at, and that’s more than can be said of you,”
retorted the creature.
Trot laughed at this, and Dorothy, who understood the Glass Cat pretty
well, said soothingly:
“You are indeed beautiful, and if you can tell Cap’n Bill where to find
the Magic Flower, all the people in Oz will praise your cleverness. The
Flower will belong to Ozma, but everyone will know the Glass Cat
discovered it.”
This was the kind of praise the crystal creature liked.
“Well,” it said, while the pink brains rolled around, “I found the Magic
Flower way up in the north of the Munchkin Country where few people live
or ever go. There’s a river there that flows through a forest, and in
the middle of the river in the middle of the forest there is a small
island on which stands the gold pot in which grows the Magic Flower.”
“How did you get to the island?” asked Dorothy. “Glass cats can’t swim.”
“No, but I’m not afraid of water,” was the reply. “I just walked across
the river on the bottom.”
“Under the water?” exclaimed Trot.
The cat gave her a scornful look.
“How could I walk _over_ the water on the _bottom_ of the river? If you
were transparent, anyone could see _your_ brains were not working. But
I’m sure you could never find the place alone. It has always been hidden
from the Oz people.”
[Illustration]
“But you, with your fine pink brains, could find it again, I s’pose,”
remarked Dorothy.
“Yes; and if you want that Magic Flower for Ozma, I’ll go with you and
show you the way.”
“That’s lovely of you!” declared Dorothy. “Trot and Cap’n Bill will go
with you, for this is to be their birthday present to Ozma. While you’re
gone I’ll have to find something else to give her.”
“All right. Come on, then, Cap’n,” said the Glass Cat, starting to move
away.
“Wait a minute,” begged Trot. “How long will we be gone?”
“Oh, about a week.”
“Then I’ll put some things in a basket to take with us,” said the girl,
and ran into the palace to make her preparations for the journey.
[Illustration]
Ozma’s Birthday Presents
CHAPTER 6
When Cap’n Bill and Trot and the Glass Cat had started for the hidden
island in the far-off river to get the Magic Flower, Dorothy wondered
again what she could give Ozma on her birthday. She met the Patchwork
Girl and said:
“What are you going to give Ozma for a birthday present?”
“I’ve written a song for her,” answered the strange Patchwork Girl, who
went by the name of “Scraps,” and who, though stuffed with cotton, had a
fair assortment of mixed brains. “It’s a splendid song and the chorus
runs this way:
“I am crazy;
You’re a daisy,
Ozma dear;
I’m demented;
You’re contented,
Ozma dear;
I am patched and gay and glary;
You’re a sweet and lovely fairy;
May your birthdays all be happy,
Ozma dear!”
“How do you like it, Dorothy?” inquired the Patchwork Girl.
“Is it good poetry, Scraps?” asked Dorothy, doubtfully.
“It’s as good as any ordinary song,” was the reply. “I have given it a
dandy title, too. I shall call the song: ‘When Ozma Has a Birthday,
Everybody’s Sure to Be Gay, for She Cannot Help the Fact That She Was
Born.’”
“That’s a pretty long title, Scraps,” said Dorothy.
“That makes it stylish,” replied the Patchwork Girl, turning a
somersault and alighting on one stuffed foot. “Now-a-days the titles are
sometimes longer than the songs.”
[Illustration]
Dorothy left her and walked slowly toward the palace, where she met the
Tin Woodman just going up the front steps.
“What are you going to give Ozma on her birthday?” she asked.
“It’s a secret, but I’ll tell you,” replied the Tin Woodman, who was
Emperor of the Winkies. “I am having my people make Ozma a lovely girdle
set with beautiful tin nuggets. Each tin nugget will be surrounded by a
circle of emeralds, just to set it off to good advantage. The clasp of
the girdle will be pure tin! Won’t that be fine?”
“I’m sure she’ll like it,” said Dorothy. “Do you know what _I_ can give
her?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea, Dorothy. It took me three months to think
of my own present for Ozma.”
The girl walked thoughtfully around to the back of the palace, and
presently came upon the famous Scarecrow of Oz, who was having two of
the palace servants stuff his legs with fresh straw.
“What are you going to give Ozma on her birthday?” asked Dorothy.
“I want to surprise her,” answered the Scarecrow.
“I won’t tell,” promised Dorothy.
“Well, I’m having some straw slippers made for her—all straw, mind you,
and braided very artistically. Ozma has always admired my straw filling,
so I’m sure she’ll be pleased with these lovely straw slippers.”
“Ozma will be pleased with anything her loving friends give her,” said
the girl. “What _I’m_ worried about, Scarecrow, is what to give Ozma
that she hasn’t got already.”
“That’s what worried me, until I thought of the slippers,” said the
Scarecrow. “You’ll have to _think_, Dorothy; that’s the only way to get
a good idea. If I hadn’t such wonderful brains, I’d never have thought
of those straw foot-decorations.”
[Illustration]
Dorothy left him and went to her room, where she sat down and tried to
think hard. A Pink Kitten was curled up on the window-sill and Dorothy
asked her:
“What can I give Ozma for her birthday present?”
“Oh, give her some milk,” replied the Pink Kitten; “that’s the nicest
thing I know of.”
A fuzzy little black dog had squatted down at Dorothy’s feet and now
looked up at her with intelligent eyes.
“Tell me, Toto,” said the girl; “what would Ozma like best for a
birthday present?”
The little black dog wagged his tail.
“Your love,” said he. “Ozma wants to be loved more than anything else.”
“But I already love her, Toto!”
“Then tell her you love her twice as much as you ever did before.”
“That wouldn’t be true,” objected Dorothy, “for I’ve always loved her as
much as I could, and, really, Toto, I want to give Ozma some _present_,
’cause everyone else will give her a present.”
“Let me see,” said Toto. “How would it be to give her that useless Pink
Kitten?”
“No, Toto; that wouldn’t do.”
“Then six kisses.”
“No; that’s no present.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to figure it out for yourself, Dorothy,” said
the little dog. “To _my_ notion you’re more particular than Ozma will
be.”
Dorothy decided that if anyone could help her it would be Glinda the
Good, the wonderful Sorceress of Oz who was Ozma’s faithful subject and
friend. But Glinda’s castle was in the Quadling Country and quite a
journey from the Emerald City.
[Illustration]
So the little girl went to Ozma and asked permission to use the Wooden
Sawhorse and the royal Red Wagon to pay a visit to Glinda, and the girl
Ruler kissed Princess Dorothy and graciously granted permission.
The Wooden Sawhorse was one of the most remarkable creatures in Oz. Its
body was a small log and its legs were limbs of trees stuck in the body.
Its eyes were knots, its mouth was sawed in the end of the log and its
ears were two chips. A small branch had been left at the rear end of the
log to serve as a tail.
Ozma herself, during one of her early adventures, had brought this
wooden horse to life, and so she was much attached to the queer animal
and had shod the bottoms of its wooden legs with plates of gold so they
would not wear out. The sawhorse was a swift and willing traveler, and
though it could talk if need arose, it seldom said anything unless
spoken to. When the Sawhorse was harnessed to the Red Wagon there were
no reins to guide him because all that was needed was to tell him where
to go.
Dorothy now told him to go to Glinda’s Castle and the Sawhorse carried
her there with marvelous speed.
“Glinda,” said Dorothy, when she had been greeted by the Sorceress, who
was tall and stately, with handsome and dignified features and dressed
in a splendid and becoming gown, “what are you going to give Ozma for a
birthday present?”
The Sorceress smiled and answered:
“Come into my patio and I will show you.”
[Illustration]
So they entered a place that was surrounded by the wings of the great
castle but had no roof, and was filled with flowers and fountains and
exquisite statuary and many settees and chairs of polished marble or
filigree gold. Here there were gathered fifty beautiful young girls,
Glinda’s handmaids, who had been selected from all parts of the Land of
Oz on account of their wit and beauty and sweet dispositions. It was a
great honor to be made one of Glinda’s handmaidens.
When Dorothy followed the Sorceress into this delightful patio all the
fifty girls were busily weaving, and their shuttles were filled with a
sparkling green spun glass such as the little girl had never seen
before.
“What is it, Glinda?” she asked.
“One of my recent discoveries,” explained the Sorceress. “I have found a
way to make threads from emeralds, by softening the stones and then
spinning them into long, silken strands. With these emerald threads we
are weaving cloth to make Ozma a splendid court gown for her birthday.
You will notice that the threads have all the beautiful glitter and
luster of the emeralds from which they are made, and so Ozma’s new dress
will be the most magnificent the world has ever seen, and quite fitting
for our lovely Ruler of the Fairyland of Oz.”
Dorothy’s eyes were fairly dazed by the brilliance of the emerald cloth,
some of which the girls had already woven.
“I’ve never seen _any_thing so beautiful!” she said, with a sigh. “But
tell me, Glinda, what can _I_ give our lovely Ozma on her birthday?”
The good Sorceress considered this question for a long time before she
replied. Finally she said:
“Of course there will be a grand feast at the Royal Palace on Ozma’s
birthday, and all our friends will be present. So I suggest that you
make a fine big birthday cake for Ozma, and surround it with candles.”
“Oh, just a _cake_!” exclaimed Dorothy, in disappointment.
“Nothing is nicer for a birthday,” said the Sorceress.
“How many candles should there be on the cake?” asked the girl.
“Just a row of them,” replied Glinda, “for no one knows how old Ozma is,
although she appears to us to be just a young girl—as fresh and fair as
if she had lived but a few years.”
“A cake doesn’t seem like much of a present,” Dorothy asserted.
“Make it a surprise cake,” suggested the Sorceress. “Don’t you remember
the four and twenty blackbirds that were baked in a pie? Well, you need
not use live blackbirds in your cake, but you could have some surprise
of a different sort.”
“Like what?” questioned Dorothy, eagerly.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be _your_ present to Ozma, but _mine_,”
answered the Sorceress, with a smile. “Think it over, my dear, and I am
sure you can originate a surprise that will add greatly to the joy and
merriment of Ozma’s birthday banquet.”
Dorothy thanked her friend and entered the Red Wagon and told the
Sawhorse to take her back home to the palace in the Emerald City.
On the way she thought the matter over seriously of making a surprise
birthday cake and finally decided what to do.
As soon as she reached home, she went to the Wizard of Oz, who had a
room fitted up in one of the high towers of the palace, where he studied
magic so as to be able to perform such wizardry as Ozma commanded him to
do for the welfare of her subjects.
The Wizard and Dorothy were firm friends and had enjoyed many strange
adventures together. He was a little man with a bald head and sharp eyes
and a round, jolly face, and because he was neither haughty nor proud he
had become a great favorite with the Oz people.
“Wizard,” said Dorothy, “I want you to help me fix up a present for
Ozma’s birthday.”
“I’ll be glad to do anything for you and for Ozma,” he answered. “What’s
on your mind, Dorothy?”
“I’m going to make a great cake, with frosting and candles, and all
that, you know.”
“Very good,” said the Wizard.
“In the center of this cake I’m going to leave a hollow place, with just
a roof of the frosting over it,” continued the girl.
[Illustration]
“Very good,” repeated the Wizard, nodding his bald head.
“In that hollow place,” said Dorothy, “I want to hide a lot of monkeys
about three inches high, and after the cake is placed on the banquet
table, I want the monkeys to break through the frosting and dance around
on the table-cloth. Then, I want each monkey to cut out a piece of cake
and hand it to a guest.”
“Mercy me!” cried the little Wizard, as he chuckled with laughter. “Is
that _all_ you want, Dorothy?”
“Almost,” said she. “Can you think of anything more the little monkeys
can do, Wizard?”
“Not just now,” he replied. “But where will you get such tiny monkeys?”
“That’s where you’re to help me,” said Dorothy. “In some of those wild
forests in the Gillikin Country are lots of monkeys.”
“Big ones,” said the Wizard.
“Well, you and I will go there, and we’ll get some of the big monkeys,
and you will make them small—just three inches high—by means of your
magic, and we’ll put the little monkeys all in a basket and bring them
home with us. Then you’ll train them to dance—up here in your room,
where no one can see them—and on Ozma’s birthday we’ll put ’em into the
cake and they’ll know by that time just what to do.”
The Wizard looked at Dorothy with admiring approval, and chuckled again.
“That’s really clever, my dear,” he said, “and I see no reason why we
can’t do it, just the way you say, if only we can get the wild monkeys
to agree to it.”
“Do you think they’ll object?” asked the girl.
“Yes; but perhaps we can argue them into it. Anyhow, it’s worth trying,
and I’ll help you if you’ll agree to let this Surprise Cake be a present
to Ozma from you and me together. I’ve been wondering what _I_ could
give Ozma, and as I’ve got to train the monkeys as well as make them
small, I think you ought to make me your partner.”
“Of course,” said Dorothy; “I’ll be glad to do so.”
“Then, it’s a bargain,” declared the Wizard. “We must go to seek those
monkeys at once, however, for it will take time to train them and we’ll
have to travel a good way to the Gillikin forests where they live.”
“I’m ready to go any time,” agreed Dorothy. “Shall we ask Ozma to let us
take the Sawhorse?”
The Wizard did not answer that at once. He took time to think of the
suggestion.
“No,” he answered at length, “the Red Wagon couldn’t get through the
thick forests and there’s some danger to us in going into the wild
places to search for monkeys. So I propose we take the Cowardly Lion and
the Hungry Tiger. We can ride on their backs as well as in the Red
Wagon, and if there is danger to us from other beasts, these two
friendly champions will protect us from all harm.”
“That’s a splendid idea!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Let’s go now and ask the
Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion if they will help us. Shall we ask
Ozma if we can go?”
“I think not,” said the Wizard, getting his hat and his black bag of
magic tools. “This is to be a surprise for her birthday, and so she
mustn’t know where we’re going. We’ll just leave word, in case Ozma
inquires for us, that we’ll be back in a few days.”
[Illustration]
The Forest of Gugu
CHAPTER 7
In the central western part of the Gillikin Country is a great tangle of
trees called Gugu Forest. It is the biggest forest in all Oz and
stretches miles and miles in every direction—north, south, east and
west. Adjoining it on the east side is a range of rugged mountains
covered with underbrush and small twisted trees. You can find this place
by looking at the Map of the Land of Oz.
Gugu Forest is the home of most of the wild beasts that inhabit Oz.
These are seldom disturbed in their leafy haunts because there is no
reason why Oz people should go there, except on rare occasions, and most
parts of the forest have never been seen by any eyes but the eyes of the
beasts who make their home there. The biggest beasts inhabit the great
forest, while the smaller ones live mostly in the mountain underbrush at
the east.
Now, you must know that there are laws in the forests, as well as in
every other place, and these laws are made by the beasts themselves, and
are necessary to keep them from fighting and tearing one another to
pieces. In Gugu Forest there is a King—an enormous yellow leopard called
“Gugu”—after whom the forest is named. And this King has three other
beasts to advise him in keeping the laws and maintaining order—Bru the
Bear, Loo the Unicorn and Rango the Gray Ape—who are known as the King’s
Counselors. All these are fierce and ferocious beasts, and hold their
high offices because they are more intelligent and more feared than
their fellows.
Since Oz became a fairyland, no man, woman or child ever dies in that
land nor is anyone ever sick. Likewise the beasts of the forests never
die, so that long years add to their cunning and wisdom, as well as to
their size and strength. It is possible for beasts—or even people—to be
destroyed, but the task is so difficult that it is seldom attempted.
Because it is free from sickness and death is one reason why Oz is a
fairyland, but it is doubtful whether those who come to Oz from the
outside world, as Dorothy and Button-Bright and Trot and Cap’n Bill and
the Wizard did, will live forever or cannot be injured. Even Ozma is not
sure about this, and so the guests of Ozma from other lands are always
carefully protected from any danger, so as to be on the safe side.
In spite of the laws of the forests there are often fights among the
beasts; some of them have lost an eye or an ear or even had a leg torn
off. The King and the King’s Counselors always punish those who start a
fight, but so fierce is the nature of some beasts that they will at
times fight in spite of laws and punishment.
Over this vast, wild Forest of Gugu flew two eagles, one morning, and
near the center of the jungle the eagles alighted on a branch of a tall
tree.
“Here is the place for us to begin our work,” said one, who was Ruggedo,
the Nome.
“Do many beasts live here?” asked Kiki Aru, the other eagle.
“The forest is full of them,” said the Nome. “There are enough beasts
right here to enable us to conquer the people of Oz, if we can get them
to consent to join us. To do that, we must go among them and tell them
our plans, so we must now decide on what shapes we had better assume
while in the forest.”
“I suppose we must take the shapes of beasts?” said Kiki.
“Of course. But that requires some thought. All kinds of beasts live
here, and a yellow leopard is King. If we become leopards, the King will
be jealous of us. If we take the forms of some of the other beasts, we
shall not command proper respect.”
“I wonder if the beasts will attack us?” asked Kiki.
“I’m a Nome, and immortal, so nothing can hurt me,” replied Ruggedo.
“I was born in the Land of Oz, so nothing can hurt me,” said Kiki.
“But, in order to carry out our plans, we must win the favor of all the
animals of the forest.”
“Then what shall we do?” asked Kiki.
“Let us mix the shapes of several beasts, so we will not look like any
one of them,” proposed the wily old Nome. “Let us have the heads of
lions, the bodies of monkeys, the wings of eagles and the tails of wild
asses, with knobs of gold on the end of them instead of bunches of
hair.”
“Won’t that make a queer combination?” inquired Kiki.
“The queerer the better,” declared Ruggedo.
“All right,” said Kiki. “You stay here, and I’ll fly away to another
tree and transform us both, and then we’ll climb down our trees and meet
in the forest.”
“No,” said the Nome, “we mustn’t separate. You must transform us while
we are together.”
“I won’t do that,” asserted Kiki, firmly. “You’re trying to get my
secret, and I won’t let you.”
The eyes of the other eagle flashed angrily, but Ruggedo did not dare
insist. If he offended this boy, he might have to remain an eagle always
and he wouldn’t like that. Some day he hoped to be able to learn the
secret word of the magical transformations, but just now he must let
Kiki have his own way.
“All right,” he said gruffly; “do as you please.”
So Kiki flew to a tree that was far enough distant so that Ruggedo could
not overhear him and said: “I want Ruggedo, the Nome, and myself to have
the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, the wings of eagles and the
tails of wild asses, with knobs of gold on the ends of them instead of
bunches of hair—Pyrzqxgl!”
He pronounced the magic word in the proper manner and at once his form
changed to the one he had described. He spread his eagle’s wings and
finding they were strong enough to support his monkey body and lion head
he flew swiftly to the tree where he had left Ruggedo. The Nome was also
transformed and was climbing down the tree because the branches all
around him were so thickly entwined that there was no room between them
to fly.
Kiki quickly joined his comrade and it did not take them long to reach
the ground.
The Li-Mon-Eags Make Trouble
CHAPTER 8
There had been trouble in the Forest of Gugu that morning. Chipo the
Wild Boar had bitten the tail off Arx the Giraffe while the latter had
his head among the leaves of a tree, eating his breakfast. Arx kicked
with his heels and struck Tirrip, the great Kangaroo, who had a new baby
in her pouch. Tirrip knew it was the Wild Boar’s fault, so she knocked
him over with one powerful blow and then ran away to escape Chipo’s
sharp tusks. In the chase that followed a giant porcupine stuck fifty
sharp quills into the Boar and a chimpanzee in a tree threw a cocoanut
at the porcupine that jammed its head into its body.
All this was against the Laws of the Forest, and when the excitement was
over, Gugu the Leopard King called his royal Counselors together to
decide how best to punish the offenders.
The four lords of the forest were holding solemn council in a small
clearing when they saw two strange beasts approaching them—beasts the
like of which they had never seen before.
Not one of the four, however, relaxed his dignity or showed by a
movement that he was startled. The great Leopard crouched at full length
upon a fallen tree-trunk. Bru the Bear sat on his haunches before the
King; Rango the Gray Ape stood with his muscular arms folded, and Loo
the Unicorn reclined, much as a horse does, between his
fellow-councillors. With one consent they remained silent, eyeing with
steadfast looks the intruders, who were making their way into their
forest domain.
“Well met, Brothers!” said one of the strange beasts, coming to a halt
beside the group, while his comrade with hesitation lagged behind.
“We are not brothers,” returned the Gray Ape, sternly. “Who are you, and
how came you in the forest of Gugu?”
[Illustration]
“We are two Li-Mon-Eags,” said Ruggedo, inventing the name. “Our home is
in Sky Island, and we have come to earth to warn the forest beasts that
the people of Oz are about to make war upon them and enslave them, so
that they will become beasts of burden forever after and obey only the
will of their two-legged masters.”
A low roar of anger arose from the Council of Beasts.
“_Who’s_ going to do that?” asked Loo the Unicorn, in a high, squeaky
voice, at the same time rising to his feet.
“The people of Oz,” said Ruggedo.
“But what will _we_ be doing?” inquired the Unicorn.
“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“You needn’t talk! We’ll fight the Oz people!” screamed the Unicorn.
“We’ll smash ’em; we’ll trample ’em; we’ll gore ’em; we’ll—”
“Silence!” growled Gugu the King, and Loo obeyed, although still
trembling with wrath. The cold, steady gaze of the Leopard wandered over
the two strange beasts. “The people of Oz,” said he, “have not been our
friends; they have not been our enemies. They have let us alone, and we
have let them alone. There is no reason for war between us. They have no
slaves. They could not use us as slaves if they should conquer us. I
think you are telling us lies, you strange Li-Mon-Eag—you mixed-up beast
who are neither one thing nor another.”
“Oh, on my word, it’s the truth!” protested the Nome in the beast’s
shape. “I wouldn’t lie for the world; I—”
“Silence!” again growled Gugu the King; and, somehow, even Ruggedo was
abashed and obeyed the edict.
“What do you say, Bru?” asked the king, turning to the great Bear, who
had until now said nothing.
“How does the Mixed Beast know that what he says is true?” asked the
Bear.
“Why, I can fly, you know, having the wings of an Eagle,” explained the
Nome. “I and my comrade yonder,” turning to Kiki, “flew to a grove in
Oz, and there we heard the people telling how they will make many ropes
to snare you beasts, and then they will surround this forest, and all
other forests, and make you prisoners. So we came here to warn you, for
being beasts ourselves, although we live in the sky, we are your
friends.”
The Leopard’s lip curled and showed his enormous teeth, sharp as
needles. He turned to the Gray Ape.
“What do _you_ think, Rango?” he asked.
“Send these mixed beasts away, your Majesty,” replied the Gray Ape.
“They are mischief-makers.”
“Don’t do that—don’t do that!” cried the Unicorn, nervously. “The
stranger said he would tell us what to do. Let him tell us, then. Are we
fools, not to heed a warning?”
Gugu the King turned to Ruggedo.
“Speak, Stranger,” he commanded.
“Well,” said the Nome, “it’s this way: The Land of Oz is a fine country.
The people of Oz have many good things—houses with soft beds, all sorts
of nice-tasting food, pretty clothes, lovely jewels, and many other
things that beasts know nothing of. Here in the dark forests the poor
beasts have hard work to get enough to eat and to find a bed to rest in.
But the beasts are better than the people, and why should they not have
all the good things the people have? So I propose that before the Oz
people have the time to make all those ropes to snare you with, that all
we beasts get together and march against the Oz people and capture them.
Then the beasts will become the masters and the people their slaves.”
“What good would that do us?” asked Bru the Bear.
“It would save you from slavery, for one thing, and you could enjoy all
the fine things the Oz people have.”
“Beasts wouldn’t know what to do with the things people use,” said the
Gray Ape.
“But this is only part of my plan,” insisted the Nome. “Listen to the
rest of it. We two Li-Mon-Eags are powerful magicians. When you have
conquered the Oz people we will transform them all into beasts, and send
them to the forests to live, and we will transform all the beasts into
people, so they can enjoy all the wonderful delights of the Emerald
City.”
For a moment no beast spoke. Then the King said: “Prove it.”
“Prove what?” asked Ruggedo.
“Prove that you can transform us. If you are a magician transform the
Unicorn into a man. Then we will believe you. If you fail, we will
destroy you.”
“All right,” said the Nome. “But I’m tired, so I’ll let my comrade make
the transformation.”
Kiki Aru had stood back from the circle, but he had heard all that was
said. He now realized that he must make good Ruggedo’s boast, so he
retreated to the edge of the clearing and whispered the magic word.
Instantly the Unicorn became a fat, chubby little man, dressed in the
purple Gillikin costume, and it was hard to tell which was the more
astonished, the King, the Bear, the Ape or the former Unicorn.
“It’s true!” shouted the man-beast. “Good gracious, look what I am! It’s
wonderful!”
The King of the Beasts now addressed Ruggedo in a more friendly tone.
“We must believe your story, since you have given us proof of your
power,” said he. “But why, if you are so great a magician, cannot you
conquer the Oz people without our help, and so save us the trouble?”
“Alas!” replied the crafty old Nome, “no magician is able to do
everything. The transformations are easy to us because we are
Li-Mon-Eags, but we cannot fight, or conquer even such weak creatures as
the Oz people. But we will stay with you and advise and help you, and we
will transform all the Oz people into beasts, when the time comes, and
all the beasts into people.”
Gugu the King turned to his Counselors.
“How shall we answer this friendly stranger?” he asked.
Loo the former Unicorn was dancing around and cutting capers like a
clown.
“On my word, your Majesty,” he said, “this being a man is more fun than
being a Unicorn.”
“You look like a fool,” said the Gray Ape.
“Well, I _feel_ fine!” declared the man-beast.
[Illustration]
“I think I prefer to be a Bear,” said Big Bru. “I was born a Bear, and I
know a Bear’s ways. So I am satisfied to live as a Bear lives.”
“That,” said the old Nome, “is because you know nothing better. When we
have conquered the Oz people, and you become a man, you’ll be glad of
it.”
The immense Leopard rested his chin on the log and seemed thoughtful.
“The beasts of the forest must decide this matter for themselves,” he
said. “Go you, Rango the Gray Ape, and tell your monkey tribe to order
all the forest beasts to assemble in the Great Clearing at sunrise
to-morrow. When all are gathered together, this mixed-up Beast who is a
magician shall talk to them and tell them what he has told us. Then, if
they decide to fight the Oz people, who have declared war on us, I will
lead the beasts to battle.”
Rango the Gray Ape turned at once and glided swiftly through the forest
on his mission. The Bear gave a grunt and walked away. Gugu the King
rose and stretched himself. Then he said to Ruggedo: “Meet us at sunrise
to-morrow,” and with stately stride vanished among the trees.
The man-unicorn, left alone with the strangers, suddenly stopped his
foolish prancing.
“You’d better make me a Unicorn again,” he said. “I like being a man,
but the forest beasts won’t know I’m their friend, Loo, and they might
tear me in pieces before morning.”
So Kiki changed him back to his former shape, and the Unicorn departed
to join his people.
[Illustration]
Ruggedo the Nome was much pleased with his success.
“To-morrow,” he said to Kiki Aru, “we’ll win over these beasts and set
them to fight and conquer the Oz people. Then I will have my revenge on
Ozma and Dorothy and all the rest of my enemies.”
“But I am doing all the work,” said Kiki.
“Never mind; you’re going to be King of Oz,” promised Ruggedo.
“Will the big Leopard let me be King?” asked the boy anxiously.
The Nome came close to him and whispered:
“If Gugu the Leopard opposes us, you will transform him into a tree, and
then he will be helpless.”
“Of course,” agreed Kiki, and he said to himself: “I shall also
transform this deceitful Nome into a tree, for he lies and I cannot
trust him.”
[Illustration]
The Isle of the Magic Flower
CHAPTER 9
The Glass Cat was a good guide and led Trot and Cap’n Bill by straight
and easy paths through all the settled part of the Munchkin Country, and
then into the north section where there were few houses, and finally
through a wild country where there were no houses or paths at all. But
the walking was not difficult and at last they came to the edge of a
forest and stopped there to make camp and sleep until morning.
From branches of trees Cap’n Bill made a tiny house that was just big
enough for the little girl to crawl into and lie down. But first they
ate some of the food Trot had carried in the basket.
“Don’t you want some, too?” she asked the Glass Cat.
“No,” answered the creature.
“I suppose you’ll hunt around an’ catch a mouse,” remarked Cap’n Bill.
“Me? Catch a mouse! Why should I do that?” inquired the Glass Cat.
“Why, then you could eat it,” said the sailor-man.
“I beg to inform you,” returned the crystal tabby, “that I do not eat
mice. Being transparent, so anyone can see through me, I’d look nice,
wouldn’t I, with a common mouse inside me? But the fact is that I
haven’t any stomach or other machinery that would permit me to eat
things. The careless magician who made me didn’t think I’d need to eat,
I suppose.”
“Don’t you ever get hungry or thirsty?” asked Trot.
“Never. I don’t complain, you know, at the way I’m made, for I’ve never
yet seen any living thing as beautiful as I am. I have the handsomest
brains in the world. They’re pink, and you can see ’em work.”
[Illustration]
“I wonder,” said Trot thoughtfully, as she ate her bread and jam, “if
_my_ brains whirl around in the same way yours do.”
“No; not the same way, surely,” returned the Glass Cat; “for, in that
case, they’d be as good as _my_ brains, except that they’re hidden under
a thick, boney skull.”
“Brains,” remarked Cap’n Bill, “is of all kinds and work different ways.
But I’ve noticed that them as thinks that their brains is best is often
mistook.”
Trot was a little disturbed by sounds from the forest, that night, for
many beasts seemed prowling among the trees, but she was confident Cap’n
Bill would protect her from harm. And in fact, no beast ventured from
the forest to attack them.
At daybreak they were up again, and after a simple breakfast Cap’n Bill
said to the Glass Cat:
“Up anchor, Mate, and let’s forge ahead. I don’t suppose we’re far from
that Magic Flower, are we?”
“Not far,” answered the transparent one, as it led the way into the
forest, “but it may take you some time to get to it.”
Before long they reached the bank of a river. It was not very wide, at
this place, but as they followed the banks in a northerly direction it
gradually broadened.
Suddenly the blue-green leaves of the trees changed to a purple hue, and
Trot noticed this and said:
“I wonder what made the colors change like that?”
“It’s because we have left the Munchkin Country and entered the Gillikin
Country,” explained the Glass Cat. “Also it’s a sign our journey is
nearly ended.”
The river made a sudden turn, and after the travelers had passed around
the bend, they saw that the stream had now become as broad as a small
lake, and in the center of the Lake they beheld a little island, not
more than fifty feet in extent, either way. Something glittered in the
middle of this tiny island, and the Glass Cat paused on the bank and
said:
“There is the gold flower-pot containing the Magic Flower, which is very
curious and beautiful. If you can get to the island, your task is
ended—except to carry the thing home with you.”
Cap’n Bill looked at the broad expanse of water and began to whistle a
low, quavering tune. Trot knew that the whistle meant that Cap’n Bill
was thinking, and the old sailor didn’t look at the island as much as he
looked at the trees upon the bank where they stood. Presently he took
from the big pocket of his coat an axe-blade, wound in an old cloth to
keep the sharp edge from cutting his clothing. Then, with a large pocket
knife, he cut a small limb from a tree and whittled it into a handle for
his axe.
“Sit down, Trot,” he advised the girl, as he worked. “I’ve got quite a
job ahead of me now, for I’ve got to build us a raft.”
“What do we need a raft for, Cap’n?”
“Why, to take us to the island. We can’t walk under water, in the river
bed, as the Glass Cat did, so we must float atop the water.”
“Can you make a raft, Cap’n Bill?”
“O’ course, Trot, if you give me time.”
The little girl sat down on a log and gazed at the Island of the Magic
Flower. Nothing else seemed to grow on the tiny isle. There was no tree,
no shrub, no grass, even, as far as she could make out from that
distance. But the gold pot glittered in the rays of the sun, and Trot
could catch glimpses of glowing colors above it, as the Magic Flower
changed from one sort to another.
“When I was here before,” remarked the Glass Cat, lazily reclining at
the girl’s feet, “I saw two Kalidahs on this very bank, where they had
come to drink.”
“What are Kalidahs?” asked the girl.
“The most powerful and ferocious beasts in all Oz. This forest is their
especial home, and so there are few other beasts to be found except
monkeys. The monkeys are spry enough to keep out of the way of the
fierce Kalidahs, which attack all other animals and often fight among
themselves.”
[Illustration]
“Did they try to fight you when you saw ’em?” asked Trot, getting very
much excited.
“Yes. They sprang upon me in an instant; but I lay flat on the ground,
so I wouldn’t get my legs broken by the great weight of the beasts, and
when they tried to bite me I laughed at them and jeered them until they
were frantic with rage, for they nearly broke their teeth on my hard
glass. So, after a time, they discovered they could not hurt me, and
went away. It was great fun.”
“I hope they don’t come here again to drink,—not while we’re here,
anyhow,” returned the girl, “for I’m not made of glass, nor is Cap’n
Bill, and if those bad beasts bit us, we’d get hurt.”
Cap’n Bill was cutting from the trees some long stakes, making them
sharp at one end and leaving a crotch at the other end. These were to
bind the logs of his raft together. He had fashioned several and was
just finishing another when the Glass Cat cried: “Look out! There’s a
Kalidah coming toward us.”
Trot jumped up, greatly frightened, and looked at the terrible animal as
if fascinated by its fierce eyes, for the Kalidah was looking at her,
too, and its look wasn’t at all friendly. But Cap’n Bill called to her:
“Wade into the river, Trot, up to your knees—an’ stay there!” and she
obeyed him at once. The sailor-man hobbled forward, the stake in one
hand and his axe in the other, and got between the girl and the beast,
which sprang upon him with a growl of defiance.
[Illustration]
Cap’n Bill moved pretty slowly, sometimes, but now he was quick as could
be. As the Kalidah sprang toward him he stuck out his wooden leg and the
point of it struck the beast between its eyes and sent it rolling upon
the ground. Before it could get upon its feet again the sailor pushed
the sharp stake right through its body and then with the flat side of
the axe he hammered the stake as far into the ground as it would go. By
this means he captured the great beast and made it harmless, for try as
it would, it could not get away from the stake that held it.
Cap’n Bill knew he could not kill the Kalidah, for no living thing in Oz
can be killed, so he stood back and watched the beast wriggle and growl
and paw the earth with its sharp claws, and then, satisfied it could not
escape, he told Trot to come out of the water again and dry her wet
shoes and stockings in the sun.
“Are you sure he can’t get away?” she asked.
“I’d bet a cookie on it,” said Cap’n Bill, so Trot came ashore and took
off her shoes and stockings and laid them on the log to dry, while the
sailor-man resumed his work on the raft.
The Kalidah, realizing after many struggles that it could not escape,
now became quiet, but it said in a harsh, snarling voice:
“I suppose you think you’re clever, to pin me to the ground in this
manner. But when my friends, the other Kalidahs, come here, they’ll tear
you to pieces for treating me this way.”
“P’raps,” remarked Cap’n Bill, coolly, as he chopped at the logs, “an’
p’raps not. When are your folks comin’ here?”
“I don’t know,” admitted the Kalidah. “But when they _do_ come, you
can’t escape them.”
“If they hold off long enough, I’ll have my raft ready,” said Cap’n
Bill.
“What are you going to do with a raft?” inquired the beast.
“We’re goin’ over to that island, to get the Magic Flower.”
The huge beast looked at him in surprise a moment, and then it began to
laugh. The laugh was a good deal like a roar, and it had a cruel and
derisive sound, but it was a laugh nevertheless.
“Good!” said the Kalidah. “Good! Very good! I’m glad you’re going to get
the Magic Flower. But what will you do with it?”
“We’re going to take it to Ozma, as a present on her birthday.”
The Kalidah laughed again; then it became sober. “If you get to the land
on your raft before my people can catch you,” it said, “you will be safe
from us. We can swim like ducks, so the girl couldn’t have escaped me by
getting into the water; but Kalidahs don’t go to that island over
there.”
“Why not?” asked Trot.
The beast was silent.
“Tell us the reason,” urged Cap’n Bill.
“Well, it’s the Isle of the Magic Flower,” answered the Kalidah, “and we
don’t care much for magic. If you hadn’t had a magic leg, instead of a
meat one, you couldn’t have knocked me over so easily and stuck this
wooden pin through me.”
“I’ve been to the Magic Isle,” said the Glass Cat, “and I’ve watched the
Magic Flower bloom, and I’m sure it’s too pretty to be left in that
lonely place where only beasts prowl around it and no one else sees it.
So we’re going to take it away to the Emerald City.”
“I don’t care,” the beast replied in a surly tone. “We Kalidahs would be
just as contented if there wasn’t a flower in our forest. What good are
the things anyhow?”
“Don’t you like pretty things?” asked Trot.
“No.”
“You ought to admire my pink brains, anyhow,” declared the Glass Cat.
“They’re beautiful and you can see ’em work.”
[Illustration]
The beast only growled in reply, and Cap’n Bill, having now cut all his
logs to a proper size, began to roll them to the water’s edge and fasten
them together.
Stuck Fast
CHAPTER 10
The day was nearly gone when, at last, the raft was ready.
“It ain’t so very big,” said the old sailor, “but I don’t weigh much,
an’ you, Trot, don’t weigh half as much as I do, an’ the glass pussy
don’t count.”
“But it’s safe, isn’t it?” inquired the girl.
“Yes; it’s good enough to carry us to the island an’ back again, an’
that’s about all we can expect of it.”
Saying this, Cap’n Bill pushed the raft into the water, and when it was
afloat, stepped upon it and held out his hand to Trot, who quickly
followed him. The Glass Cat boarded the raft last of all.
The sailor had cut a long pole, and had also whittled a flat paddle, and
with these he easily propelled the raft across the river. As they
approached the island, the Wonderful Flower became more plainly visible,
and they quickly decided that the Glass Cat had not praised it too
highly. The colors of the flowers that bloomed in quick succession were
strikingly bright and beautiful, and the shapes of the blossoms were
varied and curious. Indeed, they did not resemble ordinary flowers at
all.
So intently did Trot and Cap’n Bill gaze upon the Golden Flower pot that
held the Magic Flower that they scarcely noticed the island itself until
the raft beached upon its sands. But then the girl exclaimed: “How funny
it is, Cap’n Bill, that nothing else grows here excep’ the Magic
Flower.”
Then the sailor glanced at the island and saw that it was all bare
ground, without a weed, a stone or a blade of grass. Trot, eager to
examine the Flower closer, sprang from the raft and ran up the bank
until she reached the Golden Flowerpot. Then she stood beside it
motionless and filled with wonder. Cap’n Bill joined her, coming more
leisurely, and he, too, stood in silent admiration for a time.
“Ozma will like this,” remarked the Glass Cat, sitting down to watch the
shifting hues of the flowers. “I’m sure she won’t have as fine a
birthday present from anyone else.”
“Do you s’pose it’s very heavy, Cap’n? And can we get it home without
breaking it?” asked Trot anxiously.
“Well, I’ve lifted many bigger things than that,” he replied; “but let’s
see what it weighs.”
He tried to take a step forward, but could not lift his meat foot from
the ground. His wooden leg seemed free enough, but the other would not
budge.
“I seem stuck, Trot,” he said, with a perplexed look at his foot. “It
ain’t mud, an’ it ain’t glue, but somethin’s holdin’ me down.”
The girl attempted to lift her own feet, to go nearer to her friend, but
the ground held them as fast as it held Cap’n Bill’s foot. She tried to
slide them, or to twist them around, but it was no use; she could not
move either foot a hair’s breadth.
“This is funny!” she exclaimed. “What do you ’spose has happened to us,
Cap’n Bill?”
“I’m tryin’ to make out,” he answered. “Take off your shoes, Trot.
P’raps it’s the leather soles that’s stuck to the ground.”
[Illustration]
She leaned down and unlaced her shoes, but found she could not pull her
feet out of them. The Glass Cat, which was walking around as naturally
as ever, now said:
“Your foot has got roots to it, Cap’n, and I can see the roots going
into the ground, where they spread out in all directions. It’s the same
way with Trot. That’s why you can’t move. The roots hold you fast.”
Cap’n Bill was rather fat and couldn’t see his own feet very well, but
he squatted down and examined Trot’s feet and decided that the Glass Cat
was right.
“This is hard luck,” he declared, in a voice that showed he was uneasy
at the discovery. “We’re pris’ners, Trot, on this funny island, an’ I’d
like to know how we’re ever goin’ to get loose, so’s we can get home
again.”
“Now I know why the Kalidah laughed at us,” said the girl, “and why he
said none of the beasts ever came to this island. The horrid creature
knew we’d be caught, and wouldn’t warn us.”
In the meantime, the Kalidah, although pinned fast to the earth by Cap’n
Bill’s stake, was facing the island, and now the ugly expression which
passed over its face when it defied and sneered at Cap’n Bill and Trot,
had changed to one of amusement and curiosity. When it saw the
adventurers had actually reached the island and were standing beside the
Magic Flower, it heaved a breath of satisfaction—a long, deep breath
that swelled the deep chest until the beast could feel the stake that
held him move a little, as if withdrawing itself from the ground.
“Ah ha!” murmured the Kalidah, “a little more of this will set me free
and allow me to escape!”
So he began breathing as hard as he could, puffing out his chest as much
as possible with each indrawing breath, and by doing this he managed to
raise the stake with each powerful breath, until at last the
Kalidah—using the muscles of his four legs as well as his deep
breaths—found itself free of the sandy soil. The stake was sticking
right through him, however, so he found a rock deeply set in the bank
and pressed the sharp point of the stake upon the surface of this rock
until he had driven it clear through his body. Then, by getting the
stake tangled among some thorny bushes, and wiggling his body, he
managed to draw it out altogether.
“There!” he exclaimed, “except for those two holes in me, I’m as good as
ever; but I must admit that that old wooden-legged fellow saved both
himself and the girl by making me a prisoner.”
Now the Kalidahs, although the most disagreeable creatures in the Land
of Oz, were nevertheless magical inhabitants of a magical Fairyland, and
in their natures a certain amount of good was mingled with the evil.
This one was not very revengeful, and now that his late foes were in
danger of perishing, his anger against them faded away.
“Our own Kalidah King,” he reflected, “has certain magical powers of his
own. Perhaps he knows how to fill up these two holes in my body.”
So without paying any more attention to Trot and Cap’n Bill than they
were paying to him, he entered the forest and trotted along a secret
path that led to the hidden lair of all the Kalidahs.
While the Kalidah was making good its escape Cap’n Bill took his pipe
from his pocket and filled it with tobacco and lighted it. Then, as he
puffed out the smoke, he tried to think what could be done.
“The Glass Cat seems all right,” he said, “an’ my wooden leg didn’t take
roots and grow, either. So it’s only flesh that gets caught.”
“It’s magic that does it, Cap’n!”
“I know, Trot, and that’s what sticks me. We’re livin’ in a magic
country, but neither of us knows any magic an’ so we can’t help
ourselves.”
“Couldn’t the Wizard of Oz help us—or Glinda the Good?” asked the little
girl.
“Ah, now we’re beginnin’ to reason,” he answered. “I’d probably thought
o’ that, myself, in a minute more. By good luck the Glass Cat is free,
an’ so it can run back to the Emerald City an’ tell the Wizard about our
fix, an’ ask him to come an’ help us get loose.”
“Will you go?” Trot asked the cat, speaking very earnestly.
“I’m no messenger, to be sent here and there,” asserted the curious
animal in a sulky tone of voice.
“Well,” said Cap’n Bill, “you’ve got to go home, anyhow, ’cause you
don’t want to stay here, I take it. And, when you get home, it wouldn’t
worry you much to tell the Wizard what’s happened to us.”
“That’s true,” said the cat, sitting on its haunches and lazily washing
its face with one glass paw. “I don’t mind telling the Wizard—when I get
home.”
“Won’t you go now?” pleaded Trot. “We don’t want to stay here any longer
than we can help, and everybody in Oz will be interested in you, and
call you a hero, and say nice things about you because you helped your
friends out of trouble.”
That was the best way to manage the Glass Cat, which was so vain that it
loved to be praised.
“I’m going home right away,” said the creature, “and I’ll tell the
Wizard to come and help you.”
Saying this, it walked down to the water and disappeared under the
surface. Not being able to manage the raft alone, the Glass Cat walked
on the bottom of the river as it had done when it visited the island
before, and soon they saw it appear on the farther bank and trot into
the forest, where it was quickly lost to sight among the trees.
Then Trot heaved a deep sigh.
“Cap’n,” said she, “we’re in a bad fix. There’s nothing here to eat, and
we can’t even lie down to sleep. Unless the Glass Cat hurries, and the
Wizard hurries, I don’t know what’s going to become of us!”
[Illustration]
The Beasts of the Forest of Gugu
CHAPTER 11
That was a wonderful gathering of wild animals in the Forest of Gugu
next sunrise. Rango, the Gray Ape, had even called his monkey sentinels
away from the forest edge, and every beast, little and big, was in the
great clearing where meetings were held on occasions of great
importance.
In the center of the clearing stood a great shelving rock, having a
flat, inclined surface, and on this sat the stately Leopard Gugu, who
was King of the Forest. On the ground beneath him squatted Bru the Bear,
Loo the Unicorn, and Rango the Gray Ape, the King’s three Counsellors,
and in front of them stood the two strange beasts who had called
themselves Li-Mon-Eags, but were really the transformations of Ruggedo
the Nome, and Kiki Aru the Hyup.
Then came the beasts—rows and rows and rows of them! The smallest beasts
were nearest the King’s rock throne; then there were wolves and foxes,
lynxes and hyenas, and the like; behind them were gathered the monkey
tribes, who were hard to keep in order because they teased the other
animals and were full of mischievous tricks. Back of the monkeys were
the pumas, jaguars, tigers and lions, and their kind; next the bears,
all sizes and colors; after them bisons, wild asses, zebras and
unicorns; farther on the rhinoceri and hippopotami, and at the far edge
of the forest, close to the trees that shut in the clearing, was a row
of thick-skinned elephants, still as statues but with eyes bright and
intelligent.
Many other kinds of beasts, too numerous to mention, were there, and
some were unlike any beasts we see in the menageries and zoos in our
country. Some were from the mountains west of the forest, and some from
the plains at the east, and some from the river; but all present
acknowledged the leadership of Gugu, who for many years had ruled them
wisely and forced all to obey the laws.
When the beasts had taken their places in the clearing and the rising
sun was shooting its first bright rays over the treetops, King Gugu rose
on his throne. The Leopard’s giant form, towering above all the others,
caused a sudden hush to fall on the assemblage.
“Brothers,” he said in his deep voice, “a stranger has come among us, a
beast of curious form who is a great magician and is able to change the
shapes of men or beasts at his will. This stranger has come to us, with
another of his kind, from out of the sky, to warn us of a danger which
threatens us all, and to offer us a way to escape from that danger. He
says he is our friend, and he has proved to me and to my counsellors his
magic powers. Will you listen to what he has to say to you—to the
message he has brought from the sky?”
“Let him speak!” came in a great roar from the great company of
assembled beasts.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
So Ruggedo the Nome sprang upon the flat rock beside Gugu the King, and
another roar, gentle this time, showed how astonished the beasts were at
the sight of his curious form. His lion’s face was surrounded by a mane
of pure white hair; his eagle’s wings were attached to the shoulders of
his monkey body and were so long that they nearly touched the ground; he
had powerful arms and legs in addition to the wings, and at the end of
his long, strong tail was a golden ball. Never had any beast beheld such
a curious creature before, and so the very sight of the stranger, who
was said to be a great magician, filled all present with awe and wonder.
Kiki stayed down below and, half hidden by the shelf of rock, was
scarcely noticed. The boy realized that the old Nome was helpless
without his magic power, but he also realized that Ruggedo was the best
talker. So he was willing the Nome should take the lead.
“Beasts of the Forest of Gugu,” began Ruggedo the Nome, “my comrade and
I are your friends. We are magicians, and from our home in the sky we
can look down into the Land of Oz and see everything that is going on.
Also we can hear what the people below us are saying. That is how we
heard Ozma, who rules the Land of Oz, say to her people: ‘The beasts in
the Forest of Gugu are lazy and are of no use to us. Let us go to their
forest and make them all our prisoners. Let us tie them with ropes, and
beat them with sticks, until they work for us and become our willing
slaves.’ And when the people heard Ozma of Oz say this, they were glad
and raised a great shout and said: ‘We will do it! We will make the
beasts of the Forest of Gugu our slaves!’”
The wicked old Nome could say no more, just then, for such a fierce roar
of anger rose from the multitude of beasts that his voice was drowned by
the clamor. Finally the roar died away, like distant thunder, and
Ruggedo the Nome went on with his speech.
“Having heard the Oz people plot against your liberty, we watched to see
what they would do, and saw them all begin making ropes—ropes long and
short—with which to snare our friends the beasts. You are angry, but we
also were angry, for when the Oz people became the enemies of the beasts
they also became our enemies; for we, too, are beasts, although we live
in the sky. And my comrade and I said: ‘We will save our friends and
have revenge on the Oz people,’ and so we came here to tell you of your
danger and of our plan to save you.”
“We can save ourselves,” cried an old elephant. “We can fight.”
“The Oz people are fairies, and you can’t fight against magic unless you
also have magic,” answered the Nome.
“Tell us your plan!” shouted the huge Tiger, and the other beasts echoed
his words, crying: “Tell us your plan.”
“My plan is simple,” replied Ruggedo. “By our magic we will transform
all you animals into men and women—like the Oz people—and we will
transform all the Oz people into beasts. You can then live in the fine
houses of the Land of Oz, and eat the fine food of the Oz people, and
wear their fine clothes, and sing and dance and be happy. And the Oz
people, having become beasts, will have to live here in the forest and
hunt and fight for food, and often go hungry, as you now do, and have no
place to sleep but a bed of leaves or a hole in the ground. Having
become men and women, you beasts will have all the comforts you desire,
and having become beasts, the Oz people will be very miserable. That is
our plan, and if you agree to it, we will all march at once into the
Land of Oz and quickly conquer our enemies.”
When the stranger ceased speaking, a great silence fell on the
assemblage, for the beasts were thinking of what he had said. Finally
one of the walrus asked:
“Can you really transform beasts into men, and men into beasts?”
[Illustration]
“He can—he can!” cried Loo the Unicorn, prancing up and down in an
excited manner. “He transformed _me_, only last evening, and he can
transform us all.”
Gugu the King now stepped forward.
“You have heard the stranger speak,” said he, “and now you must answer
him. It is for you to decide. Shall we agree to this plan, or not?”
“Yes!” shouted some of the animals.
“No!” shouted others.
And some were yet silent.
Gugu looked around the great circle.
“Take more time to think,” he suggested. “Your answer is very important.
Up to this time we have had no trouble with the Oz people, but we are
proud and free, and never will become slaves. Think carefully, and when
you are ready to answer, I will hear you.”
Kiki Uses His Magic
CHAPTER 12
Then arose a great confusion of sounds as all the animals began talking
to their fellows. The monkeys chattered and the bears growled and the
voices of the jaguars and lions rumbled, and the wolves yelped and the
elephants had to trumpet loudly to make their voices heard. Such a
hubbub had never been known in the forest before, and each beast argued
with his neighbor until it seemed the noise would never cease.
Ruggedo the Nome waved his arms and fluttered his wings to try to make
them listen to him again, but the beasts paid no attention. Some wanted
to fight the Oz people, some wanted to be transformed, and some wanted
to do nothing at all.
The growling and confusion had grown greater than ever when in a flash
silence fell on all the beasts present, the arguments were hushed, and
all gazed in astonishment at a strange sight.
For into the circle strode a great Lion—bigger and more powerful than
any other lion there—and on his back rode a little girl who smiled
fearlessly at the multitude of beasts. And behind the lion and the
little girl came another beast—a monstrous Tiger, who bore upon his back
a funny little man carrying a black bag. Right past the rows of
wondering beasts the strange animals walked, advancing until they stood
just before the rock throne of Gugu.
Then the little girl and the funny little man dismounted, and the great
Lion demanded in a loud voice:
“Who is King in this forest?”
“I am!” answered Gugu, looking steadily at the other. “I am Gugu the
Leopard, and I am King of this forest.”
“Then I greet Your Majesty with great respect,” said the Lion. “Perhaps
you have heard of me, Gugu. I am called the ‘Cowardly Lion,’ and I am
King of all Beasts, the world over.”
Gugu’s eyes flashed angrily.
“Yes,” said he, “I have heard of you. You have long claimed to be King
of Beasts, but no beast who is a coward can be King over me.”
“He isn’t a coward, Your Majesty,” asserted the little girl, “he’s just
cowardly, that’s all.”
Gugu looked at her. All the other beasts were looking at her, too.
“Who are you?” asked the King.
“Me? Oh, I’m just Dorothy,” she answered.
“How dare you come here?” demanded the King.
“Why, I’m not afraid to go anywhere, if the Cowardly Lion is with me,”
she said. “I know him pretty well, and so I can trust him. He’s always
afraid, when we get into trouble, and that’s why he’s cowardly; but he’s
a terrible fighter, and that’s why he isn’t a coward. He doesn’t like to
fight, you know, but when he _has_ to, there isn’t any beast living that
can conquer him.”
Gugu the King looked at the big, powerful form of the Cowardly Lion, and
knew she spoke the truth. Also the other Lions of the forest now came
forward and bowed low before the strange Lion.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“We welcome Your Majesty,” said one. “We have known you many years ago,
before you went to live at the Emerald City, and we have seen you fight
the terrible Kalidahs and conquer them, so we know you are the King of
all Beasts.”
“It is true,” replied the Cowardly Lion; “but I did not come here to
rule the beasts of this forest. Gugu is King here, and I believe he is a
good King and just and wise. I come, with my friends, to be the guest of
Gugu, and I hope we are welcome.”
That pleased the great Leopard, who said very quickly:
“Yes; you, at least, are welcome to my forest. But who are these
strangers with you.”
“Dorothy has introduced herself,” replied the Lion, “and you are sure to
like her when you know her better. This man is the Wizard of Oz, a
friend of mine who can do wonderful tricks of magic. And here is my true
and tried friend, the Hungry Tiger, who lives with me in the Emerald
City.”
“Is he _always_ hungry?” asked Loo the Unicorn.
“I am,” replied the Tiger, answering the question himself. “I am always
hungry for fat babies.”
“Can’t you find any fat babies in Oz to eat?” inquired Loo, the Unicorn.
“There are plenty of them, of course,” said the Tiger, “but
unfortunately I have such a tender conscience that it won’t allow me to
eat babies. So I’m always hungry for ’em and never can eat ’em, because
my conscience won’t let me.”
Now of all the surprised beasts in that clearing, not one was so much
surprised at the sudden appearance of these four strangers as Ruggedo
the Nome. He was frightened, too, for he recognized them as his most
powerful enemies; but he also realized that they could not know he was
the former King of the Nomes, because of the beast’s form he wore, which
disguised him so effectually. So he took courage and resolved that the
Wizard and Dorothy should not defeat his plans.
It was hard to tell, just yet, what the vast assemblage of beasts
thought of the new arrivals. Some glared angrily at them, but more of
them seemed to be curious and wondering. All were interested, however,
and they kept very quiet and listened carefully to all that was said.
Kiki Aru, who had remained unnoticed in the shadow of the rock, was at
first more alarmed by the coming of the strangers than even Ruggedo was,
and the boy told himself that unless he acted quickly and without
waiting to ask the advice of the old Nome, their conspiracy was likely
to be discovered and all their plans to conquer and rule Oz be defeated.
Kiki didn’t like the way Ruggedo acted either, for the former King of
the Nomes wanted to do everything his own way, and made the boy, who
alone possessed the power of transformations, obey his orders as if he
were a slave.
Another thing that disturbed Kiki Aru was the fact that a real Wizard
had arrived, who was said to possess many magical powers, and this
Wizard carried his tools in a black bag, and was the friend of the Oz
people, and so would probably try to prevent war between the beasts of
the forest and the people of Oz.
All these things passed through the mind of the Hyup boy while the
Cowardly Lion and Gugu the King were talking together, and that was why
he now began to do several strange things.
He had found a place, near to the point where he stood, where there was
a deep hollow in the rock, so he put his face into this hollow and
whispered softly, so he would not be heard:
“I want the Wizard of Oz to become a fox—Pyrzqxgl!”
The Wizard, who had stood smilingly beside his friends, suddenly felt
his form change to that of a fox, and his black bag fell to the ground.
Kiki reached out an arm and seized the bag, and the Fox cried as loud as
it could:
“Treason! There’s a traitor here with magic powers!”
Everyone was startled at this cry, and Dorothy, seeing her old friend’s
plight, screamed and exclaimed: “Mercy me!”
But the next instant the little girl’s form had changed to that of a
lamb with fleecy white wool, and Dorothy was too bewildered to do
anything but look around her in wonder.
The Cowardly Lion’s eyes now flashed fire; he crouched low and lashed
the ground with his tail and gazed around to discover who the
treacherous magician might be. But Kiki, who had kept his face in the
hollow rock, again whispered the magic word, and the great lion
disappeared and in his place stood a little boy dressed in Munchkin
costume. The little Munchkin boy was as angry as the lion had been, but
he was small and helpless.
Ruggedo the Nome saw what was happening and was afraid Kiki would spoil
all his plans, so he leaned over the rock and shouted: “Stop,
Kiki—stop!”
Kiki would not stop, however. Instead, he transformed the Nome into a
goose, to Ruggedo’s horror and dismay. But the Hungry Tiger had
witnessed all these transformations, and he was watching to see which of
those present was to blame for them. When Ruggedo spoke to Kiki, the
Hungry Tiger knew that he was the magician, so he made a sudden spring
and hurled his great body full upon the form of the Li-Mon-Eag crouching
against the rock. Kiki didn’t see the Tiger coming because his face was
still in the hollow, and the heavy body of the tiger bore him to the
earth just as he said “Pyrzqxgl!” for the fifth time.
So now the tiger which was crushing him changed to a rabbit, and
relieved of its weight, Kiki sprang up and, spreading his eagle’s wings,
flew into the branches of a tree, where no beast could easily reach him.
He was not an instant too quick in doing this, for Gugu the King had
crouched on the rock’s edge and was about to spring on the boy.
From his tree Kiki transformed Gugu into a fat Gillikin woman, and
laughed aloud to see how the woman pranced with rage, and how astonished
all the beasts were at their King’s new shape.
[Illustration]
The beasts were frightened, too, fearing they would share the fate of
Gugu, so a stampede began when Rango the Gray Ape sprang into the
forest, and Bru the Bear and Loo the Unicorn followed as quickly as they
could. The elephants backed into the forest, and all the other animals,
big and little, rushed after them, scattering through the jungles until
the clearing was far behind. The monkeys scrambled into the trees and
swung themselves from limb to limb, to avoid being trampled upon by the
bigger beasts, and they were so quick that they distanced all the rest.
A panic of fear seemed to have overtaken the forest people and they got
as far away from the terrible Magician as they possibly could.
[Illustration]
But the transformed ones stayed in the clearing, being so astonished and
bewildered by their new shapes that they could only look at one another
in a dazed and helpless fashion, although each one was greatly annoyed
at the trick that had been played on him.
“Who are you?” the Munchkin boy asked the Rabbit; and “Who are you?” the
Fox asked the Lamb; and “Who are you?” the Rabbit asked the fat Gillikin
woman.
“I’m Dorothy,” said the woolly Lamb.
“I’m the Wizard,” said the Fox.
“I’m the Cowardly Lion,” said the Munchkin Boy.
“I’m the Hungry Tiger,” said the Rabbit.
“I’m Gugu the King,” said the fat Woman.
But when they asked the Goose who he was, Ruggedo the Nome would not
tell them.
“I’m just a Goose,” he replied, “and what I was before, I cannot
remember.”
The Loss of the Black Bag
CHAPTER 13
Kiki Aru, in the form of the Li-Mon-Eag, had scrambled into the high,
thick branches of the tree, so no one could see him, and there he opened
the Wizard’s black bag, which he had carried away in his flight. He was
curious to see what the Wizard’s magic tools looked like, and hoped he
could use some of them and so secure more power; but after he had taken
the articles, one by one, from the bag, he had to admit they were
puzzles to him. For, unless he understood their uses, they were of no
value whatever. Kiki Aru, the Hyup boy, was no wizard or magician at
all, and could do nothing unusual except to use the Magic Word he had
stolen from his father on Mount Munch. So he hung the Wizard’s black bag
on a branch of the tree and then climbed down to the lower limbs that he
might see what the victims of his transformations were doing.
They were all on top of the flat rock, talking together in tones so low
that Kiki could not hear what they said.
“This is certainly a misfortune,” remarked the Wizard in the Fox’s form,
“but our transformations are a sort of enchantment which is very easy to
break—when you know how and have the tools to do it with. The tools are
in my Black Bag; but where is the Bag?”
No one knew that, for none had seen Kiki Aru fly away with it.
“Let’s look and see if we can find it,” suggested Dorothy the Lamb.
So they left the rock, and all of them searched the clearing high and
low without finding the Bag of Magic Tools. The Goose searched as
earnestly as the others, for if he could discover it, he meant to hide
it where the Wizard could never find it, because if the Wizard changed
him back to his proper form, along with the others, he would then be
recognized as Ruggedo the Nome, and they would send him out of the Land
of Oz and so ruin all his hopes of conquest.
Ruggedo was not really sorry, now that he thought about it, that Kiki
had transformed all these Oz folks. The forest beasts, it was true, had
been so frightened that they would now never consent to be transformed
into men, but Kiki could transform them against their will, and once
they were all in human forms, it would not be impossible to induce them
to conquer the Oz people.
So all was not lost, thought the old Nome, and the best thing for him to
do was to rejoin the Hyup boy who had the secret of the transformations.
So, having made sure the Wizard’s black bag was not in the clearing, the
Goose wandered away through the trees when the others were not looking,
and when out of their hearing, he began calling, “Kiki Aru! Kiki Aru!
Quack—quack! Kiki Aru!”
The Boy and the Woman, the Fox, the Lamb and the Rabbit, not being able
to find the bag, went back to the rock, all feeling exceedingly strange.
“Where’s the Goose?” asked the Wizard.
“He must have run away,” replied Dorothy. “I wonder who he was?”
“I think,” said Gugu the King, who was the fat Woman, “that the Goose
was the stranger who proposed that we make war upon the Oz people. If
so, his transformation was merely a trick to deceive us, and he has now
gone to join his comrade, that wicked Li-Mon-Eag who obeyed all his
commands.”
“What shall we do now?” asked Dorothy. “Shall we go back to the Emerald
City, as we are, and then visit Glinda the Good and ask her to break the
enchantments?”
“I think so,” replied the Wizard Fox. “And we can take Gugu the King
with us, and have Glinda restore him to his natural shape. But I hate to
leave my bag of Magic Tools behind me, for without it I shall lose much
of my power as a Wizard. Also, if I go back to the Emerald City in the
shape of a Fox, the Oz people will think I’m a poor Wizard and will lose
their respect for me.”
“Let us make still another search for your tools,” suggested the
Cowardly Lion, “and then, if we fail to find the Black Bag anywhere in
this forest, we must go back home as we are.”
“Why did you come here, anyway?” inquired Gugu.
“We wanted to borrow a dozen monkeys, to use on Ozma’s birthday,”
explained the Wizard. “We were going to make them small, and train them
to do tricks, and put them inside Ozma’s birthday cake.”
“Well,” said the Forest King, “you would have to get the consent of
Rango the Gray Ape, to do that. He commands all the tribes of monkeys.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late, now,” said Dorothy, regretfully. “It was a
splendid plan, but we’ve got troubles of our own, and I don’t like being
a lamb at all.”
“You’re nice and fuzzy,” said the Cowardly Lion.
“That’s nothing,” declared Dorothy. “I’ve never been ’specially proud of
myself, but I’d rather be the way I was born than anything else in the
whole world.”
[Illustration]
The Glass Cat, although it had some disagreeable ways and manners,
nevertheless realized that Trot and Cap’n Bill were its friends and so
was quite disturbed at the fix it had gotten them into by leading them
to the Isle of the Magic Flower. The ruby heart of the Glass Cat was
cold and hard, but still it was a heart, and to have a heart of any sort
is to have some consideration for others. But the queer transparent
creature didn’t want Trot and Cap’n Bill to know it was sorry for them,
and therefore it moved very slowly until it had crossed the river and
was out of sight among the trees of the forest. Then it headed straight
toward the Emerald City, and trotted so fast that it was like a crystal
streak crossing the valleys and plains. Being glass, the cat was
tireless, and with no reason to delay its journey, it reached Ozma’s
palace in wonderfully quick time.
“Where’s the Wizard?” it asked the Pink Kitten, which was curled up in
the sunshine on the lowest step of the palace entrance.
“Don’t bother me,” lazily answered the Pink Kitten, whose name was
Eureka.
“I must find the Wizard at once!” said the Glass Cat.
“Then find him,” advised Eureka, and went to sleep again.
The Glass Cat darted up the stairway and came upon Toto, Dorothy’s
little black dog.
“Where’s the Wizard?” asked the Cat.
“Gone on a journey with Dorothy,” replied Toto.
“When did they go, and where have they gone?” demanded the Cat.
“They went yesterday, and I heard them say they would go to the Great
Forest in the Munchkin Country.”
“Dear me,” said the Glass Cat; “that is a long journey.”
“But they rode on the Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion,” explained
Toto, “and the Wizard carried his Black Bag of Magic Tools.”
The Glass Cat knew the Great Forest of Gugu well, for it had traveled
through this forest many times in its journeys through the Land of Oz.
And it reflected that the Forest of Gugu was nearer to the Isle of the
Magic Flower than the Emerald City was, and so, if it could manage to
find the Wizard, it could lead him across the Gillikin country to where
Trot and Cap’n Bill were prisoned. It was a wild country and little
traveled, but the Glass Cat knew every path. So very little time need be
lost, after all.
Without stopping to ask any more questions the Cat darted out of the
palace and away from the Emerald City, taking the most direct route to
the Forest of Gugu. Again the creature flashed through the country like
a streak of light, and it would surprise you to know how quickly it
reached the edge of the Great Forest.
[Illustration]
There were no monkey guards among the trees to cry out a warning, and
this was so unusual that it astonished the Glass Cat. Going farther into
the forest it presently came upon a wolf, which at first bounded away in
terror. But then, seeing it was only a Glass Cat, the Wolf stopped, and
the Cat could see it was trembling, as if from a terrible fright.
“What’s the matter?” asked the Cat.
“A dreadful Magician has come among us!” exclaimed the Wolf, “and he’s
changing the forms of all the beasts—quick as a wink—and making them all
his slaves.”
The Glass Cat smiled and said:
“Why, that’s only the Wizard of Oz. He may be having some fun with you
forest people, but the Wizard wouldn’t hurt a beast for anything.”
“I don’t mean the Wizard,” explained the Wolf. “And if the Wizard of Oz
is that funny little man who rode a great Tiger into the clearing, he’s
been transformed himself by the terrible Magician.”
“The Wizard transformed? Why, that’s impossible,” declared the Glass
Cat.
“No; it isn’t. I saw him with my own eyes, changed into the form of a
Fox, and the girl who was with him was changed to a woolly Lamb.”
The Glass Cat was indeed surprised.
“When did that happen?” it asked.
“Just a little while ago in the clearing. All the animals had met there,
but they ran away when the Magician began his transformations, and I’m
thankful I escaped with my natural shape. But I’m still afraid, and I’m
going somewhere to hide.”
With this the Wolf ran on, and the Glass Cat, which knew where the big
clearing was, went toward it. But now it walked more slowly, and its
pink brains rolled and tumbled around at a great rate because it was
thinking over the amazing news the Wolf had told it.
When the Glass Cat reached the clearing, it saw a Fox, a Lamb, a Rabbit,
a Munchkin boy and a fat Gillikin woman, all wandering around in an
aimless sort of way, for they were again searching for the Black Bag of
Magic Tools.
The Cat watched them a moment and then it walked slowly into the open
space. At once the Lamb ran toward it, crying:
“Oh, Wizard, here’s the Glass Cat!”
“Where, Dorothy?” asked the Fox.
“Here!”
The Boy and the Woman and the Rabbit now joined the Fox and the Lamb,
and they all stood before the Glass Cat and speaking together, almost
like a chorus, asked: “Have you seen the Black Bag?”
“Often,” replied the Glass Cat, “but not lately.”
“It’s lost,” said the Fox, “and we must find it.”
“Are you the Wizard?” asked the Cat.
“Yes.”
“And who are these others?”
“I’m Dorothy,” said the Lamb.
“I’m the Cowardly Lion,” said the Munchkin boy.
“I’m the Hungry Tiger,” said the Rabbit.
“I’m Gugu, King of the Forest,” said the fat Woman.
The Glass Cat sat on its hind legs and began to laugh. “My, what a funny
lot!” exclaimed the Creature. “Who played this joke on you?”
“It’s no joke at all,” declared the Wizard. “It was a cruel, wicked
transformation, and the Magician that did it has the head of a lion, the
body of a monkey, the wings of an eagle and a round ball on the end of
his tail.”
The Glass Cat laughed again. “That Magician must look funnier than you
do,” it said. “Where is he now?”
“Somewhere in the forest,” said the Cowardly Lion. “He just jumped into
that tall maple tree over there, for he can climb like a monkey and fly
like an eagle, and then he disappeared in the forest.”
“And there was another Magician, just like him, who was his friend,”
added Dorothy, “but they probably quarreled, for the wickedest one
changed his friend into the form of a Goose.”
“What became of the Goose?” asked the Cat, looking around.
“He must have gone away to find his friend,” answered Gugu the King.
“But a Goose can’t travel very fast, so we could easily find him if we
wanted to.”
[Illustration]
“The worst thing of all,” said the Wizard, “is that my Black Bag is
lost. It disappeared when I was transformed. If I could find it I could
easily break these enchantments by means of my magic, and we would
resume our own forms again. Will you help us search for the Black Bag,
Friend Cat?”
“Of course,” replied the Glass Cat. “But I expect the strange Magician
carried it away with him. If he’s a magician, he knows you need that
Bag, and perhaps he’s afraid of your magic. So he’s probably taken the
Bag with him, and you won’t see it again unless you find the Magician.”
“That sounds reasonable,” remarked the Lamb, which was Dorothy. “Those
pink brains of yours seem to be working pretty well to-day.”
“If the Glass Cat is right,” said the Wizard in a solemn voice, “there’s
more trouble ahead of us. That Magician is dangerous, and if we go near
him he may transform us into shapes not as nice as these.”
“I don’t see how we could be any _worse_ off,” growled Gugu, who was
indignant because he was forced to appear in the form of a fat woman.
“Anyway,” said the Cowardly Lion, “our best plan is to find the Magician
and try to get the Black Bag from him. We may manage to steal it, or
perhaps we can argue him into giving it to us.”
“Why not find the Goose, first?” asked Dorothy. “The Goose will be angry
at the Magician, and he may be able to help us.”
“That isn’t a bad idea,” returned the Wizard. “Come on, Friends; let’s
find that Goose. We will separate and search in different directions,
and the first to find the Goose must bring him here, where we will all
meet again in an hour.”
The Wizard Learns the Magic Word
CHAPTER 14
Now, the Goose was the transformation of old Ruggedo, who was at one
time King of the Nomes, and he was even more angry at Kiki Aru than were
the others whose shapes had been changed. The Nome detested anything in
the way of a bird, because birds lay eggs and eggs are feared by all the
Nomes more than anything else in the world. A goose is a foolish bird,
too, and Ruggedo was dreadfully ashamed of the shape he was forced to
wear. And it would make him shudder to reflect that the Goose might lay
an egg!
So the Nome was afraid of himself and afraid of everything around him.
If an egg touched him he could then be destroyed, and almost any animal
he met in the forest might easily conquer him. And that would be the end
of old Ruggedo the Nome.
Aside from these fears, however, he was filled with anger against Kiki,
whom he had meant to trap by cleverly stealing from him the Magic Word.
The boy must have been crazy to spoil everything the way he did, but
Ruggedo knew that the arrival of the Wizard had scared Kiki, and he was
not sorry the boy had transformed the Wizard and Dorothy and made them
helpless. It was his own transformation that annoyed him and made him
indignant, so he ran about the forest hunting for Kiki, so that he might
get a better shape and coax the boy to follow his plans to conquer the
Land of Oz.
Kiki Aru hadn’t gone very far away, for he had surprised himself as well
as the others by the quick transformations and was puzzled as to what to
do next. Ruggedo the Nome was overbearing and tricky, and Kiki knew he
was not to be depended on; but the Nome could plan and plot, which the
Hyup boy was not wise enough to do, and so, when he looked down through
the branches of a tree and saw a Goose waddling along below and heard it
cry out, “Kiki Aru! Quack—quack! Kiki Aru!” the boy answered in a low
voice, “Here I am,” and swung himself down to the lowest limb of the
tree.
The Goose looked up and saw him.
“You’ve bungled things in a dreadful way!” exclaimed the Goose. “Why did
you do it?”
“Because I wanted to,” answered Kiki. “You acted as if I was your slave,
and I wanted to show these forest people that I am more powerful than
you.”
The Goose hissed softly, but Kiki did not hear that.
Old Ruggedo quickly recovered his wits and muttered to himself: “This
boy is the goose, although it is I who wear the goose’s shape. I will be
gentle with him now, and fierce with him when I have him in my power.”
Then he said aloud to Kiki:
“Well, hereafter I will be content to acknowledge you the master. You
bungled things, as I said, but we can still conquer Oz.”
“How?” asked the boy.
“First give me back the shape of the Li-Mon-Eag, and then we can talk
together more conveniently,” suggested the Nome.
“Wait a moment, then,” said Kiki, and climbed higher up the tree. There
he whispered the Magic Word and the Goose became a Li-Mon-Eag, as he had
been before.
“Good!” said the Nome, well pleased, as Kiki joined him by dropping down
from the tree. “Now let us find a quiet place where we can talk without
being overheard by the beasts.”
So the two started away and crossed the forest until they came to a
place where the trees were not so tall nor so close together, and among
these scattered trees was another clearing, not so large as the first
one, where the meeting of the beasts had been held. Standing on the edge
of this clearing and looking across it, they saw the trees on the
farther side full of monkeys, who were chattering together at a great
rate of the sights they had witnessed at the meeting.
The old Nome whispered to Kiki not to enter the clearing or allow the
monkeys to see them.
“Why not?” asked the boy, drawing back.
“Because those monkeys are to be our army—the army which will conquer
Oz,” said the Nome. “Sit down here with me, Kiki, and keep quiet, and I
will explain to you my plan.”
Now, neither Kiki Aru nor Ruggedo had noticed that a sly Fox had
followed them all the way from the tree where the Goose had been
transformed to the Li-Mon-Eag. Indeed, this Fox, who was none other than
the Wizard of Oz, had witnessed the transformation of the Goose and now
decided he would keep watch of the conspirators and see what they would
do next.
A Fox can move through a forest very softly, without making any noise,
and so the Wizard’s enemies did not suspect his presence. But when they
sat down by the edge of the clearing, to talk, with their backs toward
him, the Wizard did not know whether to risk being seen, by creeping
closer to hear what they said, or whether it would be better for him to
hide himself until they moved on again.
While he considered this question he discovered near him a great tree
which had a hollow trunk, and there was a round hole in this tree, about
three feet above the ground. The Wizard Fox decided it would be safer
for him to hide inside the hollow tree, so he sprang into the hole and
crouched down in the hollow, so that his eyes just came to the edge of
the hole by which he had entered, and from here he watched the forms of
the two Li-Mon-Eags.
“This is my plan,” said the Nome to Kiki, speaking so low that the
Wizard could only hear the rumble of his voice. “Since you can transform
anything into any form you wish, we will transform these monkeys into an
army, and with that army we will conquer the Oz people.”
“The monkeys won’t make much of an army,” objected Kiki.
“We need a great army, but not a numerous one,” responded the Nome. “You
will transform each monkey into a giant man, dressed in a fine uniform
and armed with a sharp sword. There are fifty monkeys over there and
fifty giants would make as big an army as we need.”
“What will they do with the swords?” asked Kiki. “Nothing can kill the
Oz people.”
“True,” said Ruggedo. “The Oz people cannot be killed, but they can be
cut into small pieces, and while every piece will still be alive, we can
scatter the pieces around so that they will be quite helpless.
Therefore, the Oz people will be afraid of the swords of our army, and
we will conquer them with ease.”
“That seems like a good idea,” replied the boy, approvingly. “And in
such a case, we need not bother with the other beasts of the forest.”
“No; you have frightened the beasts, and they would no longer consent to
assist us in conquering Oz. But those monkeys are foolish creatures, and
once they are transformed to Giants, they will do just as we say and
obey our commands. Can you transform them all at once?”
“No, I must take one at a time,” said Kiki. “But the fifty
transformations can be made in an hour or so. Stay here, Ruggedo, and I
will change the first monkey—that one at the left, on the end of the
limb—into a Giant with a sword.”
“Where are you going?” asked the Nome.
“I must not speak the Magic Word in the presence of another person,”
declared Kiki, who was determined not to allow his treacherous companion
to learn his secret, “so I will go where you cannot hear me.”
Ruggedo the Nome was disappointed, but he hoped still to catch the boy
unawares and surprise the Magic Word. So he merely nodded his lion head,
and Kiki got up and went back into the forest a short distance. Here he
spied a hollow tree, and by chance it was the same hollow tree in which
the Wizard of Oz, now in the form of a Fox, had hidden himself.
As Kiki ran up to the tree the Fox ducked its head, so that it was out
of sight in the dark hollow beneath the hole, and then Kiki put his face
into the hole and whispered: “I want that monkey on the branch at the
left to become a Giant man fifty feet tall, dressed in a uniform and
with a sharp sword—Pyrzqxgl!”
Then he ran back to Ruggedo, but the Wizard Fox had heard quite plainly
every word that he had said.
The monkey was instantly transformed into the Giant, and the Giant was
so big that as he stood on the ground his head was higher than the trees
of the forest. The monkeys raised a great chatter but did not seem to
understand that the Giant was one of themselves.
“Good!” cried the Nome. “Hurry, Kiki, and transform the others.”
So Kiki rushed back to the tree and putting his face to the hollow,
whispered:
“I want the next monkey to be just like the first—Pyrzqxgl!”
Again the Wizard Fox heard the Magic Word, and just how it was
pronounced. But he sat still in the hollow and waited to hear it again,
so it would be impressed on his mind and he would not forget it.
Kiki kept running to the edge of the forest and back to the hollow tree
again until he had whispered the Magic Word six times and six monkeys
had been changed to six great giants. Then the Wizard decided he would
make an experiment and use the Magic Word himself. So, while Kiki was
running back to the Nome, the Fox stuck his head out of the hollow and
said softly: “I want that creature who is running to become a
hickory-nut—Pyrzqxgl!”
[Illustration]
Instantly the Li-Mon-Eag form of Kiki Aru the Hyup disappeared and a
small hickory-nut rolled upon the ground a moment and then lay still.
The Wizard was delighted, and leaped from the hollow just as Ruggedo
looked around to see what had become of Kiki. The Nome saw the Fox but
no Kiki, so he hastily rose to his feet. The Wizard did not know how
powerful the queer beast might be, so he resolved to take no chances.
“I want this creature to become a walnut—Pyrzqxgl!” he said aloud. But
he did not pronounce the Magic Word in quite the right way, and
Ruggedo’s form did not change. But the Nome knew at once that
“Pyrzqxgl!” was the Magic Word, so he rushed at the Fox and cried:
“I want you to become a Goose—Pyrzqxgl!”
But the Nome did not pronounce the word aright, either, having never
heard it spoken but once before, and then with a wrong accent. So the
Fox was not transformed, but it had to run away to escape being caught
by the angry Nome.
Ruggedo now began pronouncing the Magic Word in every way he could think
of, hoping to hit the right one, and the Fox, hiding in a bush, was
somewhat troubled by the fear that he might succeed. However, the
Wizard, who was used to magic arts, remained calm and soon remembered
exactly how Kiki Aru had pronounced the word. So he repeated the
sentence he had before uttered and Ruggedo the Nome became an ordinary
walnut.
The Wizard now crept out from the bush and said: “I want my own form
again—Pyrzqxgl!”
[Illustration]
Instantly he was the Wizard of Oz, and after picking up the hickory-nut
and the walnut, and carefully placing them in his pocket, he ran back to
the big clearing.
Dorothy the Lamb uttered a bleat of delight when she saw her old friend
restored to his natural shape. The others were all there, not having
found the Goose. The fat Gillikin woman, the Munchkin boy, the Rabbit
and the Glass Cat crowded around the Wizard and asked what had happened.
Before he explained anything of his adventure, he transformed them
all—except, of course, the Glass Cat—into their natural shapes, and when
their joy permitted them to quiet somewhat, he told how he had by chance
surprised the Magician’s secret and been able to change the two
Li-Mon-Eags into shapes that could not speak, and therefore would be
unable to help themselves. And the little Wizard showed his astonished
friends the hickory-nut and the walnut to prove that he had spoken the
truth.
“But—see here!”—exclaimed Dorothy, “What has become of those Giant
Soldiers who used to be monkeys?”
“I forgot all about them!” admitted the Wizard; “but I suppose they are
still standing there in the forest.”
The Lonesome Duck
CHAPTER 15
Trot and Cap’n Bill stood before the Magic Flower, actually rooted to
the spot.
“Aren’t you hungry, Cap’n?” asked the little girl, with a long sigh, for
she had been standing there for hours and hours.
“Well,” replied the sailor-man, “I ain’t sayin’ as I couldn’t _eat_,
Trot—if a dinner was handy—but I guess old folks don’t get as hungry as
young folks do.”
“I’m not sure ’bout that, Cap’n Bill,” she said thoughtfully. “Age
_might_ make a difference, but seems to me _size_ would make a bigger
difference. Seeing you’re twice as big as me, you ought to be twice as
hungry.”
“I hope I am,” he rejoined, “for I can stand it a while longer. I do
hope the Glass Cat will hurry, and I hope the Wizard won’t waste time
a-comin’ to us.”
Trot sighed again and watched the wonderful Magic Flower, because there
was nothing else to do. Just now a lovely group of pink peonies budded
and bloomed, but soon they faded away, and a mass of deep blue lilies
took their place. Then some yellow chrysanthemums blossomed on the
plant, and when they had opened all their petals and reached perfection,
they gave way to a lot of white floral balls spotted with crimson—a
flower Trot had never seen before.
“But I get awful tired watchin’ flowers an’ flowers an’ flowers,” she
said impatiently.
“They’re mighty pretty,” observed Cap’n Bill.
“I know; and if a person could come and look at the Magic Flower just
when she felt like it, it would be a fine thing, but to _have to_ stand
and watch it, whether you want to or not, isn’t so much fun. I wish,
Cap’n Bill, the thing would grow fruit for a while instead of flowers.”
Scarcely had she spoken when the white balls with crimson spots faded
away and a lot of beautiful ripe peaches took their place. With a cry of
mingled surprise and delight Trot reached out and plucked a peach from
the bush and began to eat it, finding it delicious. Cap’n Bill was
somewhat dazed at the girl’s wish being granted so quickly, so before he
could pick a peach they had faded away and bananas took their place.
“Grab one, Cap’n!” exclaimed Trot, and even while eating the peach she
seized a banana with her other hand and tore it from the bush.
The old sailor was still bewildered. He put out a hand indeed, but he
was too late, for now the bananas disappeared and lemons took their
place.
“Pshaw!” cried Trot. “You can’t eat those things; but watch out, Cap’n,
for something else.”
Cocoanuts next appeared, but Cap’n Bill shook his head.
“Ca’n’t crack ’em,” he remarked, “’cause we haven’t anything handy to
smash ’em with.”
“Well, take one, anyhow,” advised Trot; but the cocoanuts were gone now,
and a deep, purple, pear-shaped fruit which was unknown to them took
their place. Again Cap’n Bill hesitated, and Trot said to him:
“You ought to have captured a peach and a banana, as I did. If you’re
not careful, Cap’n, you’ll miss all your chances. Here, I’ll divide my
banana with you.”
Even as she spoke, the Magic Plant was covered with big red apples,
growing on every branch, and Cap’n Bill hesitated no longer. He grabbed
with both hands and picked two apples, while Trot had only time to
secure one before they were gone.
“It’s curious,” remarked the sailor, munching his apple, “how these
fruits keep good when you’ve picked ’em, but dis’pear inter thin air if
they’re left on the bush.”
“The whole thing is curious,” declared the girl, “and it couldn’t exist
in any country but this, where magic is so common. Those are limes.
Don’t pick ’em, for they’d pucker up your mouth and—Ooo! here come
plums!” and she tucked her apple in her apron pocket and captured three
plums—each one almost as big as an egg—before they disappeared. Cap’n
Bill got some too, but both were too hungry to fast any longer, so they
began eating their apples and plums and let the magic bush bear all
sorts of fruits, one after another. The Cap’n stopped once to pick a
fine cantaloupe, which he held under his arm, and Trot, having finished
her plums, got a handful of cherries and an orange; but when almost
every sort of fruit had appeared on the bush, the crop ceased and only
flowers, as before, bloomed upon it.
[Illustration]
“I wonder why it changed back,” mused Trot, who was not worried because
she had enough fruit to satisfy her hunger.
“Well, you only wished it would bear fruit ‘for a while,’” said the
sailor, “and it did. P’raps if you’d said ‘forever,’ Trot, it would have
always been fruit.”
“But why should _my_ wish be obeyed?” asked the girl. “I’m not a fairy
or a wizard or any kind of a magic-maker.”
“I guess,” replied Cap’n Bill, “that this little island is a magic
island, and any folks on it can tell the bush what to produce, an’ it’ll
produce it.”
“Do you think I could wish for anything else, Cap’n, and get it?” she
inquired anxiously.
“What are you thinkin’ of, Trot?”
“I’m thinking of wishing that these roots on our feet would disappear,
and let us free.”
“Try it, Trot.”
So she tried it, and the wish had no effect whatever. “Try it yourself,
Cap’n,” she suggested.
Then Cap’n Bill made the wish to be free, with no better result.
“No,” said he, “it’s no use; the wishes only affect the Magic Plant; but
I’m glad we can make it bear fruit, ’cause now we know we won’t starve
before the Wizard gets to us.”
“But I’m gett’n’ tired standing here so long,” complained the girl. “If
I could only lift one foot, and rest it, I’d feel better.”
“Same with me, Trot. I’ve noticed that if you’ve got to do a thing, and
can’t help yourself, it gets to be a hardship mighty quick.”
“Folks that can raise their feet don’t appreciate what a blessing it
is,” said Trot thoughtfully. “I never knew before what fun it is to
raise one foot, an’ then another, any time you feel like it.”
“There’s lots o’ things folks don’t ’preciate,” replied the sailor-man.
“If somethin’ would ’most stop your breath, you’d think breathin’ easy
was the finest thing in life. When a person’s well, he don’t realize how
jolly it is, but when he gets sick he ’members the time he was well, an’
wishes that time would come back. Most folks forget to thank God for
givin’ ’em two good legs, till they lose one o’ ’em, like I did; and
then it’s too late, ’cept to praise God for leavin’ one.”
“Your wooden leg ain’t so bad, Cap’n,” she remarked, looking at it
critically. “Anyhow, it don’t take root on a Magic Island, like our meat
legs do.”
“I ain’t complaining” said Cap’n Bill. “What’s that swimmin’ towards us,
Trot?” he added, looking over the Magic Flower and across the water.
The girl looked, too, and then she replied.
“It’s a bird of some sort. It’s like a duck, only I never saw a duck
have so many colors.”
The bird swam swiftly and gracefully toward the Magic Isle, and as it
drew nearer its gorgeously colored plumage astonished them. The feathers
were of many hues of glistening greens and blues and purples, and it had
a yellow head with a red plume, and pink, white and violet in its tail.
When it reached the Isle, it came ashore and approached them, waddling
slowly and turning its head first to one side and then to the other, so
as to see the girl and the sailor better.
“You’re strangers,” said the bird, coming to a halt near them, “and
you’ve been caught by the Magic Isle and made prisoners.”
“Yes,” returned Trot, with a sigh; “we’re rooted. But I hope we won’t
grow.”
“You’ll grow small,” said the Bird. “You’ll keep growing smaller every
day, until bye and bye there’ll be nothing left of you. That’s the usual
way, on this Magic Isle.”
“How do you know about it, and who are you, anyhow?” asked Cap’n Bill.
[Illustration]
“I’m the Lonesome Duck,” replied the bird. “I suppose you’ve heard of
me?”
“No,” said Trot, “I can’t say I have. What makes you lonesome?”
“Why, I haven’t any family or any relations,” returned the Duck.
“Haven’t you any friends?”
“Not a friend. And I’ve nothing to do. I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve
got to live forever, because I belong in the Land of Oz, where no living
thing dies. Think of existing year after year, with no friends, no
family, and nothing to do! Can you wonder I’m lonesome?”
“Why don’t you make a few friends, and find something to do?” inquired
Cap’n Bill.
“I can’t make friends because everyone I meet—bird, beast or person—is
disagreeable to me. In a few minutes I shall be unable to bear your
society longer, and then I’ll go away and leave you,” said the Lonesome
Duck. “And, as for doing anything, there’s no use in it. All I meet are
doing something, so I have decided it’s common and uninteresting and I
prefer to remain lonesome.”
“Don’t you have to hunt for your food?” asked Trot.
“No. In my diamond palace, a little way up the river, food is magically
supplied me; but I seldom eat, because it is so common.”
“You must be a Magician Duck,” remarked Cap’n Bill.
“Why so?”
“Well, ordinary ducks don’t have diamond palaces an’ magic food, like
you do.”
“True; and that’s another reason why I’m lonesome. You must remember I’m
the only Duck in the Land of Oz, and I’m not like any other duck in the
outside world.”
“Seems to me you _like_ bein’ lonesome,” observed Cap’n Bill.
“I can’t say I like it, exactly,” replied the Duck, “but since it seems
to be my fate, I’m rather proud of it.”
“How do you s’pose a single, solitary Duck happened to be in the Land of
Oz?” asked Trot, wonderingly.
“I used to know the reason, many years ago, but I’ve quite forgotten
it,” declared the Duck. “The reason for a thing is never so important as
the thing itself, so there’s no use remembering anything but the fact
that I’m lonesome.”
“I guess you’d be happier if you tried to do something,” asserted Trot.
“If you can’t do anything for yourself, you can do things for others,
and then you’d get lots of friends and stop being lonesome.”
“Now you’re getting disagreeable,” said the Lonesome Duck, “and I shall
have to go and leave you.”
“Can’t you help us any,” pleaded the girl. “If there’s anything magic
about you, you might get us out of this scrape.”
“I haven’t any magic strong enough to get you off the Magic Isle,”
replied the Lonesome Duck. “What magic I possess is very simple, but I
find it enough for my own needs.”
“If we could only sit down a while, we could stand it better,” said
Trot, “but we have nothing to sit on.”
“Then you will have to stand it,” said the Lonesome Duck.
“P’raps you’ve enough magic to give us a couple of stools,” suggested
Cap’n Bill.
“A duck isn’t supposed to know what stools are,” was the reply.
“But you’re different from all other ducks.”
“That is true.” The strange creature seemed to reflect for a moment,
looking at them sharply from its round black eyes. Then it said:
“Sometimes, when the sun is hot, I grow a toadstool to shelter me from
its rays. Perhaps you could sit on toadstools.”
“Well, if they were strong enough, they’d do,” answered Cap’n Bill.
“Then, before I go I’ll give you a couple,” said the Lonesome Duck, and
began waddling about in a small circle. It went around the circle to the
right three times, and then it went around to the left three times. Then
it hopped backward three times and forward three times.
“What are you doing?” asked Trot.
“Don’t interrupt. This is an incantation,” replied the Lonesome Duck,
but now it began making a succession of soft noises that sounded like
quacks and seemed to mean nothing at all. And it kept up these sounds so
long that Trot finally exclaimed:
“Can’t you hurry up and finish that ’cantation? If it takes all summer
to make a couple of toadstools, you’re not much of a magician.”
“I told you not to interrupt,” said the Lonesome Duck, sternly. “If you
get _too_ disagreeable, you’ll drive me away before I finish this
incantation.”
Trot kept quiet, after the rebuke, and the Duck resumed the quacky
muttering. Cap’n Bill chuckled a little to himself and remarked to Trot
in a whisper: “For a bird that ain’t got anything to do, this Lonesome
Duck is makin’ consider’ble fuss. An’ I ain’t sure, after all, as
toadstools would be worth sittin’ on.”
Even as he spoke, the sailor-man felt something touch him from behind
and, turning his head, he found a big toadstool in just the right place
and of just the right size to sit upon. There was one behind Trot, too,
and with a cry of pleasure the little girl sank back upon it and found
it a very comfortable seat—solid, yet almost like a cushion. Even Cap’n
Bill’s weight did not break his toadstool down, and when both were
seated, they found that the Lonesome Duck had waddled away and was now
at the water’s edge.
“Thank you, ever so much!” cried Trot, and the sailor called out: “Much
obliged!”
But the Lonesome Duck paid no attention. Without even looking in their
direction again, the gaudy fowl entered the water and swam gracefully
away.
[Illustration]
The Glass Cat Finds the Black Bag
CHAPTER 16
When the six monkeys were transformed by Kiki Aru into six giant
soldiers fifty feet tall, their heads came above the top of the trees,
which in this part of the forest were not so high as in some other
parts; and, although the trees were somewhat scattered, the bodies of
the giant soldiers were so big that they quite filled the spaces in
which they stood and the branches pressed them on every side.
Of course, Kiki was foolish to have made his soldiers so big, for now
they could not get out of the forest. Indeed, they could not stir a
step, but were imprisoned by the trees. Even had they been in the little
clearing they could not have made their way out of it, but they were a
little beyond the clearing. At first, the other monkeys who had not been
enchanted were afraid of the soldiers, and hastily quitted the place;
but soon finding that the great men stood stock still, although grunting
indignantly at their transformation, the band of monkeys returned to the
spot and looked at them curiously, not guessing that they were really
monkeys and their own friends.
The soldiers couldn’t see them, their heads being above the trees; they
could not even raise their arms or draw their sharp swords, so closely
were they held by the leafy branches. So the monkeys, finding the giants
helpless, began climbing up their bodies, and presently all the band
were perched on the shoulders of the giants and peering into their
faces.
“I’m Ebu, your father,” cried one soldier to a monkey who had perched
upon his left ear, “but some cruel person has enchanted me.”
“I’m your Uncle Peeker,” said another soldier to another monkey.
So, very soon all the monkeys knew the truth and were sorry for their
friends and relations and angry at the person—whoever it was—who had
transformed them. There was a great chattering among the tree-tops, and
the noise attracted other monkeys, so that the clearing and all the
trees around were full of them.
Rango the Gray Ape, who was the Chief of all the monkey tribes of the
forest, heard the uproar and came to see what was wrong with his people.
And Rango, being wiser and more experienced, at once knew that the
strange magician who looked like a mixed-up beast was responsible for
the transformations. He realized that the six giant soldiers were
helpless prisoners, because of their size, and knew he was powerless to
release them. So, although he feared to meet the terrible magician, he
hurried away to the great clearing to tell Gugu the King what had
happened and to try to find the Wizard of Oz and get him to save his six
enchanted subjects.
Rango darted into the Great Clearing just as the Wizard had restored all
the enchanted ones around him to their proper shapes, and the Gray Ape
was glad to hear that the wicked magician-beast had been conquered.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“But now, O mighty Wizard, you must come with me to where six of my
people are transformed into six great giant men,” he said, “for if they
are allowed to remain there, their happiness and their future lives will
be ruined.”
The Wizard did not reply at once, for he was thinking this a good
opportunity to win Rango’s consent to his taking some monkeys to the
Emerald City for Ozma’s birthday cake.
“It is a great thing you ask of me, O Rango the Gray Ape,” said he, “for
the bigger the giants are the more powerful their enchantment, and the
more difficult it will be to restore them to their natural forms.
However, I will think it over.”
Then the Wizard went to another part of the clearing and sat on a log
and appeared to be in deep thought.
The Glass Cat had been greatly interested in the Gray Ape’s story and
was curious to see what the giant soldiers looked like. Hearing that
their heads extended above the tree-tops, the Glass Cat decided that if
it climbed the tall avocado tree that stood at the side of the clearing,
it might be able to see the giants’ heads. So, without mentioning her
errand, the crystal creature went to the tree and, by sticking her sharp
glass claws in the bark, easily climbed the tree to its very top and,
looking over the forest, saw the six giant heads, although they were now
a long way off. It was, indeed, a remarkable sight, for the huge heads
had immense soldier caps on them, with red and yellow plumes and looked
very fierce and terrible, although the monkey hearts of the giants were
at that moment filled with fear.
Having satisfied her curiosity, the Glass Cat began to climb down from
the tree more slowly. Suddenly she discerned the Wizard’s black bag
hanging to a limb of the tree. She grasped the black bag in her glass
teeth, and although it was rather heavy for so small an animal, managed
to get it free and to carry it safely down to the ground. Then she
looked around for the Wizard and seeing him seated upon the stump she
hid the black bag among some leaves and then went over to where the
Wizard sat.
“I forgot to tell you,” said the Glass Cat, “that Trot and Cap’n Bill
are in trouble, and I came here to hunt you up and get you to go and
rescue them.”
“Good gracious, Cat! Why didn’t you tell me before?” exclaimed the
Wizard.
“For the reason that I found so much excitement here that I forgot Trot
and Cap’n Bill.”
“What’s wrong with them?” asked the Wizard.
Then the Glass Cat explained how they had gone to get the Magic Flower
for Ozma’s birthday gift and had been trapped by the magic of the queer
island. The Wizard was really alarmed, but he shook his head and said
sadly:
“I’m afraid I can’t help my dear friends, because I’ve lost my black
bag.”
“If I find it, will you go to them?” asked the creature.
“Of course,” replied the Wizard. “But I do not think that a Glass Cat
with nothing but pink brains can succeed when all the rest of us have
failed.”
“Don’t you admire my pink brains?” demanded the Cat.
“They’re pretty,” admitted the Wizard, “but they’re not regular brains,
you know, and so we don’t expect them to amount to much.”
“But if I find your black bag—and find it inside of five minutes—will
you admit my pink brains are better than your common human brains?”
“Well, I’ll admit they’re better _hunters_,” said the Wizard,
reluctantly, “but you can’t do it. We’ve searched everywhere, and the
black bag isn’t to be found.”
“That shows how much you know!” retorted the Glass Cat, scornfully.
“Watch my brains a minute, and see them whirl around.”
[Illustration]
The Wizard watched, for he was anxious to regain his black bag, and the
pink brains really did whirl around in a remarkable manner.
“Now, come with me,” commanded the Glass Cat, and led the Wizard
straight to the spot where it had covered the bag with leaves.
“According to my brains,” said the creature, “your black bag ought to be
here.”
Then it scratched at the leaves and uncovered the bag, which the Wizard
promptly seized with a cry of delight. Now that he had regained his
Magic Tools, he felt confident he could rescue Trot and Cap’n Bill.
Rango the Gray Ape was getting impatient. He now approached the Wizard
and said:
“Well, what do you intend to do about those poor enchanted monkeys?”
“I’ll make a bargain with you, Rango,” replied the little man. “If you
will let me take a dozen of your monkeys to the Emerald City, and keep
them until after Ozma’s birthday, I’ll break the enchantment of the six
Giant Soldiers and return them to their natural forms.”
But the Gray Ape shook his head.
“I can’t do it,” he declared. “The monkeys would be very lonesome and
unhappy in the Emerald City and your people would tease them and throw
stones at them, which would cause them to fight and bite.”
“The people won’t see them till Ozma’s birthday dinner,” promised the
Wizard. “I’ll make them very small—about four inches high, and I’ll keep
them in a pretty cage in my own room, where they will be safe from harm.
I’ll feed them the nicest kind of food, train them to do some clever
tricks, and on Ozma’s birthday I’ll hide the twelve little monkeys
inside a cake. When Ozma cuts the cake the monkeys will jump out on to
the table and do their tricks. The next day I will bring them back to
the forest and make them big as ever, and they’ll have some exciting
stories to tell their friends. What do you say, Rango?”
“I say no!” answered the Gray Ape. “I won’t have my monkeys enchanted
and made to do tricks for the Oz people.”
“Very well,” said the Wizard calmly; “then I’ll go. Come, Dorothy,” he
called to the little girl, “let’s start on our journey.”
“Aren’t you going to save those six monkeys who are giant soldiers?”
asked Rango, anxiously.
“Why should I?” returned the Wizard. “If you will not do me the favor I
ask, you cannot expect me to favor you.”
“Wait a minute,” said the Gray Ape. “I’ve changed my mind. If you will
treat the twelve monkeys nicely and bring them safely back to the
forest. I’ll let you take them.”
“Thank you,” replied the Wizard, cheerfully. “We’ll go at once and save
those giant soldiers.”
So all the party left the clearing and proceeded to the place where the
giants still stood among the trees. Hundreds of monkeys, apes, baboons
and orang-outangs had gathered round, and their wild chatter could be
heard a mile away. But the Gray Ape soon hushed the babel of sounds, and
the Wizard lost no time in breaking the enchantments. First one and then
another giant soldier disappeared and became an ordinary monkey again,
and the six were shortly returned to their friends in their proper
forms.
This action made the Wizard very popular with the great army of monkeys,
and when the Gray Ape announced that the Wizard wanted to borrow twelve
monkeys to take to the Emerald City for a couple of weeks, and asked for
volunteers, nearly a hundred offered to go, so great was their
confidence in the little man who had saved their comrades.
The Wizard selected a dozen that seemed intelligent and good-tempered,
and then he opened his black bag and took out a queerly shaped dish that
was silver on the outside and gold on the inside. Into this dish he
poured a powder and set fire to it. It made a thick smoke that quite
enveloped the twelve monkeys, as well as the form of the Wizard, but
when the smoke cleared away the dish had been changed to a golden cage
with silver bars, and the twelve monkeys had become about three inches
high and were all seated comfortably inside the cage.
[Illustration]
The thousands of hairy animals who had witnessed this act of magic were
much astonished and applauded the Wizard by barking aloud and shaking
the limbs of the trees in which they sat. Dorothy said: “That was a fine
trick, Wizard!” and the Gray Ape remarked: “You are certainly the most
wonderful magician in all the Land of Oz!”
“Oh, no,” modestly replied the little man. “Glinda’s magic is better
than mine, but mine seems good enough to use on ordinary occasions. And
now, Rango, we will say good-bye, and I promise to return your monkeys
as happy and safe as they are now.”
The Wizard rode on the back of the Hungry Tiger and carried the cage of
monkeys very carefully, so as not to joggle them. Dorothy rode on the
back of the Cowardly Lion, and the Glass Cat trotted, as before, to show
them the way.
Gugu the King crouched upon a log and watched them go, but as he bade
them farewell, the enormous leopard said:
“I know now that you are the friends of beasts and that the forest
people may trust you. Whenever the Wizard of Oz and Princess Dorothy
enter the Forest of Gugu hereafter, they will be as welcome and as safe
with us as ever they are in the Emerald City.”
A Remarkable Journey
CHAPTER 17
“You see,” explained the Glass Cat, “that Magic Isle where Trot and
Cap’n Bill are stuck is also in this Gillikin country—over at the east
side of it, and it’s no farther to go across-lots from here than it is
from here to the Emerald City. So we’ll save time by cutting across the
mountains.”
“Are you sure you know the way?” asked Dorothy.
“I know all the Land of Oz better than any other living creature knows
it,” asserted the Glass Cat.
“Go ahead, then, and guide us,” said the Wizard. “We’ve left our poor
friends helpless too long already, and the sooner we rescue them the
happier they’ll be.”
“Are you sure you can get ’em out of their fix?” the little girl
inquired.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” the Wizard assured her. “But I can’t tell what
sort of magic I must use until I get to the place and discover just how
they are enchanted.”
“I’ve heard of that Magic Isle where the Wonderful Flower grows,”
remarked the Cowardly Lion. “Long ago, when I used to live in the
forests, the beasts told stories about the Isle and how the Magic Flower
was placed there to entrap strangers—men or beasts.”
“Is the Flower really wonderful?” questioned Dorothy.
“I have heard it is the most beautiful plant in the world,” answered the
Lion. “I have never seen it myself, but friendly beasts have told me
that they have stood on the shore of the river and looked across at the
plant in the gold flowerpot and seen hundreds of flowers, of all sorts
and sizes, blossom upon it in quick succession. It is said that if one
picks the flowers while they are in bloom they will remain perfect for a
long time, but if they are not picked they soon disappear and are
replaced by other flowers. That, in my opinion, makes the magic plant
the most wonderful in existence.”
“But these are only stories,” said the girl. “Has any of your friends
ever picked a flower from the wonderful plant?”
“No,” admitted the Cowardly Lion, “for if any living thing ventures upon
the Magic Isle, where the golden flowerpot stands, that man or beast
takes root in the soil and cannot get away again.”
“What happens to them, then?” asked Dorothy.
“They grow smaller, hour by hour and day by day, and finally disappear
entirely.”
“Then,” said the girl anxiously, “we must hurry up, or Cap’n Bill an’
Trot will get too small to be comf’table.”
They were proceeding at a rapid pace during this conversation, for the
Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion were obliged to move swiftly in order
to keep pace with the Glass Cat. After leaving the Forest of Gugu they
crossed a mountain range, and then a broad plain, after which they
reached another forest, much smaller than that where Gugu ruled.
“The Magic Isle is in this forest,” said the Glass Cat, “but the river
is at the other side of the forest. There is no path through the trees,
but if we keep going east, we will find the river, and then it will be
easy to find the Magic Isle.”
“Have you ever traveled this way before?” inquired the Wizard.
“Not exactly,” admitted the Cat, “but I know we shall reach the river if
we go east through the forest.”
“Lead on, then,” said the Wizard.
The Glass Cat started away, and at first it was easy to pass between the
trees; but before long the underbrush and vines became thick and
tangled, and after pushing their way through these obstacles for a time,
our travelers came to a place where even the Glass Cat could not push
through.
“We’d better go back and find a path,” suggested the Hungry Tiger.
“I’m s’prised at you,” said Dorothy, eyeing the Glass Cat severely.
“I’m surprised, myself,” replied the Cat. “But it’s a long way around
the forest to where the river enters it, and I thought we could save
time by going straight through.”
“No one can blame you,” said the Wizard, “and I think, instead of
turning back, I can make a path that will allow us to proceed.”
He opened his black bag and after searching among his magic tools drew
out a small axe, made of some metal so highly polished that it glittered
brightly even in the dark forest. The Wizard laid the little axe on the
ground and said in a commanding voice:
“Chop, Little Axe, chop clean and true;
A path for our feet you must quickly hew.
Chop till this tangle of jungle is passed;
Chop to the east, Little Axe—chop fast!”
Then the little axe began to move and flashed its bright blade right and
left, clearing a way through vine and brush and scattering the tangled
barrier so quickly that the Lion and the Tiger, carrying Dorothy and the
Wizard and the cage of monkeys on their backs, were able to stride
through the forest at a fast walk. The brush seemed to melt away before
them and the little axe chopped so fast that their eyes only saw a
twinkling of the blade. Then, suddenly, the forest was open again, and
the little axe, having obeyed its orders, lay still upon the ground.
The Wizard picked up the magic axe and after carefully wiping it with
his silk handkerchief put it away in his black bag. Then they went on
and in a short time reached the river.
“Let me see,” said the Glass Cat, looking up and down the stream, “I
think we are below the Magic Isle; so we must go up the stream until we
come to it.”
So up the stream they traveled, walking comfortably on the river bank,
and after a while the water broadened and a sharp bend appeared in the
river, hiding all below from their view. They walked briskly along,
however, and had nearly reached the bend when a voice cried warningly:
“Look out!”
The travelers halted abruptly and the Wizard said: “Look out for what?”
“You almost stepped on my Diamond Palace,” replied the voice, and a duck
with gorgeously colored feathers appeared before them. “Beasts and men
are terribly clumsy,” continued the Duck in an irritated tone, “and
you’ve no business on this side of the river, anyway. What are you doing
here?”
“We’ve come to rescue some friends of ours who are stuck fast on the
Magic Isle in this river,” explained Dorothy.
“I know ’em,” said the Duck. “I’ve been to see ’em, and they’re stuck
fast, all right. You may as well go back home, for no power can save
them.”
“This is the Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” said Dorothy, pointing to the
little man.
“Well, I’m the Lonesome Duck,” was the reply, as the fowl strutted up
and down to show its feathers to best advantage. “I’m the great Forest
Magician, as any beast can tell you, but even I have no power to destroy
the dreadful charm of the Magic Isle.”
[Illustration]
“Are you lonesome because you’re a magician?” inquired Dorothy.
“No; I’m lonesome because I have no family and no friends. But I like to
be lonesome, so please don’t offer to be friendly with me. Go away, and
try not to step on my Diamond Palace.”
“Where is it?” asked the girl.
“Behind this bush.”
Dorothy hopped off the lion’s back and ran around the bush to see the
Diamond Palace of the Lonesome Duck, although the gaudy fowl protested
in a series of low quacks. The girl found, indeed, a glistening dome
formed of clearest diamonds, neatly cemented together, with a doorway at
the side just big enough to admit the duck.
“Where did you find so many diamonds?” asked Dorothy, wonderingly.
“I know a place in the mountains where they are thick as pebbles,” said
the Lonesome Duck, “and I brought them here in my bill, one by one and
put them in the river and let the water run over them until they were
brightly polished. Then I built this palace, and I’m positive it’s the
only Diamond Palace in all the world.”
“It’s the only one I know of,” said the little girl; “but if you live in
it all alone, I don’t see why it’s any better than a wooden palace, or
one of bricks or cobble-stones.”
“You’re not supposed to understand that,” retorted the Lonesome Duck.
“But I might tell you, as a matter of education, that a home of any sort
should be beautiful to those who live in it, and should not be intended
to please strangers. The Diamond Palace is my home, and I like it. So I
don’t care a quack whether _you_ like it or not.”
[Illustration]
“Oh, but I do!” exclaimed Dorothy. “It’s lovely on the outside, but—”
Then she stopped speaking, for the Lonesome Duck had entered his palace
through the little door without even saying good-bye. So Dorothy
returned to her friends and they resumed their journey.
“Do you think, Wizard, the Duck was right in saying no magic can rescue
Trot and Cap’n Bill?” asked the girl in a worried tone of voice.
“No, I don’t think the Lonesome Duck was right in saying that,” answered
the Wizard, gravely, “but it is possible that their enchantment will be
harder to overcome than I expected. I’ll do my best, of course, and no
one can do more than his best.”
That didn’t entirely relieve Dorothy’s anxiety, but she said nothing
more, and soon, on turning the bend in the river, they came in sight of
the Magic Isle.
“There they are!” exclaimed Dorothy eagerly.
“Yes, I see them,” replied the Wizard, nodding. “They are sitting on two
big toadstools.”
“That’s queer,” remarked the Glass Cat. “There were no toadstools there
when I left them.”
“What a lovely flower!” cried Dorothy in rapture, as her gaze fell on
the Magic Plant.
“Never mind the Flower, just now,” advised the Wizard. “The most
important thing is to rescue our friends.”
By this time they had arrived at a place just opposite the Magic Isle,
and now both Trot and Cap’n Bill saw the arrival of their friends and
called to them for help.
“How are you?” shouted the Wizard, putting his hands to his mouth so
they could hear him better across the water.
[Illustration]
“We’re in hard luck,” shouted Cap’n Bill, in reply. “We’re anchored here
and can’t move till you find a way to cut the hawser.”
“What does he mean by that?” asked Dorothy.
“We can’t move our feet a bit!” called Trot, speaking as loud as she
could.
“Why not?” inquired Dorothy.
“They’ve got roots on ’em,” explained Trot.
It was hard to talk from so great a distance, so the Wizard said to the
Glass Cat:
“Go to the island and tell our friends to be patient, for we have come
to save them. It may take a little time to release them, for the Magic
of the Isle is new to me and I shall have to experiment. But tell them
I’ll hurry as fast as I can.”
So the Glass Cat walked across the river under the water to tell Trot
and Cap’n Bill not to worry, and the Wizard at once opened his black bag
and began to make his preparations.
The Magic of the Wizard
CHAPTER 18
He first set up a small silver tripod and placed a gold basin at the top
of it. Into this basin he put two powders—a pink one and a sky-blue
one—and poured over them a yellow liquid from a crystal vial. Then he
mumbled some magic words, and the powders began to sizzle and burn and
send out a cloud of violet smoke that floated across the river and
completely enveloped both Trot and Cap’n Bill, as well as the toadstools
on which they sat, and even the Magic Plant in the gold flowerpot. Then,
after the smoke had disappeared into air, the Wizard called out to the
prisoners:
“Are you free?”
Both Trot and Cap’n Bill tried to move their feet and failed.
“No!” they shouted in answer.
The Wizard rubbed his bald head thoughtfully and then took some other
magic tools from the bag.
First he placed a little black ball in a silver pistol and shot it
toward the Magic Isle. The ball exploded just over the head of Trot and
scattered a thousand sparks over the little girl.
“Oh!” said the Wizard, “I guess that will set her free.”
But Trot’s feet were still rooted in the ground of the Magic Isle, and
the disappointed Wizard had to try something else.
For almost an hour he worked hard, using almost every magic tool in his
black bag, and still Cap’n Bill and Trot were not rescued.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Dorothy, “I’m ’fraid we’ll have to go to Glinda,
after all.”
That made the little Wizard blush, for it shamed him to think that his
magic was not equal to that of the Magic Isle.
“I won’t give up yet, Dorothy,” he said, “for I know a lot of wizardry
that I haven’t yet tried. I don’t know what magician enchanted this
little island, or what his powers were, but I do know that I can break
any enchantment known to the ordinary witches and magicians that used to
inhabit the Land of Oz. It’s like unlocking a door; all you need is to
find the right key.”
“But ’spose you haven’t the right key with you,” suggested Dorothy;
“what then?”
“Then we’ll have to make the key,” he answered.
The Glass Cat now came back to their side of the river, walking under
the water, and said to the Wizard: “They’re getting frightened over
there on the island because they’re both growing smaller every minute.
Just now, when I left them, both Trot and Cap’n Bill were only about
half their natural sizes.”
“I think,” said the Wizard reflectively, “that I’d better go to the
shore of the island, where I can talk to them and work to better
advantage. How did Trot and Cap’n Bill get to the island?”
“On a raft,” answered the Glass Cat. “It’s over there now on the beach.”
“I suppose you’re not strong enough to bring the raft to this side, are
you?”
“No; I couldn’t move it an inch,” said the Cat.
“I’ll try to get it for you,” volunteered the Cowardly Lion. “I’m
dreadfully scared for fear the Magic Isle will capture me, too; but I’ll
try to get the raft and bring it to this side for you.”
“Thank you, my friend,” said the Wizard.
So the Lion plunged into the river and swam with powerful strokes across
to where the raft was beached upon the island. Placing one paw on the
raft, he turned and struck out with his other three legs and so strong
was the great beast that he managed to drag the raft from off the beach
and propel it slowly to where the Wizard stood on the river bank.
“Good!” exclaimed the little man, well pleased.
“May I go across with you?” asked Dorothy.
The Wizard hesitated.
“If you’ll take care not to leave the raft or step foot on the island,
you’ll be quite safe,” he decided. So the Wizard told the Hungry Tiger
and the Cowardly Lion to guard the cage of monkeys until he returned,
and then he and Dorothy got upon the raft. The paddle which Cap’n Bill
had made was still there so the little Wizard paddled the clumsy raft
across the water and ran it upon the beach of the Magic Isle as close to
the place where Cap’n Bill and Trot were rooted as he could.
[Illustration]
Dorothy was shocked to see how small the prisoners had become, and Trot
said to her friends: “If you can’t save us soon, there’ll be nothing
left of us.”
“Be patient, my dear,” counselled the Wizard, and took the little axe
from his black bag.
“What are you going to do with that?” asked Cap’n Bill.
“It’s a magic axe,” replied the Wizard, “and when I tell it to chop, it
will chop those roots from your feet and you can run to the raft before
they grow again.”
“Don’t!” shouted the sailor in alarm. “Don’t do it! Those roots are all
flesh roots, and our bodies are feeding ’em while they’re growing into
the ground.”
“To cut off the roots,” said Trot, “would be like cutting off our
fingers and toes.”
The Wizard put the little axe back in the black bag and took out a pair
of silver pincers.
“Grow—grow—grow!” he said to the pincers, and at once they grew and
extended until they reached from the raft to the prisoners.
“What are you going to do now?” demanded Cap’n Bill, fearfully eyeing
the pincers.
“This magic tool will pull you up, roots and all, and land you on this
raft,” declared the Wizard.
“Don’t do it!” pleaded the sailor, with a shudder. “It would hurt us
awfully.”
[Illustration]
“It would be just like pulling teeth to pull us up by the roots,”
explained Trot.
“Grow small!” said the Wizard to the pincers, and at once they became
small and he threw them into the black bag.
“I guess, friends, it’s all up with us, this time,” remarked Cap’n Bill,
with a dismal sigh.
“Please tell Ozma, Dorothy,” said Trot, “that we got into trouble trying
to get her a nice birthday present. Then she’ll forgive us. The Magic
Flower is lovely and wonderful, but it’s just a lure to catch folks on
this dreadful island and then destroy them. You’ll have a nice birthday
party, without us, I’m sure; and I hope, Dorothy, that none of you in
the Emerald City will forget me—or dear ol’ Cap’n Bill.”
[Illustration]
Dorothy and the Bumble Bees
CHAPTER 19
Dorothy was greatly distressed and had hard work to keep the tears from
her eyes.
“Is that all you can do, Wizard?” she asked the little man.
“It’s all I can think of just now,” he replied sadly. “But I intend to
keep on thinking as long—as long—well, as long as thinking will do any
good.”
They were all silent for a time, Dorothy and the Wizard sitting
thoughtfully on the raft, and Trot and Cap’n Bill sitting thoughtfully
on the toadstools and growing gradually smaller and smaller in size.
Suddenly Dorothy said: “Wizard, I’ve thought of something!”
“What have you thought of?” he asked, looking at the little girl with
interest.
“Can you remember the Magic Word that transforms people?” she asked.
“Of course,” said he.
“Then you can transform Trot and Cap’n Bill into birds or Bumblebees,
and they can fly away to the other shore. When they’re there, you can
transform ’em into their reg’lar shapes again!”
“Can you do that, Wizard?” asked Cap’n Bill, eagerly.
“I think so.”
“Roots an’ all?” inquired Trot.
“Why, the roots are now a part of you, and if you were transformed to a
bumble-bee the whole of you would be transformed, of course, and you’d
be free of this awful island.”
“All right; do it!” cried the sailor-man.
So the Wizard said slowly and distinctly:
“I want Trot and Cap’n Bill to become bumble-bees—Pyrzqxgl!”
Fortunately, he pronounced the Magic Word in the right way, and
instantly Trot and Cap’n Bill vanished from view, and up from the places
where they had been flew two bumble-bees.
“Hooray!” shouted Dorothy in delight; “they’re saved!”
“I guess they are,” agreed the Wizard, equally delighted.
The bees hovered over the raft an instant and then flew across the river
to where the Lion and the Tiger waited. The Wizard picked up the paddle
and paddled the raft across as fast as he could. When it reached the
river bank, both Dorothy and the Wizard leaped ashore and the little man
asked excitedly:
“Where are the bees?”
“The bees?” inquired the Lion, who was half asleep and did not know what
had happened on the Magic Isle.
“Yes; there were two of them.”
“Two bees?” said the Hungry Tiger, yawning. “Why, I ate one of them and
the Cowardly Lion ate the other.”
“Goodness gracious!” cried Dorothy horrified.
“It was little enough for our lunch,” remarked the Tiger, “but the bees,
were the only things we could find.”
“How dreadful!” wailed Dorothy, wringing her hands in despair. “You’ve
eaten Trot and Cap’n Bill.”
But just then she heard a buzzing overhead and two bees alighted on her
shoulder.
“Here we are,” said a small voice in her ear. “I’m Trot, Dorothy.”
“And I’m Cap’n Bill,” said the other bee.
Dorothy almost fainted, with relief, and the Wizard, who was close by
and had heard the tiny voices, gave a laugh and said:
“You are not the only two bees in the forest, it seems, but I advise you
to keep away from the Lion and the Tiger until you regain your proper
forms.”
“Do it now, Wizard!” advised Dorothy. “They’re so small that you never
can tell what might happen to ’em.”
So the Wizard gave the command and pronounced the Magic Word, and in the
instant Trot and Cap’n Bill stood beside them as natural as before they
had met their fearful adventure. For they were no longer small in size,
because the Wizard had transformed them from bumble-bees into the shapes
and sizes that nature had formerly given them. The ugly roots on their
feet had disappeared with the transformation.
[Illustration]
While Dorothy was hugging Trot, and Trot was softly crying because she
was so happy, the Wizard shook hands with Cap’n Bill and congratulated
him on his escape. The old sailor-man was so pleased that he also shook
the Lion’s paw and took off his hat and bowed politely to the cage of
monkeys.
Then Cap’n Bill did a curious thing. He went to a big tree and, taking
out his knife, cut away a big, broad piece of thick bark. Then he sat
down on the ground and after taking a roll of stout cord from his
pocket—which seemed to be full of all sorts of things—he proceeded to
bind the flat piece of bark to the bottom of his good foot, over the
leather sole.
“What’s that for?” inquired the Wizard.
“I hate to be stumped,” replied the sailor-man; “so I’m goin’ back to
that island.”
“And get enchanted again?” exclaimed Trot, with evident disapproval.
“No; this time I’ll dodge the magic of the island. I noticed that my
wooden leg didn’t get stuck, or take root, an’ neither did the glass
feet of the Glass Cat. It’s only a thing that’s made of meat—like man
an’ beasts—that the magic can hold an’ root to the ground. Our shoes are
leather, an’ leather comes from a beast’s hide. Our stockin’s are wool,
an’ wool comes from a sheep’s back. So, when we walked on the Magic
Isle, our feet took root there an’ held us fast. But not my wooden leg.
So now I’ll put a wooden bottom on my other foot an’ the magic can’t
stop me.”
“But why do you wish to go back to the island?” asked Dorothy.
“Didn’t you see the Magic Flower in the gold flower-pot?” returned Cap’n
Bill.
“Of course I saw it, and it’s lovely and wonderful.”
“Well, Trot an’ I set out to get that magic plant for a present to Ozma
on her birthday, and I mean to get it an’ take it back with us to the
Emerald City.”
“That would be fine,” cried Trot eagerly, “if you think you can do it,
and it would be safe to try!”
“I’m pretty sure it is safe, the way I’ve fixed my foot,” said the
sailor, “an’ if I _should_ happen to get caught, I s’pose the Wizard
could save me again.”
“I suppose I could,” agreed the Wizard. “Anyhow, if you wish to try it,
Cap’n Bill, go ahead and we’ll stand by and watch what happens.”
So the sailor-man got upon the raft again and paddled over to the Magic
Isle, landing as close to the golden flower-pot as he could. They
watched him walk across the land, put both arms around the flower-pot
and lift it easily from its place. Then he carried it to the raft and
set it down very gently. The removal did not seem to affect the Magic
Flower in any way, for it was growing daffodils when Cap’n Bill picked
it up and on the way to the raft it grew tulips and gladioli. During the
time the sailor was paddling across the river to where his friends
awaited him, seven different varieties of flowers bloomed in succession
on the plant.
“I guess the Magician who put it on the island never thought that any
one would carry it off,” said Dorothy.
“He figured that only men would want the plant, and any man who went
upon the island to get it would be caught by the enchantment,” added the
Wizard.
“After this,” remarked Trot, “no one will care to go on the island, so
it won’t be a trap any more.”
“There,” exclaimed Cap’n Bill, setting down the Magic Plant in triumph
upon the river bank, “if Ozma gets a better birthday present than that,
I’d like to know what it can be!”
“It’ll s’prise her, all right,” declared Dorothy, standing in awed
wonder before the gorgeous blossoms and watching them change from yellow
roses to violets.
“It’ll s’prise ev’rybody in the Em’rald City,” Trot asserted in glee,
“and it’ll be Ozma’s present from Cap’n Bill and me.”
“I think _I_ ought to have a little credit,” objected the Glass Cat. “I
discovered the thing, and led you to it, and brought the Wizard here to
save you when you got caught.”
“That’s true,” admitted Trot, “and I’ll tell Ozma the whole story, so
she’ll know how good you’ve been.”
[Illustration]
The Monkeys Have Trouble
CHAPTER 20
“Now,” said the Wizard, “we must start for home. But how are we going to
carry that big gold flowerpot? Cap’n Bill can’t lug it all the way,
that’s certain.”
“No,” acknowledged the sailor-man; “it’s pretty heavy. I could carry it
for a little while, but I’d have to stop to rest every few minutes.”
“Couldn’t we put it on your back?” Dorothy asked the Cowardly Lion, with
a good-natured yawn.
“I don’t object to carrying it, if you can fasten it on,” answered the
Lion.
“If it falls off,” said Trot, “it might get smashed an’ be ruined.”
“I’ll fix it,” promised Cap’n Bill. “I’ll make a flat board out of one
of these tree trunks, an’ tie the board on the lion’s back, an’ set the
flowerpot on the board.” He set to work at once to do this, but as he
only had his big knife for a tool his progress was slow.
So the Wizard took from his black bag a tiny saw that shone like silver
and said to it:
“Saw, little Saw, come show your power;
Make us a board for the Magic Flower.”
And at once the Little Saw began to move and it sawed the log so fast
that those who watched it work were astonished. It seemed to understand,
too, just what the board was to be used for, for when it was completed
it was flat on top and hollowed beneath in such a manner that it exactly
fitted the Lion’s back.
“That beats whittlin’!” exclaimed Cap’n Bill, admiringly. “You don’t
happen to have _two_ o’ them saws; do you, Wizard?”
“No,” replied the Wizard, wiping the Magic Saw carefully with his silk
handkerchief and putting it back in the black bag. “It’s the only saw of
its kind in the world; and if there were more like it, it wouldn’t be so
wonderful.”
They now tied the board on the Lion’s back, flat side up, and Cap’n Bill
carefully placed the Magic Flower on the board.
“For fear o’ accidents,” he said, “I’ll walk beside the lion and hold
onto the flowerpot.”
Trot and Dorothy could both ride on the back of the Hungry Tiger, and
between them they carried the cage of monkeys. But this arrangement left
the Wizard, as well as the sailor, to make the journey on foot, and so
the procession moved slowly and the Glass Cat grumbled because it would
take so long to get to the Emerald City.
The Cat was sour-tempered and grumpy, at first, but before they had
journeyed far, the crystal creature had discovered a fine amusement. The
long tails of the monkeys were constantly sticking through the bars of
their cage, and when they did, the Glass Cat would slyly seize the tails
in her paws and pull them. That made the monkeys scream, and their
screams pleased the Glass Cat immensely. Trot and Dorothy tried to stop
this naughty amusement, but when they were not looking the Cat would
pull the tails again, and the creature was so sly and quick that the
monkeys could seldom escape. They scolded the Cat angrily and shook the
bars of their cage, but they could not get out and the Cat only laughed
at them.
[Illustration]
After the party had left the forest and were on the plains of the
Munchkin Country, it grew dark, and they were obliged to make camp for
the night, choosing a pretty place beside a brook. By means of his magic
the Wizard created three tents, pitched in a row on the grass and nicely
fitted with all that was needful for the comfort of his comrades. The
middle tent was for Dorothy and Trot, and had in it two cosy white beds
and two chairs. Another tent, also with beds and chairs, was for the
Wizard and Cap’n Bill, while the third tent was for the Hungry Tiger,
the Cowardly Lion, the cage of Monkeys and the Glass Cat. Outside the
tents the Wizard made a fire and placed over it a magic kettle from
which he presently drew all sorts of nice things for their supper,
smoking hot.
After they had eaten and talked together for a while under the twinkling
stars, they all went to bed and the people were soon asleep. The Lion
and the Tiger had almost fallen asleep, too, when they were roused by
the screams of the monkeys, for the Glass Cat was pulling their tails
again. Annoyed by the uproar, the Hungry Tiger cried: “Stop that
racket!” and getting sight of the Glass Cat, he raised his big paw and
struck at the creature. The cat was quick enough to dodge the blow, but
the claws of the Hungry Tiger scraped the monkeys’ cage and bent two of
the bars.
[Illustration]
Then the Tiger lay down again to sleep, but the monkeys soon discovered
that the bending of the bars would allow them to squeeze through. They
did not leave the cage, however, but after whispering together they let
their tails stick out and all remained quiet. Presently the Glass Cat
stole near the cage again and gave a yank to one of the tails. Instantly
the monkeys leaped through the bars, one after another, and although
they were so small the entire dozen of them surrounded the Glass Cat and
clung to her claws and tail and ears and made her a prisoner. Then they
forced her out of the tent and down to the banks of the stream. The
monkeys had noticed that these banks were covered with thick, slimy mud
of a dark blue color, and when they had taken the Cat to the stream,
they smeared this mud all over the glass body of the cat, filling the
creature’s ears and eyes with it, so that she could neither see nor
hear. She was no longer transparent and so thick was the mud upon her
that no one could see her pink brains or her ruby heart.
In this condition they led the pussy back to the tent and then got
inside their cage again.
By morning the mud had dried hard on the Glass Cat and it was a dull
blue color throughout. Dorothy and Trot were horrified, but the Wizard
shook his head and said it served the Glass Cat right for teasing the
monkeys.
Cap’n Bill, with his strong hands, soon bent the golden wires of the
monkeys’ cage into the proper position and then he asked the Wizard if
he should wash the Glass Cat in the water of the brook.
“Not just yet,” answered the Wizard. “The Cat deserves to be punished,
so I think I’ll leave that blue mud—which is as bad as paint—upon her
body until she gets to the Emerald City. The silly creature is so vain
that she will be greatly shamed when the Oz people see her in this
condition, and perhaps she’ll take the lesson to heart and leave the
monkeys alone hereafter.”
However, the Glass Cat could not see or hear, and to avoid carrying her
on the journey the Wizard picked the mud out of her eyes and ears and
Dorothy dampened her handkerchief and washed both the eyes and ears
clean.
As soon as she could speak the Glass Cat asked indignantly: “Aren’t you
going to punish those monkeys for playing such a trick on me?”
“No,” answered the Wizard. “You played a trick on them by pulling their
tails, so this is only tit-for-tat, and I’m glad the monkeys had their
revenge.”
He wouldn’t allow the Glass Cat to go near the water, to wash herself,
but made her follow them when they resumed their journey toward the
Emerald City.
“This is only part of your punishment,” said the Wizard, severely. “Ozma
will laugh at you, when we get to her palace, and so will the Scarecrow,
and the Tin Woodman, and Tik-Tok, and the Shaggy Man, and Button-Bright,
and the Patchwork Girl, and—”
“And the Pink Kitten,” added Dorothy.
That suggestion hurt the Glass Cat more than anything else. The Pink
Kitten always quarreled with the Glass Cat and insisted that flesh was
superior to glass, while the Glass Cat would jeer at the Pink Kitten,
because it had no pink brains. But the pink brains were all daubed with
blue mud, just now, and if the Pink Kitten should see the Glass Cat in
such a condition, it would be dreadfully humiliating.
For several hours the Glass Cat walked along very meekly, but toward
noon it seized an opportunity when no one was looking and darted away
through the long grass. It remembered that there was a tiny lake of pure
water near by, and to this lake the Cat sped as fast as it could go.
The others never missed her until they stopped for lunch, and then it
was too late to hunt for her.
“I s’pect she’s gone somewhere to clean herself,” said Dorothy.
“Never mind,” replied the Wizard. “Perhaps this glass creature has been
punished enough, and we must not forget she saved both Trot and Cap’n
Bill.”
“After first leading ’em onto an enchanted island,” added Dorothy. “But
I think, as you do, that the Glass Cat is punished enough, and p’raps
she won’t try to pull the monkeys’ tails again.”
The Glass Cat did not rejoin the party of travelers. She was still
resentful, and they moved too slowly to suit her, besides. When they
arrived at the Royal Palace, one of the first things they saw was the
Glass Cat curled up on a bench as bright and clean and transparent as
ever. But she pretended not to notice them, and they passed her by
without remark.
The College of Athletic Arts
CHAPTER 21
Dorothy and her friends arrived at the Royal Palace at an opportune
time, for Ozma was holding high court in her Throne Room, where
Professor H. M. Wogglebug, T.E., was appealing to her to punish some of
the students of the Royal Athletic College, of which he was the
Principal.
This College is located in the Munchkin Country, but not far from the
Emerald City. To enable the students to devote their entire time to
athletic exercises, such as boating, foot-ball, and the like, Professor
Wogglebug had invented an assortment of Tablets of Learning. One of
these tablets, eaten by a scholar after breakfast, would instantly
enable him to understand arithmetic or algebra or any other branch of
mathematics. Another tablet eaten after lunch gave a student a complete
knowledge of geography. Another tablet made it possible for the eater to
spell the most difficult words, and still another enabled him to write a
beautiful hand. There were tablets for history, mechanics, home cooking
and agriculture, and it mattered not whether a boy or a girl was stupid
or bright, for the tablets taught them everything in the twinkling of an
eye.
This method, which is patented in the Land of Oz by Professor Wogglebug,
saves paper and books, as well as the tedious hours devoted to study in
some of our less favored schools, and it also allows the students to
devote all their time to racing, base-ball, tennis and other manly and
womanly sports, which are greatly interfered with by study in those
Temples of Learning where Tablets of Learning are unknown.
But it so happened that Professor Wogglebug (who had invented so much
that he had acquired the habit) carelessly invented a Square-Meal
Tablet, which was no bigger than your little finger-nail but contained,
in condensed form, the equal of a bowl of soup, a portion of fried fish,
a roast, a salad and a dessert, all of which gave the same nourishment
as a square meal.
The Professor was so proud of these Square-Meal Tablets that he began to
feed them to the students at his college, instead of other food, but the
boys and girls objected because they wanted food that they could enjoy
the taste of. It was no fun at all to swallow a tablet, with a glass of
water, and call it a dinner; so they refused to eat the Square-Meal
Tablets. Professor Wogglebug insisted, and the result was that the
Senior Class seized the learned Professor one day and threw him into the
river—clothes and all. Everyone knows that a wogglebug cannot swim, and
so the inventor of the wonderful Square-Meal Tablets lay helpless on the
bottom of the river for three days before a fisherman caught one of his
legs on a fishhook and dragged him out upon the bank.
The learned Professor was naturally indignant at such treatment, and so
he brought the entire senior class to the Emerald City and appealed to
Ozma of Oz to punish them for their rebellion.
I do not suppose the girl Ruler was very severe with the rebellious boys
and girls, because she had herself refused to eat the Square-Meal
Tablets in place of food, but while she was listening to the interesting
case in her Throne Room, Cap’n Bill managed to carry the golden
flower-pot containing the Magic Flower up to Trot’s room without it
being seen by anyone except Jellia Jamb, Ozma’s chief Maid of Honor, and
Jellia promised not to tell.
Also the Wizard was able to carry the cage of monkeys up to one of the
top towers of the palace, where he had a room of his own, to which no
one came unless invited. So Trot and Dorothy and Cap’n Bill and the
Wizard were all delighted at the successful end of their adventure. The
Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger went to the marble stables behind the
Royal Palace, where they lived while at home, and they too kept the
secret, even refusing to tell the Wooden Sawhorse, and Hank the Mule,
and the Yellow Hen, and the Pink Kitten where they had been.
Trot watered the Magic Flower every day and allowed no one in her room
to see the beautiful blossoms except her friends, Betsy Bobbin and
Dorothy. The wonderful plant did not seem to lose any of its magic by
being removed from its island, and Trot was sure that Ozma would prize
it as one of her most delightful treasures.
Up in his tower the little Wizard of Oz began training his twelve tiny
monkeys, and the little creatures were so intelligent that they learned
every trick the Wizard tried to teach them. The Wizard treated them with
great kindness and gentleness and gave them the food that monkeys love
best, so they promised to do their best on the great occasion of Ozma’s
birthday.
[Illustration]
Ozma’s Birthday Party
CHAPTER 22
It seems odd that a fairy should have a birthday, for fairies, they say,
were born at the beginning of time and live forever. Yet, on the other
hand, it would be a shame to deprive a fairy, who has so many other good
things, of the delights of a birthday. So we need not wonder that the
fairies keep their birthdays just as other folks do, and consider them
occasions for feasting and rejoicing.
Ozma, the beautiful girl Ruler of the Fairyland of Oz, was a real fairy,
and so sweet and gentle in caring for her people that she was greatly
beloved by them all. She lived in the most magnificent palace in the
most magnificent city in the world, but that did not prevent her from
being the friend of the most humble person in her dominions. She would
mount her wooden Sawhorse, and ride out to a farm house and sit in the
kitchen to talk with the good wife of the farmer while she did her
family baking; or she would play with the children and give them rides
on her famous wooden steed; or she would stop in a forest to speak to a
charcoal burner and ask if he was happy or desired anything to make him
more content; or she would teach young girls how to sew and plan pretty
dresses, or enter the shops where the jewelers and craftsmen were busy
and watch them at their work, giving to each and all a cheering word or
sunny smile.
And then Ozma would sit in her jeweled throne, with her chosen courtiers
all about her, and listen patiently to any complaint brought to her by
her subjects, striving to accord equal justice to all. Knowing she was
fair in her decisions, the Oz people never murmured at her judgments,
but agreed, if Ozma decided against them, she was right and they wrong.
When Dorothy and Trot and Betsy Bobbin and Ozma were together, one would
think they were all about of an age, and the fairy Ruler no older and no
more “grown up” than the other three. She would laugh and romp with them
in regular girlish fashion, yet there was an air of quiet dignity about
Ozma, even in her merriest moods, that, in a manner, distinguished her
from the others. The three girls loved her devotedly, but they were
never able to quite forget that Ozma was the Royal Ruler of the
wonderful fairyland of Oz, and by birth belonged to a powerful race.
Ozma’s palace stood in the center of a delightful and extensive garden,
where splendid trees and flowering shrubs and statuary and fountains
abounded. One could walk for hours in this fascinating park and see
something interesting at every step. In one place was an aquarium, where
strange and beautiful fish swam; at another spot all the birds of the
air gathered daily to a great feast which Ozma’s servants provided for
them, and were so fearless of harm that they would alight upon one’s
shoulders and eat from one’s hand. There was also the Fountain of the
Water of Oblivion, but it was dangerous to drink of this water, because
it made one forget everything he had ever before known, even to his own
name, and therefore Ozma had placed a sign of warning upon the fountain.
But there were also fountains that were delightfully perfumed, and
fountains of delicious nectar, cool and richly flavored, where all were
welcome to refresh themselves.
[Illustration]
Around the palace grounds was a great wall, thickly encrusted with
glittering emeralds, but the gates stood open and no one was forbidden
entrance. On holidays the people of the Emerald City often took their
children to see the wonders of Ozma’s gardens, and even entered the
Royal Palace, if they felt so inclined, for they knew that they and
their Ruler were friends, and that Ozma delighted to give them pleasure.
When all this is considered, you will not be surprised that the people
throughout the Land of Oz, as well as Ozma’s most intimate friends and
her royal courtiers, were eager to celebrate her birthday, and made
preparations for the festival weeks in advance. All the brass bands
practiced their nicest tunes, for they were to march in the numerous
processions to be made in the Winkie Country, the Gillikin Country, the
Munchkin Country and the Quadling Country, as well as in the Emerald
City. Not all the people could go to congratulate their Ruler, but all
could celebrate her birthday, in one way or another, however far distant
from her palace they might be. Every home and building throughout the
Land of Oz was to be decorated with banners and bunting, and there were
to be games, and plays, and a general good time for every one.
It was Ozma’s custom on her birthday to give a grand feast at the
palace, to which all her closest friends were invited. It was a queerly
assorted company, indeed, for there are more quaint and unusual
characters in Oz than in all the rest of the world, and Ozma was more
interested in unusual people than in ordinary ones—just as you and I
are.
On this especial birthday of the lovely girl Ruler, a long table was set
in the royal Banquet Hall of the palace, at which were place-cards for
the invited guests, and at one end of the great room was a smaller
table, not so high, for Ozma’s animal friends, whom she never forgot,
and at the other end was a big table where all of the birthday gifts
were to be arranged.
When the guests arrived, they placed their gifts on this table and then
found their places at the banquet table. And, after the guests were all
placed, the animals entered in a solemn procession and were placed at
their table by Jellia Jamb. Then, while an orchestra hidden by a bank of
roses and ferns played a march composed for the occasion, the Royal Ozma
entered the Banquet Hall, attended by her Maids of Honor, and took her
seat at the head of the table.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
She was greeted by a cheer from all the assembled company, the animals
adding their roars and growls and barks and mewing and cackling to swell
the glad tumult, and then all seated themselves at their tables.
At Ozma’s right sat the famous Scarecrow of Oz, whose straw-stuffed body
was not beautiful, but whose happy nature and shrewd wit had made him a
general favorite. On the left of the Ruler was placed the Tin Woodman,
whose metal body had been brightly polished for this event. The Tin
Woodman was the Emperor of the Winkie Country and one of the most
important persons in Oz.
Next to the Scarecrow, Dorothy was seated, and next to her was Tik-Tok,
the Clockwork Man, who had been wound up as tightly as his clockwork
would permit, so he wouldn’t interrupt the festivities by running down.
Then came Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, Dorothy’s own relations, two kindly
old people who had a cozy home in the Emerald City and were very happy
and contented there. Then Betsy Bobbin was seated, and next to her the
droll and delightful Shaggy Man, who was a favorite wherever he went.
On the other side of the table, opposite the Tin Woodman was placed
Trot, and next to her, Cap’n Bill. Then was seated Button Bright and Ojo
the Lucky, and Dr. Pipt and his good wife Margalot, and the astonishing
Frogman, who had come from the Yip country to be present at Ozma’s
birthday feast.
At the foot of the table, facing Ozma, was seated the queenly Glinda,
the good Sorceress of Oz, for this was really the place of honor next to
the head of the table where Ozma herself sat. On Glinda’s right was the
Little Wizard of Oz, who owed to Glinda all of the magical arts he knew.
Then came Jinjur, a pretty girl farmer of whom Ozma and Dorothy were
quite fond. The adjoining seat was occupied by the Tin Soldier, and next
to him was Professor H. M. Wogglebug, T.E., of the Royal Athletic
College.
On Glinda’s left was placed the jolly Patchwork Girl, who was a little
afraid of the Sorceress and so was likely to behave herself pretty well.
The Shaggy Man’s brother was beside the Patchwork Girl, and then came
that interesting personage, Jack Pumpkinhead, who had grown a splendid
big pumpkin for a new head to be worn on Ozma’s birthday, and had carved
a face on it that was even jollier in expression than the one he had
last worn. New heads were not unusual with Jack, for the pumpkins did
not keep long, and when the seeds—which served him as brains—began to
get soft and mushy, he realized his head would soon spoil, and so he
procured a new one from his great field of pumpkins—grown by him so that
he need never lack a head.
You will have noticed that the company at Ozma’s banquet table was
somewhat mixed, but every one invited was a tried and trusted friend of
the girl Ruler, and their presence made her quite happy.
No sooner had Ozma seated herself, with her back to the birthday table,
than she noticed that all present were eyeing with curiosity and
pleasure something behind her, for the gorgeous Magic Flower was
blooming gloriously and the mammoth blossoms that quickly succeeded one
another on the plant were beautiful to view and filled the entire room
with their delicate fragrance. Ozma wanted to look, too, to see what all
were staring at, but she controlled her curiosity because it was not
proper that she should yet view her birthday gifts.
So the sweet and lovely Ruler devoted herself to her guests, several of
whom, as the Sorcerer, the Tin Woodman, the Patchwork Girl, Tik-Tok,
Jack Pumpkinhead and the Tin Soldier, never ate anything but sat very
politely in their places and tried to entertain those of the guests who
did eat.
And, at the animal table, there was another interesting group,
consisting of the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, Toto—Dorothy’s little
shaggy black dog—Hank the Mule, the Pink Kitten, the Wooden Sawhorse,
the Yellow Hen, and the Glass Cat. All of these had good appetites
except the Sawhorse and the Glass Cat, and each was given a plentiful
supply of the food it liked best.
Finally, when the banquet was nearly over and the ice-cream was to be
served, four servants entered bearing a huge cake, all frosted and
decorated with candy flowers. Around the edge of the cake was a row of
lighted candles, and in the center were raised candy letters that
spelled the words:
OZMA’S
Birthday Cake
from
Dorothy and the Wizard
“Oh, how beautiful!” cried Ozma, greatly delighted, and Dorothy said
eagerly: “Now you must cut the cake, Ozma, and each of us will eat a
piece with our ice-cream.”
Jellia Jamb brought a large golden knife with a jeweled handle, and Ozma
stood up in her place and attempted to cut the cake. But as soon as the
frosting in the center broke under the pressure of the knife there
leaped from the cake a tiny monkey three inches high, and he was
followed by another and another, until twelve monkeys stood on the
tablecloth and bowed low to Ozma.
“Congratulations to our gracious Ruler!” they exclaimed in a chorus, and
then they began a dance, so droll and amusing that all the company
roared with laughter and even Ozma joined in the merriment. But after
the dance the monkeys performed some wonderful acrobatic feats, and then
they ran to the hollow of the cake and took out some band instruments of
burnished gold—cornets, horns, drums, and the like—and forming into a
procession the monkeys marched up and down the table playing a jolly
tune with the ease of skilled musicians.
Dorothy was delighted with the success of her “Surprise Cake,” and after
the monkeys had finished their performance, the banquet came to an end.
[Illustration]
Now was the time for Ozma to see her other presents, so Glinda the Good
rose and, taking the girl Ruler by her hand, led her to the table where
all her gifts were placed in magnificent array. The Magic Flower of
course attracted her attention first, and Trot had to tell her the whole
story of their adventures in getting it. The little girl did not forget
to give due credit to the Glass Cat and the little Wizard, but it was
really Cap’n Bill who bravely carried the golden flowerpot away from the
enchanted Isle.
Ozma thanked them all, and said she would place the Magic Flower in her
boudoir where she might enjoy its beauty and fragrance continually. But
now she discovered the marvelous gown woven by Glinda and her maidens
from strands drawn from pure emeralds, and being a girl who loved pretty
clothes, Ozma’s ecstasy at being presented with this exquisite gown may
well be imagined. She could hardly wait to put it on, but the table was
loaded with other pretty gifts and the night was far spent before the
happy girl Ruler had examined all her presents and thanked those who had
lovingly donated them.
The Fountain of Oblivion
CHAPTER 23
The morning after the birthday fete, as the Wizard and Dorothy were
walking in the grounds of the palace, Ozma came out and joined them,
saying:
“I want to hear more of your adventures in the Forest of Gugu, and how
you were able to get those dear little monkeys to use in Dorothy’s
Surprise Cake.”
So they sat down on a marble bench near to the fountain of the Water of
Oblivion, and between them Dorothy and the Wizard related their
adventures.
“I was dreadfully fussy while I was a woolly lamb,” said Dorothy, “for
it didn’t feel good, a bit. And I wasn’t quite sure, you know, that I’d
ever get to be a girl again.”
“You might have been a woolly lamb yet, if I hadn’t happened to have
discovered that Magic Transformation Word,” declared the Wizard.
“But what became of the walnut and the hickory-nut into which you
transformed those dreadful beast magicians?” inquired Ozma.
“Why, I’d almost forgotten them,” was the reply; “but I believe they are
still here in my pocket.”
Then he searched in his pockets and brought out the two nuts and showed
them to her.
Ozma regarded them thoughtfully.
“It isn’t right to leave any living creatures in such helpless forms,”
said she. “I think, Wizard, you ought to transform them into their
natural shapes again.”
“But I don’t know what their natural shapes are,” he objected, “for of
course the forms of mixed animals which they had assumed were not
natural to them. And you must not forget, Ozma, that their natures were
cruel and mischievous, so if I bring them back to life they might cause
us a great deal of trouble.”
“Nevertheless,” said the Ruler of Oz, “we must free them from their
present enchantments. When you restore them to their natural forms we
will discover who they really are, and surely we need not fear any two
people, even though they prove to be magicians and our enemies.”
“I am not so sure of that,” protested the Wizard, with a shake of his
bald head. “The one bit of magic I robbed them of—which was the word of
transformation—is so simple, yet so powerful, that neither Glinda nor I
can equal it. It isn’t all in the word, you know, it’s the way the word
is pronounced. So if the two strange magicians have other magic of the
same sort, they might prove very dangerous to us, if we liberated them.”
“I’ve an idea!” exclaimed Dorothy. “I’m no wizard, and no fairy, but if
you do as I say, we needn’t fear these people at all.”
“What is your thought, my dear?” asked Ozma.
“Well,” replied the girl, “here is this fountain of the Water of
Oblivion, and that’s what put the notion into my head. When the Wizard
speaks that ter’ble word that will change ’em back to their real forms,
he can make ’em dreadful thirsty, too, and we’ll put a cup right here by
the fountain, so it’ll be handy. Then they’ll drink the water and forget
all the magic they ever knew—and everything else, too.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said the Wizard, looking at Dorothy
approvingly.
“It’s a very _good_ idea,” declared Ozma. “Run for a cup, Dorothy.”
So Dorothy ran to get a cup, and while she was gone the Wizard said:
“I don’t know whether the real forms of these magicians are those of men
or beasts. If they’re beasts, they would not drink from a cup but might
attack us at once and drink afterward. So it might be safer for us to
have the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger here to protect us if
necessary.”
Ozma drew out a silver whistle which was attached to a slender gold
chain and blew upon the whistle two shrill blasts. The sound, though not
harsh, was very penetrating, and as soon as it reached the ears of the
Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, the two huge beasts quickly came
bounding toward them. Ozma explained to them what the Wizard was about
to do, and told them to keep quiet unless danger threatened. So the two
powerful guardians of the Ruler of Oz crouched beside the fountain and
waited.
[Illustration]
Dorothy returned and set the cup on the edge of the fountain. Then the
Wizard placed the hickory-nut beside the fountain and said in a solemn
voice:
“I want you to resume your natural form, and to be very
thirsty—Pyrzqxgl!”
In an instant there appeared, in the place of the hickory-nut, the form
of Kiki Aru, the Hyup boy. He seemed bewildered, at first, as if trying
to remember what had happened to him and why he was in this strange
place. But he was facing the fountain, and the bubbling water reminded
him that he was thirsty. Without noticing Ozma, the Wizard and Dorothy,
who were behind him, he picked up the cup, filled it with the Water of
Oblivion, and drank it to the last drop.
He was now no longer thirsty, but he felt more bewildered than ever, for
now he could remember nothing at all—not even his name or where he came
from. He looked around the beautiful garden with a pleased expression,
and then, turning, he beheld Ozma and the Wizard and Dorothy regarding
him curiously and the two great beasts crouching behind them.
Kiki Aru did not know who they were, but he thought Ozma very lovely and
Dorothy very pleasant. So he smiled at them—the same innocent, happy
smile that a baby might have indulged in, and that pleased Dorothy, who
seized his hand and led him to a seat beside her on the bench.
“Why, I thought you were a dreadful magician,” she exclaimed, “and
you’re only a boy!”
“What is a magician?” he asked, “and what is a boy?”
“Don’t you know?” inquired the girl.
Kiki shook his head. Then he laughed.
“I do not seem to know anything,” he replied.
[Illustration]
“It’s very curious,” remarked the Wizard. “He wears the dress of the
Munchkins, so he must have lived at one time in the Munchkin Country. Of
course the boy can tell us nothing of his history or his family, for he
has forgotten all that he ever knew.”
“He seems a nice boy, now that all the wickedness has gone from him,”
said Ozma. “So we will keep him here with us and teach him our ways—to
be true and considerate of others.”
“Why, in that case, it’s lucky for him he drank the Water of Oblivion,”
said Dorothy.
“It is indeed,” agreed the Wizard. “But the remarkable thing, to me, is
how such a young boy ever learned the secret of the Magic Word of
Transformation. Perhaps his companion, who is at present this walnut,
was the real magician, although I seem to remember that it was this boy
in the beast’s form who whispered the Magic Word into the hollow tree,
where I overheard it.”
“Well, we will soon know who the other is,” suggested Ozma. “He may
prove to be another Munchkin boy.”
The Wizard placed the walnut near the fountain and said, as slowly and
solemnly as before:
“I want you to resume your natural form, and to be very
thirsty—Pyrzqxgl!”
Then the walnut disappeared and Ruggedo the Nome stood in its place. He
also was facing the fountain, and he reached for the cup, filled it, and
was about to drink when Dorothy exclaimed:
“Why, it’s the old Nome King!”
Ruggedo swung around and faced them, the cup still in his hand.
[Illustration]
“Yes,” he said in an angry voice, “it’s the old Nome King, and I’m going
to conquer all Oz and be revenged on you for kicking me out of my
throne.” He looked around a moment, and then continued: “There isn’t an
egg in sight, and I’m stronger than all of you people put together! I
don’t know how I came here, but I’m going to fight the fight of my
life—and I’ll win!”
His long white hair and beard waved in the breeze; his eyes flashed hate
and vengeance, and so astonished and shocked were they by the sudden
appearance of this old enemy of the Oz people that they could only stare
at him in silence and shrink away from his wild glare.
Ruggedo laughed. He drank the water, threw the cup on the ground and
said fiercely:
“And now—and now—and—”
His voice grew gentle. He rubbed his forehead with a puzzled air and
stroked his long beard.
“What was I going to say?” he asked, pleadingly.
“Don’t you remember?” said the Wizard.
“No; I’ve forgotten.”
“Who _are_ you?” asked Dorothy.
He tried to think. “I—I’m sure I don’t know,” he stammered.
“Don’t you know who _we_ are, either?” questioned the girl.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Nome.
“Tell us who this Munchkin boy is,” suggested Ozma.
Ruggedo looked at the boy and shook his head.
“He’s a stranger to me. You are all strangers. I—I’m a stranger to
myself,” he said.
Then he patted the Lion’s head and murmured, “Good doggie!” and the Lion
growled indignantly.
[Illustration]
“What shall we do with him?” asked the Wizard, perplexed.
“Once before the wicked old Nome came here to conquer us, and then, as
now, he drank of the Water of Oblivion and became harmless. But we sent
him back to the Nome Kingdom, where he soon learned the old evil ways
again.”
“For that reason,” said Ozma, “we must find a place for him in the Land
of Oz, and keep him here. For here he can learn no evil and will always
be as innocent of guile as our own people.”
And so the wandering ex-King of the Nomes found a new home, a peaceful
and happy home, where he was quite content and passed his days in
innocent enjoyment.
[Illustration: THE END]
_The Oz Books_
BY
L. FRANK BAUM
“Royal Historian of Oz”
_The Wizard of Oz_
[Originally published as _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_]
It is in this book that Oz is “discovered.” A little Kansas girl—Dorothy
Gale—is carried in her house to Oz when a cyclone whisks it through the
sky. As the house lands in the Munchkin Country (one of the four great
countries of Oz) it destroys a wicked witch and sends Dorothy off on her
first adventure in Oz. She finds the Scarecrow, meets the Tin Woodman
and the Cowardly Lion, melts a second wicked witch with a pail of water
and finds her way home. Since this book appeared a half-century ago, we
have learned many marvelous things about the Land of Oz.
_The Land of Oz_
[Originally published as _The Marvelous Land of Oz_]
This sequel to _The Wizard of Oz_ deals entirely with the early history
of Oz. No one from the United States or any other part of the “great
outside world” appears in it. It takes its readers on a series of
incredible adventures with Tip, a small boy who runs away from old
Mombi, the witch, taking with him Jack Pumpkinhead and the wooden
Saw-Horse. The Scarecrow is King of the Emerald City until he, Tip,
Jack, and the Tin Woodman are forced to flee the royal palace when it is
invaded by General Jinjur and her army of rebelling girls. _The Land of
Oz_ ends with an amazing surprise, and from that moment on Ozma is
princess of all Oz.
_Ozma of Oz_
Few of the Oz books are as crowded with exciting Oz happenings as this
one. Not only does it bring Dorothy back to Oz on her second visit, but
it introduces Dorothy to Ozma, relates Ozma’s first important adventure,
and introduces for the first time such famous Oz characters as Tik-Tok,
the mechanical man, Billina the hen, the Hungry Tiger, and—_the Nome
King_! Most of the adventures in this book take place outside Oz, in the
Land of Ev and the Nome Kingdom. Scarcely a page fails to quiver with
excitement, magic and adventure.
_Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz_
Of course, everyone always predicted it would happen! And in this book
it does—the Wizard comes back to Oz to stay. Best of all, he comes with
Dorothy, who is having adventure number three that leads her to Oz, this
time via a California earthquake. In this book we meet Dorothy’s pink
kitten, Eureka, whose manners need adjusting badly, and two good friends
who we are sorry did not remain in Oz—Jim the cabhorse, and Zeb,
Dorothy’s young cousin, who works on a ranch as a hired boy.
_The Road to Oz_
We like to think of this volume as “The Party Book of Oz.” Almost
everyone loves a party, and when Ozma has a birthday party with notables
from every part of fairyland attending—well! It is just like attending
Ozma’s party in person. You meet the famous of Oz, and lots of others,
such as Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough, Chick the Cherub, the Queen of
Merryland, Para Bruin the rubber bear and—best of all—Santa Claus
himself! Of course there are lots of adventures on that famous road to
Oz before the party, during which Dorothy, on her way to Oz for the
fourth time, meets such heart-warming characters as the Shaggy Man,
Button-Bright, and lovely Polychrome, daughter of the rainbow.
_The Emerald City of Oz_
Here is a “double” story of Oz. While Dorothy, her Aunt Em and Uncle
Henry experience the events that lead to their going to Oz to make their
home in the Emerald City, the wicked Nome King is plotting to conquer Oz
and enslave its people. Later we go with Dorothy and her friends in the
Red Wagon on a grand tour of Oz that is simply packed with excitement
and events. While this transpires, we learn also of the Nome King’s
elaborate preparations to conquer Oz. As Dorothy and her friends return
to the Emerald City, the Nome King and his hordes of warriors are about
to invade it. How Oz is saved is an ending that will amaze and delight
you.
_The Patchwork Girl of Oz_
Here, the Patchwork Girl is brought to life by Dr. Pipt’s magic Powder
of Life. From that moment on the action never slows down in this
exciting book. It tells of Ojo’s quest for the strange ingredients
necessary to brew a magic liquid that will release his Unk Nunkie from a
spell—the spell cast by the Liquid of Petrefaction, which has turned him
into a marble statue. In addition to the Patchwork Girl, Ojo and Unk
Nunkie, this book introduces those famous Oz creatures, the Woozy, and
Bungle the glass cat. Oz certainly has become a merrier, happier land
since the Patchwork Girl came to life, and this is the book that tells
how Scraps came to be made, how she was brought to life, and all about
her early adventures.
_Tik-Tok of Oz_
For the second time a little girl from the United States comes to Oz.
Betsy Bobbin is shipwrecked in the Nonestic Ocean with her friend Hank
the mule. The two drift to shore in the Rose Kingdom on a fragment of
wreckage. Betsy meets the Shaggy Man and accompanies him to the Nome
Kingdom, where Shaggy hopes to release his brother, a prisoner of the
Nome King. On their way to the Nome Kingdom, one fascinating adventure
follows another. They meet Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo and her army,
and lovely Polychrome, who had lost her rainbow again; they rescue
Tik-Tok from a well; and are dropped through a Hollow Tube to the other
side of the world where they meet Quox, the dragon. You’ll find it one
of the most exciting of all the Oz books.
_The Scarecrow of Oz_
This is the Oz book which L. Frank Baum considered his best. It starts
quietly enough with Trot and Cap’n Bill rowing along a shore of the
Pacific Ocean to visit one of the many caves near their home on the
California coast. Suddenly, a mighty whirlpool engulfs them. The old
sailorman and the little girl are miraculously saved and regain
consciousness to find themselves in a sea cavern. (To this day, Trot
asserts she felt mermaid arms about her during those terrible moments
under water.) From here on, one perilous adventure crowds in upon
another. In Jinxland they meet the Scarecrow who takes charge of things
once Cap’n Bill is transformed into a tiny grasshopper with a wooden
leg. An exciting royal reception greets the adventurers upon their
return to the Emerald City.
_Rinkitink in Oz_
Prince Inga of Pingaree is the boy hero of this fine story of
peril-filled adventure in the islands of the Nonestic Ocean. King
Rinkitink provides comic relief, and by the time you reach the final
page you will love this fat, jolly little king. Bilbil the goat, with
his surly disposition, provides a fine contrast to Rinkitink’s merriment
and Prince Inga’s bravery and courage in the face of danger. Some may
say that the three magic pearls are the real heroes of this story, but
the pearls would have been of little use to King Kitticut and Queen
Garee if Prince Inga hadn’t used them wisely and courageously.
_The Lost Princess of Oz_
Talk about _Button-Bright_ getting lost—_Ozma_ is almost as bad! This is
actually the second time Ozma has been lost. As you know, once she was
“lost” for many years. But in this book she is lost for only a short
time. As soon as it is discovered that the ruler of Oz is lost—and with
her all the important magical instruments in Oz—search parties, one for
each of the four countries of Oz, set out to find her. We follow the
adventures of the party headed by Dorothy and the Wizard, who explore
unknown parts of the Winkie Country in search of Ozma. How Ozma is
found, and where she has been, will surprise you. Frogman, a new
character, is introduced in this book.
_The Tin Woodman of Oz_
Woot the Wanderer causes this chapter of Oz history to transpire. When
Woot wanders into the splendid tin castle of Nick Chopper, the Tin
Woodman and Emperor of the Winkies, he meets the Scarecrow, who is
visiting his old friend. The Tin Woodman tells Woot the story of how he
had once been a flesh-and-blood woodman in love with a maiden named
Nimmie Aimee. Woot suggests that since the Tin Woodman now has a kind
and loving heart, it is his duty to find Nimmie Aimee and make her
Empress of the Winkies. The Scarecrow agrees, so the three set off to
search for the girl. No less surprising than the adventures encountered
on the journey is Nimmie Aimee’s reception of her former suitor.
_The Magic of Oz_
Old Ruggedo, the former Nome King, comes to Oz for the second time, and
makes more trouble than he did on his first visit. Ruggedo never gives
up the idea of conquering Oz, and this time he has the advantage of
being in the country without Ozma’s knowledge. Also, he has the magic
and somewhat grudging help of Kiki Aru, the Munchkin boy who is
illegally practicing the art. If you like magic, then this is a book for
you. There’s magic on every page, and everyone in the story eventually
is transformed into something else, or bewitched in one way or another.
Even the wild animals in the great Forest of Gugu do not escape.
_Glinda of Oz_
This is the last Oz book written by L. Frank Baum. It is one of the best
in the series, with Dorothy, Ozma, and Glinda in an adventure that takes
them to an amazing crystal-domed city on an enchanted island. This
island is situated in a lake in the Gillikin Country. Ozma and Glinda
are confronted by powerful magic and determined enemies. For a time
Dorothy and Ozma are prisoners in the crystal-domed city which is able
to submerge below the surface of the lake. Few of the Oz books equal
this one in suspense and mystery—a story that is truly “out of this
world.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Back Cover]
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
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