16770	----	The Adventures of two Dutch Dolls and a "Golliwogg" Pictures By [signed] Florence K. Upton Words By Bertha Upton DeWolfe, Fiske & Co. Boston [Illustration] 'Twas on a frosty Christmas Eve When Peggy Deutchland woke From her wooden sleep On the counter steep And to her neighbour spoke, "Get up! get up, dear Sarah Jane! Now strikes the midnight hour, When dolls and toys Taste human joys, And revel in their power. [Illustration] I long to try my limbs a bit, And you must walk with me; Our joints are good Though made of wood, And I pine for liberty. [Illustration] For twelve long months we've lain in here. But we don't care a fig; When wide awake It does not take Us long to dance a jig. [Illustration] But who comes here across our path, In gay attire bedight? A little girl With hair in curl, And eyes so round and bright. [Illustration] Good evening Miss, how fine you look, Beside you I feel bare; I must confess I need a dress If I would look as fair. [Illustration] On that high pole I see a flag With colors red and blue; Dear Sarah Jane 'Tis very plain A climb you'll have to do. [Illustration] You're young and light--so now be quick Dear sister good and kind; You look dismayed Don't be afraid, It's not so hard you'll find. Then up the pole with trembling limbs, Poor Sarah Jane did mount; She dared not lag, But seized the flag, Ere you could twenty count. Big Peggy gazed with deep concern, And mouth wide open too; Her only care That she might wear A gown of brilliant hue. [Illustration] [Illustration] Now Peg' by instinct seemed to know Where scissors might be got; The "fits" were bad, But then she had No patterns on the spot. Soon where the garments hurried on; Sarah looked well in blue; Mirror in hand She took her stand, While Peggy pinned her's through. [Illustration] [Illustration] Said Peggy--"After work so hard, I think a rest we need; Let's take a ride Seated astride Upon this gentle steed." Then simple Sarah Jane climbed up Upon his wooden back; With tim'rous heart She felt him start Upon the open track. [Illustration] Ere long they knew that hidden there, Beneath a stolid mien, Dwelt a fierce will. They could not still They rode as if by steam! [Illustration] Peggy held on with tightening grip, While Sarah Jane behind, Having no hold To make her bold, To screaming gave her mind. "O Peggy! put me down I pray! I ride in mortal dread! Do make him stop, Or I shall drop And break my wooden head!" E'en as those piteous words she spoke, They struck a fearful "snag" Their grips they lost, And both were tossed Upon the cruel "flag". [Illustration] Their senses for a moment gone, They lay in ghastly plight; Their fiery steed From burden freed, Maintained his onward flight. Then each in aching consciousness Rose slowly with sad groans; Next faced about With angry shout, Followed by tears and moans. [Illustration] Each blamed the other for the fall; Until, in gentler mood, Their hurts they dress, While both confess The crying did them good. A wooden crutch poor Peggy finds To help her on her feet; Both solemn-faced Their steps retraced To where they first did meet. [Illustration] But sorrow's tears are quickly dried With dolls as well as men.-- A jolly crowd All laughing loud (I think you'll count just ten.) Mounted a little wooden cart, While Peggy, brave and tried, Got up in front To bear the brunt Of "Hobby's" mighty stride. [Illustration] Finding a pleasant open space, Gay Peg' unships her load; Suggests a game Which, it is plain, Will soon be quite the "mode." She tells of former Christmas nights, When many of her kind, At leap-frog played, And merry made, Fast running like the wind. The happy moments swiftly sped In unabated glee; Their lungs were strong, Their legs were long, And supple at the knee. [Illustration] But soon they hear the clock strike "two" The hours are flying fast! With much to do Ere night be thro' Its' pleasures overpast! "Just one leap more!" cries Sarah Jane, "This fills my wildest dream!" E'en as she spoke, Peg' Deutchland broke Into a piercing scream. Then all look round, as well they may To see a horrid sight! The blackest gnome Stands there alone, They scatter in their fright. With kindly smile he nearer draws; Begs them to feel no fear. "What is your name?" Cries Sarah Jane; "The 'Golliwogg' my dear." Their fears allayed--each takes an arm, While up and down they walk; With sidelong glance Each tries her chance, And charms him with "small talk". [Illustration] Another wonder now attracts The simple Sarah Jane; Upon one knee She drops with glee, In case this box contain Some pretty thing to give her joy, Some new-discovered treat! Old Peg', who planned The fun in hand, Watches with face discreet. [Illustration] The lock unlatched, the lid springs up, Knocks Sarah on her back, With flying hair And trying stare, Out of the box springs "Jack". Our naughty Peg' enjoys the scene, Laughs long with fiendish glee; Next takes to flight, Gets out of sight, Fresh tricks to plan you'll see. [Illustration] Soon Sarah's heart new courage takes, She hits upon a plan; Makes up her mind To run behind And kill the staring man! Attempts are vain, he will not die! In terror Sarah flees; Meets a new toy Called "Scissors Boy", And begs him just to please. [Illustration] To help her pay bad Peggy back For her malicious tricks; Nor does she see That even he Enjoys her woeful "fix". Peg's pious face and peaceful pose You'd think portended fair, When like a flash She makes a dash, Sends Sarah high in air! [Illustration] Entangled in the "Scissors Boy", Alas! death seems quite near; Her trust betrayed, This hapless maid Sobs out her grief and fear. 'Twas Peggy's fault the whole way through; The boy had meant no harm. Both ran away, Nor thought to stay Poor Sarah's fright to calm. [Illustration] A handsome soldier passing by, His heart quite free from guile, With martial air And manner rare Soon helped the girl to smile. He said the Ball would now begin And begged her for a dance; She bowed so low, It looked as tho' Her style had come from France. [Illustration] A lively waltz the couple take, While all admire their grace, As round and round Upon the ground They spin with quickened pace. And shameless Peg' sits on a chair A true "flower of the wall" While Sarah Jane, Tis very plain, Need never rest at all. [Illustration] With graceful compliment the Clown Bows low before the belle, Whose modest face, And simple grace, In starry robe looked well. "I know I'm but a stupid Clown, And play a clumsy role; Yet underneath This painted sheath I wear an ardent Soul." [Illustration] Just then a jovial African With large admiring eyes, Seizes her hand Just as the band To give them a surprise Strikes up the "Barn-dance"; like a flash Both spring into their place! Away they go First quick, then slow, Each movement fraught with grace. [Illustration] The jolly pair then pause to watch A "Magnate" from Japan, Who quite alone So far from home (Poor harmless little man) Dances a curious Eastern dance To many a jingling bell; His brilliant dress, They both confess, Becomes him very well. [Illustration] And now the Ball is at its height, A madly whirling throng; Each merry pair A smile doth wear. And Sambo sings a song. While in their midst the artist head Of "Golliwogg" appears, With Peg beside, Whose graceful stride No criticism fears. [Illustration] But even wooden limbs get tired And want a change of play, So "Golliwogg" A "jolly dog" Suggests they run away. The big shop door is bolted fast, But through the yard behind, Peggy has spied One open wide, Which she will shortly find. [Illustration] [Illustration] A touch--A push--and out they fly Into the starlight night; No one must know The way they go They cover up their flight. And though their laughing faces tell How they enjoy the fun, No sound they make, But quickly take Unto their heels and run. [Illustration] Nor stop until they reach a field, And find a lovely slide; No fear has Peg, But Meg and Weg Cling screaming as they glide. The "Golliwogg" with flying hair, Takes the first lead you see, Nor minds at all The "Midget" small, Her arms outstretched in glee. [Illustration] The sliders never dreamed of harm, They sailed like ships at sea; 'Twas Meg and Weg, Who Tripped up Peg, And brought to grief their spree. The wrong man often gets the blame 'Twas just so in this case, And balls of snow They madly throw At "Golliwogg's" kind face. [Illustration] He catches one in either eye, And then turns tail to run; The steady aim Of Sarah Jane Grows very serious fun. He does not like the way girls act, For five to one's not fair; There's no escape One hits his nape, Another strikes his hair. [Illustration] "Vengeance!" he cries, "I'll pay them out! If girls will play with boys, There's got be Equality, So here's for equipoise!" And then some monster balls he makes, He does not spare the snow And as each back Receives a whack, Like ninepins down they go. In life we have our "ups" and "downs", These dolls enjoyed the same; Though down went Weg, Don't think, I beg, 'Twas due to Sarah Jane. You see the sled was pretty full, The hill was rather steep; Weg was to steer But in her fear She took a backward leap. [Illustration] Anon all reached the valley safe, And skating longed to try; The ice seemed good, As each one stood Upon the bank hard by. While "Golliwogg" with cautious steps, Toward the middle skates; They hear a crack! They cry, "come back To your devoted mates!" [Illustration] Too late! alas their call is vain! He swiftly disappears! His kind forethought Is dearly bought, It melts them unto tears. But sturdy Peg is quick to act, She gives an order clear, "Creep on your knees, And by degrees We to the hole will steer." [Illustration] They reach in time, Peg drags him out With all her might and main; Poor "Golliwogg", A dripping log, Must be got home again. Behold sure signs of early dawn, As down the field they start; A leaden weight, This living freight, With faintly beating heart. [Illustration] In half an hour the sun comes up, And shows a merry face; He winks an eye As passing by He sees the skating place. And when he peeps into the shop With jolly laughing eye, Tho' he's not blind He cannot find A single toy awry! 
23456	----	file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) MORE DOLLIES RUTH COBB AND RICHARD HUNTER THE DUMPY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN 25. More Dollies _The Dumpy Books for Children_ CLOTH, ROYAL 32mo, 1/6 EACH 1. The Flamp. 2. Mrs. Turner's Cautionary Stories. 3. The Bad Family. 4. The Story of Little Black Sambo. 5. The Bountiful Lady. 6. A Cat Book. 7. A Flower Book. 8. The Pink Knight. 9. The Little Clown. 10. A Horse Book. 11. Little People: An Alphabet. 12. A Dog Book. 13. The Adventures of Samuel and Selina. 14. The Little Girl Lost. 15. Dollies. 16. The Bad Mrs. Ginger. 17. Peter Piper's Practical Principles. 18. Little White Barbara. 19. The Japanese Dumpy Book. 20. Towlocks and His Wooden Horse. 21. The Three Little Foxes. 22. The Old Man's Bag. 23. The Three Goblins. 24. Dumpy Proverbs. 25. More Dollies. 26. Little Yellow Wang-lo. 27. Plain Jane. 28. The Sooty Man. 29. Fishy-Winkle. _A Cloth Case to contain Twelve Volumes can be had, price 2s. net; or the First Twelve Volumes in Case, price £1 net._ London: GRANT RICHARDS, 48, LEICESTER SQUARE. More Dollies Pictures by Ruth Cobb Verses by Richard Hunter ILLUSTRATED IN COLOURS _London:_ GRANT RICHARDS 1903 [Illustration] Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas brings presents For little girls and boys; Saint Nicholas brings dozens Of all the nicest toys. Hang out your biggest stocking Before you go to sleep; But if you hear him coming, You mustn't even peep. [Illustration: Saint Nicholas.] [Illustration: The Sea-side Doll.] The Sea-side Doll. There's one doll for winter, When ice comes and snow; Another for spring time, When primroses grow. A dolly for dark nights, To take into bed; And one for the morning, Till lessons are said. But this is the dolly To play on the sands, You see both a pail and A spade in her hands. Ping-Pong. Sing a song of Ping-pong, Fast away he ran: "Come along," said Ping-pong, "Catch me if you can!" Sing a song of Ping-pong, Racquet and a ball: "Come along," said Ping-pong, "You can't run at all!" [Illustration: Ping-Pong.] [Illustration: Jujuba.] Jujuba. Here's Uncle Jujuba, Who has a sweet tooth; He used to eat sugar- Cane oft in his youth, In South Carolina, Where sugar-cane grows, From which they make sugar, As everyone knows. Blue-Coat. His dressing-gown's blue, and His girdle is red; He wears a black cap On top of his head. He carries a candle To give you a light, In case you should ever Get up in the night. [Illustration: Blue-Coat.] [Illustration: Punch.] Punch. There is a queer dolly named Punch, Who has a remarkable hunch. The tip of his nose Is red as a rose, And that's how you know Mister Punch. The Shepherdess. Shepherdess! Shepherdess! Looks to the sheep; Shepherdess! Shepherdess! Watches their sleep. Shepherdess! Shepherdess! When they cry "Baa," Shepherdess! Shepherdess! Knows where they are. [Illustration: The Shepherdess.] [Illustration: The Cowboy.] The Cowboy. There was a bold cowboy Came out of the west; Of all the bold riders, This cowboy's the best. The horse he brought with him Will not run away; But stands by the side of His master all day. Blackman the Giant. This is the long and The short of it too: One dolly stood still, The other one grew. She who is little Prefers to be tall; Blackman the giant Would like to be small. [Illustration: Blackman the Giant.] [Illustration: The Twins.] The Twins. If one were not blue, While the other is red, You'd fancy that Su- San was Mary instead. If one were not red, While the other is blue, 'Twould surely be said, That Miss Mary was Sue! The Highlander. Right about, left about, Halt and stand at ease! Shoulder arms, attention, Steady, if you please. Order arms, present arms, Forward, by your right! Double, double, double, Double to the fight! [Illustration: The Highlander.] [Illustration: Policeman.] Policeman. When little dolls in Nurs'ry Street, Do anything that's wrong; Throw stones, or knock each other down, Policeman comes along. "Move on, move on," Policeman cries; Be sure they never fail; For if they did not move at once, He'd take them off to jail. Mollie. Mollie's frock is crimson, Her petticoat's of lace; Mollie's hair is golden, And curls about her face. Mollie's friends are many, She's off to visit one; Mollie takes her sunshade, To keep away the sun. [Illustration: Mollie.] [Illustration: The Swinging Clown.] The Swinging Clown. Swing up! Swing down! Here goes the clown. Swing left! Swing right! Mind you hold tight. Swing low! Swing high! Right to the sky. Algeria. Dolly's home's far away, Far away in Algiers, On the African coast, She won't see it for years. But she whispers at night, And her eyes fill with tears; "How I wish--how I wish, I were back in Algiers!" [Illustration: Algeria.] [Illustration: Dame Crump.] Dame Crump. Some dolls are ev'ry bit as good As little girls and boys; They never pout or shake themselves, And never make a noise. But other dollies make mistakes; Won't do as they are told; Won't stand upright, or shut their eyes, However much you scold! And then's the time for old Dame Crump To enter with her stick, And make them mind their p's and q's; 'Tis well if they are quick! Prince Charming. This is Prince Charming, Whom often you meet, Riding or walking In Nursery Street. See the red feather He wears in his hat, Always you know he's Prince Charming by that. [Illustration: Prince Charming.] [Illustration: Mister Merryman.] Mister Merryman. He's always standing on his toes, And never on his heels; He's always holding up his arms-- I wonder how it feels. Two balls are always in his hands, He never lets them drop; He's always smiling just like this, And never seems to stop. Dinah. Dinah's cheeks are black as coal; Dinah's lips are red; Dinah's eyes are bright, although Dinah's off to bed. Dinah's bows are green and blue; Dinah's teeth are white; Dinah's bottle's meant to feed Dinah in the night. [Illustration: Dinah.] [Illustration: Smiler.] Smiler. He smiles throughout the morning, And all the afternoon; He smiles whene'er the sun shines, And also at the moon. He smiles upon the carpet, Or when you pick him up; He smiles all through his dinner, And when he goes to sup. The Coachman. There was a grand coachman, Who drove the Lord Mayor; And never drove less than A carriage and pair. He wore a red waistcoat, He carried a whip, And when the boys saw him, They shouted "Hip! hip!" [Illustration: The Coachman.] [Illustration: Little Yam Mango.] Little Yam Mango. Little Yam Mango Has beautiful eyes, Also the brightest Of scarlet neckties. Little Yam Mango Will never go out; Being so lazy, He's grown very stout. Brownie. There is a brown dolly Who has a guitar; She plays on it always, Tra lal, tra lal la! She has a new ditty For every day; I wish you could hear it, Tra lal, tra lal lay! [Illustration: Brownie.] [Illustration: The Imp.] The Imp. You may call him an imp, Or a gnome or a sprite; And whate'er you call him You are sure to be right. He is here, he is there, He will never stay long; If you think he is caught, You are sure to be wrong. 
14110	----	(www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original lovely illustrations. See 14110-h.htm or 14110-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/1/1/14110/14110-h/14110-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/1/1/14110/14110-h.zip) KERNEL COB AND LITTLE MISS SWEETCLOVER Written by GEORGE MITCHEL Illustrated by Tony Sarg 1918 _To_ Ursula, Dordie, Hutch and Bob And children the wide world over, I dedicate brave Kernel Cob And dear Little Miss Sweetclover. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER I Jackie was a little boy and he had a little sister named Peggs, and they lived with their Aunt who was very old, maybe thirty-two. And it was so very long since she had been a little girl, that she quite forgot that children need toys to play with and all that. So poor little Jackie and Peggs had no soldiers or dolls but could only play at make-believe all day long. They lived in a little white house nearly all covered with honeysuckle, and a little white fence with a little white gate in it ran all about and at the back of the little white house was a little garden with beautiful flowers growing in it. And once, when they were making pies in the garden, Peggs began to cry and Jackie ran and put his arms about her, for he loved his little Peggs very dearly; and he said to her: "What's the matter, Peggsie? Did a spider bite you?" "No," says Peggs, "it didn't." "Was it a naughty worm?" "No," says Peggs, "it wasn't." "Well, what was it?" says Jackie. "It weren't anything that bit me, only I want a doll," and away she cried again. "Huh!" says Jackie, "that's nothing. You don't want a doll any mor'n I want a soldier," and he sat down beside her and began to cry, too. And after they had cried for a long time, maybe four hours or two, they stopped. "I tell you what!" says Jackie. "What?" says Peggs, drying her eyes on her pinafore. "If no one will give us a soldier"... "But I don't want a soldier," says Peggs. "I want a doll." "Let's make one," says Jackie. "That's a good way," says Peggs. "You bet," says Jackie, and he slapped one of his legs the way sailors do in tales of the sea. "What'll we make it of?" asked Peggs. "Things," says Jackie. "Goodie!" says Peggs. And they went in search of the things they would make the dolls of. And pretty soon, Peggs made the most wonderful doll of flowers that ever a child could see. The head was of Sweetclover, the dress was a purple morning-glory turned upside-down so it looked like a bodice and a skirt, and it was tied to the head so that they wouldn't come apart. And perched on the top of the head was a little bonnet, only it wasn't really a bonnet, you know, but a little four o'clock. And she called it Little Miss Sweetclover and it was the dearest little doll and as fresh as the morning dew. In the meantime, Jackie had been busy, you may be sure; but he couldn't find anything to make a soldier of except sticks of wood, but he had no jack-knife, much as he had always wanted one. "Whatever shall I do?" thought Jackie, as he looked about the garden, and just then he saw an ear of corn and he picked it up. "Maybe this will do," and he picked all the kernels off except two for the eyes, one for the nose, two more for the ears and a row for the teeth. And he ran to Peggs to have her sew some clothes for his soldier. "What do you think of Little Miss Sweetclover?" says Peggs, holding it up for Jackie to see. "I think she's very pretty," says Jackie, "only she needs legs." And while Peggs cut out and sewed a uniform for the soldier, Jackie went in search of legs for Sweetclover. And these he made of two stems of a flower, bent at the ends to look like feet. And he ran back to Peggs with them. "Here are the legs for Sweetclover with green shoes and stockings on." And he tied them to the rest of Sweetclover so that when she walked, they wouldn't come off. By this time Peggs had finished the uniform for Jackie's soldier and a hat of newspaper with a great plume of cornsilk and a lot of medals which were cut from the gold leaf that comes on a card of buttons. And when they were all sewed on the jacket, he cut out a sword from the gold leaf and made hands and feet from the corn husk. And he colored the eyes with black ink and the lips with red, and, much before you could say "Crickety," the soldier was all finished. "What'll we call him?" asked Jackie. And they thought, and thought, and thought. "I have it!" said Jackie. "What?" asked Peggs. "We'll call him Kernel Cob," says Jackie. "Goodie!" says Peggs, clapping her hands with glee. And you will see what wonderful dolls they were, and what wonderful things they did, and how they helped Jackie and Peggs to find ... but never mind. You will see. [Illustration] CHAPTER II And one day, when Jackie and Peggs were playing in the garden with Kernel Cob and Sweetclover, the sun was very hot, so Peggs ran and got a parasol and put it over the dolls so they wouldn't wilt. "I'd like Kernel Cob to be a great general," said Jackie as he put up the parasol, "and fight in all the wars of the world and lead his soldiers with a sword in his hand and get wounded and all that. Not very much wounded, though. Or I'd like to have him be an Admiral and sail all around the world. What do you think of that?" "That's good," said Peggs. "You bet," said Jackie. And he stood on his tippy toes to look bigger. "And I'd like Sweetclover to be a mother," says Peggs, "and have hundreds and hundreds of children so she could give them all the dolls that ever they wanted." "That would be noble," said Jackie. "It's terrible for children to have no father or mother isn't it?" asked Peggs looking far off at nothing in the sky. "Yes," said Jackie. "I would rather have a mother and father than everything else in the world," says Peggs. "Better'n little Sweetclover?" asked Jackie. "Yes," answered Peggs, "for I could make another doll, but you can only have one mother and one father." "Maybe you're right," said Jackie, "but I love Kernel Cob very much, just the same." "Of course!" says Peggs. Now, all of this was heard by Kernel Cob and Sweetclover, for all flowers and vegetables understand the language of people, but people do not understand the language of flowers and vegetables; and when Kernel Cob and Sweetclover talked, Jackie and Peggs couldn't hear them because flowers whisper very softly, and even if the children could hear them they couldn't understand them, you see, because it's a different kind of language and they never had heard it. Sometimes, if you are a child, and sit in the garden when the wind is blowing, and listen, you may hear a kind of whispering among the flowers. And if you look very closely, you will see them sway toward each other and smile and nod their heads. Well, that is when they whisper in each other's ears just as if they were children. And all vegetables are like that too, only the corn has a louder voice, because the wind loves to blow through its ears and make it wave so it looks like a great green ocean. "Did we have a mother and father?" asked Peggs. "Of course!" answered Jackie, "Everybody has to have a mother and a father, except orphans." "Are we orphans?" asked Peggs. "I guess we must be," said Jackie, "I heard Auntie tell somebody, the other day, that both our parents were lost." Just then the wind blew Sweetclover toward Kernel Cob, and, if you'd been there, you could have heard a whispering sound, and, if you'd been a flower, you would have heard Sweetclover say to Kernel Cob: "Poor little Peggs!" and if you had looked very closely you would have seen dew drops in her eyes. "What did she do?" asked Kernel Cob, and his voice was slow, for you must remember that it took him a long time to think, because his head was heavy and so filled up with corn cob. But, like most people who are slow, he was very determined, and once he made up his mind to do a thing you might be sure he would do it, no matter what. "She lost her motheranfather," said Sweetclover. "Did Jackie lose his motheranfather too?" asked Kernel Cob. "Of course," answered Sweetclover. "Don't you know that Jackie and Peggs are brother and sister?" "Sure," said Kernel Cob. "Well then," said Sweetclover. "You didn't tell me," said Kernel Cob. "Tell you what?" asked Sweetclover. "If Jackie lost his motheranfather," said Kernel Cob. "Jackie's motheranfather are the same as Peggs'," explained Sweetclover. "Doesn't everybody have his own motheranfather?" asked Kernel Cob. "Not always," says Sweetclover. "Why?" asks Kernel Cob. "Please keep quiet," said Sweetclover, "I can't hear what they are saying." "If our mother and father are lost," says Peggs, "why doesn't Auntie try to find them?" "I wish she would," says Jackie. "Did you hear that?" says Sweetclover. "What?" asked Kernel Cob. "That they would like to find their motheranfather," says Sweetclover. "Are they lost?" asks Kernel Cob. "Yes," says Sweetclover. "Who lost them?" asks Kernel Cob. "Hush!" says Sweetclover. For a long time nobody spoke and pretty soon a little breeze swayed Kernel Cob over toward Sweetclover and he said: "Let's try to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather. Let us pray to the fairies that something will come along to help us." "Good!" said Sweet clover, and they prayed and prayed and prayed. And just then a great wind came and raised the parasol from the ground, and the hook of the handle caught in Kernel Cob's belt and pulled him up with it and Sweetclover was just in time to catch hold of him as he sailed away. And Jackie and Peggs sat upon the grass and cried because they had lost their little dolls. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER III And the parasol went up and up in the sky all the afternoon, and, try as he would, Kernel Cob could not get it to stop. "I wonder what the fairies are sending us up here for?" shouted Kernel Cob. "Maybe they're in Heaven," said Sweetclover, and just then the parasol went skimming through a beautiful white cloud, and the sun was dancing on it, making it look like pink eiderdown. And soon they came out of the cloud and were in the blue sky again. And up and up they sailed. And the sun dipped down in the sea, and its light went out, and the stars came out and began to peep through the sky like little fire-flies, and the moon came up, too, to see what was going on, and it grew bigger and bigger till it was nearly as big as the old Earth. And then they came to the Moon and could see little people running around the edge waving their hands excitedly, and they were all dressed in silver clothing, and when Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were landed the Moonpeople ran to them and wondered. And everything about them was silver. Churches and houses and rocks and rivers and trees and everything. And the Moonpeople ran ahead in great confusion to show them the way. And Kernel Cob formed them into line and put himself at the head of the column, as a general does, and they marched in step and everything until they came to the Palace of the King, which was of silver with turrets and spires of diamonds, and glittered so you could scarcely see. And the King and the Queen were sitting on thrones, and when the King saw how Kernel Cob had formed his people in order, he was greatly pleased and said to himself, "Here is a fine General. I will put him at the head of all my armies." And Kernel Cobb and Sweetclover were invited to a great banquet, as splendid as ever you could imagine. And when they were seated, Sweetclover saw some flowers on the banquet table which were very beautiful, white with silver calyx, and they were called Silverfloss, and Sweetclover whispered to Silverfloss: "Do you understand Earth talk?" "Ting-a-ling," answered Silverfloss, and it sounded like the tinkling of a little silver bell. "What did she say?" asked Kernel Cob. "It must be Moonflower talk," said Sweetclover, and she looked about and saw some Edelweiss and she was very glad and said: "Edelweiss, Edelweiss, how came you here?" Now you must know the Edelweiss is a little white flower that grows away up in the snow of the mountains of Switzerland. "One night I was blown up here in a great snow storm and I've been here ever since," said Edelweiss. "Can you speak Moonflower talk?" asked Sweetclover. "Yes," said Edelweiss. "Very well," said Kernel Cob, "we are trying to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather and we came all the way from the Earth on a parasol to do so. Maybe you can help us." "I would if I could," replied Edelweiss. "But I am afraid they are not here. I've been here over four seasons and I've never seen a human being, and even if they were here they couldn't live here because it's too cold." "You bet it is," said Kernel Cob, and he shivered till the medals on his coat rattled. "Maybe they could be here in some other part of the Moon!" said Sweetclover. "Would you mind looking?" "I would be glad to look," said Edelweiss, for he was a very polite little flower and had very pretty manners. And turning to Silverfloss he asked her if she had seen two earth-people on the Moon. "Ting-a-ling," answered Silverfloss and you would have thought it was two bells tinkling. "She says there never was a human being on the Moon," said Edelweiss. "Well if they are not here," said Kernel Cob, "we had better go before we freeze to death," and his teeth chattered. "How'll we get off?" asked Sweetclover. "I'll tell Silverfloss to weave you a strand of silver," and he turned to Silverfloss and said some tinkling words to her. "She's doing it," he said. "It's a thread of silver so thin that it can't be seen and yet it is so strong that it can easily bear your weight." "But I can't climb all the way down," said Kernel Cob. "You won't have to," said Edelweiss. "All you have to do is to catch hold of the end of the silver thread and hang on to it, and, as Silverfloss weaves the thread it gets longer and longer, until you have reached the Earth. You'd better start now, if you are going." So Kernel Cob wound the silver thread around his waist, and, lifting Sweetclover, was ready to start. "Good-bye," said Kernel Cob. "Good-bye," said Sweetclover. "Good-bye," said Edelweiss, "Hold on tight!" "All right," said Kernel Cob. "Thank you very much," cried Sweetclover. And down they went, Kernel Cob hanging to the silver thread and Sweetclover snuggled close against his jacket. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV Kernel Cob and Sweetclover went down and down and down through the sky from the Moon. And after they had gone down and down and down a long time Sweetclover suddenly cried: "What's that?" and pointed below. "It's like a great ball turning round and round." "It looks like another Moon with the lights out." "It's the Earth!" cried Sweetclover with delight, for she could now see the tops of trees as the sun began to show his golden head above the hills in the East. And little by little, as Kernel Cob and Sweetclover neared the Earth, they could see rivers and lakes and steeples and houses and after awhile, people and horses in the fields. And down, down, down they came, getting nearer and nearer and nearer until they saw, beneath their very feet, a great tall house with sails on it going round and round at a rapid rate, and, before you could say, "Look out!" Kernel Cob was caught in one of the sails and dashed to the ground. "Are you hurt?" asked Sweetclover sitting on the ground where she had been thrown. "No," said Kernel Cob, for a soldier must bear pain without complaint and pretend he isn't hurt even if he is. And a number of people who were working in the fields ran out to see what had happened, and you may be sure that they were surprised to see these strange dolls. And they spoke a strange language which neither Kernel Cob nor Sweetclover could make out. "I wonder where we are," said Sweetclover, "and who these people can be?" "They're very funny," laughed Kernel Cob, "I never saw shoes like those before. They look like boats." "They're made of wood," said Sweetclover. And just then a little Dutch girl--for you have guessed that they were in Holland--came over and picked them up and carried them off into her house. And little Antje, for that was her name, played with them all day, and, when night was come, she put them to sleep in a chair before the fireplace where it was nice and warm and cosy. And, in the middle of the night, a cricket came out on the hearth stone and began to chirp. "Chirp, chirp, chirp," sang the cricket, and Kernel Cob woke up and rubbed his eyes and listened. "Hello, Mister Cricket," shouted Kernel Cob peering over the side of the chair. And the Cricket hopped over to where Kernel Cob was lying. "Who are you?" he chirped. "I'm Kernel Cob. And Sweetclover and I are looking for Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," said Kernel Cob, "Have you seen them?" "Never heard of them," chirped the Cricket. "What's their names?" "Just Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather; that's all." And just then Sweetclover woke up and sat on the side of the chair. "I'm sure that there isn't anybody by that name," chirped the Cricket, "but I'll soon find out." "How?" asked Kernel Cob. "I'll send a chirp to all the crickets in this house and garden, and they'll send a chirp to all the crickets in the next house and garden, and so on, and so on, and so on, all through this country, and in a little while I'll be able to tell you if they're here or not." "How'll you ever get the message back?" asked Sweetclover. "I'm the King of all the Crickets," chirped he, "and when I give an order you may be assured that it will be obeyed," and he stretched himself with so much pride that you could have heard his jacket crackle. "I'm sure you are very kind," said Sweetclover, "and Kernel Cob and I are very much obliged to you," and she said this so very sweetly and so prettily that the Cricket lost no time in sending the message. "Crick-a-crick-a-crick," he chirped, and it sounded just like a telegraph instrument. "Crick-a-crick-a-crick. There," he chirped, "I've told them to make a search and we'll soon have an answer." And while they waited, the cricket told them of the strange country they were in and all about the canals and the windmills and the skating in the winter and the curious wooden shoes that the people wore. And when he had done, Kernel Cob and Sweetclover told him about Jackie and Peggs, their wonderful visit to the Moon, and how they came down in the field and were picked up by little Antje. "Hush!" said Kernel Cob, "I hear the chirping of a Cricket," for his ears were quicker to hear than either Sweetclover's or the Cricket's. And sure enough you could now hear the chirping.... "Crick-a-crick-a-crick," and the Cricket pricked up his ears and held up a foot to warn them to keep silence. "I'm sorry to tell you," he said as the chirping stopped, "that they are not here." "Too bad," said Sweetclover, and the dew began to come into her eyes. "Come," chirped the Cricket. "We must be quick, for if little Antje wakes up, you'll not get away so easily again," and they followed him as he hopped toward the window, upon which he leaped and was soon outside. Kernel Cob climbed upon a chair, lifted Sweetclover in his arms and was soon outside, following quickly on the heels of the nimble Cricket who led them down to the waterside, where they found an old wooden shoe. Into this Kernel Cob lifted Sweetclover and, after he had put up a stick to serve as a mast and had fastened a piece of cloth to it for a sail, he shook hands with the Cricket and climbed in. The cricket gave the shoe a push off with one of his feet and they were afloat on the sea. "Good-bye and good luck," chirped the Cricket. "Good-bye and many thanks," shouted Kernel Cob and Sweetclover, and soon they were far off for the wind was blowing very strong. Presently they were out of sight of the shore and the Cricket turned upon his heel and hopped away. CRICKETS The Cricket is the kind of chap For whom I never cared a rap! I always thought he hopped about The fields, because he had the gout And lost his crutches in the crops, And that's the reason why he hops. But now I'll have to change my mind Because I see he's very kind, For he who is a friend in need Is quite the best of friends indeed. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V And Kernel Cob and Sweetclover sailed and sailed for many days and nights. "I wonder where we are and if we shall ever be on land again," sighed poor little Sweetclover. "Of course we will," answered Kernel Cob although he, too, was doubtful, but being a soldier he had to keep his courage up and to cheer Sweetclover. So he pretended that they were perfectly safe. And on they sailed and you couldn't see anything but water for miles and miles, no matter where you looked. "What's that?" said Sweetclover, and she was so excited that she nearly tipped over the boat. "I can't see anything but water and a little too much of that to suit me," said Kernel Cob. "Don't you see something dark against the sky?" she asked. "No, I don't," said Kernel Cob, and he shaded his eyes with his hand the way sailors do when they look for something at sea. "I hope it isn't a whale," said Sweetclover. "It had better not be," said Kernel Cob, "if he knows what's good for him," and he patted his sword in a very brave manner. "It's getting bigger and bigger," said Sweetclover. "Don't you see it?" "Sure!" said Kernel Cob, "I saw it all the time, it's a ship." And like all people who tell fibs he was found out, for it wasn't a ship at all. "It's land!" said Sweetclover, joyfully, and sure enough it was, for soon you could see the trees. And as they sailed closer the trees grew taller and taller, and after a while you could see the shore. "It's a little island," said Sweetclover. "What's an island?" asked Kernel Cob. "Didn't you ever go to school?" asked Sweetclover. "No, but I wish I had." But Kernel Cob didn't answer. He just steered the shoeboat toward the shore by putting one leg over the side as if it were a rudder, and in a little while they ran the boat up on the shore and Sweetclover hopped out and Kernel Cob pulled the boat up on the beach so the tide, when it came in, wouldn't take it out to sea again. And they walked along the beach. "I'm very hungry," said Sweetclover. "Sit down here," said Kernel Cob, "and I'll see if I can find something for dinner." And he went along the beach. After he had walked a long distance, he found a tree with some nuts on it, and he picked a lot of them and put them in his hat and started back to Sweetclover. You may imagine his astonishment when he reached the spot where he had left her and discovered that she was not there. But, all about on the sand, he saw foot-prints as of a great number of bare footed people. "The savages have taken her," he muttered, and drawing his sword he ran off in the direction they had taken. Through the woods he ran, and pretty soon he came to a clearing and there was Sweetclover surrounded by about a thousand savages shouting and dancing and waving spears above their heads. And Kernel Cob grasped his sword firmly in his hand and ran at them, and, so fiercely did he fight, that in a minute he had driven away about a hundred of them. And he would have driven them all away, but his foot slipped and, before he could get up again, he was overpowered and bound hand and foot. And they brought him before their chief who was a great giant. And when it was night, the savages tied the two captives to trees and went to sleep about a great fire. And in the middle of the night when Kernel Cob was thinking of some way in which to make their escape, he heard something stirring in the grass at his feet. "Who's that?" he whispered. "Tommy Hare," was the reply, and he ran out from a stone behind which he had been hiding. "Good for you!" said Kernel Cob. "Come stand up on your hind legs, like a good fellow, and untie me from this tree." "Who are you?" asked Tommy cautiously. "I'm Kernel Cob and this is my little friend Sweetclover and we're looking for Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather and we've been captured by the savages who may keep us here forever if you don't help us." "That I will," said Tommy, and in a jiffy he had gnawed them free. "Now, show us the way down to the beach as quickly as you can," said Kernel Cob, "for it will be daylight soon and then it will be too late. Come." And they started running as fast as they could. And not a minute too soon, for they had got only half way when they heard the shouts of the savages and knew that their escape had been discovered. Faster and faster they ran, but the savages gained on them at every step and were soon close upon their heels. [Illustration] "Jump on my back!" shouted Tommy, "for I can run faster than all of them put together." And they did so and flew over the ground as fast as the wind. And they reached the shore and jumped into the shoeboat and Tommy shoved them off with a great push that put them out of sight of land, and the savages' spears fell in the water behind them. "That was a narrow escape," said Sweetclover, as she settled down in the boat. "I hope Tommy Hare wasn't caught by the savages." But she needn't have worried in the least about Tommy, for as soon as he had pushed them off, he scurried away and was at that moment sitting under a tree, eating his breakfast. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI Kernel Cob and Sweetclover sailed all day. The shoeboat rode the waves with perfect ease. Up it went and up till it came to the top of a great wave, and then it would race down on the other side as if they were bob-sledding and great sport it was, too, out in the middle of the ocean, and Sweetclover laughed and even old serious Kernel Cob smiled and forgot all about fighting. Toward the afternoon, the sea quieted down and they rode along faster and presently, Sweetclover, who was always watching, cried out: "I see another island!" "So it is!" said Kernel Cob, looking in the wrong direction. "Not over there. Look!" and she pointed. Sure enough. There was a large black stretch of what appeared to be land. And it was very flat. "I hope there will be no more savages to fight," said Sweetclover. "I hope there will," said Kernel Cob. "It's moving," said Sweetclover. "It seems to be coming this way." "Where did it go?" asked Kernel Cob, for at that moment it disappeared altogether. "I'm sure I saw it," said Sweetclover. "Didn't you?" But Kernel Cob only frowned and looked serious. And, in a few minutes, they saw it again, but this time it was very much nearer and bigger and the sun made it look very smooth. "It's a whale!" said Sweetclover. "Who cares," said he, and drew his sword. And the turtle, for it was a turtle and not a whale at all, came towards them and it was very large, nearly as big around as an acre. And when it got very near to the boat, its head came up out of its shell and the little shoe boat shook with the waves it made. And the turtle was just about to snap the boat in its mouth when Kernel Cob swung his sword and with one mighty stroke cut off its head. "Ha, ha!" cried Kernel Cob, but, receiving no reply from Sweetclover, he looked about and found she had fainted. He found also that the boat was leaking badly from a crack in the side made, no doubt, by the turtle. Quickly, he lifted Sweetclover and carried her aboard the back of the turtle and laid her gently down, for the shoe was sinking and he was no sooner out of it than it turned over on its side. "Not a minute too soon," muttered Kernel Cob, "and now to revive Sweetclover." This he soon did and she opened her eyes and looked about in wonder. "Where are we?" she asked. "On the old turtle's back," laughed Kernel Cob. "But we shall never get anywhere now, for we have no sail," said Sweetclover. And she began to cry. "Crying never did anybody any good," said Kernel Cob, "I wish you would stop." "I can't help it," said Sweetclover, "I'm miserable." "What's all this about?" said a strange voice, and looking about quickly, they saw a sea-horse riding up to them. "I am very glad to see you," said Kernel Cob. "You're just in time to give us a lift on our journey." "With pleasure," whinnied the sea-horse. "And where might you be going?" "To find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," said Sweetclover. "Well, leap on my back," said the Horse, "and I'll see that you get there if it's in the water." So Kernel Cob got astride the horse and helped Sweetclover to mount behind him. "Where are we?" asked Kernel Cob. "Cuba is right over there," said the sea-horse pointing with his ear. "Well, let's see if they are there, if you please," said Sweetclover. "Aye, aye, Miss," he said, and trotted away as nearly like a real horse as he could. They had gone along for a couple of hours without mishap when a storm came up. At first the sea-horse paid no attention to the storm, but one great big clap of thunder rang out and a flash of lightning struck so close it startled him. With a great leap, he started forward, his eyes bulging from his head, and, with a stream of foam flung out from his mouth, he turned and raced through the water at a terrific rate, Kernel Cob and Sweetclover clinging to him with all their strength. "He's a runaway," shouted Kernel Cob and, sure enough, the horse was mad and nothing could stop him. On and on they raced, but everything must come to an end and along about the afternoon, they saw land in the distance. Toward this he made at breakneck speed and with a final spurt dashed into an inlet where many ships rode at anchor and a large city rose against the sky. "Hurrah!" shouted Kernel Cob. In and out among the ships the sea-horse ran, until, with a last gasp, he flung himself forward and fell upon the surface of the water. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII When the sea-horse fell, Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were thrown over his head and landed into the water, but Kernel Cob told Sweetclover they would soon be picked up. And so they were, for a row-boat pulled toward them and in a minute they were taken from the water and laid on the bottom of the boat. "What did I tell you?" said Kernel Cob. "If you wish for anything strong enough you'll get it." "You'll wish you were never born before you get out of here," said a deep, strange voice, and looking about, Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were surprised to see two puppets, their own size. The one who spoke was a villainous-looking fellow dressed as a Pirate. His face was browned as if by the sun, earrings were in his ears, a black hat on his head, and a deep and very ugly scowl was painted on his forehead. The other was good looking and resembled the hero in a story. He had pink cheeks and a pretty smile. Now, when Sweetclover heard the villainous puppet speak, she moved away from him but Kernel Cob, who always welcomed a new adventure and saw in this fellow a possible enemy, spoke up: "Who and what are you?" "A friend," answered the Villain. "You don't look it," said Sweetclover, "you look more like a villain." "And so I am," said he. "At least that's what I'm painted to be, but I have a kind heart just the same." "What are you doing out here in this boat?" asked Kernel Cob. "The man who is rowing and who picked you up is a puppet showman," he explained. "I don't like him a bit," said Sweetclover. "You'll like him less and less as you get to know him," said the Villain. "He's very brutal. That's why we are in the boat, for yesterday during the puppet show, he broke the Hero in a rage and he had to go across the harbor to a toy-shop to buy another. That's the new Hero alongside of me." "He's very handsome," said Sweetclover. "Sure," said the Villain. "He's got to be. Heroes are all handsome." "But why are you so ugly?" asked Kernel Cob. "Ha, ha," laughed the Villain, "why bless your heart, I'm not a real villain, I only play the part of a villain in the play. My real self is something very different. But what, may I ask, are you doing out here in the harbor of Valparaiso?" "Is that where we are?" asked Sweetclover. "Sure," said Kernel Cob, for he didn't want the Villain to think he wasn't smart. "Didn't you know we were in Italy?" "Ha, ha," sneered the Hero, and from that moment Kernel Cob disliked him. "But you haven't told me how you got into the water," persisted the Villain. "We came on a sea-horse from Cuba," said Sweetclover. "That must have been an exciting adventure," said the Villain. "Tell me all of it." And Kernel Cob told him how they had been to the Moon on a parasol and all that. When he had finished, he asked the Villain to tell them some of his adventures. But the Villain was a modest sort of fellow and would say nothing but that he was very unhappy, leading a wicked life. What annoyed him most, he said, was that nearly everybody thought he was bad. "It only goes to show," he said, "that you can never go by anybody's looks." "You're right," said Kernel Cob, and gave a sharp glance at the Hero. "Many a kind heart beats beneath an ugly face." And then the row-boat landed at the dock, and the showman, taking the Villain and the Hero under one arm and Kernel Cob and Sweetclover under the other, got out and walked away. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII Through the town they went and everywhere children ran after them, and wondered at the strange puppets. And after a while they came to a little theatre and were thrown down among a lot of other puppets. "I don't intend to stay here," said Kernel Cob. "I'm going to run away. I've got to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather." "I don't think you'll be able to get away," said the Villain. "Well, at least I'll try," answered Kernel Cob. "Wouldn't you like to come with us?" "You bet," said the Villain, for he had taken a great fancy to Kernel Cob and especially to Sweetclover, whose gentle manners appealed very strongly to him. "But how are you going to do it?" "Let me think," said Kernel Cob and they were very quiet for a long while. "I tell you what," said the Villain, "When I am going to play I'll run off the stage and as soon as you see the Showman run after me, you must be ready to run and before he catches me, you'll be safe away." "But you won't be able to come with us, then," said Sweetclover, "and you'll be beaten." "Well, as long as you and Kernel Cob get away, it won't matter what happens to me," said the Villain. "That's very noble of you, I'm sure," said Kernel Cob, "and I see that you are a very friendly Villain, but I think I can find a better plan than that." While they were talking, the Showman came and tied some strings on Kernel Cob and Sweetclover. "What's that for?" asked Kernel Cob. "I guess you are going to play in the show," explained the Villain. "That's the way he works us." "Now we will never be able to get away," sighed Sweetclover. "Won't we though," said Kernel Cob, "leave it to me," for he was very brave of heart and nothing daunted him, because he was a soldier, you see, and was brave by nature. And the Showman took them into the theatre, and the performance began. When the play was over, quick as a flash, Kernel Cob cut the strings from Sweetclover and himself. "Now is our time!" shouted he to Sweetclover and the Villain, who were standing close by, and the Villain, catching Sweetclover by the hand, ran away with her. Holding the Showman at a distance, Kernel Cob backed his way off the stage, joined the Villain and Sweetclover and all three ran out into the street at the top of their speed, but the Showman was much faster and was close on their heels when they came to a corner. "Straight ahead!" shouted Kernel Cob while he turned and ran up the other street. This puzzled the Showman just what Kernel Cob wanted, and while he stood, wondering which one of them to follow, they gained on him. Feeling angrier with Kernel Cob than with the Villain and Sweetclover, he made after him, but Kernel Cob had a good start this time and had turned another corner, and seeing an open doorway, leaped in and was well-hidden by the time the Showman came puffing by. For a long time the Showman searched, but never thought of the door behind which Kernel Cob was hiding and finally gave up the search and went back. After Kernel Cob had given him plenty of time to get away, he came out cautiously and with great courage went back the way he had come, anxious to find Sweetclover and the Villain. When he came to the corner where Sweetclover and the Villain had gone straight ahead, he followed on after them, but could find no trace of them. Night was coming on and still he walked and being very tired with all his running, he sat down on the roadside, for he was now out in the country. And the moon came out and he watched it and thought of the many adventures he had been in since Sweetclover and he were up there and a great longing came into his heart to see her and if he had not been a soldier, I am sure he would have cried, but he didn't. Instead, he got upon his feet and looked about for some place where he could spend the night. This he soon found, for close at hand was a field in which some hay had been stacked, and, careful not to arouse the dog, he crept under one of the haystacks and soon was fast asleep. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX The Villain and Sweetclover ran on and on till their legs would carry them no farther and, being entirely out of breath, they came to a halt at last. They were far out beyond the City, and, if they had not been worried about Kernel Cob, they would have enjoyed the lovely fields of flowers and sunshine, but Sweetclover was quite sure that the wicked Showman had captured Kernel Cob and, having recovered her breath, sat down and began to cry. And the Villain, being a very kind-hearted puppet sat down to comfort her, but, try as he would, Sweetclover only cried the louder. "I'm sure he's captured, I'm sure he's captured," she repeated over and over again, until she made the Villain believe it and he began to cry, too. "Here, this will never do," said the Villain, getting up. "I'll go back and see if I can find him." "No, no!" cried Sweetclover. "You'll be caught too, and then what will I do?" So he stayed with her. Presently they were aroused by the barking of a dog and, looking about, discovered that they were sitting on the terrace of a big house all about which were fields of flowers and grain. And the dog, a big mastiff, came toward them. Sweetclover put out a friendly hand and said, "Nice Fido." "Don't call me Fido," said the dog, "my name is Napoleon." "Oh, excuse me," said Sweetclover, "I didn't know." "That's all right," said Napoleon with a stately bow. "Is there anything I can do for you?" "I'm afraid not," said Sweetclover. "My friend here," and she turned to the Villain, "and I have been separated from Kernel Cob and we are anxious to find him. You didn't see him pass by, did you?" "No," said Napoleon, "that I didn't." "Oh dear," sighed Sweetclover, "night is coming on and we have nowhere to go." "If you will give me a few minutes," said Napoleon, with a courteous wave of his paw in the direction of his house, "I will put my humble home at your disposal." "We cannot think of disturbing you," said Sweetclover. "It will be no trouble whatever," he said. "If I can be of any service to you, it will give me much pleasure." And so they followed him, as he walked away with great dignity, to his kennel. "What, may I enquire, has brought you to this neighborhood?" he asked as they arrived at his house. "You see," explained Sweetclover, "we were captured by a very wicked Showman and made to act with him in his puppet-show, so we ran away." "Have you been long in Valparaiso?" he asked. And she told him her story. How they had been to the moon in search of Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, and so on, till the moment when he had met them on the road. "Very, very interesting, I am sure," he said, "and I wish I could help you in finding Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, but I think you must be tired, so if you will lie down here I will sleep outside and protect you from any danger." So Sweetclover and the Villain entered his house, which was very nicely covered with straw and made a very comfortable place to sleep in, and in a few minutes were fast asleep. [Illustration] CHAPTER X In the morning, the sun was shining brightly and looking out of the door of Napoleon's house they were overjoyed to see Kernel Cob walking toward them, for the field in which he had slept was the one next to where Napoleon lived. You may imagine their joy. After he had been introduced to Napoleon, they sat down to think what had best be done. "I wish I could help you," said Napoleon, "but I am a watch dog and a watch dog may never shirk his duty. I never leave these grounds, for I love my master." "You have been very kind," said Sweetclover, "and I'm sure we are grateful to you." "I'll tell you what I can do," said Napoleon, whose forehead wrinkled as he thought, "I can introduce you to a great bird that lives in a field back of me. She is the South American condor and I'm sure she will be able to carry you somewhere." "All of us?" asked Kernel Cob. "Why, yes, indeed," replied Napoleon, "she is about ten times as big as you and very strong." "Oh, goodie," said Sweetclover, "where is she?" "Over there," answered Napoleon. "Just say I sent you and she will do anything for you." So, after thanking Napoleon for his kindness, they walked in the direction he had given them and soon came to a great haystack on the top of which was a large nest. And Kernel Cob called up to the nest and the bird put out her head. Kernel Cob then introduced everybody and the bird flew down at once. "We are trying to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," he explained, and after he had told her their story, she was so interested that she said she would help them as soon as she had finished her breakfast. "Now," she said, "let us start. Where are the motheranfather of these little children?" "I don't know," said Kernel Cob. "They're lost." "I don't know anything about motheranfathers," replied the bird, "but I know when I lose anything it is because it falls out of my nest." "People don't live in nests," replied Kernel Cob. "For if they did, and fell out, they would get broken." "I say!" said the Villain who had been thinking very deeply. "Let's look for them near where they were lost." "That's a good way," said Sweetclover. "Let's go to the United States. How far is it?" "Thousands of miles," answered the Condor. "But that is nothing for me. I can fly that far in a few days. Come, get ready. We will go to the United States. Jump on my back." So they climbed up on the bird's back, and all being ready she flew away. "How does she know which way to fly?" asked Sweetclover. "Birds know everything in the air, just the same as fishes do in the water," said the Villain. "And worms in the ground," added Kernel Cob. "I guess Dolls must be the stupidest things in the world," said Sweetclover. "Only some of us," said Kernel Cob. [Illustration] At this Sweetclover, the Villain and the Condor laughed, but Kernel Cob didn't know what they were laughing at, which was a very good thing for him. All that day they flew, and were very happy indeed in the warm sunshine skimming through the clouds. And once they went through a rainstorm and got wet; but as the sun came out soon after and dried them quickly they were none the worse for their bath, but felt refreshed for it. And they passed over the great Amazon river, the largest river in the world, and, much before they knew it, they were in Central America going at a tremendous rate of speed. "We shall be in the United States very soon, at this pace," said the Villain. And on the Condor flew, swift as an arrow, but in the afternoon a great wind storm came from the East and she was obliged to turn her course in the direction of the wind, and late in the evening they were nearing a large city which was now visible in the distance. "I wish I had wings," sighed Sweetclover, "and could fly all over the world. It would be so wonderful." "We will rest to-night," said the bird, "and try to find the motheranfather of Jackie and Peggs to-morrow." "You will be too tired," said Sweetclover. "Oh, no," said the Condor. "You can have no fear. I will be all right. When I say I do something I do that. I never...." She did not finish what she was going to say, and maybe it was a punishment for boasting. People are often punished for talking too much about what they can do ... for just at that moment something dreadful happened that changed their plans. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI And what do you think happened to the Condor? Just as they were coming to the city and the bird was looking back, talking to Kernel Cob and the others, and everything looked so happy and bright.... "Look out!" shouted Kernel Cob, but it was too late. Straight ahead was a tall tree, toward which the bird was flying, and from the branches came a puff of smoke and the sharp crack of a gun. The next instant the Condor stopped flying, and slowly sank to the ground. "I am done for," she said in a feeble voice. "It is just the way of all birds. I am sorry that I cannot help you more. Good-bye." By this time she had reached the ground, and Kernel Cob was in a very great rage. He wanted to stay and fight the hunter who would soon come to take the bird, but Sweetclover and the Villain begged him to be prudent and run away, lest they all be captured. So with great sorrow, they said good-bye to the Condor and hurried away. From behind a rock, they watched the hunter take up the bird and carry it away. And our three little friends sat down upon a stone to think. "I don't know what to do," said Sweetclover. "We have lost our best friend." "Never mind," said the Villain tenderly, and he put his hand kindly on her shoulder. "It will all come right in the end. It always does, you know." "Yes, I know," said Sweetclover, "but you have to go through such terrible things first." "Well, we got along pretty well before we met the bird," said Kernel Cob. "Didn't we get to the Moon and all that?" "That was because we prayed to the Fairies," said Sweetclover. "And maybe if we pray now, something will happen to help us." Sweetclover had a very beautiful faith. She believed, as all good people do, that you must put your faith in something good, and then everything will be for the best, no matter what happens. So they knelt down by the side of the rock and prayed. "How do you pray?" whispered the Villain to Sweetclover. "I never prayed before in my life." "Just say, 'Please good, kind Fairies, I am a poor little Villain, and I need your help, and I'll never be bad any more.'" So they prayed, and pretty soon along came a team of horses drawing a big wagon packed with boxes of oranges. And the wagon stopped on the road where they were, and the driver got down to fix the harness of one of the horses. "I'm glad that buckle got loose," said the horse to his team-mate, "I was getting tired and needed a rest." "Hello there, Master Horse," shouted Kernel Cob. "Who are you?" neighed the horse. "I'm Kernel Cob. Where are you going?" "We're going to the city to pack these oranges on a train," was the reply. "Here's our chance!" cried Kernel Cob. "Come, let us hide in one of these boxes, and we'll get a ride on the train." "Good idea," said the Villain. So they waited till the man climbed up on his seat again, and shouted, "get up" to the horses; then they ran out and got on one of the spokes of the wheel when it was near the ground, and when the wheel turned and the spoke came up to the top, they sprang off onto the wagon and crawled into a box which is called a crate, and is open a little so the oranges do not get too hot and spoil. And it was perfectly safe and very comfortable. And they must have fallen asleep; for the next thing they knew they felt a rocking and a rocking and Kernel Cob got out of the crate and crawled along till he came to a stairway, and, climbing this, discovered that they were on a ship. He hurried back to tell his news to Sweetclover and the Villain. And Sweetclover began to cry. "A woman is the crybabiest person in the world," said Kernel Cob. [Illustration] NOBLE DEEDS! If you attempt a noble deed You're almost certain to succeed, So do not give up hope, but try, However rough your path may lie, To forge ahead with all your might And everything will come out right. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XII For many days they sailed on the ship till they came to land. And men came to unload the vessel, and their crate of oranges was carried up on the dock and placed on a wagon, and they were driven off, not in the least knowing what country they were in, nor where they were going. And they peered out from the crate, and soon they heard the queerest kind of talk they ever heard, and Kernel Cob, bolder than the others, raised his head above an orange but quickly put it down again. "I know where we are," said the Villain who had been thinking. "We are in Japan." "How do you know?" asked Sweetclover. "I was here once with the Showman," said the Villain, "and I remember the way the people talked." And, being pushed onto a wagon, they were driven outside the city. "We mustn't go too far," said Sweetclover, "or we'll never find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather. Let's get out before it's too late." So they climbed out of their hiding place, and jumped to the ground. They were not far from a house, and a curious kind of a house it was. "It looks like the kind of house Jackie used to make with cards," said Kernel Cob, and so intent were they, that they did not hear the approach of a little girl until she stood beside them, and lifted Sweetclover in her arms. Of course they did not understand what she said, but it must have been something very beautiful, for her face was all smiles. And the little Japanese girl lifted up Kernel Cob, and the Villain, too, and carried them off down the road and into the little house. A very wonderful house it was, and full of toys, mostly Japanese dolls with short, straight hair and beautiful dresses, and talking all at once, in a curious language. "Oh, dear," sighed Sweetclover, "shall we never understand anybody in this strange country?" "Aye, aye sir," came a voice at her feet, and looking down, much to her surprise she saw an American Sailor doll. "Bless my heart, mates," said the sailor, "I'm glad to see you aboard. I've been in this port these four months, and I haven't heard the sound of the American language in all that time. Shiver my timbers if I'm not glad to set eyes on you." And they talked it all over, where they'd been and everything, all about the Condor and the savages and the Moon. "Well, mates," said Jackie Tar, for that was his name, "you've seen a lot but you'll never do any more travelling, for you're in a pretty tight hole this time," and he went on to tell them about the Japanese who lived in the house and owned the store. "He's a Toy-maker, he is, and the first thing he'll do is to rip you up to see how you're laid together, so he can make more like you." "Mercy!" said Sweetclover, and she began to sob. "If you're going to begin to cry," said Kernel Cob, "I'm going to give up," but the Villain whispered something kindly in Sweetclover's ear, and she stopped at once, for the Villain had more patience, and knew how to comfort her. [Illustration] "Maybe I can help you to escape from here," said Jackie Tar, "and maybe I can't, but I can try. I've had a plan in my mind for a long time but I've had no one to help me but these Japs, and they're not worth the paint on their faces. Are you brave enough to risk it with me?" Kernel Cob swelled out his chest and showed his medals, and told Jackie Tar how he had fought the savages single handed. "You'll do," laughed the sailor, and he told them his plan. "Do you see that red box over there in the corner? "Well, that's a Japanese kite. It goes up into the air very quickly. What I say to do is to climb into the kite, and go up with it. It's a big one and will carry us all." "Where'll we go to?" asked the Villain. "What care we, as long as we get out of here," and he hitched his trousers as real sailors do. "Will you do it?" "You bet," said Kernel Cob. So it was agreed that they would go up in the kite, and they moved over to it and tugged at it till they had it in the center of the room. Then a great clatter of talk arose from all the Japanese dolls, which sounded like a lot of chickens calling for their dinner; but Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar and the Villain and Sweetclover paid no heed to them, but only tugged the harder till they had the kite out into the middle of the road. "There are just four of us," said Jackie Tar. "Each man tar to a corner. Quick! All aboard," and it was all they could do to hold down the kite. "Stand by to get the ship under way. Up anchor. Heave ho, lads. Heave ho." But at that moment.... [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII The little Japanese girl returned, pulling her father down the road. The little old man was waving his arms about fiercely and shouting, "Zaca sakasaka," and before the kite had risen from the ground he had reached it, and the next moment Kernel Cob, Sweetclover, the Villain and Jackie Tar were being carried into the toy-shop. "Did you ever see such luck in all your life?" grumbled Kernel Cob. "I might have known it was Friday," said Jackie Tar, for sailors are very superstitious. "Never mind," said the Villain, "we'll get away another day." "Oh, let us hope so," said Sweetclover, "for I don't want to be ripped apart by that bad Japanese." "Well, that's what the toy-maker will do if you don't escape him," said Jackie Tar, and his eyes would have bulged if they had been real ones instead of just painted. "Why doesn't he rip you apart?" asked Kernel Cob. "Because I'm made of wood. I haven't got any stuffings," said Jackie Tar. By this time the four had been laid upon the floor, and the Japanese dolls had started a great clatter of talk. The little girl picked up Sweetclover and was smoothing out her ruffled dress when the Toy-maker took up a pair of scissors and grabbed up Kernel Cob, before he could draw his sword. But at that moment the Fairies must have heard Sweetclover's prayer, for I am sure she must have uttered one when her beloved Kernel Cob was so near to being cut apart. The door opened, and in walked a man, a woman, and a little girl. And they were Americans, too, for the first thing Sweetclover heard was the little girl saying: "Mother dear, I do so want a dollie." "Dorothy wants a doll, John," said the little girl's mother. "Very well," said John, and turning to the Toy-maker said: "You sell doll?" "Me sell him very plenty doll," answered the Toy-maker. "How much for this one?" asked the man, picking up a little Japanese doll. But the little girl had seen Kernel Cob in the Toy-maker's hand, and clapping her hands joyfully said: "Oh, Dad, may I have this one? I think he's so cunning." "How much?" asked Dorothy's father. "Him cost two yen." "Let's see, that's one dollar." "All right," and he took Kernel Cob, and gave the money to the Toy-maker. Now you may be sure that Sweetclover's heart fell, when she heard this, and thought of being separated from Kernel Cob, and I am quite sure that she prayed very hard to the Fairies; for at that moment the little Japanese girl dropped her, and this caused Dorothy to see what had fallen, and, when she saw Sweetclover, she ran and picked her up. "Oh!" she cried with pleasure. "Isn't she lovely. May I have her too?" "Why, I suppose so," said her father. "If she doesn't cost too much." [Illustration] "Him allee same cost like soldier doll," explained the Toy-maker. "Very well," said Dorothy's father, "we'll take him too," and he gave the Toy-maker the money. Sweetclover's heart was beating high with happiness; but suddenly there came into her mind the thought of leaving the Villain; her good, thoughtful friend, who had so often consoled her in her troubles, and her heart fell again. Oh, if she could only talk to little Dorothy and beg her to take the Villain and Jackie Tar; but this she could not do so she prayed to the Fairies instead and at once her prayer was heard; for the Toy-maker, who had a very good business head on his shoulders, ran to the door as Dorothy and her parents were going out and called to them: "Little girl want nice Pirate and Sailor feller? Allee same price like other doll." And Dorothy's father, being a very kind father indeed, and just the right kind of father for every little girl to have, bought them and Dorothy went down the road with the four dolls under her arms. And you may be sure that Sweetclover was happy, for they had not only escaped being ripped apart, but were all together, safe and sound. And Dorothy and her parents went to their hotel in the city, and Dorothy played with her new dolls till her mother came to her and said: "Dorothy, dear, we must pack our things for we are going to China this afternoon." But a great misfortune happened, for when Dorothy's parents arrived in China they were in a great hurry to leave the dock, where the boat landed, and Dorothy, who had fallen asleep, forgot her dolls, and left them on a bench in the waiting room, and before Kernel Cob or Jackie Tar or the Villain or Sweetclover could catch up to her, she had been lifted into her mother's arms and had disappeared in the crowd. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV "Well," said Jackie Tar, "Here we are in China." "I don't see any cups and saucers," said Kernel Cob, looking about the streets. "All I can see is a lot of women with hair hanging down their backs." "Those are men--Chinamen," explained Jackie Tar, for sailors travel all about and know pretty nearly everything about the people of the world. "Well, if they are men," said Kernel Cob, "they ought to have their hair cut, and look like men. And if Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather look like these Chinamen, I don't want to find them at all, for I think a child is better off _without_ parents than having two mothers." "I wish we had never come here at all," said Sweetclover. "Never mind," said the Villain, "we will find a way to get out of here." "Leave it to me," said Jackie Tar. "I've been about this old world enough to know how to manage things." But much as he had been about, he didn't count on the things that happen when you least expect them, for just at that moment, and without any warning, they were picked up by a little Chinese boy who carried them home. "This must be the thirteenth of the month," said Jackie Tar, for you know that people think that the number thirteen brings bad luck. But it wasn't the thirteenth as you will presently see, for it was a very lucky day indeed for our little friends. And they were played with by the little Chinese boy, and, when it came time to go to bed, he took the little dolls with him and for once they were fed a very enjoyable supper of rice and milk, a food which Jackie Tar and the Villain liked, but Kernel Cob said it needed raisins and more sugar, so it might be a rice pudding, and after that they were properly put to bed under nice warm covers, but they did not sleep, you may be sure, but lay awake waiting for the little boy to fall asleep so that they might make their escape. At last the moment arrived, and silently and cautiously they crept from under the covers, and once the Villain stumbled in climbing over the side of the crib, which wakened the little boy, but he must have been very tired for he went to sleep at once without thinking of his dolls. They hurried away in the direction of the water, which Jackie Tar said he knew, for, said he, "A sailor can always smell the salt sea air, no matter how far away he may be." And sure enough, in a few moments they arrived at the water's edge. "Now that we are here," said Kernel Cob, "what's to be done?" "All in good time, Kernel," said Jackie Tar, "Each man to his trade," and he began to look about. "Gather all the sticks you see and bring them to me," said he, and they brought him pieces of wood, large and small, and he chose the largest, and having torn the lining of his jacket into strips, he spliced them into a rope and with this he tied the wood together until he had made a very good raft indeed. And he set the biggest stick of all, which was a bamboo pole, into the raft and tying his jacket with one sleeve at the top, and the other at the bottom of the pole, he had a good sail made in a jiffy. "All aboard," he sang out and they got upon the raft and sat "forward," as he told them, and grasping the tail of his coat in one hand, and the rudder with the other, for he had tied a flat board at the stern of the raft, they set sail. "Where away?" he asked. "I don't care," said Kernel Cob, "as long as we get away from this China place, for I don't like any place that isn't what it says it is." "Aye, aye, sir," said Jackie Tar. "If you take my advice, we'll steer for India." "Why?" asked the Villain. "Because," said Jackie Tar, "from India there is always a ship bound for England and, once in England, we can easily get a ship for America." "Goodie!" said Sweetclover. And so Jackie Tar steered the raft in the direction of India, and they sailed with a good wind. "I thought you said it was the thirteenth of the month?" said the Villain. "I must have made a mistake," said Jackie Tar, "for I never had a better ship in all the years I've sailed the seas." [Illustration] [Illustration] SAILORS When I am grown to be a man I'll be a sailor if I can; For sailors, everywhere they roam Are sure to find a welcome home. They sail upon the many seas We learn of in Geographies, And steer their ship by sun and star From Vera Cruz to Zanzibar. They visit Chili and Japan, And Guyaquil and Yucatan, And they have friends in Martinique And relatives in Mozambique. And all about the world they sail In wind and storm and mighty gale, So they can tell the tales they do That children love to listen to. And so when I am grown a man I'll be a sailor, if I can, And sail upon the many seas We learn of in Geographies. [Illustration] CHAPTER XV And under the skillful command of Jackie Tar, they reached India. "We'd better land at night," said Jackie Tar, "so we won't be bothered with a lot of people watching us." So they waited until it was dark. "I've been thinking," said Jackie Tar. "Once when I was here before, I saw some magicians who did wonderful tricks. They are called Hindus. A Hindu is an Indian." "Oh, I know," said Kernel Cob, "he's got red skin and wears feathers in his hair." "No!" said Jackie Tar. "That's an American Indian; but these Hindus are born in India where we are now." "Tell us about the tricks," said Sweetclover. "Well," said Jackie Tar, "there isn't a trick which they can't do. Once I saw them make a little boy run up a long pole and when he came to the top he disappeared." "You mean to say they can do that?" asked the Villain. "They sure can," answered Jackie Tar. "And my idea is this: If they can do that, maybe they can show you where Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather are." "What makes you so smart, Jackie Tar?" asked the Villain. "I don't know," said he, "I guess I was just born that way." "Well, let's go ashore and ask one of them to help us," said Kernel Cob. "Aye, aye, mates," said Jackie Tar. So they went ashore, and walked along the streets until they came to a little house that Jackie Tar said he remembered as being the house where a magician lived. And they knocked upon the door and it opened. And they went inside and all was quiet and black as night. And they groped their way till they heard a low mumbling sound, and, pulling aside a curtain, they saw an old man with a long white beard, sitting in a room with black furniture and curtains. And he said something to them in a very strange language which they couldn't understand. And Jackie Tar stepped forward and said: "Please, kind magician, we have come to find the motheranfather of Jackie and Peggs. Will you be good enough to help us?" And even as he was speaking a great cloud spread through the room and floated toward the ceiling. In a minute the cloud became thinner, so you could see through it, and at once trees and a house were seen. "It's Jackie and Peggs' garden," said Sweetclover in a breathless whisper. "Look!" And sure enough there was the garden just as they left it, and Jackie and Peggs were playing with Kernel Cob and Sweetclover just as they did on that day they were blown away by the storm. "It's us! It's us!" cried Sweetclover, and as she spoke Peggs came and put the parasol over them and the storm arose that carried them away toward the sky. Then the cloud disappeared, and the vision was gone. "It's the strangest thing I ever saw," and Kernel Cob rubbed his eyes and pinched himself, but he had to admit that he had not been asleep and dreamed it. [Illustration] And the Magician led them into another room through a black curtain, and this new room was blacker than the first one, and they held hands so they wouldn't become separated. In the middle of the room was a great crystal globe which stood upon a low table, and the Magician went to it, and, waving his hand above it, said something which sounded like "Alla ballaboo." And at once the globe began to glow as though there were a fire inside of it. Then the light began to fade until the globe looked like a ball of milk. Again the Magician waved his hand above it and a picture began to show itself upon its surface, like when you develop a photograph plate in a dark room. First the trees, and then a little hut and snow, lots and lots of snow, and then a man with a shovel and a pick on his shoulder, and then a woman and they were roughly dressed. And the man in the picture began to pick the ground, and the woman took the shovel, and they worked and worked. Presently, the man stooped down and picked up what seemed to be a stone, and he showed it eagerly to the woman and she trembled with excitement and the stone glowed. "It must be gold," said Jackie Tar. "They're gold miners." "But who are they?" "I've got it!" cried Kernel Cob. "They're Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," and he danced with joy. But in his excitement he made a great mistake, for in hopping about he bumped into the crystal ball, and knocked it from the little table on which it stood. The Magician rushed to save the globe from falling, but he was too late. It came to the floor and crashed into a thousand pieces. When he saw what was done and who had done it, he turned on Kernel Cob, and it was with great difficulty that Kernel Cob got out of his way. Out into the street ran Kernel Cob, followed by Sweetclover, the Villain and Jackie Tar, the Magician in hot pursuit, and only that he was a very old man he would have caught them. But he didn't, thank goodness! and at last they arrived at the raft. "Well," said Jackie Tar, when they were safely seated, "one thing we know, anyway, and that is that Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather are living somewhere in the snow, and if it hadn't been for Kernel Cob...." But he didn't finish what he was going to say, for, looking at Kernel Cob, he discovered him doing something that he had never done before--CRYING! Sweetclover ran to him. "Oh, Kernel Cob!" she cried, "what is it. Are you hurt?" "Oh," he sobbed, "if it weren't for me, maybe we would have found out all about Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, and maybe the Magician would have showed us how to get there," and he cried as if his heart would break. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI And they sat upon the raft and talked it all over, what was to be done, and how they were to do it. "Well," said Jackie Tar, "the nearest gold mines to us are in Africa." "Have they got snow around them?" asked Sweetclover. "Why, no, that's so," said Jackie Tar. "Where else?" asked the Villain. "We can go down to the South Pole," said Jackie Tar. At which Kernel Cob began to laugh. "You don't expect to find any snow at the South Pole, do you?" he asked. "Why not?" said Jackie Tar. "It'll be too hot," answered Kernel Cob. And it took about half an hour to explain to him how it got colder the farther south you went, after you crossed the equator. So they set sail for the South Pole. And after they had sailed for a couple of days and nights, there suddenly arose a great hurricane. The wind raged and their tiny raft was blown clear out of the water. "I hope I may never have to go to sea again," said the Villain. "And I wouldn't much care, if I fell into the water and were drowned." But he clung to the mast just the same, for everybody loves to live no matter how miserable they may be, because they always hope that things will be better. Soon a bit of land was seen, and you may be sure that when they saw that there was a great shout of joy, especially from the Villain. Toward this they steered and in a little while Jackie Tar, who had been watching very closely, cried out that it was Venice. And they sailed toward Venice, which, as you know, is a city in Italy, and is built on a number of little islands and the streets are nearly all of water. "I think it is silly to go on," said Sweetclover, "for we know that Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather are not here, but somewhere in the mines." "That's so," said Kernel Cob, "Let's turn 'round and sail for the South Pole again." "Please don't," said the Villain, "I couldn't stand it. Isn't there some way that we can get to the South Pole by walking?" "Not that I know of," said Jackie Tar, "unless you were a crab and crawled along the bottom of the ocean." "Very well," said the Villain. "I'll try not to complain." "Cheer up," said Kernel Cob, "all our troubles are over," and so he thought, for the sea wasn't any rougher than the water in a bath tub. But often when you think there isn't anything going to happen, that's just the time when it does. You see the raft had been blown about a great deal, so it wasn't very strange that the pieces of wood had come apart here and there. The first they knew of their danger, the piece of wood that Sweetclover had been sitting on broke loose from the rest of the raft and began to float away and Kernel Cob jumped into the water to save her. He caught the piece of wood with so much strength that he toppled Sweetclover over into the water, and then he lost his head, I mean not really his head, you know, but only that he got excited and let go of the stick. The Villain, who couldn't swim at all, jumped in after them and all he did was to make matters worse. Jackie Tar tried to tell them what to do, but they were too startled to pay any attention to him. So in he plunged and swam to them, for he was a very good swimmer. When he reached them they were all floundering about, so he dived down and came up in the midst of them. "Put your hands gently on my shoulders," he ordered, "and don't weigh down or you will push me under." And when they had done this he looked about, but the raft was nowhere to be seen except for a few pieces of wood drifting about. They were about a mile from shore, which is a pretty good swim for one man alone, but here he was with three others who couldn't swim one stroke. But Jackie Tar was a brave sailor. Besides, he thought, "Here is a chance for me to show Kernel Cob that he is not the only brave person in the world." "Pull off your coat," he shouted to the Villain, and the Villain pulled it off. "Now tie one of the sleeves about my foot," he cried, and it was done. "Now each of you catch hold of the jacket and hang on for dear life and I'll see if I can pull you to shore." So he started swimming, and little by little he neared the land, swimming with a strong stroke until he brought them safely to the beach. You may think he was tired, but not so, for when they got up on their feet, and walked ashore, he simply knocked his heels together and danced a hornpipe and sang: "A sailor's life's the life for me." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVII And they sat upon the shore until Jackie Tar had finished his song about the Sailor's Life, and by that time their clothing was pretty well dried out from their swim, so they got up and wandered toward the city and it wasn't an easy thing to do, for they had a lot of bridges to cross and they had no boat. "I think the best thing to do," said the Villain, "is to find a toy-store, for there some doll can tell us what to do." So they kept an eye out for a toy-store, and pretty soon they found one. "I'd better go in alone," said Kernel Cob, "because I'm the bravest and have a sword and can fight if any trouble arises." "Aye, aye, skipper," said Jackie Tar. So Kernel Cob crept very carefully into the shop and very lucky he did so, for the shopkeeper was there although he was asleep. On a shelf stood a row of soldiers. And Kernel Cob saluted them and said, "I am Kernel Cob of the United States Army," at which the soldiers gave him three cheers. "My friends and I," said Kernel Cob, "are looking for the South Pole, where we hope to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, and I thought maybe you could help us." But not one of them answered him for they didn't know what he had said. "I guess tin soldiers are deaf," said he. "No, they're not," said a voice behind him, "only these are Italians and do not understand English." And looking behind him, Kernel Cob discovered an English clown doll who turned a somersault and came up on his feet with a merry laugh. "Good for you," said Kernel Cob, "I wish I could do that." "Everybody to his trade," said the clown, and stood upon his head. "Maybe you'd be good enough to stay upon your feet till I find out what I want to know," said Kernel Cob. And the Clown sprang into the air, turned over three or four times, and landed neatly upon his feet again. "What is it you want to know?" he asked. "First I want to know why you don't keep still?" asked Kernel Cob, for the Clown's antics made him nervous. "I'm a Circus Clown," said he, "and I just turn these hand-springs all day." So Kernel Cob looked about the store, but could see nobody else that looked as if he could talk English. "What do you do all day without anybody to talk to?" he asked the Clown at length. "Oh," said the Clown, "I tell myself funny stories to make me laugh, and then I have my hand-springs to make; that keeps me pretty busy," and he rolled along the shelf, head over heels. "Well, I always thought a Clown was a silly fellow," said Kernel Cob, "but now I'm sure of it," and he turned upon his heel and walked out of the store. When he got outside he told the others that it was no use trying to find out anything that way. So they walked along till night came and they crawled into a boat, which is called a gondola, and wait to sleep. During the night, they were wakened by the movement of the boat, and looking out they saw that they were in motion. A man in a white suit and a red sash was paddling the gondola with a long oar, and he was singing a very beautiful song, and the moonlight was on the water. And they passed many other gondolas, and all the men who paddled were singing beautiful songs. "I would like to live here," whispered the Villain, "everybody seems to be so happy." "So would I," said Sweetclover. "I love to hear beautiful music, but we have to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather." And being tired, they fell asleep and early in the morning their gondola was resting at the side of some marble steps which led up to a great square called Saint Mark's. So they got out of the gondola and walked across the square, for there wasn't anybody to be seen at so early an hour in the morning. And a great number of pigeons were flying about. Thousands and thousands of them. And Jackie Tar had a wonderful idea. "Let's ask the pigeons if they will help us." "Goodie!" said Sweetclover. So they went up to a group of pigeons which were strutting along the ground, picking grain which the people throw to them in the day time. "Hello! hello!" said Jackie Tar, and in a minute about a hundred pigeons gathered about them. And he said he wanted some of them to help him get to the South Pole. "I'll do it," said one of them, and he stepped up to Jackie Tar. "Good for you, matey," said Jackie Tar. "I've always wanted to travel," said the pigeon, "for I'm tired flying around here and I'd like to see the world." "So would I," said another. "And I." [Illustration] "And I." "And I," cried three or four more. You see pigeons are like people, for, lots of times, people want to do things but they wait and wait and wait till some one starts it. "Four are all we need," said Jackie Tar, "one for each of us." So the pigeons crowded about and begged and begged to be taken, and Kernel Cob and Sweetclover and the Villain and Jackie Tar chose the biggest and strongest, and the ones that they liked the color of the best. But one of the pigeons didn't want to go to the South Pole, for, said she, "You don't hear as much of the South Pole as you do of the North Pole, and unless you go to the North Pole, I won't go." So it was decided to go to the North Pole, "For," said Kernel Cob, "I don't think it makes any difference after all. The Magician didn't say which pole it was, so maybe it's just as well." "I say let's go to the North Pole," said Jackie Tar, "and, if we don't find them there, we can very easily try the South Pole next." "Yes," said Kernel Cob, "let's go to all the Poles there are until we find the right one." So they got upon the pigeons' backs, just as a little boy or girl gets on a pony, and one of the pigeons, the one that Sweetclover was on, said to the others: "Let's make a race of it for the first mile." "Good!" squeaked the others, and off they flew at their top speed. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII It was a most exciting race, for they were pretty evenly matched in strength and speed, but one of them did win the race, and you will be very glad to know that it was the one on which Sweetclover was riding. "Hurrah!" shouted the Villain, for he was better pleased that she had won than if he had won himself. And they flew all day over Italy and, looking down, they saw people working in the fields and the vineyards, growing rice and grapes and all the fruits that come from Italy, and always they heard the people singing beautiful songs of gladness. "I wonder what makes them so happy?" said the Villain. "It's because it's such a beautiful country, I guess," said Sweetclover. And they flew over the lakes which lie between Italy and Switzerland, and on all sides were mountains, the tops of which are always covered with snow. Soon they came to Switzerland, which is away up in the mountains and very beautiful. People travel from all parts of the world to climb these mountains and to see the wonderful scenery. "Maybe it's here we are to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," said the Villain, "and not at the North Pole at all." "Oh, I hope so," said Sweetclover. It was getting very cold now, for you know that the higher you go up in the air, the colder it gets. That's why there's snow on the mountain tops. And it began to storm; at first tiny flakes of snow fell, and then faster and thicker till it was snowing very hard, and the pigeons could scarcely see where they were flying. "It seems to me," said the Villain, "that every time I get upon a boat or a bird or anything, it begins to storm." By this time it was really a blizzard and one by one the poor pigeons' wings became so covered with snow they could not fly and fell to the ground and lay on the snow. Of course they fell in different places, and Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar and Sweetclover and the Villain were separated. Each one looked about for the others as best he could and, after much searching about, the Villain found Sweetclover huddled in the snow and very cold indeed. So he pulled off his coat and wrapped it about her shoulders, although she tried her best to prevent him from making such a sacrifice, but he said: "I will certainly suffer more seeing you shiver, than I would from the cold itself." You see he was a kind-hearted Villain, and it was too bad that he was painted to look like one at all. So he dug a hole in a snowbank and they crawled into it, and in that way they were shielded from the wind. Night came on and Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar searched about, but it was so dark that they could not tell where they were going, but only went round and round in circles. In the morning the snow stopped falling, and if it hadn't been so cold it would have been a very beautiful sight. Snow lay all about them as far as the eye could reach. [Illustration] You must know that in the Alps mountains, where they were, there are dogs, and very wonderful dogs they are, who live in the snowy mountains and are trained to go about to find lost travellers and to help them. And one of these dogs came sniffing along and the first thing he did was to find the Villain, and you can imagine his and Sweetclover's delight when they saw him. Around his neck was a little knapsack, and this he told them to untie and they would find food and a roll of fine warm wool inside. And putting the wool about them they were soon warm as toast. "Let us try to find Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar before they die of the cold," said the Villain. "Very well," said Saint Bernard, for that was the name of the dog, "Come with me and we'll soon find them." So he asked them to climb upon his back and he trotted off, and pretty soon they came to a spot where Jackie Tar's head was sticking up out of the snow. In a jiffy they had him out and sitting on the Dog's back. "Hurrah!" shouted the Villain, "now for Kernel Cob." In less than a minute they came to a little mound of snow. So the Dog trotted up to it, and round on the other side they discovered an opening like a door, and inside lay Kernel Cob asleep, snoring away like anything. So they wakened him and he was glad to see them, you may be sure. And he climbed upon the Dog's back and all four rode off. "Where are you going?" he asked them. "We were on our way to the North Pole when our pigeons died," explained Jackie Tar. "I'd like to take you there, if I could," said the Dog, "but I can't leave my work here. But I'll take you to the foot of the mountains, and there I'll have you meet a friend of mine who will take you to a ship going to the North Pole." "Thank you very much," said Sweetclover. "We shall never be able to pay you for your kindness." "Thank you, Miss," said the Dog. "I'm sure it will make me very happy to know that I helped you." And when they arrived at the foot of the mountain he introduced them to his friend, a French poodle named Pierre, and when it was come time to say good-bye, he gave them each his paw and the last they saw of him was his bushy tail wagging behind him, as he trotted up the snowy mountain where he did so much good. [Illustration] I love dogs best of all God's creatures, They have such noble, honest features, You never really have to scold 'em Because they do just what you've told 'em. And even dogs that have no beauty Are always quick to do their duty, For they are faithful friends, and true, And gladly give their lives for you. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX "Well," said their new friend Pierre, "That was a bad storm." "We would have been lost in the snow, if it had not been for your good friend Saint Bernard," said Sweetclover. And Pierre took them to a seaport and put them on a sailing vessel which is called a whaler. "I have heard that this ship makes many voyages to the North," said Pierre, "And I'm sure that it will take you where you want to go." "You are very kind," said Sweetclover, "and we shall always remember how good you have been to us." "It is a pleasure to be of service to you," said Pierre. And they said good-bye to him and went aboard the whaler. The next morning the vessel set sail amid great cheering from a crowd which had gathered on the dock, and for days they sailed and sailed, and it got colder and colder till the vessel came to great fields of ice. But the dolls were happy, for they thought they were getting close to the North Pole and soon they would find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather. "Do you think you will know them when you see them?" asked Jackie Tar. "I'm sure of it," answered Kernel Cob, "for I remember just the way they looked in the glass ball that the Magician showed us in India." And one night as they were sailing along, the dolls crept out on the deck to see where they might be, for all the time they were on the ship they were down in the hold to be out of sight. And they sat on a coil of rope but could see nothing except the great wide sea and the beautiful blue sky. And they fell asleep. But the vessel began to rock and, waking, they saw that a storm had risen. "Quick," said the Villain, "we must get down out of danger, for if we sit here we shall be swept overboard." But Kernel Cob who loved all sorts of adventures didn't want to go. "I love to be in danger," said he. "That's not sensible," said Sweetclover. "There is enough danger in the world without looking for more of it. Come, let us go." And the storm grew worse and worse, and the vessel was rolling and it was with great difficulty that they could stand. And now something very sad was about to happen, something I would like not to tell you, but it really happened, so I must. As Sweetclover stood up to move she slipped and fell upon the deck and would have rolled overboard if the Villain hadn't caught her, but alas! his generous action brought about his own misfortune for the vessel lurched at that moment and he was carried down to the side and before he could regain his balance he was swept overboard. There was no time to stand there, for nothing could be done and sadly Kernel Cob lifted Sweetclover and carried her below. [Illustration] Let us not dwell upon the sadness of our poor little friends, but let us feel sure that no matter how long they live and no matter where they go, they will always remember this good, true, unselfish friend who was willing to lose his own life to save another's. * * * * * And at length the vessel stuck in the ice and that was as far as they could go. Kernel Cob put his head out of the window of the vessel, which is called a port-hole, and saw nothing but ice, great fields of ice, greenish white and it was bitter cold. But Sweetclover had found some strips of woolen cloth on the ship which Jackie Tar had torn and tied about them to keep them warm, for sailors, you know, are very handy because they have no women about to help them to sew their clothes and cannot be running to the stores to buy things. [Illustration] VILLAINS A Villain must be very horrid To wear a frown upon his forehead And lead a wicked pirate crew To do the awful things they do. It's quite as easy to be good And kind to all, as children should, For grown-ups never give you toys If you are naughty girls and boys. Besides, if you do what is right Your mother kisses you at night, And who could sleep in peaceful bliss Without a mother's good-night kiss? [Illustration] CHAPTER XX And Jackie Tar had found a little compass on the ship, and this he had put in his pocket, for said he: "You can never tell when you may be lost around the North Pole." So they went ashore and, after Jackie had taken his bearings with his compass to see which way to go, they set out to walk to the North Pole. And after they had walked for hours and hours, they saw a little bear, which is called a cub. "I wonder if he is a tame bear," said Sweetclover. And Kernel Cob went up to him as brave as you please and put out his hand to the bear and said: "Hello, Teddy!" but the bear growled and showed his teeth. "Don't start anything like that," said Kernel Cob, "unless you want to get hurt." "Well, don't you call me names," said the Cub. "Who's calling you names?" asked Kernel Cob. "You are," said the Cub. "What name did I call you?" asked Kernel Cob. "Would you like to be called after a make-believe bear if you were a real one?" asked the Cub. "No, I guess not," said Kernel Cob. "Well then," said the Cub. "Excuse me," said Kernel Cob, for he liked to see anybody who had spunk. And they shook hands and were friends at once. "Who are you?" asked the Cub, "and what are you doing up here?" "I'm Kernel Cob," said he, "and this is Sweetclover and Jackie Tar," and the cub came forward and shook hands with them, and really he had very nice manners for a bear who lived so far away from nice people and things. "You haven't told me what you are doing way up here." "We're looking for Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather," answered Kernel Cob, "and we believe they are up here near the North Pole. Are we far away from it?" "About a hundred miles or so," said Wak Wak, for that was the cub's name. "Goodness," said Sweetclover, "how are we ever going to walk so far in this dreadful cold." "If you'll come to my cubby hole," said Wak Wak, "we can sit down and talk it over. It's not far." So they came to his cubby hole, they went inside and it was nice and warm and comfortable. "You must stay the night with me," he said. So he covered them over with some pieces of fur and they all went to sleep. But, in the middle of the night, they were awakened by loud yelping, and running to the doorway of the hole they saw thousands and thousands of what looked like little lanterns dancing on the ice. "What are all these lights for?" said Kernel Cob. "Those aren't lights," said the Cub, "those are eyes." "Who's eyes?" asked Sweetclover. "Wolves' eyes," said the Cub. "Stand back inside of the hole," said Kernel Cob, and he drew his sword and stepped outside. On came the wolves, yelping and growling and showing their great yellow teeth. And one by one as they came up to devour our little friends, Kernel Cob's sword flashed, and with each stroke down came a wolf. And when the last one had been slain Kernel Cob wiped his sword upon his coat and went inside. "Well," said Wak Wak, "I'm glad I'm not a wolf. That's the greatest fight I have ever seen." But Kernel Cob put his sword away and lay down to finish his sleep as if nothing had happened. In the morning when they got up they went outside and counted the wolves and they numbered two thousand, three hundred and twenty-one. But Kernel Cob turned his head away, for brave people are always modest and cannot bear to hear themselves praised. Later in the day Wak Wak took them to a friend of his, a pack-dog that he knew. A fine chap he was, and when he had heard our little friends' story, he was very willing to help them. "If you can rig up a sled I'll take you to the North Pole, and very gladly." "Why can't we sit on your back?" asked Jackie Tar. "I can't bear to have anything on my back," answered Speed, for that was his name. "I guess I can take care of the sled," said Jackie Tar, "if I can find some scraps of wood." "There are some staves of an old barrel not far from here," said Speed, "and if you will come with me, you can see for yourselves if they will do." So they went with him, and Jackie Tar found them very good indeed, and in a short while had tied them together. So they hopped on, sitting one behind the other, Sweetclover in the middle, and waving good-bye to Wak Wak, they soon were gliding over the ice at a great clip. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXI Over the ice they went like lightning, drawn by the pack-dog, Speed. "I don't know of any name that would be better for him," said Sweetclover. "He goes as swiftly as the Condor did, do you remember?" Kernel Cob did remember, but he didn't want Sweetclover to think any more about the past for, thought he: "If she remembers the Condor she will remember the Villain, and the first thing you know we will be swimming in her tears and I can't stand crying. It makes me very angry." So he drew her attention to the scenery, although there was precious little of that, only ice. "I wonder where we are," said Jackie Tar, and he looked at his compass. "Whoa," he cried excitedly, and Speed came to a stop and sat down on the ice. "Here we are," said Jackie Tar. "Here?" asked Kernel Cob. "Where?" "The North Pole," said Jackie Tar. "I don't see any pole," said Kernel Cob, and Jackie Tar laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks and fell off in little icicles. "You didn't suppose there really was a pole, did you?" "Of course," said Kernel Cob. "I thought everyone knew that there wasn't a real pole here," answered Jackie. "Then what do you call it a pole for?" asked Kernel Cob. "I don't know," said Jackie Tar, "only I know there isn't a pole. It's just called that." "I don't believe you've found it at all," said Kernel Cob. "Oh yes," said Jackie Tar, "of that you may be sure for my compass tells me that this is the top of the world." "Well," said Kernel Cob, "that's the silliest thing I ever heard, for I thought we would see a great pole sticking high in the air." And they got off their sled and walked about. "Why did you want to come here?" asked Speed. "You see," explained Kernel Cob, "we are looking for Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, and once when we were in India a Hoodoo ..." "A Hindoo you mean," corrected Jackie Tar. "A Hindoo," said Kernel Cob, "showed us on a crystal ball a picture of them in the snow, digging for gold. So we thought if we got to the North Pole we would find them." "Nobody comes to the North Pole to dig gold," said Speed. "Why not?" asked Sweetclover. "Because there isn't any gold here," said the dog. "There isn't?" asked Sweetclover. "No," answered Speed. "This is a funny world," said Kernel Cob, "the North Pole isn't a pole at all, and after we get here there isn't any gold mine. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that I wasn't alive." "The nearest gold mine that I ever heard of in these parts," said Speed, "is in the Yukon." "Where's that?" asked Kernel Cob. "In Alaska," answered Speed. "Is that far?" asked Sweetclover. "Yes, it's a great distance from here, but if you like I'll take you there." "You're very kind," said Sweetclover. "It's a pleasure to do for people who are so good," said Speed. So after Kernel Cob dug their names in the ice with his sword, they got on their sled and Speed started off again. "How do you know how to go to Yukon?" asked Sweetclover. "Oh, I've been over the ice lots and lots of times," said he. And they travelled all day. "I never saw such a long day," said Kernel Cob, "the sun doesn't seem to go down, but only round and round." "That's because we are so high on the earth," said Speed. "Some nights are six months long." But nothing could induce Kernel Cob to believe this, "For," said he, "I won't believe anything more about the world as long as I live." And after a few days they came to a place where the ice was broken, and they had to cross by floating on huge cakes of ice, which was very exciting. They were crossing on one of these once, and Kernel Cob and Sweetclover had gone across with Speed, when the cake of ice on which they were waiting for Jackie Tar, split suddenly, and Jackie Tar was left behind on a small piece. In vain they tried to catch him and slowly but surely he began to drift away from them farther and farther, and all they could do was to watch him fade out of sight. "Oh," cried Sweetclover, "we shall never see him again. "Will he be killed?" "I don't know," said Speed. "He's got a good chance of being picked up by a vessel, if he ever floats down south far enough." "Oh, I hope so," cried Sweetclover, "for he is such a brave sailor and was so good to us." And after Kernel Cob and Sweetclover had said a prayer to the fairies to take good care of Jackie Tar, they drove away in their sled and at length came to the Yukon. [Illustration] A PRAYER FOR JACKIE TAR Do not think it very nice To travel on a cake of ice Except in Summer when it's hot; But in the Winter, when it's not And icy winds blow in my face I like an open fireplace Where I can watch the glowing flames Or play upon the floor with games. So let us say a fervent prayer That Jackie Tar may land somewhere Beyond the sweep of wind and storm Where he may find it safe and warm. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII When they reached the Yukon, they told Speed not to go near the city or wait where he was, for they had been captured so often by people they wanted to stay away from them. So Speed took them up into the hills where they made their camp. But they hadn't been there a day when Speed was caught by a number of men, and again Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were left alone to work things out the best way they could. Sweetclover was very much discouraged, for said she: "Now that we are here and have lost all our friends, and with no one to help us, I don't see how we are ever to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather." But that only made Kernel Cob the more determined. "I've told you a thousand times that I'll find them, and find them I will." "Well," said Sweetclover, "I certainly hope so, but I'm sure I cannot see how it is going to be done." "You'll see if I am not right," said Kernel Cob. But nothing happened to raise their hopes. So they went up into the hills in search of a scene that looked like the one that the Magician had shown them on the crystal ball in India, and they walked about all day until, tired and worn out, they crept into a hollow stump to rest. They slept all night and in the morning they walked on. They were pretty high up in the mountains now, and Sweetclover, who was very tired, began to cry. "Oh dear, oh dear," said she, "will nothing ever happen to help us?" And just then something did happen; something that looked as if it were going to do them a great deal of harm, but which really did them a great deal of good and it was this: High over their heads, so small that you could scarcely see it, was an eagle. He was flying about in circles that brought him nearer and nearer to where Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were sitting. Closer and closer he flew, and still they didn't see him until it was too late. With a cry of alarm, Sweetclover jumped to her feet but the eagle caught her up in a powerful claw. Kernel Cob had been slow to see the danger, and by the time he had drawn his sword and was ready for the attack, he, too, had been caught and was struggling in the eagle's grasp. You know, of course, that eagles carry things off to their nests, and I suppose this one thought that Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were babies, and would be nice for Mrs. Eagle to play with. So, with the two dolls in his claws, he rose up from the ground with a great swoop. CRACK! The sound of a rifle and a bullet ripped through Kernel Cob's hat and struck the eagle full in the breast. His wings fluttered for a minute, and then with a plunge like a ball of lead he fell to the earth. "Well, well, well!" said Kernel Cob, as they lay under the eagle, "that was a pretty close shave." "I wonder who did it," said Sweetclover. "I don't know," said Kernel Cob, "but whoever it was did us a very good turn, for if he hadn't killed the Eagle we'd have been pulled to pieces in his nest, just to see what was inside of us. But come, we must get out of here before the hunter comes to take us, for surely he will want to keep the Eagle." "I don't see how we are to get out of here," said Sweetclover, "for this Eagle weighs about a thousand pounds. I can't move, can you?" And when Kernel Cob attempted to pull himself from under the Eagle he found he couldn't do it without pulling off his legs, and he was too sensible to think he could get far without them. By this time the hunter who had shot the Eagle came running up, followed by another. "It was a mighty foolish thing to do, John. I'll bet you've killed the children," said the second one. And they came and lifted the Eagle. "I thought so," said the same voice. "Both of 'em dead." But the hunter, called John, had stooped and picked up Kernel Cob, and was examining him with a curious smile. "Why, Margaret," he said, "they're dolls." And you should have seen Kernel Cob's face as he turned to Sweetclover and said: "I don't see any woman, do you?" But Sweetclover only smiled. "Do you see the one that isn't John?" she said. "Of course," said Kernel Cob, "I'm not blind." "Well," said Sweetclover, "she's a woman." "But she's got a man's suit on," said Kernel Cob. "Well, that doesn't make her a man." said Sweetclover. "What'll women be doing next," said Kernel Cob. And John and Margaret took Kernel Cob and walked to the edge of the lake where there was a sled which they started to pull to the opposite shore over the ice, for the lake was frozen over. And on the sledge were a great number of bags of gold. "Be careful," said Margaret, "If we were to go through the ice every bag of gold would be lost and all our five years' work would go for nothing." And just then, as is often the case, the very thing happened. They were crossing a bit of new ice when a cracking sound warned them, but it was too late to avoid the disaster, and the sledge, weighed down by the gold, went through the ice and was no more to be seen. Of course there was nothing to be done, and, discouraged, they made their way to the shore and sat down and thought and thought and thought. "We'll have to go back to the mines and start all over again," said John with a sigh. And they picked up Kernel Cob and Sweetclover, and walked on. And after a little while, John and Margaret sat down on a log and were silent for a long time. John had Kernel Cob on his knee, and Margaret had Sweetclover in her lap, and neither of them spoke, but looked far off without seeing anything except what had happened years and years ago and left only a picture in their minds. And Margaret sighed and turning to John said: "John dear, don't let us try to find any more gold. What good will all the gold in the world be to us without the children?" And John raised his head, and you could see tears in his eyes. "Little wife," he said, "you are right. Children are the greatest riches in the world. Let us go back to ours." And Margaret just smiled and kissed him. And they went down the mountain side with smiling faces, carrying Kernel Cob and Sweetclover with them. "I'm blest if I can understand any of this at all," said Kernel Cob. But Sweetclover only laughed. "Men dolls, especially Soldiers, are the stupidest things in the whole world," she said. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIII And John and Margaret went down the mountain and in due time reached San Francisco. And Margaret said: "I wonder if the children will remember us?" "I don't think so," said John, "for I believe they think we are dead. We haven't heard from them since that time, a year ago, when there was a report in the newspapers that we were lost in a snow storm." "Dear little children," sighed Margaret, "I hope it hasn't made them unhappy. Let's send a telegram that we're coming." "No," said John; "let's surprise them." And they got upon the train and for five days they rode and during all that time they played with Kernel Cob and Sweetclover, just as children would. And a happy smile lit up Margaret's face, for when she was dressed in woman's clothes and had on a hat with pretty flowers on it, she looked very beautiful, and as she was very happy and always smiling, it made her look more beautiful, for everybody looks more beautiful when they smile. "I wonder where we are going?" said Kernel Cob. "You will see," said Sweetclover. "I know I will see," said Kernel Cob. "Only I am going to escape from here the first thing I can." "Don't you dare," said Sweetclover. "Why not," said Kernel Cob, "don't you want to find Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather?" "Not any more," said Sweetclover with a smile. "Girl dolls, especially flowers, are the silliest things in the world," said Kernel Cob. "And if you don't want to come I will have to go alone, for I have sworn to find them and no power on earth will stop me." At this Sweetclover was very much alarmed. "Kernel Cob," said she, "if you don't get down on your knees and promise by all the Fairies that you will not attempt to escape, I'll never speak to you again." "But," said he. "Never mind," said Sweetclover "do as I tell you this minute." "Very well," said Kernel Cob, and he got upon his knees and promised. But he felt very sad about it for he said: "Now, we shall never find them." "Yes, we shall," said Sweetclover and she laughed so loudly that Kernel Cob was afraid that she would have hysterics. And finally the train came to a stop and the conductor came through calling, "New York, Grand Central Depot," and Margaret picked up Sweetclover and John picked up Kernel Cob, and they got into another train and rode a little way and got out again at another station called Orange. And they got into a wagon and told the driver to drive like lightning, and in a few minutes they came to a little white house with honeysuckle growing all about, and they jumped out of the wagon and were in such a hurry that they forgot to pay the driver. And they rushed up the path and opened a little white gate in a little white fence, and up another little path till they came to the little white house. "They're going crazy," said Kernel Cob, under John's arm. "You will see why in a minute," said Sweetclover who was tucked under Margaret's arm. [Illustration] And John pushed open the door and rushed into the house followed by Margaret, and, finding no one inside, they ran through and out into the garden, which was a very pretty little garden with beautiful flowers growing in it. And in the middle of the garden sat a little boy and a little girl and they were making mud cakes. And when John saw them he shouted with a great glad cry. "JACKIE!" "PEGGS!" And Margaret sank down upon the garden path, for she was so happy that she couldn't move another inch. And the two children stopped playing and turned to John and Margaret and a look of wild happiness came into their faces, and Jackie jumped to his feet and ran to John and threw himself into his outstretched arms and cried: "FATHER!" And Peggs ran to Margaret and was hugged and hugged in her loving arms. And all the time Kernel Cob was trying to understand what was going on, for he knew Jackie and Peggs the moment he saw them, but couldn't get into his head that Margaret and John were their motheranfather. "You dear, blessed children," cried John hugging them first one and then the other, "and to think that we could have ever left you to go hunt for gold." "And to think," said Margaret, "that these dolls should have been sent by Providence, way out to the Yukon to remind us that children are the greatest riches in the world." And she held the dolls up in her hands. "It's Kernel Cob and Sweetclover!" shouted Jackie and Peggs together, and in a jiffy they had them in their arms. And they all had a wonderful party of ice cream and cakes and puddings and candies, the best party ever you saw. "This is the happiest day of my life," said Father. "It is indeed," said Mother. "I never thought I could be so happy," said Peggs. "You bet," said Jackie. "Well," said Sweetclover to Kernel Cob, "now do you understand?" "Huh," said Kernel Cob, "I knew it all the time, only I didn't want to spoil the surprise for you." "But what I want to know," said Peggs, "is how Kernel Cob and Little Miss Sweetclover never wilted like all the other flowers, but have kept as fresh as the day we made them." "I'll tell you why," said Jackie, and he looked very wise. "It's because they are fairy dolls and everybody knows that fairies live on forever and forever!" [Illustration: The End.] * * * * * [Illustration] Dear Children: Although we have been all over the world and even up to the moon, we have never seen any books that you will like better (we think) than the other books in the Volland "Happy Children" Series, to which we belong. Here they are: WINKLE, TWINKLE AND LOLLYPOP By Nina Wilcox Putnam and Norman Jacobsen, illustrated by Katharine Sturges Dodge THE PERHAPPSY CHAPS By Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by Arthur Henderson RAGGEDY ANN Written and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle MY VERY OWN FAIRY STORIES Written and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle RHYMES FOR KINDLY CHILDREN By Fairmont Snyder, illustrated by Johnny Gruelle QUACKY DOODLES' AND DANNY DADDLES BOOK By Rose Strong Hubbell, illustrated by Johnny Gruelle You can get any one of these beautiful books from your Book Man, but if he hasn't got them, write to our publishers, P.F. VOLLAND COMPANY, at Chicago, Illinois. Lovingly yours, Kernel Cob Little Miss Sweetclover 
17371	----	RAGGEDY ANDY STORIES [Illustration: Raggedy Andy on a bar] RAGGEDY ANDY STORIES Introducing the Little Rag Brother of Raggedy Ann Written & Illustrated by JOHNNY GRUELLE [Illustration: Raggedy Andy] LITTLE SIMON New York London Toronto Sydney [Illustration: TO MARCELLA'S MAMA] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy bowing] Gainsville, Florida, January 8, 1919. Johnny Gruelle, Care of P. F. Volland Company. Chicago, Ill. Dear Johnny: When I saw your Raggedy Ann books and dolls in a store near here, I went right in and bought one of each, and when I had read your introduction to "Raggedy Ann" I went right up to an old trunk in my own attic and brought down the doll I am sending you with this letter. This doll belonged to my mother and she played with it when a little girl. She treasured it highly, I know, for she kept it until I came and then she gave it to me. The fun that we two have had together I cannot begin to tell you, but often, like the little boy who went out into the garden to eat worms when all the world seemed blue and clouded, this doll and I went out under the arbor and had our little cry together. I can still feel it's soft rag arms (as I used to imagine) about me, and hear the words of comfort (also imaginary) that were whispered in my ear. As you say in your Raggedy Ann book, "Fairyland must be filled with rag dolls, soft loppy rag dolls who go through all the beautiful adventures found there, nestling in the crook of a dimpled arm." I truly believe there is such a fairyland and that rag dolls were first made there, or how else could they bring so much sunshine into a child's life? [Illustration: Raggedy Ann bowing] All the little girls of my acquaintance have your Raggedy Ann book and doll, and for the happiness you have brought to them let me give to you the doll of all my dolls, the doll I loved most dearly. May it prove to you a gift from Fairyland, bringing with it all the "wish come true" that you may wish and, if possible, add to the sunshine in your life. My mother called the doll Raggedy Andy and it was by this name that I have always known him. Is it any wonder that I was surprised when I saw the title of your book? Introduce Raggedy Andy to Raggedy Ann, dear Johnny. Let him share in the happiness of your household. Sincerely yours, Raggedy Andy's "Mama." * * * * * Wilton, Connecticut, January 12, 1919. Dear John: Your letter brings many pleasant memories to my mind and takes me back to my childhood. Living next door to us, when I was about four years old, was a little girl named Bessie; I cannot recall her last name. When my mother made Raggedy Ann for me, Bessie's mother made a rag doll for her, for we two always played together; as I recall, there was no fence between our two houses. Bessie's doll was made a day or so after Raggedy Ann, I think, though I am not quite certain which of the two dolls was made first. However, Bessie's doll was given the name of Raggedy Andy, and one of the two dolls was named after the other, so that their names would sound alike. We children played with the two rag dolls most of the time until Bessie's family moved away--when I was eight or nine years old. They had faces just alike; the mother who made the first doll probably painted both doll faces. I do not remember just how Raggedy Andy was dressed, but I know he often wore dresses over his boy clothes when Bessie and I decided that he and Raggedy Ann should be sisters for the day. You will remember I told you about Raggedy Andy long ago, John. Isn't it strange that the two old rag dolls should come together after all these years? I wish Raggedy Andy's "Mama" had signed her name, for I should like to write to her. Perhaps there may be some way of finding her out. Anyway, it seems to me you have the subject for another rag doll book, for Raggedy Andy must have had some wonderful adventures in his long life. Yours lovingly, Mom. * * * * * CONTENTS HOW RAGGEDY ANDY CAME THE NURSERY DANCE THE SPINNING WHEEL THE TAFFY PULL THE RABBIT CHASE THE NEW TIN GUTTER DOCTOR RAGGEDY ANDY RAGGEDY ANDY'S SMILE THE WOODEN HORSE MAKING "ANGELS" IN THE SNOW THE SINGING SHELL [Illustration: Raggedy Ann and Books] HOW RAGGEDY ANDY CAME One day Daddy took Raggedy Ann down to his office and propped her up against some books upon his desk; he wanted to have her where he could see her cheery smile all day, for, as you must surely know, smiles and happiness are truly catching. Daddy wished to catch a whole lot of Raggedy Ann's cheeriness and happiness and put all this down on paper, so that those who did not have Raggedy Ann dolls might see just how happy and smiling a rag doll can be. So Raggedy Ann stayed at Daddy's studio for three or four days. She was missed very, very much at home and Marcella really longed for her, but knew that Daddy was borrowing some of Raggedy Ann's sunshine, so she did not complain. Raggedy Ann did not complain either, for in addition to the sunny, happy smile she always wore (it was painted on), Raggedy Ann had a candy heart, and of course no one (not even a rag doll) ever complains if they have such happiness about them. One evening, just as Daddy was finishing his day's work, a messenger boy came with a package; a nice, soft lumpy package. Daddy opened the nice, soft lumpy package and found a letter. Gran'ma had told Daddy, long before this, that at the time Raggedy Ann was made, a neighbor lady had made a boy doll, Raggedy Andy, for her little girl, who always played with Gran'ma. And when Gran'ma told Daddy this she wondered whatever had become of her little playmate and the boy doll, Raggedy Andy. After reading the letter, Daddy opened the other package which had been inside the nice, soft, lumpy package and found--Raggedy Andy. Raggedy Andy had been carefully folded up. His soft, loppy arms were folded up in front of him and his soft, loppy legs were folded over his soft, loppy arms, and they were held this way by a rubber band. Raggedy Andy must have wondered why he was being "done up" this way, but it could not have caused him any worry, for in between where his feet came over his face Daddy saw his cheery smile. After slipping off the rubber band, Daddy smoothed out the wrinkles in Raggedy Andy's arms and legs. Then Daddy propped Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy up against books on his desk, so that they sat facing each other; Raggedy Ann's shoe button eyes looking straight into the shoe button eyes of Raggedy Andy. They could not speak--not right out before a real person--so they just sat there and smiled at each other. Daddy could not help reaching out his hands and feeling their throats. Yes! There was a lump in Raggedy Ann's throat, and there was a lump in Raggedy Andy's throat. A cotton lump, to be sure, but a lump nevertheless. "So, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, that is why you cannot talk, is it?" said Daddy. "I will go away and let you have your visit to yourselves, although it is good to sit and share your happiness by watching you." Daddy then took the rubber band and placed it around Raggedy Ann's right hand, and around Raggedy Andy's right hand, so that when he had it fixed properly they sat and held each other's hands. Daddy knew they would wish to tell each other all the wonderful things that had happened to them since they had parted more than fifty years before. So, locking his studio door, Daddy left the two old rag dolls looking into each other's eyes. The next morning, when Daddy unlocked his door and looked at his desk, he saw that Raggedy Andy had fallen over so that he lay with his head in the bend of Raggedy Ann's arm. [Illustration: Then Daddy propped Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy up] [Illustration: Side by side] [Illustration: Dolls in a row] THE NURSERY DANCE When Raggedy Andy was first brought to the nursery he was very quiet. Raggedy Andy did not speak all day, but he smiled pleasantly to all the other dolls. There was Raggedy Ann, the French doll, Henny, the little Dutch doll, Uncle Clem, and a few others. Some of the dolls were without arms and legs. One had a cracked head. She was a nice doll, though, and the others all liked her very much. All of them had cried the night Susan (that was her name) fell off the toy box and cracked her china head. Raggedy Andy did not speak all day. But there was really nothing strange about this fact, after all. None of the other dolls spoke all day, either. Marcella had played in the nursery all day and of course they did not speak in front of her. Marcella thought they did, though, and often had them saying things which they really were not even thinking of. For instance, when Marcella served water with sugar in it and little oyster crackers for "tea," Raggedy Andy was thinking of Raggedy Ann, and the French doll was thinking of one time when Fido was lost. Marcella took the French doll's hand, and passed a cup of "tea" to Raggedy Andy, and said, "Mr. Raggedy Andy, will you have another cup of tea?" as if the French doll was talking. And then Marcella answered for Raggedy Andy, "Oh, yes, thank you! It is so delicious!" Neither the French doll nor Raggedy Andy knew what was going on, for they were thinking real hard to themselves. Nor did they drink the tea when it was poured for them. Marcella drank it instead. Perhaps this was just as well, for, most of the dolls were moist inside from the "tea" of the day before. Marcella did not always drink all of the tea, often she poured a little down their mouths. Sugar and water, if taken in small quantities, would not give the dolls colic, Marcella would tell them, but she did not know that it made their cotton, or sawdust insides, quite sticky. Quite often, too, Marcella forgot to wash their faces after a "tea," and Fido would do it for them when he came into the nursery and found the dolls with sweets upon their faces. Really, Fido was quite a help in this way, but he often missed the corners of their eyes and the backs of their necks where the "tea" would run and get sticky. But he did his best and saved his little Mistress a lot of work. No, Raggedy Andy did not speak; he merely thought a great deal. One can, you know, when one has been a rag doll as long as Raggedy Andy had. Years and years and years and years! Even Raggedy Ann, with all her wisdom, did not really know how long Raggedy Andy and she had been rag dolls. If Raggedy Ann had a pencil in her rag hand and Marcella guided it for her, Raggedy Ann could count up to ten--sometimes. But why should one worry one's rag head about one's age when all one's life has been one happy experience after another, with each day filled with love and sunshine? [Illustration: Raggedy Andy in a chair] Raggedy Andy did not know his age, but he remembered many things that had happened years and years and years ago, when he and Raggedy Ann were quite young. It was of these pleasant times Raggedy Andy was thinking all day, and this was the reason he did not notice that Marcella was speaking for him. Raggedy Andy could patiently wait until Marcella put all the dollies to bed and left them for the night, alone in the nursery. The day might have passed very slowly had it not been for the happy memories which filled Raggedy Andy's cotton-stuffed head. But he did not even fidget. Of course, he fell out of his chair once, and his shoe button eyes went "Click!" against the floor, but it wasn't his fault. Raggedy Andy was so loppy he could hardly be placed in a chair so that he would stay, and Marcella jiggled the table. Marcella cried for Raggedy Andy, "AWAA! AWAA!" and picked him up and snuggled him and scolded Uncle Clem for jiggling the table. Through all this Raggedy Andy kept right on thinking his pleasant thoughts, and really did not know he had fallen from the chair. You see how easy it is to pass over the little bumps of life if we are happy inside. And so Raggedy Andy was quiet all day, and so the day finally passed. Raggedy Andy was given one of Uncle Clem's clean white nighties and shared Uncle Clem's bed. Marcella kissed them all good night and left them to sleep until morning. But as soon as she had left the room all the dolls raised up in their beds. When their little mistress' footsteps passed out of hearing, all the dollies jumped out of their beds and gathered around Raggedy Andy. Raggedy Ann introduced them one by one and Raggedy Andy shook hands with each. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy on his face] [Illustration: Shaking hands] "I am very happy to know you all!" he said, in a voice as kindly as Raggedy Ann's, "and I hope we will all like each other as much as Raggedy Ann and I have always liked each other!" "Oh, indeed we shall!" the dollies all answered. "We love Raggedy Ann because she is so kindly and happy, and we know we shall like you too, for you talk like Raggedy Ann and have the same cheery smile!" "Now that we know each other so well, what do you say to a game, Uncle Clem?" Raggedy Andy cried, as he caught Uncle Clem and danced about the floor. Henny, the Dutch doll, dragged the little square music box out into the center of the room and wound it up. Then all, catching hands, danced in a circle around it, laughing and shouting in their tiny doll voices. "That was lots of fun!" Raggedy Andy said, when the music stopped and all the dolls had taken seats upon the floor facing him. "You know I have been shut up in a trunk up in an attic for years and years and years." "Wasn't it very lonesome in the trunk all that time?" Susan asked in her queer little cracked voice. You see, her head had been cracked. "Oh, not at all," Raggedy Andy replied, "for there was always a nest of mice down in the corner of the trunk. Cute little Mama and Daddy mice, and lots of little teeny weeny baby mice. And when the mama and daddy mice were away, I used to cuddle the tiny little baby mice!" "No wonder you were never lonesome!" said Uncle Clem, who was very kind and loved everybody and everything. "No, I was never lonesome in the old trunk in the attic, but it is far more pleasant to be out again and living here with all you nice friends!" said Raggedy Andy. And all the dolls thought so too, for already they loved Raggedy Andy's happy smile and knew he would prove to be as kindly and lovable as Raggedy Ann. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy and a mouse] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy in bed] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy throws a pillow] THE SPINNING WHEEL One night, after all the household had settled down to sleep, Raggedy Andy sat up in bed and tickled Uncle Clem. Uncle Clem twisted and wiggled in his sleep until finally he could stand it no longer and awakened. "I dreamed that some one told me the funniest story!" said Uncle Clem; "But I cannot remember what it was!" "I was tickling you!" laughed Raggedy Andy. When the other dolls in the nursery heard Raggedy Andy and Uncle Clem talking, they too sat up in their beds. "We've been so quiet all day," said Raggedy Andy. "Let's have a good romp!" This suggestion suited all the dolls, so they jumped out of their beds and ran over towards Raggedy Andy's and Uncle Clem's little bed. Raggedy Andy, always in for fun, threw his pillow at Henny, the Dutch doll. Henny did not see the pillow coming towards him so he was knocked head over heels. Henny always said "Mama" when he was tilted backward or forward, and when the pillow rolled him over and over, he cried, "Mama, Mama, Mama!" It was not because it hurt him, for you know Santa Claus always sees to it that each doll he makes in his great workshop is covered with a very magical Wish, and this Wish always keeps them from getting hurt. Henny could talk just as well as any of the other dolls when he was standing up, sitting, or lying down, but if he was being tipped forward and backward, all he could say was, "Mama." This amused Henny as much as it did the other dolls, so when he jumped to his feet he laughed and threw the pillow back at Raggedy Andy. Raggedy Andy tried to jump to one side, but forgot that he was on the bed, and he and Uncle Clem went tumbling to the floor. Then all the dolls ran to their beds and brought their pillows and had the jolliest pillow fight imaginable. The excitement ran so high and the pillows flew so fast, the floor of the nursery was soon covered with feathers. It was only when all the dolls had stopped to rest and put the feathers back into the pillow cases that Raggedy Andy discovered he had lost one of his arms in the scuffle. The dolls were worried over this and asked, "What will Marcella say when she sees that Raggedy Andy has lost an arm?" "We can push it up his sleeve!" said Uncle Clem. "Then when Raggedy Andy is taken out of bed in the morning, Marcella will find his arm is loose!" "It has been hanging by one or two threads for a day or more!" said Raggedy Andy. "I noticed the other day that sometimes my thumb was turned clear around to the back, and I knew then that the arm was hanging by one or two threads and the threads were twisted." Uncle Clem pushed Raggedy Andy's arm up through his sleeve, but every time Raggedy Andy jumped about, he lost his arm again. "This will never do!" said Raggedy Ann. "Raggedy Andy is lopsided with only one arm and he cannot join in our games as well as if he had two arms!" [Illustration: Pillow fight] "Oh, I don't mind that!" laughed Raggedy Andy. "Marcella will sew it on in the morning and I will be all right, I'm sure!" "Perhaps Raggedy Ann can sew it on now!" suggested Uncle Clem. "Yes, Raggedy Ann can sew it on!" all the dolls cried. "She can play Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater on the toy piano and she can sew!" "I will gladly try," said Raggedy Ann, "but there are no needles or thread in the nursery, and I have to have a thimble so the needle can be pressed through Raggedy Andy's cloth!" "Marcella always gets a needle from Mama!" said the French Doll. "I know," said Raggedy Ann, "but we cannot waken Mama to ask her!" The dolls all laughed at this, for they knew very well that even had Mama been awake, they would not have asked her for needle and thread, because they did not wish her to know they could act and talk just like real people. "Perhaps we can get the things out of the machine drawer!" Henny suggested. "Yes," cried Susan, "let's all go get the things out of the machine drawer! Come on, everybody!" And Susan, although she had only a cracked head, ran out the nursery door followed by all the rest of the dolls. Even the tiny little penny dolls clicked their china heels upon the floor as they followed the rest, and Raggedy Andy, carrying his loose arm, thumped along in the rear. Raggedy Andy had not lived in the house as long as the others; so he did not know the way to the room in which the machine stood. After much climbing and pulling, the needle and thread and thimble were taken from the drawer, and all raced back again to the nursery. Uncle Clem took off Raggedy Andy's waist, and the other dolls all sat around watching while Raggedy Ann sewed the arm on again. Raggedy Ann had only taken two stitches when she began laughing so hard she had to quit. Of course when Raggedy Ann laughed, all the other dolls laughed too, for laughter, like yawning, is very catching. "I was just thinking!" said Raggedy Ann. "Remember, 'way, 'way back, a long, long time ago, I sewed this arm on once before?" she asked Raggedy Andy. "I do remember, now that you mention it," said Raggedy Andy, "but I can not remember how the arm came off!" "Tell us about it!" all the dolls cried. "Let's see!" Raggedy Ann began. "Your Mistress left you over at our house one night, and after everyone had gone to bed, we went up into the attic!" "Oh, yes! I do remember now!" Raggedy Andy laughed. "We played with the large whirligig!" "Yes," Raggedy Ann said. "The large spinning wheel. We held on to the wheel and went round and round! And when we were having the most fun, your feet got fastened between the wheel and the rod which held the wheel in position and there you hung, head down!" "I remember, you were working the pedal and I was sailing around very fast," said Raggedy Andy, "and all of a sudden the wheel stopped!" "We would have laughed at the time," Raggedy Ann explained to the other dolls, "but you see it was quite serious." "My mistress had put us both to bed for the night, and if she had discovered us 'way up in the attic, she would have wondered how in the world we got there! So there was nothing to do but get Raggedy Andy out of the tangle!" "But you pulled me out all right!" Raggedy Andy laughed. "Yes, I pulled and I pulled until I pulled one of Raggedy Andy's arms off," Raggedy Ann said. "And then I pulled and pulled until finally his feet came out of the wheel and we both tumbled to the floor!" "Then we ran downstairs as fast as we could and climbed into bed, didn't we!" Raggedy Andy laughed. [Illustration: Raggedy Ann sewing] "Yes, we did!" Raggedy Ann replied. "And when we jumped into bed, we remembered that we had left Raggedy Andy's arm lying up on the attic floor, so we had to run back up there and get it! Remember, Raggedy Andy?" "Yes! Wasn't it lots of fun?" "Indeed it was!" Raggedy Ann agreed. "Raggedy Andy wanted to let the arm remain off until the next morning, but I decided it would be better to have it sewed on, just as it had been when Mistress put us to bed. So, just like tonight, we went to the pincushion and found a needle and thread and I sewed it on for him!" "There!" Raggedy Ann said, as she wound the thread around her hand and pulled, so that the thread broke near Raggedy Andy's shoulder. "It's sewed on again, good as new!" "Thank you, Raggedy Ann!" said Raggedy Andy, as he threw the arm about Raggedy Ann's neck and gave her a hug. "Now we can have another game!" Uncle Clem cried as he helped Raggedy Andy into his waist and buttoned it for him. Just then the little Cuckoo Clock on the nursery wall went, "Whirrr!" the little door opened, and the little bird put out his head and cried, "Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" "No more games!" Raggedy Ann said. "We must be very quiet from now on. The folks will be getting up soon!" "Last one in bed is a monkey!" cried Raggedy Andy. There was a wild scramble as the dolls rushed for their beds, and Susan, having to be careful of her cracked head, was the monkey. So Raggedy Andy, seeing that Susan was slow about getting into her bed, jumped out and helped her. Then, climbing into the little bed which Uncle Clem shared with him, he pulled the covers up to his eyes and, after pretending to snore a couple of times, he lay very quiet, thinking of the kindness of his doll friends about him, until Marcella came and took him down to breakfast. And all the other dolls smiled at him as he left the room, for they were very happy to know that their little mistress loved him as much as they did. [Illustration: Watching the cuckoo clock] [Illustration: Friends] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy in the sugar] THE TAFFY PULL "I know how we can have a whole lot of fun!" Raggedy Andy said to the other dolls. "We'll have a taffy pull!" "Do you mean crack the whip, Raggedy Andy?" asked the French doll. "He means a tug of war, don't you, Raggedy Andy?" asked Henny. "No," Raggedy Andy replied, "I mean a taffy pull!" "If it's lots of fun, then show us how to play the game!" Uncle Clem said. "We like to have fun, don't we?" And Uncle Clem turned to all the other dolls as he asked the question. "It really is not a game," Raggedy Andy explained. "You see, it is only a taffy pull. "We take sugar and water and butter and a little vinegar and put it all on the stove to cook. When it has cooked until it strings 'way out when you dip some up in a spoon, or gets hard when you drop some of it in a cup of water, then it is candy. "Then it must be placed upon buttered plates until it has cooled a little, and then each one takes some of the candy and pulls and pulls until it gets real white. Then it is called 'Taffy'." "That will be loads of fun!" "Show us how to begin!" "Let's have a taffy pull!" "Come on, everybody!" the dolls cried. "Just one moment!" Raggedy Ann said. She had remained quiet before, for she had been thinking very hard, so hard, in fact, that two stitches had burst in the back of her rag head. The dolls, in their eagerness to have the taffy pull, were dancing about Raggedy Andy, but when Raggedy Ann spoke, in her soft cottony voice, they all quieted down and waited for her to speak again. "I was just thinking," Raggedy Ann said, "that it would be very nice to have the taffy pull, but suppose some of the folks smell the candy while it is cooking." "There is no one at home!" Raggedy Andy said. "I thought of that, Raggedy Ann. They have all gone over to Cousin Jenny's house and will not be back until day after tomorrow. I heard Mama tell Marcella." "If that is the case, we can have the taffy pull and all the fun that goes with it!" Raggedy Ann cried, as she started for the nursery door. After her ran all the dollies, their little feet pitter-patting across the floor and down the hall. When they came to the stairway Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, Uncle Clem and Henny threw themselves down the stairs, turning over and over as they fell. The other dolls, having china heads, had to be much more careful; so they slid down the banisters, or jumped from one step to another. Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, Uncle Clem and Henny piled in a heap at the bottom of the steps, and by the time they had untangled themselves and helped each other up, the other dolls were down the stairs. To the kitchen they all raced. There they found the fire in the stove still burning. Raggedy Andy brought a small stew kettle, while the others brought the sugar and water and a large spoon. They could not find the vinegar and decided not to use it, anyway. [Illustration: They threw themselves down the stairs] Raggedy Andy stood upon the stove and watched the candy, dipping into it every once in a while to see if it had cooked long enough, and stirring it with the large spoon. At last the candy began to string out from the spoon when it was held above the stew kettle, and after trying a few drops in a cup of cold water, Raggedy Andy pronounced it "done." Uncle Clem pulled out a large platter from the pantry, and Raggedy Ann dipped her rag hand into the butter jar and buttered the platter. The candy, when it was poured into the platter, was a lovely golden color and smelled delicious to the dolls. Henny could not wait until it cooled; so he put one of his chamois skin hands into the hot candy. Of course it did not burn Henny, but when he pulled his hand out again, it was covered with a great ball of candy, which strung out all over the kitchen floor and got upon his clothes. Then too, the candy cooled quickly, and in a very short time Henny's hand was encased in a hard ball of candy. Henny couldn't wiggle any of his fingers on that hand and he was sorry he had been so hasty. While waiting for the candy to cool, Raggedy Andy said, "We must rub butter upon our hands before we pull the candy, or else it will stick to our hands as it has done to Henny's hands and have to wear off!" "Will this hard ball of candy have to wear off of my hand?" Henny asked. "It is so hard, I cannot wiggle any of my fingers!" "It will either have to wear off, or you will have to soak your hand in water for a long time, until the candy on it melts!" said Raggedy Andy. "Dear me!" said Henny. Uncle Clem brought the poker then and, asking Henny to put his hand upon the stove leg, he gave the hard candy a few sharp taps with the poker and chipped the candy from Henny's hand. "Thank you, Uncle Clem!" Henny said, as he wiggled his fingers. "That feels much better!" Raggedy Andy told all the dolls to rub butter upon their hands. "The candy is getting cool enough to pull!" he said. Then, when all the dolls had their hands nice and buttery, Raggedy Andy cut them each a nice piece of candy and showed them how to pull it. "Take it in one hand this way," he said, "and pull it with the other hand, like this!" When all the dolls were supplied with candy they sat about and pulled it, watching it grow whiter and more silvery the longer they pulled. Then, when the taffy was real white, it began to grow harder and harder, so the smaller dolls could scarcely pull it any more. When this happened, Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem and Henny, who were larger, took the little dolls' candy and mixed it with what they had been pulling until all the taffy was snow white. [Illustration: The taffy pull] Then Raggedy Andy pulled it out into a long rope and held it while Uncle Clem hit the ends a sharp tap with the edge of the spoon. This snipped the taffy into small pieces, just as easily as you might break icicles with a few sharp taps of a stick. The small pieces of white taffy were placed upon the buttered platter again and the dolls all danced about it, singing and laughing, for this had been the most fun they had had for a long, long time. "But what shall we do with it?" Raggedy Ann asked. "Yes, what shall we do with it!" Uncle Clem said. "We can't let it remain in the platter here upon the kitchen floor! We must hide it, or do something with it!" "While we are trying to think of a way to dispose of it, let us be washing the stew kettle and the spoon!" said practical Raggedy Ann. "That is a very happy thought, Raggedy Ann!" said Raggedy Andy. "For it will clean the butter and candy from our hands while we are doing it!" So the stew kettle was dragged to the sink and filled with water, the dolls all taking turns scraping the candy from the sides of the kettle, and scrubbing the inside with a cloth. When the kettle was nice and clean and had been wiped dry, Raggedy Andy found a roll of waxed paper in the pantry upon one of the shelves. "We'll wrap each piece of taffy in a nice little piece of paper," he said, "then we'll find a nice paper bag, and put all the pieces inside the bag, and throw it from the upstairs window when someone passes the house so that someone may have the candy!" All the dolls gathered about the platter on the floor, and while Raggedy Andy cut the paper into neat squares, the dolls wrapped the taffy in the papers. Then the taffy was put into a large bag, and with much pulling and tugging it was finally dragged up into the nursery, where a window faced out toward the street. Then, just as a little boy and a little girl, who looked as though they did not ever have much candy, passed the house, the dolls all gave a push and sent the bag tumbling to the sidewalk. The two children laughed and shouted, "Thank you," when they saw that the bag contained candy, and the dolls, peeping from behind the lace curtains, watched the two happy faced children eating the taffy as they skipped down the street. When the children had passed out of sight, the dolls climbed down from the window. "That was lots of fun!" said the French doll, as she smoothed her skirts and sat down beside Raggedy Andy. "I believe Raggedy Andy must have a candy heart too, like Raggedy Ann!" said Uncle Clem. "No!" Raggedy Andy answered, "I'm just stuffed with white cotton and I have no candy heart, but some day perhaps I shall have!" "A candy heart is very nice!" Raggedy Ann said. (You know, she had one.) "But one can be just as nice and happy and full of sunshine without a candy heart." "I almost forgot to tell you," said Raggedy Andy, "that when pieces of taffy are wrapped in little pieces of paper, just as we wrapped them, they are called 'Kisses'." [Illustration: All sitting together] [Illustration: Fido in a basket] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy and Fido] THE RABBIT CHASE "Well, what shall we play tonight?" asked Henny, the Dutch doll, when the house was quiet and the dolls all knew that no one else was awake. Raggedy Andy was just about to suggest a good game, when Fido, who sometimes slept in a basket in the nursery, growled. All the dollies looked in his direction. Fido was standing up with his ears sticking as straight in the air as loppy silken puppy dog ears can stick up. "He must have been dreaming!" said Raggedy Andy. "No, I wasn't dreaming!" Fido answered. "I heard something go, 'Scratch! Scratch!' as plain as I hear you!" "Where did the sound come from, Fido?" Raggedy Andy asked when he saw that Fido really was wide awake. "From outside somewhere!" Fido answered. "And if I could get out without disturbing all the folks, I'd run out and see what it might be! Perhaps I had better bark!" "Please do not bark!" Raggedy Andy cried as he put his rag arm around Fido's nose. "You will awaken everybody in the house. We can open a door or a window for you and let you out, if you must go!" "I wish you would. Listen! There it is again: 'Scratch! Scratch!' What can it be?" "You may soon see!" said Raggedy Andy. "We'll let you out, but please don't sit at the door and bark and bark to get back in again, as you usually do, for we are going to play a good game and we may not hear you!" "You can sleep out in the shed after you have found out what it is," said Raggedy Andy. As soon as the dolls opened the door for Fido, he went running across the lawn, barking in a loud shrill voice. He ran down behind the shed and through the garden, and then back towards the house again. Raggedy Andy and Uncle Clem stood looking out of the door, the rest of the dolls peeping over their shoulders, so when something came jumping through the door, it hit Uncle Clem and Raggedy Andy and sent them flying against the other dolls behind them. All the dolls went down in a wiggling heap on the floor. It was surprising that the noise and confusion did not waken Daddy and the rest of the folks, for just as the dolls were untangling themselves from each other and getting upon their feet, Fido came jumping through the door and sent the dolls tumbling again. Fido quit barking when he came through the door. "Which way did he go?" he asked, when he could get his breath. "What was it?" Raggedy Andy asked in return. "It was a rabbit!" Fido cried. "He ran right in here, for I could smell his tracks!" "We could feel him!" Raggedy Andy laughed. "I could not tell you which way he went!" Uncle Clem said, "Except I feel sure he came through the door and into the house!" None of the dolls knew into which room the rabbit had run. Finally, after much sniffing, Fido traced the rabbit to the nursery, where, when the dolls followed, they saw the rabbit crouching behind the rocking horse. [Illustration: Looking out of the door] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy and the rabbit] Fido whined and cried because he could not get to the rabbit and bite him. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Fido!" cried Raggedy Ann. "Just see how the poor bunny is trembling!" "He should not come scratching around our house if he doesn't care to be chased!" said Fido. "Why don't you stay out in the woods and fields where you really belong?" Raggedy Andy asked the rabbit. "I came to leave some Easter eggs!" the bunny answered in a queer little quavery voice. "An Easter bunny!" all the dolls cried, jumping about and clapping their hands. "An Easter bunny!" "Well!" was all Fido could say, as he sat down and began wagging his tail. "You may come out from behind the rocking horse now, Easter bunny!" said Raggedy Andy. "Fido will not hurt you, now that he knows, will you, Fido?" "Indeed I won't!" Fido replied. "I'm sorry that I chased you! And I remember now, I had to jump over a basket out by the shed! Was that yours?" "Yes, it was full of Easter eggs and colored grasses for the little girl who lives here!" the bunny said. When the Easter bunny found out that Fido and the dolls were his friends, he came out from behind the rocking horse and hopped across the floor to the door. "I must go see if any of the eggs are broken, for if they are, I will have to run home and color some more! I was just about to make a nice nest and put the eggs in it when Fido came bouncing out at me!" And with a squeeky little laugh the Easter bunny, followed by Fido and all the dolls, hopped across the lawn towards the shed. There they found the basket. Four of the lovely colored Easter eggs were broken. "I will run home and color four more. It will only take a few minutes, so when I return and scratch again to make a nest, please do not bark at me!" said the Easter bunny. [Illustration: The Easter bunny] "I won't! I promise!" Fido laughed. "May we go with you and watch you color the Easter eggs?" Raggedy Andy begged. "Indeed you may!" the Easter bunny answered. "Can you run fast?" Then down through the garden and out through a crack in the fence the Easter bunny hopped, with a long string of dolls trailing behind. When they came to the Easter bunny's home, they found Mama Easter bunny and a lot of little teeny weeny bunnies who would some day grow up to be big Easter bunnies like their Mama and Daddy bunny. The Easter bunny told them of his adventure with Fido, and all joined in his laughter when they found it had turned out well at the end. The Easter bunny put four eggs on to boil and while these were boiling he mixed up a lot of pretty colors. When the eggs were boiled, he dipped the four eggs into the pretty colored dye and then painted lovely flowers on them. When the Easter bunny had finished painting the eggs he put them in his basket and, with all the dolls running along beside him, they returned to the house. "Why not make the nest right in the nursery?" Raggedy Andy asked. "That would be just the thing! Then the little girl would wonder and wonder how I could ever get into the nursery without awakening the rest of the folks, for she will never suspect that you dolls and Fido let me in!" So with Raggedy Andy leading the way, they ran up to the nursery and there, 'way back in a corner, they watched the Easter bunny make a lovely nest and put the Easter eggs in it. And in the morning when Marcella came in to see the dolls you can imagine her surprise when she found the pretty gift of the Easter bunny. "How in the world did the bunny get inside the house and into this room without awakening Fido?" she laughed. And Fido, pretending to be asleep, slowly opened one eye and winked over the edge of his basket at Raggedy Andy. And Raggedy Andy smiled back at Fido, but never said a word. [Illustration: How did the bunny get into this room?] [Illustration: Looking out the window] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy under the quilt] THE NEW TIN GUTTER All day Saturday the men had worked out upon the eaves of the house and the dolls facing the window could see them. The men made quite a lot of noise with their hammers, for they were putting new gutters around the eaves, and pounding upon tin makes a great deal of noise. Marcella had not played with the dolls all that day, for she had gone visiting; so when the men hammered and made a lot of noise, the dolls could talk to each other without fear of anyone hearing or knowing they were really talking to each other. "What are they doing now?" Raggedy Andy asked. He was lying with his head beneath a little bed quilt, just as Marcella had dropped him when she left the nursery; so he could not see what was going on. "We can only see the men's legs as they pass the window," answered Uncle Clem. "But they are putting new shingles or something on the roof!" After the men had left their work and gone home to supper and the house was quiet, Raggedy Andy cautiously moved his head out from under the little bed quilt and, seeing that the coast was clear, sat up. This was a signal for all the dolls to sit up and smooth out the wrinkles in their clothes. [Illustration: Lifting the penny dolls] The nursery window was open; so Raggedy Andy lifted the penny dolls to the sill and climbed up beside them. Leaning out, he could look along the new shiny tin gutter the men had put in place. "Here's a grand place to have a lovely slide!" he said as he gave one of the penny dolls a scoot down the shiny tin gutter. "Whee! See her go!" Raggedy Andy cried. All the other dolls climbed upon the window sill beside him. "Scoot me too!" cried the other little penny doll in her squeeky little voice, and Raggedy Andy took her in his rag hand and gave her a great swing which sent her scooting down the shiny tin gutter, "Kerswish!" Then Raggedy Andy climbed into the gutter himself and, taking a few steps, spread out his feet and went scooting down the shiny tin. The other dolls followed his example and scooted along behind him. When Raggedy Andy came to the place where he expected to find the penny dolls lying, they were nowhere about. "Perhaps you scooted them farther than you thought!" Uncle Clem said. "Perhaps I did!" Raggedy Andy said, "We will look around the bend in the eave!" "Oh dear!" he exclaimed when he had peeped around the corner of the roof, "the gutter ends here and there is nothing but a hole!" "They must have scooted right into the hole," Henny, the Dutch doll said. Raggedy Andy lay flat upon the shiny tin and looked down into the hole. "Are you down there, penny dolls?" he called. There was no answer. "I hope their heads were not broken!" Raggedy Ann said. [Illustration: In the gutter] "I'm so sorry I scooted them!" Raggedy Andy cried, as he brushed his hand over his shoe button eyes. "Maybe if you hold to my feet, I can reach down the hole and find them and pull them up again!" he added. Uncle Clem and Henny each caught hold of a foot of Raggedy Andy and let him slide down into the hole. It was a rather tight fit, but Raggedy Andy wiggled and twisted until all the dolls could see of him were his two feet. "I can't find them!" he said in muffled tones. "Let me down farther and I think I'll be able to reach them!" Now Henny and Uncle Clem thought that Raggedy Andy meant for them to let go of his feet and this they did. Raggedy Andy kept wiggling and twisting until he came to a bend in the pipe and could go no farther. "I can't find them!" he cried. "They have gone farther down the pipe! Now you can pull me up!" "We can't reach you, Raggedy Andy!" Uncle Clem called down the pipe. "Try to wiggle back up a piece and we will catch your feet and pull you up!" Raggedy Andy tried to wiggle backward up the pipe, but his clothes caught upon a little piece of tin which stuck out from the inside of the pipe and there he stayed. He could neither go down nor come back up. "What shall we do?" Uncle Clem cried, "The folks will never find him down there, for we can not tell them where he is, and they will never guess it!" The dolls were all very sad. They stayed out upon the shiny new tin gutter until it began raining and hoped and hoped that Raggedy Andy could get back up to them. Then they went inside the nursery and sat looking out the window until it was time for the folks to get up and the house to be astir. Then they went back to the position each had been in, when Marcella had left them. And although they were very quiet, each one was so sorry to lose Raggedy Andy, and each felt that he would never be found again. [Illustration: Down the spout] "The rain must have soaked his cotton through and through!" sighed Raggedy Ann. "For all the water from the house runs down the shiny tin gutters and down the pipe into a rain barrel at the bottom!" Then Raggedy Ann remembered that there was an opening at the bottom of the pipe. "Tomorrow night if we have a chance, we dolls must take a stick and see if we can reach Raggedy Andy from the bottom of the pipe and pull him down to us!" she thought. Marcella came up to the nursery and played all day, watching the rain patter upon the new tin gutter. She wondered where Raggedy Andy was, although she did not get worried about him until she had asked Mama where he might be. "He must be just where you left him!" Mama said. "I cannot remember where I left him!" Marcella said. "I thought he was with all the other dolls in the nursery, though!" All day Sunday it rained and all of Sunday night, and Monday morning when Daddy started to work it was still raining. As Daddy walked out of the front gate, he turned to wave good-bye to Mama and Marcella and then he saw something. Daddy came right back into the house and called up the men who had put in the new shiny tin gutters. "The drain pipe is plugged up. Some of you must have left shavings or something in the eaves, and it has washed down into the pipe, so that the water pours over the gutter in sheets!" "We will send a man right up to fix it!" the men said. So along about ten o'clock that morning one of the men came to fix the pipe. But although he punched a long pole down the pipe, and punched and punched, he could not dislodge whatever it was which plugged the pipe and kept the water from running through it. [Illustration: Raggedy Ann and the dolls] [Illustration: The man finds Raggedy Andy] Then the man measured with his stick, so that he knew just where the place was, and with a pair of tin shears he cut a section from the pipe and found Raggedy Andy. Raggedy Andy was punched quite out of shape and all jammed together, but when the man straightened out the funny little figure, Raggedy Andy looked up at him with his customary happy smile. The man laughed and carried little water-soaked Raggedy Andy into the house. "I guess your little girl must have dropped this rag doll down into the drain pipe!" the man said to Mama. "I'm so glad you found him!" Mama said to the man. "We have hunted all over the house for him! Marcella could not remember where she put him; so when I get him nice and dry, I'll hide him in a nice easy place for her to find, and she will not know he has been out in the rain all night!" So Mama put Raggedy Andy behind the radiator and there he sat all afternoon, steaming and drying out. And as he sat there he smiled and smiled, even though there was no one to see him. He felt very happy within and he liked to smile, anyway, because his smile was painted on. And another reason Raggedy Andy smiled was because he was not lonesome. Inside his waist were the two little penny dolls. The man had punched Raggedy Andy farther down into the pipe, and he had been able to reach the two little dolls and tuck them into a safe place. "Won't they all be surprised to see us back again!" Raggedy Andy whispered as he patted the two little penny dolls with his soft rag hands. And the two little penny dolls nestled against Raggedy Andy's soft cotton stuffed body, and thought how nice it was to have such a happy, sunny friend. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy sitting] [Illustration: Medicine] [Illustration: Four dolls] DOCTOR RAGGEDY ANDY Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem and Henny were not given medicine. Because, you see, they had no mouths. That is, mouths through which medicine could be poured. Their mouths were either painted on, or were sewed on with yarn. Sometimes the medicine spoon would be touched to their faces but none of the liquid be given them. Except accidentally. But the French doll had a lovely mouth for taking medicine; it was open and showed her teeth in a dimpling smile. She also had soft brown eyes which opened and closed when she was tilted backward or forward. The medicine which was given the dolls had great curing properties. It would cure the most stubborn case of croup, measles, whooping cough or any other ailment the dolls had wished upon them by their little Mistress. Some days all the dolls would be put to bed with "measles" but in the course of half an hour they would have every other ailment in the Doctor book. The dolls enjoyed it very much, for, you see, Marcella always tried the medicine first to see if it was strong enough before she gave any to the dolls. [Illustration: Bandaged up] So the dolls really did not get as much of the medicine as their little mistress. The wonderful remedy was made from a very old recipe handed down from ancient times. This recipe is guaranteed to cure every ill a doll may have. The medicine was made from brown sugar and water. Perhaps you may have used it for your dollies. The medicine was also used as "tea" and "soda water," except when the dolls were supposed to be ill. Having nothing but painted or yarn mouths, the ailments of Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem and Henny, the Dutch doll, mostly consisted of sprained wrists, arms and legs, or perhaps a headache and a toothache. None of them knew they had the trouble until Marcella had wrapped up the "injured" rag arm, leg or head, and had explained in detail just what was the matter. Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem, or Henny were just as happy with their heads tied up for the toothache as they were without their heads tied up. Not having teeth, naturally they could not have the toothache, and if they could furnish amusement for Marcella by having her pretend they had the toothache, then that made them very happy. So this day, the French doll was quite ill. She started out with the "croup," and went through the "measles," "whooping cough," and "yellow fever" in an hour. The attack came on quite suddenly. The French doll was sitting quietly in one of the little red chairs, smiling the prettiest of dimpling smiles at Raggedy Andy, and thinking of the romp the dolls would have that night after the house grew quiet, when Marcella discovered that the French doll had the "croup" and put her to bed. The French doll closed her eyes when put to bed, but the rest of her face did not change expression. She still wore her happy smile. [Illustration: Marcella caring for the sick] Marcella mixed the medicine very "strong" and poured it into the French doll's open mouth. She was given a "dose" every minute or so. It was during the "yellow fever" stage that Marcella was called to supper and left the dolls in the nursery alone. Marcella did not play with them again that evening; so the dolls all remained in the same position until Marcella and the rest of the folks went to bed. Then Raggedy Andy jumped from his chair and wound up the little music box. "Let's start with a lively dance!" he cried. When the music started tinkling he caught the French doll's hand, and danced 'way across the nursery floor before he discovered that her soft brown eyes remained closed as they were when she lay upon the "sick" bed. All the dolls gathered around Raggedy Andy and the French doll. "I can't open my eyes!" she said. Raggedy Andy tried to open the French doll's eyes with his soft rag hands, but it was no use. They shook her. This sometimes has the desired effect when dolls do not open their eyes. They shook her again and again. It was no use, her eyes remained closed. "It must be the sticky, sugary 'medicine'!" said Uncle Clem. "I really believe it must be!" the French doll replied. "The 'medicine' seemed to settle in the back of my head when I was lying down, and I can still feel it back there!" "That must be it, and now it has hardened and keeps your pretty eyes from working!" said Raggedy Ann. "What shall we do?" Raggedy Andy and Raggedy Ann walked over to a corner of the nursery and thought and thought. They pulled their foreheads down into wrinkles with their hands, so that they might think harder. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy winds the music box] Finally Raggedy Ann cried, "I've thought of a plan!" and went skipping from the corner out to where the other dolls sat about the French doll. "We must stand her upon her head, then the 'medicine' will run up into her hair, for there is a hole in the top of her head. I remember seeing it when her hair came off one time!" "No sooner said than done!" cried Uncle Clem, as he took the French doll by the waist and stood her upon her head. "That should be long enough!" Raggedy Ann said, when Uncle Clem had held the French doll in this position for five minutes. But when the French doll was again placed upon her feet her eyes still remained tightly closed. All this time, Raggedy Andy had remained in the corner, thinking as hard as his rag head would think. He thought and thought, until the yarn hair upon his head stood up in the air and wiggled. "If the 'medicine' did not run up into her hair when she stood upon her head," thought Raggedy Andy, "then it is because the 'medicine' could not run; so, if the medicine can not run, it is because it is too sticky and thick to run out the hole in the top of her head." He also thought a lot more. At last he turned to the others and said out loud, "I can't seem to think of a single way to help her open her eyes unless we take off her hair and wash the medicine from inside her china head." "Why didn't I think of that?" Raggedy Ann asked. "That is just the way we shall have to do!" So Raggedy Ann caught hold of the French doll's feet, and Raggedy Andy caught hold of the French doll's lively curls, and they pulled and they pulled. Then the other dolls caught hold of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy and pulled and pulled, until finally, with a sharp "R-R-Rip!" the French doll's hair came off, and the dolls who were pulling went tumbling over backwards. [Illustration: Shaking the French doll upside down] [Illustration: Hole in her head] Laughingly they scrambled to their feet and sat the French doll up, so they might look into the hole in the top of her head. Yes, the sticky "medicine" had grown hard and would not let the French doll's eyes open. Raggedy Andy put his hand inside and pushed on the eyes so that they opened. This was all right, only now the eyes would not close when the French doll lay down. She tried it. So Raggedy Andy ran down into the kitchen and brought up a small tin cup full of warm water and a tiny rag. With these he loosened the sticky "medicine" and washed the inside of the French doll's head nice and clean. There were lots of cooky and cracker crumbs inside her head, too. Raggedy Andy washed it all nice and clean, and then wet the glue which made the pretty curls stay on. So when her hair was placed upon her head again, the French doll was as good as new. "Thank you all very much!" she said, as she tilted backwards and forwards, and found that her eyes worked very easily. Raggedy Andy again wound up the little music box and, catching the French doll about the waist, started a rollicking dance which lasted until the roosters in the neighborhood began their morning crowing. Then, knowing the folks might soon be astir, the dolls left off their playing, and all took the same positions they had been in when Marcella left them the night before. And so Marcella found them. The French doll was in bed with her eyes closed, and her happy dimpling smile lighting up her pretty face. And to this day, the dollies' little mistress does not know that Raggedy Andy was the doctor who cured the French doll of her only ill. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy dancing with the French doll] [Illustration: Dickie and Raggedy Andy] [Illustration: Where is Raggedy Andy's smile?] RAGGEDY ANDY'S SMILE Raggedy Andy's smile was gone. Not entirely, but enough so that it made his face seem onesided. If one viewed Raggedy Andy from the left side, one could see his smile. But if one looked at Raggedy Andy from the right side, one could not see his smile. So Raggedy Andy's smile was gone. It really was not Raggedy Andy's fault. He felt just as happy and sunny as ever. And perhaps would not have known the difference had not the other dolls told him he had only one half of his cheery smile left. Nor was it Marcella's fault. How was she to know that Dickie would feed Raggedy Andy orange juice and take off most of his smile? And besides taking off one half of Raggedy Andy's smile, the orange juice left a great brown stain upon his face. Marcella was very sorry when she saw what Dickie had done. Dickie would have been sorry, too, if he had been more than two years old, but when one is only two years old, he has very few sorrows. Dickie's only sorrow was that Raggedy Andy was taken from him, and he could not feed Raggedy Andy more orange juice. Marcella kissed Raggedy Andy more than she did the rest of the dolls that night, when she put them to bed, and this made all the dolls very happy. It always gave them great pleasure when any of their number was hugged and kissed, for there was not a selfish doll among them. Marcella hung up a tiny stocking for each of the dollies, and placed a tiny little china dish for each of the penny dolls beside their little spool box bed. For, as you probably have guessed, it was Christmas eve, and Marcella was in hopes Santa Claus would see the tiny stockings and place something in them for each dollie. Then when the house was very quiet, the French doll told Raggedy Andy that most of his smile was gone. "Indeed!" said Raggedy Andy. "I can still feel it! It must be there!" "Oh, but it really is gone!" Uncle Clem said. "It was the orange juice!" "Well, I still feel just as happy," said Raggedy Andy, "so let's have a jolly game of some sort! What shall it be?" "Perhaps we had best try to wash your face!" said practical Raggedy Ann. She always acted as a mother to the other dolls when they were alone. "It will not do a bit of good!" the French doll told Raggedy Ann, "for I remember I had orange juice spilled upon a nice white frock I had one time, and the stain would never come out!" "That is too bad!" Henny, the Dutch doll, said. "We shall miss Raggedy Andy's cheery smile when he is looking straight at us!" "You will have to stand on my right side, when you wish to see my smile!" said Raggedy Andy, with a cheery little chuckle 'way down in his soft cotton inside. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy's lopsided smile] [Illustration: Santa] "But I wish everyone to understand," he went on, "that I am smiling just the same, whether you can see it or not!" And with this, Raggedy Andy caught hold of Uncle Clem and Henny, and made a dash for the nursery door, followed by all the other dolls. Raggedy Andy intended jumping down the stairs, head over heels, for he knew that neither he, Uncle Clem nor Henny would break anything by jumping down stairs. But just as they got almost to the door, they dropped to the floor in a heap, for there, standing watching the whole performance, was a man. All the dolls fell in different attitudes, for it would never do for them to let a real person see that they could act and talk just like real people. Raggedy Andy, Uncle Clem and Henny stopped so suddenly they fell over each other and Raggedy Andy, being in the lead and pulling the other two, slid right through the door and stopped at the feet of the man. A cheery laugh greeted this and a chubby hand reached down and picked up Raggedy Andy and turned him over. Raggedy Andy looked up into a cheery little round face, with a little red nose and red cheeks, and all framed in white whiskers which looked just like snow. Then the little round man walked into the nursery and picked up all the dolls and looked at them. He made no noise when he walked, and this was why he had taken the dolls by surprise at the head of the stairs. The little man with the snow-white whiskers placed all the dolls in a row and from a little case in his pocket he took a tiny bottle and a little brush. He dipped the little brush in the tiny bottle and touched all the dolls' faces with it. He had purposely saved Raggedy Andy's face until the last. Then, as all the dolls watched, the cheery little white-whiskered man touched Raggedy Andy's face with the magic liquid, and the orange juice stain disappeared, and in its place came Raggedy Andy's rosy cheeks and cheery smile. [Illustration: Santa repairs Raggedy Andy] And, turning Raggedy Andy so that he could face all the other dolls, the cheery little man showed him that all the other dolls had new rosy cheeks and newly-painted faces. They all looked just like new dollies. Even Susan's cracked head had been made whole. Henny, the Dutch doll, was so surprised he fell over backward and said, "Squeek!" When the cheery little man with the white whiskers heard this, he picked Henny up and touched him with the paint brush in the center of the back, just above the place where Henny had the little mechanism which made him say "Mama" when he was new. And when the little man touched Henny and tipped him forward and backward, Henny was just as good as new and said "Mama" very prettily. Then the little man put something in each of the tiny doll stockings, and something in each of the little china plates for the two penny dolls. Then, as quietly as he had entered, he left, merely turning at the door and shaking his finger at the dolls in a cheery, mischievous manner. Raggedy Andy heard him chuckling to himself as he went down the stairs. Raggedy Andy tiptoed to the door and over to the head of the stairs. Then he motioned for the other dolls to come. There, from the head of the stairs, they watched the cheery little white-whiskered man take pretty things from a large sack and place them about the chimneyplace. "He does not know that we are watching him," the dolls all thought, but when the little man had finished his task, he turned quickly and laughed right up at the dolls, for he had known that they were watching him all the time. Then, again shaking his finger at them in his cheery manner, the little white-whiskered man swung the sack to his shoulder, and with a whistle such as the wind makes when it plays through the chinks of a window, he was gone--up the chimney. The dolls were very quiet as they walked back into the nursery and sat down to think it all over, and as they sat there thinking, they heard out in the night the "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle" of tiny sleigh bells, growing fainter and fainter as they disappeared in the distance. Without a word, but filled with a happy wonder, the dolls climbed into their beds, just as Marcella had left them, and pulled the covers up to their chins. And Raggedy Andy lay there, his little shoe button eyes looking straight towards the ceiling and smiling a joyful smile--not a "half smile" this time, but a "full size smile." [Illustration: Raggedy Andy smiling a joyful smile] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy and the Wooden Horse] [Illustration: Santa leaves the Wooden Horse] THE WOODEN HORSE Santa Claus left a whole lot of toys. A wooden horse, covered with canton flannel and touched lightly with a paint brush dipped in black paint to give him a dappled gray appearance, was one of the presents. With the wooden horse came a beautiful red wagon with four yellow wheels. My! The paint was pretty and shiny. The wooden horse was hitched to the wagon with a patent leather harness; and he, himself, stood proudly upon a red platform running on four little nickel wheels. It was true that the wooden horse's eyes were as far apart as a camel's and made him look quite like one when viewed from in front, but he had soft leather ears and a silken mane and tail. He was nice to look upon, was the wooden horse. All the dolls patted him and smoothed his silken mane and felt his shiny patent leather harness the first night they were alone with him in the nursery. The wooden horse had a queer voice; the dolls could hardly understand him at first, but when his bashfulness wore off, he talked quite plainly. "It is the first time I have ever tried to talk," he explained when he became acquainted, "and I guess I was talking down in my stomach instead of my head!" "You will like it here in the nursery very much!" said Raggedy Andy. "We have such jolly times and love each other so much I know you will enjoy your new home!" "I am sure I shall!" the wooden horse answered. "Where I came from, we--the other horses and myself--just stood silently upon the shelves and looked and looked straight ahead, and never so much as moved our tails." "See if you can move your tail now!" Henny, the Dutch doll, suggested. The wooden horse started to roll across the nursery floor and if Raggedy Ann had not been in the way, he might have bumped into the wall. As it was, the wooden horse rolled against Raggedy Ann and upset her but could go no further when his wheels ran against her rag foot. When the wooden horse upset Raggedy Ann, he stood still until Uncle Clem and Henny and Raggedy Andy lifted him off Raggedy Ann's feet. "Did I frisk my tail?" he asked when Raggedy Ann stood up and smoothed her apron. "Try it again!" said Raggedy Ann. "I couldn't see!" She laughed her cheery rag doll laugh, for Raggedy Ann, no matter what happened, never lost her temper. The wooden horse started rolling backward at this and knocked Henny over upon his back, causing him to cry "Mama!" in his squeeky voice. Uncle Clem, Raggedy Ann, and the tin soldier all held to the wooden horse and managed to stop him just as he was backing out of the nursery door towards the head of the stairs. Then the dolls pulled the wooden horse back to the center of the room. "It's funny" he said, "that I start moving backward or forward when I try to frisk my tail!" "I believe it is because you have stood so long upon the shelf without moving," Raggedy Andy suggested. "Suppose you try moving forward!" Uncle Clem, who was standing in front of the wooden horse, jumped to one side so hastily his feet slipped out from under him, just as if he had been sliding upon slippery ice. [Illustration: The wooden horse rolled over Raggedy Ann's foot] [Illustration: The wooden horse and the dolls] The wooden horse did not start moving forward as Uncle Clem had expected; instead, his silken tail frisked gaily up over his back. "Whee! There, you frisked your tail!" cried all the dolls as joyfully as if the wooden horse had done something truly wonderful. "It's easy now!" said the wooden horse. "When I wish to go forward or backward I'll try to frisk my tail and then I'll roll along on my shiny wheels; then when I wish to frisk my tail I'll try to roll forward or backward, like this!" But instead of rolling forward, the wooden horse frisked his tail. "I wanted to frisk my tail then!" he said in surprise. "Now I'll roll forward!" And sure enough, the wooden horse rolled across the nursery floor. When he started rolling upon his shiny wheels, Raggedy Andy cried, "All aboard!" and, taking a short run, he leaped upon the wooden horse's back. Uncle Clem, Raggedy Ann, Henny, the Dutch doll and Susan, the doll without a head, all scrambled up into the pretty red wagon. The wooden horse thought this was great fun and round and round the nursery he circled. His shiny wheels and the pretty yellow wheels of the red wagon creaked so loudly none of the dolls heard the cries of the tiny penny dolls who were too small to climb aboard. Finally, as the wagon load of dolls passed the penny dolls, Raggedy Andy noticed the two little midgets standing together and missing the fun; so, leaning 'way over to one side as the horse swept by them, Raggedy Andy caught both the penny dolls in his strong rag arms and lifted them to a seat upon the broad back of the wooden horse. "Hooray!" cried all the dolls when they saw Raggedy Andy's feat. "It was just like a Wild West Show!" "We must all have all the fun we can together!" said Raggedy Andy. "Good for you!" cried Uncle Clem. "The more fun we can give each other, the more fun each one of us will have!" [Illustration: The wooden horse pulls a cart] [Illustration: Raggedy Andy and the penny dolls went clear over his head] The wooden horse made the circle of the nursery a great many times, for it pleased him very much to hear the gay laughter of the dolls and he thought to himself, "How happy I will be, living with such a jolly crowd." But just as he was about to pass the door, there was a noise upon the stairs and the wooden horse, hearing it, stopped so suddenly Raggedy Andy and the penny dolls went clear over his head and the dolls in the front of the wagon took Raggedy Andy's seat upon the horse's back. They lay just as they fell, for they did not wish anyone to suspect that they could move or talk. "Ha! Ha! Ha! I knew you were having a lot of fun!" cried a cheery voice. At this, all the dolls immediately scrambled back into their former places, for they recognized the voice of the French dollie. But what was their surprise to see her dressed in a lovely fairy costume, her lovely curls flying out behind, as she ran towards them. Raggedy Andy was just about to climb upon the horse's back again when the French doll leaped there herself and, balancing lightly upon one foot, stood in this position while the wooden horse rolled around the nursery as fast as he could go. Raggedy Andy and the two penny dolls ran after the wagon and, with the assistance of Uncle Clem and Raggedy Ann, climbed up in back. When the wooden horse finally stopped the dolls all said, "This is the most fun we have had for a _long_ time!" The wooden horse, a thrill of happiness running through his wooden body, cried, "It is the most fun I have _ever_ had!" And the dolls, while they did not tell him so, knew that he had had the most fun because he had given _them_ the most pleasure. For, as you must surely know, they who are the most unselfish are the ones who gain the greatest joy; because they give happiness to others. [Illustration: The French doll balanced lightly upon one foot] [Illustration: In front of the toy stove] [Illustration: Four dolls] MAKING "ANGELS" IN THE SNOW "Whee! It's good to be back home again!" said Raggedy Andy to the other dolls, as he stretched his feet out in front of the little toy stove and rubbed his rag hands briskly together, as if to warm them. All the dolls laughed at Raggedy Andy for doing this, for they knew there had never been a fire in the little toy stove in all the time it had been in the nursery. And that was a long time. "We are so glad and happy to have you back home again with us!" the dolls told Raggedy Andy. "For we have missed you very, very much!" "Well," Raggedy Andy replied, as he held his rag hands over the tiny lid of the stove and rubbed them again, "I have missed all of you, too, and wished many times that you had been with me to join in and share in the pleasures and frolics I've had." And as Raggedy Andy continued to hold his hands over the little stove, Uncle Clem asked him why he did it. Raggedy Andy smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Really," he said, "I wasn't paying any attention to what I was doing! I've spent so much of my time while I was away drying out my soft cotton stuffing it seems as though it has almost become a habit." "Were you wet most of the time, Raggedy Andy?" the French doll asked. "Nearly all the time!" Raggedy Andy replied. "First I would get sopping wet and then I'd freeze!" "Freeze!" exclaimed all the dolls in one breath. "Dear me, yes!" Raggedy Andy laughed. "Just see here!" And Raggedy Andy pulled his sleeve up and showed where his rag arm had been mended. "That was quite a rip!" he smiled. "Dear! Dear! How in the world did it happen? On a nail?" Henny, the Dutch doll, asked as he put his arm about Raggedy Andy. "Froze!" said Raggedy Andy. The dolls gathered around Raggedy Andy and examined the rip in his rag arm. "It's all right now!" he laughed. "But you should have seen me when it happened! I was frozen into one solid cake of ice all the way through, and when Marcella tried to limber up my arm before it had thawed out, it went, 'Pop!' and just bursted. "Then I was placed in a pan of nice warm water until the icy cotton inside me had melted, and then I was hung up on a line above the kitchen stove, out at Gran'ma's." "But how did you happen to get so wet and then freeze?" asked Raggedy Ann. "Out across the road from Gran'ma's home, 'way out in the country, there is a lovely pond," Raggedy Andy explained. "In the summer time pretty flowers grow about the edge, the little green frogs sit upon the pond lilies and beat upon their tiny drums all through the night, and the twinkling stars wink at their reflections in the smooth water. But when Marcella and I went out to Gran'ma's, last week, Gran'ma met us with a sleigh, for the ground was covered with starry snow. The pretty pond was covered with ice, too, and upon the ice was a soft blanket of the white, white snow. It was beautiful!" said Raggedy Andy. [Illustration: Marcella and Raggedy Andy in the snow] [Illustration: Marcella on a sled] "Gran'ma had a lovely new sled for Marcella, a red one with shiny runners. "And after we had visited Gran'ma a while, we went to the pond for a slide. "It was heaps of fun, for there was a little hill at one end of the pond so that when we coasted down, we went scooting across the pond like an arrow. "Marcella would turn the sled sideways, just for fun, and she and I would fall off and go sliding across the ice upon our backs, leaving a clean path of ice, where we pushed aside the snow as we slid. Then Marcella showed me how to make 'angels' in the soft snow!" "Oh, tell us how, Raggedy Andy!" shouted all the dollies. "It's very easy!" said Raggedy Andy. "Marcella would lie down upon her back in the snow and put her hands back up over her head, then she would bring her hands in a circle down to her sides, like this." And Raggedy Andy lay upon the floor of the nursery and showed the dollies just how it was done. "Then," he added, "when she stood up it would leave the print of her body and legs in the white, white snow, and where she had swooped her arms there were the 'angel's wings!'" "It must have looked just like an angel!" said Uncle Clem. "Indeed it was very pretty!" Raggedy Andy answered. "Then Marcella made a lot of 'angels' by placing me in the snow and working my arms; so you see, what with falling off the sled so much and making so many 'angels,' we both were wet, but I was completely soaked through. My cotton just became soppy and I was ever so much heavier! Then Gran'ma, just as we were having a most delightful time, came to the door and 'Ooh-hooed' to Marcella to come and get a nice new doughnut. So Marcella, thinking to return in a minute, left me lying upon the sled and ran through the snow to Gran'ma's. And there I stayed and stayed until I began to feel stiff and could hear the cotton inside me go, 'Tic! Tic!' as it began to freeze. [Illustration: Raggedy Andy on a sled at night] "I lay upon the sled until after the sun went down. Two little Chicadees came and sat upon the sled and talked to me in their cute little bird language, and I watched the sky in the west get golden red, then turn into a deep crimson purple and finally a deep blue, as the sun went farther down around the bend of the earth. After it had been dark for some time, I heard someone coming through the snow and could see the yellow light of a lantern. It was Gran'ma. "She pulled the sled over in back of her house and did not see that I was upon it until she turned to go in the kitchen; then she picked me up and took me inside. 'He's frozen as stiff as a board!' she told Marcella as she handed me to her. Marcella did not say why she had forgotten to come for me, but I found out afterward that it was because she was so wet. Gran'ma made her change her clothes and shoes and stockings and would not permit her to go out and play again. "Well, anyway," concluded Raggedy Andy, "Marcella tried to limber my arm and, being almost solid ice, it just burst. And that is the way it went all the time we were out at Gran'ma's; I was wet nearly all the time. But I wish you could all have been with me to share in the fun." And Raggedy Andy again leaned over the little toy stove and rubbed his rag hands briskly together. Uncle Clem went to the waste paper basket and came back with some scraps of yellow and red paper. Then, taking off one of the tiny lids, he stuffed the paper in part of the way as if the flames were "shooting up!" Then, as all the dolls' merry laughter rang out, Raggedy Andy stopped rubbing his hands, and catching Raggedy Ann about the waist, he went skipping across the nursery floor with her, whirling so fast neither saw they had gone out through the door until it was too late. For coming to the head of the stairs, they both went head over heels, "blumpity, blump!" over and over, until they wound up, laughing, at the bottom. "Last one up is a Cocoa baby!" cried Raggedy Ann, as she scrambled to her feet. And with her skirts in her rag hands she went racing up the stairs to where the rest of the dollies stood laughing. "Hurrah, for Raggedy Ann!" cried Raggedy Andy generously. "She won!" [Illustration: Raggedy Ann racing up the stairs] [Illustration: Listening to the seashell] [Illustration: The Singing Shell] THE SINGING SHELL For years and years the beautiful shell had been upon the floor in Gran'ma's front room. It was a large shell with many points upon it. These were coarse and rough, but the shell was most beautiful inside. Marcella had seen the shell time and time again and often admired its lovely coloring, which could be seen when one looked inside the shell. So one day, Gran'ma gave the beautiful shell to Marcella to have for her very own, up in the nursery. "It will be nice to place before the nursery door so the wind will not blow the door to and pinch anyone's fingers!" Gran'ma laughed. So Marcella brought the shell home and placed it in front of the nursery door. Here the dolls saw it that night, when all the house was still, and stood about it wondering what kind of toy it might be. "It seems to be nearly all mouth!" said Henny, the Dutch doll. "Perhaps it can talk." "It has teeth!" the French doll pointed out. "It may bite!" "I do not believe it will bite," Raggedy Andy mused, as he got down upon his hands and knees and looked up into the shell. "Marcella would not have it up here if it would bite!" And, saying this, Raggedy Andy put his rag arm into the lovely shell's mouth. "It doesn't bite! I knew it wouldn't!" he cried. "Just feel how smooth it is inside!" All the dolls felt and were surprised to find it polished so highly inside, while the outside was so coarse and rough. With the help of Uncle Clem and Henny, Raggedy Andy turned the shell upon its back, so that all the dolls might look in. The coloring consisted of dainty pinks, creamy whites and pale blues, all running together just as the coloring in an opal runs from one shade into another. Raggedy Andy, stooping over to look further up inside the pretty shell, heard something. "It's whispering!" he said, as he raised up in surprise. All the dolls took turns putting their ears to the mouth of the beautiful shell. Yes, truly it whispered, but they could not catch just what it said. Finally Raggedy Andy suggested that all the dolls lie down upon the floor directly before the shell and keep very quiet. "If we don't make a sound we may be able to hear what it says!" he explained. So the dolls lay down, placing themselves flat upon the floor directly in front of the shell and where they could see and admire its beautiful coloring. Now the dolls could be very, very quiet when they really wished to be, and it was easy for them to hear the faint whispering of the shell. This is the story the shell told the dolls in the nursery that night: "A long, long time ago, I lived upon the yellow sand, deep down beneath the blue, blue waters of the ocean. Pretty silken sea weeds grew around my home and reached their waving branches up, up towards the top of the water. [Illustration: Everyone listens] "Through the pretty sea weeds, fishes of pretty colors and shapes darted here and there, playing at their games. "It was still and quiet 'way down where I lived, for even if the ocean roared and pounded itself into an angry mass of tumbling waves up above, this never disturbed the calm waters down where I lived. "Many times, little fishes or other tiny sea people came and hid within my pretty house when they were being pursued by larger sea creatures. And it always made me very happy to give them this protection. "They would stay inside until I whispered that the larger creature had gone, then they would leave me and return to their play. "Pretty little sea horses with slender, curving bodies often went sailing above me, or would come to rest upon my back. It was nice to lie and watch the tiny things curl their little tails about the sea weed and talk together, for the sea horses like one another and are gentle and kind to each other, sharing their food happily and smoothing their little ones with their cunning noses. "But one day a diver leaped over the side of a boat and came swimming head-first down, down to where I lay. My! How the tiny sea creatures scurried to hide from him. He took me within his hand and, giving his feet a thump upon the yellow sand, rose with me to the surface. "He poured the water from me, and out came all the little creatures who had been hiding there!" Raggedy Andy wiggled upon the floor, he was so interested. "Did the tiny creatures get back into the water safely?" he asked the beautiful shell. "Oh, yes!" the shell whispered in reply. "The man held me over the side of the boat, so the tiny creatures went safely back into the water!" "I am so glad!" Raggedy Andy said, with a sigh of relief. "He must have been a kindly man!" "Yes, indeed!" the beautiful shell replied. "So I was placed along with a lot of other shells in the bottom of the boat and every once in a while another shell was placed amongst us. We whispered together and wondered where we were going. We were finally sold to different people and I have been at Gran'ma's house for a long, long time." "You lived there when Gran'ma was a little girl, didn't you?" Raggedy Ann asked. "Yes," replied the shell, "I have lived there ever since Gran'ma was a little girl. She often used to play with me and listen to me sing." "Raggedy Ann can play 'Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater' on the piano, with one hand," said Uncle Clem, "but none of us can sing. Will you sing for us?" he asked the shell. "I sing all the time," the shell replied, "for I cannot help singing, but my singing is a secret and so is very soft and low. Put your head close to the opening in my shell and listen!" The dolls took turns doing this, and heard the shell sing softly and very sweetly. "How strange and far away it sounds!" exclaimed the French doll. "Like fairies singing in the distance! The shell must be singing the songs of the mermaids and the water-fairies!" "It is queer that anything so rough on the outside could be so pretty within!" said Raggedy Andy. "It must be a great pleasure to be able to sing so sweetly!" "Indeed it is," replied the beautiful shell, "and I get a great happiness from singing all the time." "And you will bring lots of pleasure to us, by being so happy!" said Raggedy Andy. "For although you may not enter into our games, we will always know that you are happily singing, and that will make us all happy!" "I will tell you the secret of my singing," said the shell. "When anyone puts his ear to me and listens, he hears the reflection of his own heart's music, singing; so, you see, while I say that I am singing all the time, in reality I sing only when someone full of happiness hears his own singing as if it were mine." "How unselfish you are to say this!" said Raggedy Andy. "Now we are ever so much more glad to have you with us. Aren't we?" he asked, turning to the rest of the dolls. "Yes, indeed!" came the answer from all the dolls, even the tiny penny dolls. "That is why the shell is so beautiful inside!" said Raggedy Ann. "Those who are unselfish may wear rough clothes, but inside they are always beautiful, just like the shell, and reflect to others the happiness and sunny music within their hearts!" [Illustration: The shell speaks] Transcriber's Notes: Table of Contents was added. Punctuation was normalized. Descriptions were added to the illustrations which in the original had no captions. 
18190	----	RAGGEDY ANN STORIES Written & Illustrated by JOHNNY GRUELLE [Illustration] LITTLE SIMON New York London Toronto Sydney [Illustration] PREFACE AND DEDICATION As I write this, I have before me on my desk, propped up against the telephone, an old rag doll. Dear old Raggedy Ann! The same Raggedy Ann with which my mother played when a child. There she sits, a trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes reflect the electric light. Evidently Raggedy has been to a "tea party" today, for her face is covered with chocolate. She smiles happily and continuously. True, she has been nibbled by mice, who have made nests out of the soft cotton with which she has been stuffed, but Raggedy smiled just as broadly when the mice nibbled at her, for her smile is painted on. What adventures you must have had, Raggedy! What joy and happiness you have brought into this world! And no matter what treatment you have received, how patient you have been! What lessons of kindness and fortitude you might teach could you but talk; you with your wisdom of fifty-nine years. No wonder Rag Dolls are the best beloved! You are so kindly, so patient, so lovable. The more you become torn, tattered and loose-jointed, Rag Dolls, the more you are loved by children. Who knows but that Fairyland is filled with old, lovable Rag Dolls--soft, loppy Rag Dolls who ride through all the wonders of Fairyland in the crook of dimpled arms, snuggling close to childish breasts within which beat hearts filled with eternal sunshine. So, to the millions of children and grown-ups who have loved a Rag Doll, I dedicate these stories of Raggedy Ann. JOHNNY GRUELLE. [Illustration] [Illustration] INTRODUCTION Marcella liked to play up in the attic at Grandma's quaint old house, 'way out in the country, for there were so many old forgotten things to find up there. One day when Marcella was up in the attic and had played with the old spinning wheel until she had grown tired of it, she curled up on an old horse-hair sofa to rest. "I wonder what is in that barrel, 'way back in the corner?" she thought, as she jumped from the sofa and climbed over two dusty trunks to the barrel standing back under the eaves. It was quite dark back there, so when Marcella had pulled a large bundle of things from the barrel she took them over to the dormer window where she could see better. There was a funny little bonnet with long white ribbons. Marcella put it on. In an old leather bag she found a number of tin-types of queer looking men and women in old-fashioned clothes. And there was one picture of a very pretty little girl with long curls tied tightly back from her forehead and wearing a long dress and queer pantaloons which reached to her shoe-tops. And then out of the heap she pulled an old rag doll with only one shoe-button eye and a painted nose and a smiling mouth. Her dress was of soft material, blue with pretty little flowers and dots all over it. Forgetting everything else in the happiness of her find, Marcella caught up the rag doll and ran downstairs to show it to Grandma. "Well! Well! Where did you find it?" Grandma cried. "It's old Raggedy Ann!" she went on as she hugged the doll to her breast. "I had forgotten her. She has been in the attic for fifty years, I guess! Well! Well! Dear old Raggedy Ann! I will sew another button on her right away!" and Grandma went to the machine drawer and got her needle and thread. Marcella watched the sewing while Grandma told how she had played with Raggedy Ann when she was a little girl. "Now!" Grandma laughed, "Raggedy Ann, you have two fine shoe-button eyes and with them you can see the changes that have taken place in the world while you have been shut up so long in the attic! For, Raggedy Ann, you have a new playmate and mistress now, and I hope you both will have as much happiness together as you and I used to have!" Then Grandma gave Raggedy Ann to Marcella, saying very seriously, "Marcella, let me introduce my very dear friend, Raggedy Ann. Raggedy, this is my grand-daughter, Marcella!" And Grandma gave the doll a twitch with her fingers in such a way that the rag doll nodded her head to Marcella. "Oh, Grandma! Thank you ever and ever so much!" Marcella cried as she gave Grandma a hug and kiss. "Raggedy Ann and I will have just loads of fun." And this is how Raggedy Ann joined the doll family at Marcella's house, where she began the adventures of Raggedy Ann, told in the following stories. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN LEARNS A LESSON One day the dolls were left all to themselves. Their little mistress had placed them all around the room and told them to be nice children while she was away. And there they sat and never even so much as wiggled a finger, until their mistress had left the room. Then the soldier dolly turned his head and solemnly winked at Raggedy Ann. And when the front gate clicked and the dollies knew they were alone in the house, they all scrambled to their feet. "Now let's have a good time!" cried the tin soldier. "Let's all go in search of something to eat!" "Yes! Let's all go in search of something to eat!" cried all the other dollies. "When Mistress had me out playing with her this morning," said Raggedy Ann, "she carried me by a door near the back of the house and I smelled something which smelled as if it would taste delicious!" "Then you lead the way, Raggedy Ann!" cried the French dolly. "I think it would be a good plan to elect Raggedy Ann as our leader on this expedition!" said the Indian doll. At this all the other dolls clapped their hands together and shouted, "Hurrah! Raggedy Ann will be our leader." So Raggedy Ann, very proud indeed to have the confidence and love of all the other dollies, said that she would be very glad to be their leader. "Follow me!" she cried as her wobbly legs carried her across the floor at a lively pace. The other dollies followed, racing about the house until they came to the pantry door. "This is the place!" cried Raggedy Ann, and sure enough, all the dollies smelled something which they knew must be very good to eat. But none of the dollies was tall enough to open the door and, although they pushed and pulled with all their might, the door remained tightly closed. The dollies were talking and pulling and pushing and every once in a while one would fall over and the others would step on her in their efforts to open the door. Finally Raggedy Ann drew away from the others and sat down on the floor. When the other dollies discovered Raggedy Ann sitting there, running her rag hands through her yarn hair, they knew she was thinking. "Sh! Sh!" they said to each other and quietly went over near Raggedy Ann and sat down in front of her. "There must be a way to get inside," said Raggedy Ann. "Raggedy says there must be a way to get inside!" cried all the dolls. "I can't seem to think clearly to-day," said Raggedy Ann. "It feels as if my head were ripped." At this the French doll ran to Raggedy Ann and took off her bonnet. "Yes, there is a rip in your head, Raggedy!" she said and pulled a pin from her skirt and pinned up Raggedy's head. "It's not a very neat job, for I got some puckers in it!" she said. "Oh that is ever so much better!" cried Raggedy Ann. "Now I can think quite clearly." "Now Raggedy can think quite clearly!" cried all the dolls. "My thoughts must have leaked out the rip before!" said Raggedy Ann. [Illustration] [Illustration] "They must have leaked out before, dear Raggedy!" cried all the other dolls. "Now that I can think so clearly," said Raggedy Ann, "I think the door must be locked and to get in we must unlock it!" "That will be easy!" said the Dutch doll who says "Mamma" when he is tipped backward and forward, "For we will have the brave tin soldier shoot the key out of the lock!" "I can easily do that!" cried the tin soldier, as he raised his gun. "Oh, Raggedy Ann!" cried the French dolly. "Please do not let him shoot!" "No!" said Raggedy Ann. "We must think of a quieter way!" After thinking quite hard for a moment, Raggedy Ann jumped up and said: "I have it!" And she caught up the Jumping Jack and held him up to the door; then Jack slid up his stick and unlocked the door. Then the dollies all pushed and the door swung open. My! Such a scramble! The dolls piled over one another in their desire to be the first at the goodies. They swarmed upon the pantry shelves and in their eagerness spilled a pitcher of cream which ran all over the French dolly's dress. The Indian doll found some corn bread and dipping it in the molasses he sat down for a good feast. A jar of raspberry jam was overturned and the dollies ate of this until their faces were all purple. The tin soldier fell from the shelf three times and bent one of his tin legs, but he scrambled right back up again. Never had the dolls had so much fun and excitement, and they had all eaten their fill when they heard the click of the front gate. [Illustration] They did not take time to climb from the shelves, but all rolled or jumped off to the floor and scrambled back to their room as fast as they could run, leaving a trail of bread crumbs and jam along the way. Just as their mistress came into the room the dolls dropped in whatever positions they happened to be in. "This is funny!" cried Mistress. "They were all left sitting in their places around the room! I wonder if Fido has been shaking them up!" Then she saw Raggedy Ann's face and picked her up. "Why Raggedy Ann, you are all sticky! I do believe you are covered with jam!" and Mistress tasted Raggedy Ann's hand. "Yes! It's JAM! Shame on you, Raggedy Ann! You've been in the pantry and all the others, too!" and with this the dolls' mistress dropped Raggedy Ann on the floor and left the room. When she came back she had on an apron and her sleeves were rolled up. She picked up all the sticky dolls and putting them in a basket she carried them out under the apple tree in the garden. There she had placed her little tub and wringer and she took the dolls one at a time, and scrubbed them with a scrubbing brush and soused them up and down and this way and that in the soap suds until they were clean. Then she hung them all out on the clothes-line in the sunshine to dry. There the dolls hung all day, swinging and twisting about as the breeze swayed the clothes-line. "I do believe she scrubbed my face so hard she wore off my smile!" said Raggedy Ann, after an hour of silence. [Illustration] [Illustration] "No, it is still there!" said the tin solder, as the wind twisted him around so he could see Raggedy. "But I do believe my arms will never work without squeaking, they feel so rusted," he added. Just then the wind twisted the little Dutch doll and loosened his clothes-pin, so that he fell to the grass below with a sawdusty bump and as he rolled over he said, "Mamma!" in a squeaky voice. Late in the afternoon the back door opened and the little mistress came out with a table and chairs. After setting the table she took all the dolls from the line and placed them about the table. They had lemonade with grape jelly in it, which made it a beautiful lavender color, and little "Baby-teeny-weeny-cookies" with powdered sugar on them. After this lovely dinner, the dollies were taken in the house, where they had their hair brushed and nice clean nighties put on. Then they were placed in their beds and Mistress kissed each one good night and tiptoed from the room. All the dolls lay as still as mice for a few minutes, then Raggedy Ann raised up on her cotton-stuffed elbows and said: "I have been thinking!" "Sh!" said all the other dollies, "Raggedy has been thinking!" "Yes," said Raggedy Ann, "I have been thinking; our mistress gave us the nice dinner out under the trees to teach us a lesson. She wished us to know that we could have had all the goodies we wished, whenever we wished, if we had behaved ourselves. And our lesson was that we must never take without asking what we could always have for the asking! So let us all remember and try never again to do anything which might cause those who love us any unhappiness!" "Let us all remember," chimed all the other dollies. [Illustration] And Raggedy Ann, with a merry twinkle in her shoe-button eyes, lay back in her little bed, her cotton head filled with thoughts of love and happiness. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE WASHING "Why, Dinah! How could you!" Mamma looked out of the window and saw Marcella run up to Dinah and take something out of her hand and then put her head in her arm and commence crying. "What is the trouble, Dear?" Mamma asked, as she came out the door and knelt beside the little figure shaking with sobs. Marcella held out Raggedy Ann. But such a comical looking Raggedy Ann! Mamma had to smile in spite of her sympathy, for Raggedy Ann looked ridiculous! Dinah's big eyes rolled out in a troubled manner, for Marcella had snatched Raggedy Ann from Dinah's hand as she cried, "Why, Dinah! How could you?" Dinah could not quite understand and, as she dearly loved Marcella, she was troubled. Raggedy Ann was not in the least downhearted and while she felt she must look very funny she continued to smile, but with a more expansive smile than ever before. Raggedy Ann knew just how it all happened and her remaining shoe-button eye twinkled. She remembered that morning when Marcella came to the nursery to take the nighties from the dolls and dress them she had been cross. Raggedy Ann thought at the time "Perhaps she had climbed out of bed backwards!" For Marcella complained to each doll as she dressed them. And when it came Raggedy's time to be dressed, Marcella was very cross for she had scratched her finger on a pin when dressing the French doll. So, when Marcella heard the little girl next door calling to her, she ran out of the nursery and gave Raggedy Ann a toss from her as she ran. Now it happened Raggedy lit in the clothes hamper and there she lay all doubled up in a knot. A few minutes afterwards Dinah came through the hall with an armful of clothes and piled them in the hamper on top of Raggedy Ann. Then Dinah carried the hamper out in back of the house where she did the washing. Dinah dumped all the clothes into the boiler and poured water on them. The boiler was then placed upon the stove. When the water began to get warm, Raggedy Ann wiggled around and climbed up amongst the clothes to the top of the boiler to peek out. There was too much steam and she could see nothing. For that matter, Dinah could not see Raggedy Ann, either, on account of the steam. So Dinah, using an old broom handle, stirred the clothes in the boiler and the clothes and Raggedy Ann were stirred and whirled around until all were thoroughly boiled. When Dinah took the clothes a piece at a time from the boiler and scrubbed them, she finally came upon Raggedy Ann. Now Dinah did not know but that Marcella had placed Raggedy in the clothes hamper to be washed, so she soaped Raggedy well and scrubbed her up and down over the rough wash-board. [Illustration] Two buttons from the back of Raggedy's dress came off and one of Raggedy Ann's shoe-button eyes was loosened as Dinah gave her face a final scrub. [Illustration] Then Dinah put Raggedy Ann's feet in the wringer and turned the crank. It was hard work getting Raggedy through the wringer, but Dinah was very strong. And of course it happened! Raggedy Ann came through as flat as a pancake. It was just then, that Marcella returned and saw Raggedy. "Why, Dinah! How could you!" Marcella had sobbed as she snatched the flattened Raggedy Ann from the bewildered Dinah's hand. Mamma patted Marcella's hand and soon coaxed her to quit sobbing. When Dinah explained that the first she knew of Raggedy being in the wash was when she took her from the boiler, Marcella began crying again. "It was all my fault, Mamma!" she cried. "I remember now that I threw dear old Raggedy Ann from me as I ran out the door and she must have fallen in the clothes hamper! Oh dear! Oh dear!" and she hugged Raggedy Ann tight. Mamma did not tell Marcella that she had been cross and naughty for she knew Marcella felt very sorry. Instead Mamma put her arms around her and said, "Just see how Raggedy Ann takes it! She doesn't seem to be unhappy!" And when Marcella brushed her tears away and looked at Raggedy Ann, flat as a pancake and with a cheery smile upon her painted face, she had to laugh. And Mamma and Dinah had to laugh, too, for Raggedy Ann's smile was almost twice as broad as it had been before. "Just let me hang Miss Raggedy on the line in the bright sunshine for half an hour," said Dinah, "and you won't know her when she comes off!" So Raggedy Ann was pinned to the clothes-line, out in the bright sunshine, where she swayed and twisted in the breeze and listened to the chatter of the robins in a nearby tree. [Illustration] Every once in a while Dinah went out and rolled and patted Raggedy until her cotton stuffing was soft and dry and fluffy and her head and arms and legs were nice and round again. Then she took Raggedy Ann into the house and showed Marcella and Mamma how clean and sweet she was. Marcella took Raggedy Ann right up to the nursery and told all the dolls just what had happened and how sorry she was that she had been so cross and peevish when she dressed them. And while the dolls said never a word they looked at their little mistress with love in their eyes as she sat in the little red rocking chair and held Raggedy Ann tightly in her arms. And Raggedy Ann's remaining shoe-button eye looked up at her little mistress in rather a saucy manner, but upon her face was the same old smile of happiness, good humor and love. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE KITE Raggedy Ann watched with interest the preparations. A number of sticks were being fastened together with strings and covered with light cloth. Raggedy Ann heard some of the boys talk of "The Kite," so Raggedy Ann knew this must be a kite. When a tail had been fastened to the kite and a large ball of heavy twine tied to the front, one of the boys held the kite up in the air and another boy walked off, unwinding the ball of twine. There was a nice breeze blowing, so the boy with the twine called, "Let 'er go" and started running. Marcella held Raggedy up so that she could watch the kite sail through the air. How nicely it climbed! But suddenly the kite acted strangely, and as all the children shouted advice to the boy with the ball of twine, the kite began darting this way and that, and finally making four or five loop-the-loops, it crashed to the ground. "It needs more tail on it!" one boy shouted. Then the children asked each other where they might get more rags to fasten to the tail of the kite. "Let's tie Raggedy Ann to the tail!" suggested Marcella. "I know she would enjoy a trip 'way up in the sky!" The boys all shouted with delight at this new suggestion. So Raggedy Ann was tied to the tail of the kite. This time the kite rose straight in the air and remained steady. The boy with the ball of twine unwound it until the kite and Raggedy Ann were 'way, 'way up and far away. How Raggedy Ann enjoyed being up there! She could see for miles and miles! And how tiny the children looked! Suddenly a great puff of wind came and carried Raggedy Ann streaming 'way out behind the kite! She could hear the wind singing on the twine as the strain increased. Suddenly Raggedy Ann felt something rip. It was the rag to which she was tied. As each puff of wind caught her the rip widened. When Marcella watched Raggedy Ann rise high above the field, she wondered how much Raggedy Ann enjoyed it, and wished that she, too, might have gone along. But after the kite had been up in the air for five or ten minutes, Marcella grew restless. Kites were rather tiresome. There was more fun in tea parties out under the apple tree. "Will you please pull down the kite now?" she asked the boy with the twine. "I want Raggedy Ann." "Let her ride up there!" the boy replied. "We'll bring her home when we pull down the kite! We're going to get another ball of twine and let her go higher!" Marcella did not like to leave Raggedy Ann with the boys, so she sat down upon the ground to wait until they pulled down the kite. But while Marcella watched Raggedy Ann, a dot in the sky, she could not see the wind ripping the rag to which Raggedy was tied. Suddenly the rag parted and Raggedy Ann went sailing away as the wind caught in her skirts. Marcella jumped from the ground, too surprised to say anything. The kite, released from the weight of Raggedy Ann began darting and swooping to the ground. [Illustration] [Illustration] "We'll get her for you!" some of the boys said when they saw Marcella's troubled face, and they started running in the direction Raggedy Ann had fallen. Marcella and the other girls ran with them. They ran, and they ran, and they ran, and at last they found the kite upon the ground with one of the sticks broken, but they could not find Raggedy Ann anywhere. "She must have fallen almost in your yard!" a boy said to Marcella, "for the kite was directly over here when the doll fell!" Marcella was heartbroken. She went in the house and lay on the bed. Mamma went out with the children and tried to find Raggedy Ann, but Raggedy Ann was nowhere to be seen. When Daddy came home in the evening he tried to find Raggedy, but met with no success. Marcella had eaten hardly any dinner, nor could she be comforted by Mamma or Daddy. The other dolls in the nursery lay forgotten and were not put to bed that night, for Marcella lay and sobbed and tossed about her bed. Finally she said a little prayer for Raggedy Ann, and went to sleep. And as she slept Marcella dreamed that the fairies came and took Raggedy Ann with them to fairyland for a visit, and then sent Raggedy Ann home to her. She awakened with a cry. Of course Mamma came to her bed right away and said that Daddy would offer a reward in the morning for the return of Raggedy. "It was all my fault, Mamma!" Marcella said. "I should not have offered the boys dear old Raggedy Ann to tie on the tail of the kite! But I just know the fairies will send her back." Mamma took her in her arms and soothed her with cheering words, although she felt indeed that Raggedy Ann was truly lost and would never be found again. Now, where do you suppose Raggedy Ann was all this time? [Illustration] When Raggedy Ann dropped from the kite, the wind caught in her skirts and carried her along until she fell in the fork of the large elm tree directly over Marcella's house. When Raggedy Ann fell with a thud, face up in the fork of the tree, two robins who had a nest near by flew chattering away. Presently the robins returned and quarreled at Raggedy Ann for laying so close to their nest, but Raggedy Ann only smiled at them and did not move. When the robins quieted down and quit their quarreling, one of them hopped up closer to Raggedy Ann in order to investigate. It was Mamma Robin. She called to Daddy Robin and told him to come. "See the nice yarn! We could use it to line the nest with," she said. So the robins hopped closer to Raggedy Ann and asked if they might have some of her yarn hair to line their nest. Raggedy Ann smiled at them. So the two robins pulled and tugged at Raggedy Ann's yarn hair until they had enough to line their nest nice and soft. Evening came and the robins sang their good night songs, and Raggedy Ann watched the stars come out, twinkle all night and disappear in the morning light. In the morning the robins again pulled yarn from Raggedy Ann's head, and loosened her so she could peep over the side of the limb, and when the sun came up Raggedy Ann saw she was in the trees in her own yard. Now before she could eat any breakfast, Marcella started out to find Raggedy Ann. And, it was Marcella herself who found her. And this is how she did it. Mamma Robin had seen Marcella with Raggedy Ann out in the yard many times, so she began calling "Cheery! Cheery!" and Daddy Robin started calling "Cheery! Cheery! Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheerily Cheerily! Cheery! Cheery!" And Marcella looking up into the tree above the house to see the robins, discovered Raggedy Ann peeping over the limb at her. [Illustration] Oh, how her heart beat with happiness. "Here is Raggedy Ann," she shouted. And Mamma and Daddy came out and saw Raggedy smiling at them, and Daddy got the clothes prop and climbed out of the attic window and poked Raggedy Ann out of the tree and she fell right into Marcella's arms where she was hugged in a tight embrace. "You'll never go up on a kite again, Raggedy Ann!" said Marcella, "for I felt so lost without you. I will never let you leave me again." So Raggedy Ann went into the house and had breakfast with her little mistress and Mamma and Daddy smiled at each other when they peeped through the door into the breakfast room, for Raggedy Ann's smile was wide and very yellow. Marcella, her heart full of happiness, was feeding Raggedy Ann part of her egg. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN RESCUES FIDO It was almost midnight and the dolls were asleep in their beds; all except Raggedy Ann. Raggedy lay there, her shoe-button eyes staring straight up at the ceiling. Every once in a while Raggedy Ann ran her rag hand up through her yarn hair. She was thinking. When she had thought for a long, long time, Raggedy Ann raised herself on her wabbly elbows and said, "I've thought it all out." At this the other dolls shook each other and raised up saying, "Listen! Raggedy has thought it all out!" "Tell us what you have been thinking, dear Raggedy," said the tin soldier. "We hope they were pleasant thoughts." "Not very pleasant thoughts!" said Raggedy, as she brushed a tear from her shoe-button eyes. "You haven't seen Fido all day, have you?" "Not since early this morning," the French dolly said. "It has troubled me," said Raggedy, "and if my head was not stuffed with lovely new white cotton, I am sure it would have ached with the worry! When Mistress took me into the living-room this afternoon she was crying, and I heard her mamma say, 'We will find him! He is sure to come home soon!' and I knew they were talking of Fido! He must be lost!" The tin soldier jumped out of bed and ran over to Fido's basket, his tin feet clicking on the floor as he went. "He is not here," he said. "When I was sitting in the window about noon-time," said the Indian doll, "I saw Fido and a yellow scraggly dog playing out on the lawn and they ran out through a hole in the fence!" "That was Priscilla's dog, Peterkins!" said the French doll. "I know poor Mistress is very sad on account of Fido," said the Dutch doll, "because I was in the dining-room at supper-time and I heard her daddy tell her to eat her supper and he would go out and find Fido; but I had forgotten all about it until now." "That is the trouble with all of us except Raggedy Ann!" cried the little penny doll, in a squeaky voice, "She has to think for all of us!" "I think it would be a good plan for us to show our love for Mistress and try and find Fido!" exclaimed Raggedy. "It is a good plan, Raggedy Ann!" cried all the dolls. "Tell us how to start about it." "Well, first let us go out upon the lawn and see if we can track the dogs!" said Raggedy. "I can track them easily!" the Indian doll said, "for Indians are good at trailing things!" "Then let us waste no more time in talking!" said Raggedy Ann, as she jumped from bed, followed by the rest. The nursery window was open, so the dolls helped each other up on the sill and then jumped to the soft grass below. They fell in all sorts of queer attitudes, but of course the fall did not hurt them. At the hole in the fence the Indian doll picked up the trail of the two dogs, and the dolls, stringing out behind, followed him until they came to Peterkins' house. Peterkins was surprised to see the strange little figures in white nighties come stringing up the path to the dog house. [Illustration] [Illustration] Peterkins was too large to sleep in the nursery, so he had a nice cozy dog-house under the grape arbor. "Come in," Peterkins said when he saw and recognized the dolls, so all the dollies went into Peterkins' house and sat about while Raggedy told him why they had come. "It has worried me, too!" said Peterkins, "but I had no way of telling your mistress where Fido was, for she cannot understand dog language! For you see," Peterkins continued, "Fido and I were having the grandest romp over in the park when a great big man with a funny thing on the end of a stick came running towards us. We barked at him and Fido thought he was trying to play with us and went up too close and do you know, that wicked man caught Fido in the thing at the end of the stick and carried him to a wagon and dumped him in with a lot of other dogs!" "_The Dog Catcher!_" cried Raggedy Ann. "Yes!" said Peterkins, as he wiped his eyes with his paws. "It was the dog catcher! For I followed the wagon at a distance and I saw him put all the dogs into a big wire pen, so that none could get out!" "Then you know the way there, Peterkins?" asked Raggedy Ann. "Yes, I can find it easily," Peterkins said. "Then show us the way!" Raggedy Ann cried, "for we must try to rescue Fido." So Peterkins led the way up alleys and across streets, the dolls all pattering along behind him. It was a strange procession. Once a strange dog ran out at them, but Peterkins told him to mind his own business and the strange dog returned to his own yard. At last they came to the dog catcher's place. Some of the dogs in the pen were barking at the moon and others were whining and crying. [Illustration] There was Fido, all covered with mud, and his pretty red ribbon dragging on the ground. My, but he was glad to see the dolls and Peterkins! All the dogs came to the side of the pen and twisted their heads from side to side, gazing in wonder at the queer figures of the dolls. "We will try and let you out," said Raggedy Ann. At this all the dogs barked joyfully. Then Raggedy Ann, the other dolls and Peterkins went to the gate. The catch was too high for Raggedy Ann to reach, but Peterkins held Raggedy Ann in his mouth and stood up on his hind legs so that she could raise the catch. When the catch was raised, the dogs were so anxious to get out they pushed and jumped against the gate so hard it flew open, knocking Peterkins and Raggedy Ann into the mud. Such a yapping and barking was never heard in the neighborhood as when the dogs swarmed out of the enclosure, jumping over one another and scrambling about in the mad rush out the gate. Fido picked himself up from where he had been rolled by the large dogs and helped Raggedy Ann to her feet. He, Peterkins, and all the dolls ran after the pack of dogs, turning the corner just as the dog catcher came running out of the house in his nightgown to see what was causing the trouble. He stopped in astonishment when he saw the string of dolls in white nighties pattering down the alley, for he could not imagine what they were. Well, you may be sure the dolls thanked Peterkins for his kind assistance and they and Fido ran on home, for a faint light was beginning to show in the east where the sun was getting ready to come up. When they got to their own home they found an old chair out in the yard and after a great deal of work they finally dragged it to the window and thus managed to get into the nursery again. Fido was very grateful to Raggedy Ann and the other dolls and before he went to his basket he gave them each a lick on the cheek. [Illustration] The dolls lost no time in scrambling into bed and pulling up the covers, for they were very sleepy, but just as they were dozing off, Raggedy Ann raised herself and said, "If my legs and arms were not stuffed with nice clean cotton I feel sure they would ache, but being stuffed with nice clean white cotton, they do not ache and I could not feel happier if my body were stuffed with sunshine, for I know how pleased and happy Mistress will be in the morning when she discovers Fido asleep in his own little basket, safe and sound at home." And as the dollies by this time were all asleep, Raggedy Ann pulled the sheet up to her chin and smiled so hard she ripped two stitches out of the back of her rag head. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE PAINTER When housecleaning time came around, Mistress' mamma decided that she would have the nursery repainted and new paper put upon the walls. That was why all the dolls happened to be laid helter-skelter upon one of the high shelves. Mistress had been in to look at them and wished to put them to bed, but as the painters were coming again in the early morning, Mamma thought it best that their beds be piled in the closet. So the dolls' beds were piled into the closet, one on top of another and the dolls were placed upon the high shelf. When all was quiet that night, Raggedy Ann who was on the bottom of the pile of dolls spoke softly and asked the others if they would mind moving along the shelf. "The cotton in my body is getting mashed as flat as a pancake!" said Raggedy Ann. And although the tin soldier was piled so that his foot was pressed into Raggedy's face, she still wore her customary smile. So the dolls began moving off to one side until Raggedy Ann was free to sit up. "Ah, that's a great deal better!" she said, stretching her arms and legs to get the kinks out of them, and patting her dress into shape. "Well, I'll be glad when morning comes!" she said finally, "for I know Mistress will take us out in the yard and play with us under the trees." So the dolls sat and talked until daylight, when the painters came to work. One of the painters, a young fellow, seeing the dolls, reached up and took Raggedy Ann down from the shelf. "Look at this rag doll, Jim," he said to one of the other painters, "She's a daisy," and he took Raggedy Ann by the hands and danced with her while he whistled a lively tune. Raggedy Ann's heels hit the floor thumpity-thump and she enjoyed it immensely. The other dolls sat upon the shelf and looked straight before them, for it would never do to let grown-up men know that dolls were really alive. "Better put her back upon the shelf," said one of the other men. "You'll have the little girl after you! The chances are that she likes that old rag doll better than any of the others!" But the young painter twisted Raggedy Ann into funny attitudes and laughed and laughed as she looped about. Finally he got to tossing her up in the air and catching her. This was great fun for Raggedy and as she sailed up by the shelf the dolls all smiled at her, for it pleased them whenever Raggedy Ann was happy. But the young fellow threw Raggedy Ann up into the air once too often and when she came down he failed to catch her and she came down _splash_, head first into a bucket of oily paint. "I told you!" said the older painter, "and now you are in for it!" "My goodness! I didn't mean to do it!" said the young fellow, "What had I better do with her?" "Better put her back on the shelf!" replied the other. So Raggedy was placed back upon the shelf and the paint ran from her head and trickled down upon her dress. [Illustration] [Illustration] After breakfast, Mistress came into the nursery and saw Raggedy all covered with paint and she began crying. The young painter felt sorry and told her how it had happened. "If you will let me," he said, "I will take her home with me and will clean her up tonight and will bring her back day after tomorrow." So Raggedy was wrapped in a newspaper that evening and carried away. All the dolls felt sad that night without Raggedy Ann near them. "Poor Raggedy! I could have cried when I saw her all covered with paint!" said the French doll. "She didn't look like our dear old Raggedy Ann at all!" said the tin soldier, who wiped the tears from his eyes so that they would not run down on his arms and rust them. "The paint covered her lovely smile and nose and you could not see the laughter in her shoe-button eyes!" said the Indian doll. And so the dolls talked that night and the next. But in the daytime when the painters were there, they kept very quiet. The second day Raggedy was brought home and the dolls were all anxious for night to come so that they could see and talk with Raggedy Ann. At last the painters left and the house was quiet, for Mistress had been in and placed Raggedy on the shelf with the other dolls. "Tell us all about it, Raggedy dear!" the dolls cried. "Oh I am so glad I fell in the paint!" cried Raggedy, after she had hugged all the dolls, "For I have had the happiest time. The painter took me home and told his Mamma how I happened to be covered with paint and she was very sorry. She took a rag and wiped off my shoe-button eyes and then I saw that she was a very pretty, sweet-faced lady and she got some cleaner and wiped off most of the paint on my face. [Illustration] "But you know," Raggedy continued, "the paint had soaked through my rag head and had made the cotton inside all sticky and soggy and I could not think clearly. And my yarn hair was all matted with paint. "So the kind lady took off my yarn hair and cut the stitches out of my head, and took out all the painty cotton. "It was a great relief, although it felt queer at first and my thoughts seemed scattered. "She left me in her work-basket that night and hung me out upon the clothes-line the next morning when she had washed the last of the paint off. "And while I hung out on the clothes-line, what do you think?" "We could never guess!" all the dolls cried. "Why a dear little Jenny Wren came and picked enough cotton out of me to make a cute little cuddly nest in the grape arbor!" "Wasn't that sweet!" cried all the dolls. "Yes indeed it was!" replied Raggedy Ann, "It made me very happy. Then when the lady took me in the house again she stuffed me with lovely nice new cotton, all the way from my knees up and sewed me up and put new yarn on my head for hair and--and--and it's a secret!" said Raggedy Ann. "Oh tell us the secret!" cried all the dolls, as they pressed closer to Raggedy. "Well, I know you will not tell anyone who would not be glad to know about it, so I will tell you the secret and why I am wearing my smile a trifle broader!" said Raggedy Ann. The dolls all said that Raggedy Ann's smile was indeed a quarter of an inch wider on each side. [Illustration] "When the dear lady put the new white cotton in my body," said Raggedy Ann "she went to the cupboard and came back with a paper bag. And she took from the bag ten or fifteen little candy hearts with mottos on them and she hunted through the candy hearts until she found a beautiful red one which she sewed up in me with the cotton! So that is the secret, and that is why I am so happy! Feel here," said Raggedy Ann. All the dolls could feel Raggedy Ann's beautiful new candy heart and they were very happy for her. After all had hugged each other good night and had cuddled up for the night, the tin soldier asked, "Did you have a chance to see what the motto on your new candy heart was, Raggedy Ann?" "Oh yes," replied Raggedy Ann, "I was so happy I forgot to tell you. It had printed upon it in nice blue letters, 'I LOVE YOU.'" [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN'S TRIP ON THE RIVER When Marcella had a tea party out in the orchard, of course all of the dolls were invited. Raggedy Ann, the tin soldier, the Indian doll and all the others--even the four little penny dolls in the spool box. After a lovely tea party with ginger cookies and milk, of course the dolls were very sleepy, at least Marcella thought so, so she took all except Raggedy Ann into the house and put them to bed for the afternoon nap. Then Marcella told Raggedy Ann to stay there and watch the things. As there was nothing else to do, Raggedy Ann waited for Marcella to return. And as she watched the little ants eating cookie crumbs Marcella had thrown to them, she heard all of a sudden the patter of puppy feet behind her. It was Fido. The puppy dog ran up to Raggedy Ann and twisted his head about as he looked at her. Then he put his front feet out and barked in Raggedy Ann's face. Raggedy Ann tried to look very stern, but she could not hide the broad smile painted on her face. "Oh, you want to play, do you?" the puppy dog barked, as he jumped at Raggedy Ann and then jumped back again. The more Raggedy Ann smiled, the livelier Fido's antics became, until finally he caught the end of her dress and dragged her about. This was great fun for the puppy dog, but Raggedy Ann did not enjoy it. She kicked and twisted as much as she could, but the puppy dog thought Raggedy was playing. He ran out the garden gate and down the path across the meadow, every once in a while stopping and pretending he was very angry. When he pretended this, Fido would give Raggedy Ann a great shaking, making her yarn head hit the ground "ratty-tat-tat." Then he would give his head a toss and send Raggedy Ann high in the air where she would turn over two or three times before she reached the ground. By this time, she had lost her apron and now some of her yarn hair was coming loose. As Fido neared the brook, another puppy dog came running across the foot-bridge to meet him. "What have you there, Fido?" said the new puppy dog as he bounced up to Raggedy Ann. "This is Raggedy Ann," answered Fido. "She and I are having a lovely time playing." You see, Fido really thought Raggedy enjoyed being tossed around and whirled high up in the air. But of course she didn't. However, the game didn't last much longer. As Raggedy Ann hit the ground the new puppy dog caught her dress and ran with her across the bridge, Fido barking close behind him. In the center of the bridge, Fido caught up with the new puppy dog and they had a lively tug-of-war with Raggedy Ann stretched between then. As they pulled and tugged and flopped Raggedy Ann about, somehow she fell over the side of the bridge into the water. The puppy dogs were surprised, and Fido was very sorry indeed, for he remembered how good Raggedy Ann had been to him and how she had rescued him from the dog-pound. But the current carried Raggedy Ann right along and all Fido could do was to run along the bank and bark. [Illustration] [Illustration] Now, you would have thought Raggedy Ann would sink, but no, she floated nicely, for she was stuffed with clean white cotton and the water didn't soak through very quickly. After a while, the strange puppy and Fido grew tired of running along the bank and the strange puppy scampered home over the meadow, with his tail carried gaily over his back as if he had nothing to be ashamed of. But Fido walked home very sorry indeed. His little heart was broken to think that he had caused Raggedy Ann to be drowned. But Raggedy Ann didn't drown--not a bit of it. In fact, she even went to sleep on the brook, for the motion of the current was very soothing as it carried her along--just like being rocked by Marcella. So, sleeping peacefully, Raggedy Ann drifted along with the current until she came to a pool where she lodged against a large stone. Raggedy Ann tried to climb upon the stone, but by this time the water had thoroughly soaked through Raggedy Ann's nice, clean, white cotton stuffing and she was so heavy she could not climb. So there she had to stay until Marcella and Daddy came along and found her. You see, they had been looking for her. They had found pieces of her apron all along the path and across the meadow where Fido and the strange puppy dog had shaken them from Raggedy Ann. So they followed the brook until they found her. When Daddy fished Raggedy Ann from the water, Marcella hugged her so tightly to her breast the water ran from Raggedy Ann and dripped all over Marcella's apron. But Marcella was so glad to find Raggedy Ann again she didn't mind it a bit. She just hurried home and took off all of Raggedy Ann's wet clothes and placed her on a little red chair in front of the oven door, and then brought all of the other dolls in and read a fairy tale to them while Raggedy Ann steamed and dried. [Illustration] When Raggedy Ann was thoroughly dry, Mamma said she thought the cake must be finished and she took from the oven a lovely chocolate cake and gave Marcella a large piece to have another tea party with. That night when all the house was asleep, Raggedy Ann raised up in bed and said to the dolls who were still awake, "I am so happy I do not feel a bit sleepy. Do you know, I believe the water soaked me so thoroughly my candy heart must have melted and filled my whole body, and I do not feel the least bit angry with Fido for playing with me so roughly!" So all the other dolls were happy, too, for happiness is very easy to catch when we love one another and are sweet all through. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE STRANGE DOLLS Raggedy Ann lay just as Marcella had dropped her--all sprawled out with her rag arms and legs twisted in ungraceful attitudes. Her yarn hair was twisted and lay partly over her face, hiding one of her shoe-button eyes. Raggedy gave no sign that she had heard, but lay there smiling at the ceiling. Perhaps Raggedy Ann knew that what the new dolls said was true. But sometimes the truth may hurt and this may have been the reason Raggedy Ann lay there so still. "Did you ever see such an ungainly creature!" "I do believe it has shoe buttons for eyes!" "And yarn hair!" "Mercy, did you ever see such feet!" The Dutch doll rolled off the doll sofa and said "Mamma" in his quavery voice, he was so surprised at hearing anyone speak so of beloved Raggedy Ann--dear Raggedy Ann, she of the candy heart, whom all the dolls loved. Uncle Clem was also very much surprised and offended. He walked up in front of the two new dolls and looked them sternly in the eyes, but he could think of nothing to say so he pulled at his yarn mustache. Marcella had only received the two new dolls that morning. They had come in the morning mail and were presents from an aunt. Marcella had named the two new dolls Annabel-Lee and Thomas, after her aunt and uncle. Annabel-Lee and Thomas were beautiful dolls and must have cost heaps and heaps of shiny pennies, for both were handsomely dressed and had _real_ hair! Annabel's hair was of a lovely shade of auburn and Thomas' was golden yellow. Annabel was dressed in soft, lace-covered silk and upon her head she wore a beautiful hat with long silk ribbons tied in a neat bow-knot beneath her dimpled chin. Thomas was dressed in an Oliver Twist suit of dark velvet with a lace collar. Both he and Annabel wore lovely black slippers and short stockings. They were sitting upon two of the little red doll chairs where Marcella had placed them and where they could see the other dolls. When Uncle Clem walked in front of them and pulled his mustache they laughed outright. "Tee-Hee-Hee!" they snickered, "He has holes in his knees!" Quite true. Uncle Clem was made of worsted and the moths had eaten his knees and part of his kiltie. He had a kiltie, you see, for Uncle Clem was a Scotch doll. Uncle Clem shook, but he felt so hurt he could think of nothing to say. He walked over and sat down beside Raggedy Ann and brushed her yarn hair away from her shoe-button eye. The tin soldier went over and sat beside them. "Don't you mind what they say, Raggedy!" he said, "They do not know you as we do!" "We don't care to know her!" said Annabel-Lee as she primped her dress, "She looks like a scarecrow!" "And the Soldier must have been made with a can opener!" laughed Thomas. [Illustration] [Illustration] "You should be ashamed of yourselves!" said the French dolly, as she stood before Annabel and Thomas, "You will make all of us sorry that you have joined our family if you continue to poke fun at us and look down upon us. We are all happy here together and share in each others' adventures and happiness." Now, that night Marcella did not undress the two new dolls, for she had no nighties for them, so she let them sit up in the two little red doll chairs so they would not muss their clothes. "I will make nighties for you tomorrow!" she said as she kissed them good night. Then she went over and gave Raggedy Ann a good night hug. "Take good care of all my children, Raggedy!" she said as she went out. Annabel and Thomas whispered together, "Perhaps we have been too hasty in our judgment!" said Annabel-Lee. "This Raggedy Ann seems to be a favorite with the mistress and with all the dolls!" "There must be a reason!" replied Thomas, "I am beginning to feel sorry that we spoke of her looks. One really cannot help one's looks after all." Now, Annabel-Lee and Thomas were very tired after their long journey and soon they fell asleep and forgot all about the other dolls. When they were sound asleep, Raggedy Ann slipped quietly from her bed and awakened the tin soldier and Uncle Clem and the three tiptoed to the two beautiful new dolls. They lifted them gently so as not to awaken them and carried them to Raggedy Ann's bed. Raggedy Ann tucked them in snugly and lay down upon the hard floor. The tin soldier and Uncle Clem both tried to coax Raggedy Ann into accepting their bed (they slept together), but Raggedy Ann would not hear of it. "I am stuffed with nice soft cotton and the hard floor does not bother me at all!" said Raggedy. [Illustration] At daybreak the next morning Annabel and Thomas awakened to find themselves in Raggedy Ann's bed and as they raised up and looked at each other each knew how ashamed the other felt, for they knew Raggedy Ann had generously given them her bed. There Raggedy Ann lay; all sprawled out upon the hard floor, her rag arms and legs twisted in ungraceful attitudes. "How good and honest she looks!" said Annabel. "It must be her shoe-button eyes!" "How nicely her yarn hair falls in loops over her face!" exclaimed Thomas, "I did not notice how pleasant her face looked last night!" "The others seem to love her ever and ever so much!" mused Annabel. "It must be because she is so kind." Both new dolls were silent for a while, thinking deeply. "How do you feel?" Thomas finally asked. "Very much ashamed of myself!" answered Annabel, "And you, Thomas?" "As soon as Raggedy Ann awakens, I shall tell her just how much ashamed I am of myself and if she can, I want her to forgive me!" Thomas said. "The more I look at her, the better I like her!" said Annabel. "I am going to kiss her!" said Thomas. "You'll awaken her if you do!" said Annabel. But Thomas climbed out of bed and kissed Raggedy Ann on her painted cheek and smoothed her yarn hair from her rag forehead. And Annabel-Lee climbed out of bed, too, and kissed Raggedy Ann. Then Thomas and Annabel-Lee gently carried Raggedy Ann and put her in her own bed and tenderly tucked her in, and then took their seats in the two little red chairs. After a while Annabel said softly to Thomas, "I feel ever and ever so much better and happier!" [Illustration] "So do I!" Thomas replied. "It's like a whole lot of sunshine coming into a dark room, and I shall always try to keep it there!" Fido had one fuzzy white ear sticking up over the edge of his basket and he gave his tail a few thumps against his pillow. Raggedy Ann lay quietly in bed where Thomas and Annabel had tucked her. And as she smiled at the ceiling, her candy heart (with "I LOVE YOU" written on it) thrilled with contentment, for, as you have probably guessed, Raggedy Ann had not been asleep at all! [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE KITTENS Raggedy Ann had been away all day. Marcella had come early in the morning and dressed all the dolls and placed them about the nursery. Some of the dolls had been put in the little red chairs around the little doll table. There was nothing to eat upon the table except a turkey, a fried egg and an apple, all made of plaster of paris and painted in natural colors. The little teapot and other doll dishes were empty, but Marcella had told them to enjoy their dinner while she was away. The French dolly had been given a seat upon the doll sofa and Uncle Clem had been placed at the piano. Marcella picked up Raggedy Ann and carried her out of the nursery when she left, telling the dolls to "be real good children, while Mamma is away!" When the door closed, the tin soldier winked at the Dutch-boy doll and handed the imitation turkey to the penny dolls. "Have some nice turkey?" he asked. "No thank you!" the penny dolls said in little penny-doll, squeaky voices, "We have had all we can eat!" "Shall I play you a tune?" asked Uncle Clem of the French doll. At this all the dolls laughed, for Uncle Clem could not begin to play any tune. Raggedy Ann was the only doll who had ever taken lessons, and she could play Peter-Peter-Pumpkin-Eater with one hand. In fact, Marcella had almost worn out Raggedy Ann's right hand teaching it to her. "Play something lively!" said the French doll, as she giggled behind her hand, so Uncle Clem began hammering the eight keys on the toy piano with all his might until a noise was heard upon the stairs. Quick as a wink, all the dolls took the same positions in which they had been placed by Marcella, for they did not wish really truly people to know that they could move about. But it was only Fido. He put his nose in the door and looked around. All the dolls at the table looked steadily at the painted food, and Uncle Clem leaned upon the piano keys looking just as unconcerned as when he had been placed there. Then Fido pushed the door open and came into the nursery wagging his tail. He walked over to the table and sniffed, in hopes Marcella had given the dolls real food and that some would still be left. "Where's Raggedy Ann?" Fido asked, when he had satisfied himself that there was no food. "Mistress took Raggedy Ann and went somewhere!" all the dolls answered in chorus. "I've found something I must tell Raggedy Ann about!" said Fido, as he scratched his ear. "Is it a secret?" asked the penny dolls. "Secret nothing," replied Fido, "It's kittens!" "How lovely!" cried all the dolls, "Really live kittens?" "Really live kittens!" replied Fido, "Three little tiny ones, out in the barn!" "Oh, I wish Raggedy Ann was here!" cried the French doll. "She would know what to do about it!" [Illustration] "That's why I wanted to see her," said Fido, as he thumped his tail on the floor, "I did not know there were any kittens and I went into the barn to hunt for mice and the first thing I knew Mamma Cat came bouncing right at me with her eyes looking green! I tell you I hurried out of there!" [Illustration] "How did you know there were any kittens then?" asked Uncle Clem. "I waited around the barn until Mamma Cat went up to the house and then I slipped into the barn again, for I knew there must be something inside or she would not have jumped at me that way! We are always very friendly, you know." Fido continued. "And what was my surprise to find three tiny little kittens in an old basket, 'way back in a dark corner!" "Go get them, Fido, and bring them up so we can see them!" said the tin soldier. "Not me!" said Fido, "If I had a suit of tin clothes on like you have I might do it, but you know cats can scratch very hard if they want to!" "We will tell Raggedy when she comes in!" said the French doll, and then Fido went out to play with a neighbor dog. So when Raggedy Ann had been returned to the nursery the dolls could hardly wait until Marcella had put on their nighties and left them for the night. Then they told Raggedy Ann all about the kittens. Raggedy Ann jumped from her bed and ran over to Fido's basket; he wasn't there. Then Raggedy suggested that all the dolls go out to the barn and see the kittens. This they did easily, for the window was open and it was but a short jump to the ground. They found Fido out near the barn watching a hole. "I was afraid something might disturb them," he said, "for Mamma Cat went away about an hour ago." All the dolls, with Raggedy Ann in the lead, crawled through the hole and ran to the basket. [Illustration] Just as Raggedy Ann started to pick up one of the kittens there was a lot of howling and yelping and Fido came bounding through the hole with Mamma Cat behind him. When Mamma Cat caught up with Fido he would yelp. When Fido and Mamma Cat had circled the barn two or three times Fido managed to find the hole and escape to the yard; then Mamma Cat came over to the basket and saw all the dolls. "I'm s'prised at you, Mamma Cat!" said Raggedy Ann, "Fido has been watching your kittens for an hour while you were away. He wouldn't hurt them for anything!" "I'm sorry, then," said Mamma Cat. "You must trust Fido, Mamma Cat!" said Raggedy Ann, "because he loves you and anyone who loves you can be trusted!" "That's so!" replied Mamma Cat. "Cats love mice, too, and I wish the mice trusted us more!" The dolls all laughed at this joke. "Have you told the folks up at the house about your dear little kittens?" Raggedy Ann asked. "Oh, my, no!" exclaimed Mamma Cat. "At the last place I lived the people found out about my kittens and do you know, all the kittens disappeared! I intend keeping this a secret!" "But all the folks at this house are very kindly people and would dearly love your kittens!" cried all the dolls. "Let's take them right up to the nursery!" said Raggedy Ann, "And Mistress can find them there in the morning!" "How lovely!" said all the dolls in chorus. "Do, Mamma Cat! Raggedy Ann knows, for she is stuffed with nice clean white cotton and is very wise!" So after a great deal of persuasion, Mamma Cat finally consented. Raggedy Ann took two of the kittens and carried them to the house while Mamma Cat carried the other. Raggedy Ann wanted to give the kittens her bed, but Fido, who was anxious to prove his affection, insisted that Mamma Cat and the kittens should have his nice soft basket. [Illustration] The dolls could hardly sleep that night; they were so anxious to see what Mistress would say when she found the dear little kittens in the morning. Raggedy Ann did not sleep a wink, for she shared her bed with Fido and he kept her awake whispering to her. In the morning when Marcella came to the nursery, the first thing she saw was the three little kittens. She cried out in delight and carried them all down to show to Mamma and Daddy. Mamma Cat went trailing along, arching her back and purring with pride as she rubbed against all the chairs and doors. Mamma and Daddy said the kittens could stay in the nursery and belong to Marcella, so Marcella took them back to Fido's basket while she hunted names for them out of a fairy tale book. Marcella finally decided upon three names; Prince Charming for the white kitty, Cinderella for the Maltese and Princess Golden for the kitty with the yellow stripes. So that is how the three little kittens came to live in the nursery. And it all turned out just as Raggedy Ann had said, for her head was stuffed with clean white cotton, and she could think exceedingly wise thoughts. And Mamma Cat found out that Fido was a very good friend, too. She grew to trust him so much she would even let him help wash the kittens' faces. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE FAIRIES' GIFT All the dolls were tucked snugly in their little doll-beds for the night and the large house was very still. Every once in a while Fido would raise one ear and partly open one eye, for his keen dog sense seemed to tell him that something was about to happen. Finally he opened both eyes, sniffed into the air and, getting out of his basket and shaking himself, he trotted across the nursery to Raggedy Ann's bed. Fido put his cold nose in Raggedy Ann's neck. She raised her head from the little pillow. "Oh! It's you, Fido!" said Raggedy Ann. "I dreamed the tin soldier put an icicle down my neck!" "I can't sleep," Fido told Raggedy Ann. "I feel that something is about to happen!" "You have been eating too many bones lately, Fido, and they keep you awake," Raggedy replied. "No, it isn't that. I haven't had any bones since the folks had beef last Sunday. It isn't that. Listen, Raggedy!" Raggedy Ann listened. There was a murmur as if someone were singing, far away. "What is it?" asked Fido. "Sh!" cautioned Raggedy Ann, "It's music." It was indeed music, the most beautiful music Raggedy Ann had ever heard. It grew louder, but still seemed to be _far_ away. Raggedy Ann and Fido could hear it distinctly and it sounded as if hundreds of voices were singing in unison. "Please don't howl, Fido," Raggedy Ann said as she put her two rag arms around the dog's nose. Fido usually "sang" when he heard music. But Fido did not sing this time; he was filled with wonder. It seemed as if something very nice was going to happen. Raggedy Ann sat upright in bed. The room was flooded with a strange, beautiful light and the music came floating in through the nursery window. Raggedy Ann hopped from her bed and ran across the floor, trailing the bed clothes behind her. Fido followed close behind and together they looked out the window across the flower garden. There among the flowers were hundreds of tiny beings, some playing on tiny reed instruments and flower horns, while others sang. This was the strange, wonderful music Raggedy and Fido had heard. "It's the Fairies!" said Raggedy Ann. "To your basket quick, Fido! They are coming this way!" And Raggedy Ann ran back to her bed, with the bed clothes trailing behind her. Fido gave three jumps and he was in his basket, pretending he was sound asleep, but one little black eye was peeping through a chink in the side. Raggedy jumped into her bed and pulled the covers to her chin, but lay so that her shoe-button eyes could see towards the window. [Illustration] Little Fairy forms radiant as silver came flitting into the nursery, singing in far away voices. They carried a little bundle. A beautiful light came from this bundle, and to Raggedy Ann and Fido it seemed like sunshine and moonshine mixed. It was a soft mellow light, just the sort of light you would expect to accompany Fairy Folk. [Illustration] As Raggedy watched, her candy heart went pitty-pat against her cotton stuffing, for she saw a tiny pink foot sticking out of the bundle of light. The Fairy troop sailed across the nursery and through the door with their bundle and Raggedy Ann and Fido listened to their far away music as they went down the hall. Presently the Fairies returned without the bundle and disappeared through the nursery window. Raggedy Ann and Fido again ran to the window and saw the Fairy troop dancing among the flowers. The light from the bundle still hung about the nursery and a strange lovely perfume floated about. When the Fairies' music ceased and they had flown away, Raggedy Ann and Fido returned to Raggedy's bed to think it all out. When old Mister Sun peeped over the garden wall and into the nursery, and the other dolls awakened, Raggedy Ann and Fido were still puzzled. "What is it, Raggedy Ann?" asked the tin soldier and Uncle Clem, in one voice. Before Raggedy Ann could answer, Marcella came running into the nursery, gathered up all the dolls in her arms, and ran down the hall, Fido jumping beside her and barking shrilly. "Be quiet!" Marcella said to Fido, "It's asleep and you might awaken it!" Mamma helped Marcella arrange all the dolls in a circle around the bed so that they could all see what was in the bundle. Mamma gently pulled back the soft covering and the dolls saw a tiny little fist as pink as coral, a soft little face with a cunning tiny pink nose, and a little head as bald as the French dolly's when her hair came off. My, how the dollies all chattered when they were once again left alone in the nursery! [Illustration] "A dear cuddly baby brother for Mistress!" said Uncle Clem. "A beautiful bundle of love and Fairy Sunshine for everybody in the house!" said Raggedy Ann, as she went to the toy piano and joyously played "Peter-Peter-Pumpkin-Eater" with one rag hand. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE CHICKENS When Marcella was called into the house she left Raggedy sitting on the chicken yard fence. "Now you sit quietly and do not stir," Marcella told Raggedy Ann, "If you move you may fall and hurt yourself!" So, Raggedy Ann sat quietly, just as Marcella told her, but she smiled at the chickens for she had fallen time and again and it had never hurt her in the least. She was stuffed with nice soft cotton, you see. So, there she sat until a tiny little humming-bird, in search of flower honey hummed close to Raggedy Ann's head and hovered near the tall Hollyhocks. Raggedy Ann turned her rag head to see the humming-bird and lost her balance--_plump!_ she went, down amongst the chickens. The chickens scattered in all directions, all except Old Ironsides, the rooster. He ruffled his neck feathers and put his head down close to the ground, making a queer whistling noise as he looked fiercely at Raggedy Ann. But Raggedy Ann only smiled at Old Ironsides, the rooster, and ran her rag hand through her yarn hair for she did not fear him. And then something strange happened, for when she made this motion the old rooster jumped up in the air and kicked his feet out in front, knocking Raggedy Ann over and over. When Raggedy Ann stopped rolling she waved her apron at the rooster and cried, "Shoo!" but instead of "shooing," Old Ironsides upset her again. Now, two old hens who had been watching the rooster jump at Raggedy ran up and as one old hen placed herself before the rooster, the other old hen caught hold of Raggedy's apron and dragged her into the chicken-coop. It was dark inside and Raggedy could not tell what was going on as she felt herself being pulled up over the nests. But, finally Raggedy could sit up, for the old hen had quit pulling her, and as her shoe-button eyes were very good, she soon made out the shape of the old hen in front of her. "My! that's the hardest work I have done in a long time!" said the old hen, when she could catch her breath. "I was afraid Mr. Rooster would tear your dress and apron!" "That was a queer game he was playing, Mrs. Hen," said Raggedy Ann. The old hen chuckled 'way down in her throat, "Gracious me! He wasn't playing a game, he was fighting you!" "Fighting!" cried Raggedy Ann in surprise. "Oh yes, indeed!" the old hen answered, "Old Ironsides, the rooster, thought you intended to harm some of the children chickens and he was fighting you!" "I am sorry that I fell inside the pen, I wouldn't harm anything," Raggedy Ann said. "If we tell you a secret you must promise not to tell your mistress!" said the old hens. "I promise! Cross my candy heart!" said Raggedy Ann. Then the two old hens took Raggedy Ann 'way back in the farthest corner of the chicken coop. There, in back of a box, they had built two nests and each old hen had ten eggs in her nest. "If your folks hear of it they will take the eggs!" said the hens, "and then we could not raise our families!" [Illustration] [Illustration] Raggedy Ann felt the eggs and they were nice and warm. "We just left the nests when you fell into the pen!" explained the old hens. "But how can the eggs grow if you sit upon them?" said Raggedy. "If Fido sits on any of the garden, the plants will not grow, Mistress says!" "Eggs are different!" one old hen explained. "In order to make the eggs hatch properly, we must sit on them three weeks and not let them get cold at any time!" "And at the end of the three weeks do the eggs sprout?" asked Raggedy Ann. "You must be thinking of eggplant!" cried one old hen. "These eggs hatch at the end of three weeks--they don't sprout--and then we have a lovely family of soft downy chickies; little puff balls that we can cuddle under our wings and love dearly!" "Have you been sitting upon the eggs very long?" Raggedy asked. "Neither one of us has kept track of the time," said one hen. "So we do not know! You see, we never leave the nests only just once in a while to get a drink and to eat a little. So we can hardly tell when it is day and when it is night." "We were going out to get a drink when you fell in the pen!" said one old hen. "Now we will have to sit upon the eggs and warm them up again!" The two old hens spread their feathers and nestled down upon the nests. "When you get them good and warm, I would be glad to sit upon the eggs to keep them warm until you get something to eat and drink!" said Raggedy. So the two old hens walked out of the coop to finish their meal which had been interrupted by Raggedy's fall and while they were gone, Raggedy Ann sat quietly upon the warm eggs. Suddenly down beneath her she heard something go, "Pick, pick!" "I hope it isn't a mouse!" Raggedy Ann said to herself, when she felt something move. "I wish the old hens would come back." But when they came back and saw the puzzled expression on her face, they cried, "What is it?" [Illustration] Raggedy Ann got to her feet and looked down and there were several little fluffy, cuddly baby chickies, round as little puff-balls. "Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!" they cried when Raggedy stepped out of the nest. "Baby Chicks!" Raggedy cried, as she stooped and picked up one of the little puff-balls. "They want to be cuddled!" The two old hens, their eyes shining with happiness, got upon the nests and spread out their soft warm feathers, "The other eggs will hatch soon!" said they. So, for several days Raggedy helped the two hens hatch out the rest of the chickies and just as they finished, Marcella came inside looking around. "How in the world did you get in here, Raggedy Ann?" she cried. "I have been looking all about for you! Did the chickens drag you in here?" Both old hens down behind the box clucked softly to the chickies beneath them and Marcella overheard them. She lifted the box away and gave a little squeal of surprise and happiness. "Oh you dear old Hennypennies!" she cried, lifting both old hens from their nests. "You have hidden your nests away back here and now you have one, two, three, four--twenty chickies!" and as she counted them, Marcella placed them in her apron; then catching up Raggedy Ann, she placed her over the new little chickies. "Come on, old Hennypennies!" she said, and went out of the coop with the two old hens clucking at her heels. Marcella called Daddy and Daddy rolled two barrels out under one of the trees and made a nice bed in each. Then he nailed slats across the front, leaving a place for a door. Each Hennypennie was then given ten little chickies and shut up in the barrel. And all the dolls were happy when they heard of Raggedy's adventure and they did not have to wait long before they were all taken out to see the new chickies. [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN AND THE MOUSE Jeanette was a new wax doll, and like Henny, the Dutch doll, she could say "Mamma" when anyone tipped her backward or forward. She had lovely golden brown curls of real hair. It could be combed and braided, or curled or fluffed without tangling, and Raggedy Ann was very proud when Jeanette came to live with the dolls. But now Raggedy Ann was very angry--in fact, Raggedy Ann had just ripped two stitches out of the top of her head when she took her rag hands and pulled her rag face down into a frown (but when she let go of the frown her face stretched right back into her usual cheery smile). And _you_ would have been angry, too, for something had happened to Jeanette. Something or someone had stolen into the nursery that night when the dolls were asleep and nibbled all the wax from Jeanette's beautiful face--and now all her beauty was gone! "It really is a shame!" said Raggedy Ann as she put her arms about Jeanette. "Something must be done about it!" said the French doll as she stamped her little foot. "If I catch the culprit, I will--well, I don't know what I will do with him!" said the tin soldier, who could be very fierce at times, although he was seldom cross. "Here is the hole he came from!" cried Uncle Clem from the other end of the nursery. "Come, see!" All the dolls ran to where Uncle Clem was, down on his hands and knees. "This must be the place!" said Raggedy Ann. "We will plug up the hole with something, so he will not come out again!" The dolls hunted around and brought rags and pieces of paper and pushed them into the mouse's doorway. "I thought I heard nibbling last night," one of the penny dolls said. "You know I begged for an extra piece of pie last evening, when Mistress had me at the table and it kept me awake!" While the dolls were talking, Marcella ran down-stairs with Jeanette and told Daddy and Mamma, who came up-stairs with Marcella and hunted around until they discovered the mouse's doorway. "Oh, why couldn't it have chewed on me?" Raggedy Ann asked herself when she saw Marcella's sorrowful face, for Raggedy Ann was never selfish. "Daddy will take Jeanette down-town with him and have her fixed up as good as new," said Mamma, so Jeanette was wrapped in soft tissue paper and taken away. Later in the day Marcella came bouncing into the nursery with a surprise for the dolls. It was a dear fuzzy little kitten. Marcella introduced the kitten to all the dolls. "Her name is Boots, because she has four little white feet!" said Marcella. So Boots, the happy little creature, played with the penny dolls, scraping them over the floor and peeping out from behind chairs and pouncing upon them as if they were mice and the penny dolls enjoyed it hugely. When Marcella was not in the nursery, Raggedy Ann wrestled with Boots and they would roll over and over upon the floor, Boots with her front feet around Raggedy Ann's neck and kicking with her hind feet. [Illustration] Then Boots would arch her back and pretend she was very angry and walk sideways until she was close to Raggedy. Then she would jump at her and over and over they would roll, their heads hitting the floor bumpity-bump. Boots slept in the nursery that night and was lonely for her Mamma, for it was the first time she had been away from home. Even though her bed was right on top of Raggedy Ann, she could not sleep. But Raggedy Ann was very glad to have Boots sleep with her, even if she was heavy, and when Boots began crying for her Mamma, Raggedy Ann comforted her and soon Boots went to sleep. One day Jeanette came home. She had a new coating of wax on her face and she was as beautiful as ever. Now, by this time Boots was one of the family and did not cry at night. Besides Boots was told of the mouse in the corner and how he had eaten Jeanette's wax, so she promised to sleep with one eye open. Late that night when Boots was the only one awake, out popped a tiny mouse from the hole. Boots jumped after the mouse, and hit against the toy piano and made the keys tinkle so loudly it awakened the dolls. They ran over to where Boots sat growling with the tiny mouse in her mouth. My! how the mouse was squeaking! Raggedy Ann did not like to hear it squeak, but she did not wish Jeanette to have her wax face chewed again, either. So, Raggedy Ann said to the tiny little mouse, "You should have known better than to come here when Boots is with us. Why don't you go out in the barn and live where you will not destroy anything of value?" "I did not know!" squeaked the little mouse, "This is the first time I have ever been here!" "Aren't you the little mouse who nibbled Jeanette's wax face?" Raggedy Ann asked. "No!" the little mouse answered. "I was visiting the mice inside the walls and wandered out here to pick up cake crumbs! I have three little baby mice at home down in the barn. I have never nibbled at anyone's wax face!" "Are you a Mamma mouse?" Uncle Clem asked. "Yes!" the little mouse squeaked, "and if the kitten will let me go I will run right home to my children and never return again!" "Let her go, Boots!" the dolls all cried, "She has three little baby mice at home! Please let her go!" "No, sir!" Boots growled, "This is the first mouse I have ever caught and I will eat her!" At this the little Mamma mouse began squeaking louder than ever. "If you do not let the Mamma mouse go, Boots, I shall not play with you again!" said Raggedy Ann. "Raggedy will not play with Boots again!" said all of the dolls in an awed tone. Not to have Raggedy play with them would have been sad, indeed. But Boots only growled. The dolls drew to one side, where Raggedy Ann and Uncle Clem whispered together. And while they whispered Boots would let the little Mamma mouse run a piece, then she would catch it again and box it about between her paws. This she did until the poor little Mamma mouse grew so tired it could scarcely run away from Boots. Boots would let it get almost to the hole in the wall before she would catch it, for she knew it would not escape her. As she watched the little mouse crawling towards the hole scarcely able to move, Raggedy Ann could not keep the tears from her shoe-button eyes. Finally as Boots started to spring after the little mouse again, Raggedy Ann threw her rag arms around the kitten's neck. "Run, Mamma mouse!" Raggedy Ann cried, as Boots whirled her over and over. Uncle Clem ran and pushed the Mamma mouse into the hole and then she was gone. When Raggedy Ann took her arms from around Boots, the kitten was very angry. She laid her ears back and scratched Raggedy Ann with her claws. But Raggedy Ann only smiled--it did not hurt her a bit for Raggedy was sewed together with a needle and thread and if that did not hurt, how could the scratch of a kitten? Finally Boots felt ashamed of herself and went over and lay down by the hole in the wall in hopes the mouse would return, but the mouse never returned. Even then Mamma mouse was out in the barn with her children, warning them to beware of kittens and cats. Raggedy Ann and all the dolls then went to bed and Raggedy had just dozed off to sleep when she felt something jump upon her bed. It was Boots. She felt a warm little pink tongue caress her rag cheek. Raggedy Ann smiled happily to herself, for Boots had curled up on top of Raggedy Ann and was purring herself to sleep. Then Raggedy Ann knew she had been forgiven for rescuing the Mamma mouse and she smiled herself to sleep and dreamed happily of tomorrow. [Illustration] [Illustration] RAGGEDY ANN'S NEW SISTERS Marcella was having a tea party up in the nursery when Daddy called to her, so she left the dollies sitting around the tiny table and ran down stairs carrying Raggedy Ann with her. Mama, Daddy and a strange man were talking in the living room and Daddy introduced Marcella to the stranger. The stranger was a large man with kindly eyes and a cheery smile, as pleasant as Raggedy Ann's. He took Marcella upon his knee and ran his fingers through her curls as he talked to Daddy and Mamma, so, of course, Raggedy Ann liked him from the beginning. "I have two little girls," he told Marcella. "Their names are Virginia and Doris, and one time when we were at the sea-shore they were playing in the sand and they covered up Freddy, Doris' boy-doll in the sand. They were playing that Freddy was in bathing and that he wanted to be covered with the clean white sand, just as the other bathers did. And when they had covered Freddy they took their little pails and shovels and went farther down the beach to play and forgot all about Freddy. "Now when it came time for us to go home, Virginia and Doris remembered Freddy and ran down to get him, but the tide had come in and Freddy was 'way out under the water and they could not find him. Virginia and Doris were very sad and they talked of Freddy all the way home." "It was too bad they forgot Freddy," said Marcella. "Yes, indeed it was!" the new friend replied as he took Raggedy Ann up and made her dance on Marcella's knee. "But it turned out all right after all, for do you know what happened to Freddy?" "No, what did happen to him?" Marcella asked. "Well, first of all, when Freddy was covered with the sand, he enjoyed it immensely. And he did not mind it so much when the tide came up over him, for he felt Virginia and Doris would return and get him. "But presently Freddy felt the sand above him move as if someone was digging him out. Soon his head was uncovered and he could look right up through the pretty green water, and what do you think was happening? The Tide Fairies were uncovering Freddy! "When he was completely uncovered, the Tide Fairies swam with Freddy 'way out to the Undertow Fairies. The Undertow Fairies took Freddy and swam with him 'way out to the Roller Fairies. The Roller Fairies carried Freddy up to the surface and tossed him up to the Spray Fairies who carried him to the Wind Fairies." "And the Wind Fairies?" Marcella asked breathlessly. "The Wind Fairies carried Freddy right to our garden and there Virginia and Doris found him, none the worse for his wonderful adventure!" "Freddy must have enjoyed it and your little girls must have been very glad to get Freddy back again!" said Marcella. "Raggedy Ann went up in the air on the tail of a kite one day and fell and was lost, so now I am very careful with her!" "Would you let me take Raggedy Ann for a few days?" asked the new friend. Marcella was silent. She liked the stranger friend, but she did not wish to lose Raggedy Ann. [Illustration] "I will promise to take very good care of her and return her to you in a week. Will you let her go with me, Marcella?" Marcella finally agreed and when the stranger friend left, he placed Raggedy Ann in his grip. "It is lonely without Raggedy Ann!" said the dollies each night. "We miss her happy painted smile and her cheery ways!" they said. And so the week dragged by.... But, my! What a chatter there was in the nursery the first night after Raggedy Ann returned. All the dolls were so anxious to hug Raggedy Ann they could scarcely wait until Marcella had left them alone. When they had squeezed Raggedy Ann almost out of shape and she had smoothed out her yarn hair, patted her apron out and felt her shoe-button eyes to see if they were still there, she said, "Well, what have you been doing? Tell me all the news!" "Oh we have just had the usual tea parties and games!" said the tin soldier. "Tell us about yourself, Raggedy dear, we have missed you so much!" "Yes! Tell us where you have been and what you have done, Raggedy!" all the dolls cried. But Raggedy Ann just then noticed that one of the penny dolls had a hand missing. "How did this happen?" she asked as she picked up the doll. "I fell off the table and lit upon the tin soldier last night when we were playing. But don't mind a little thing like that, Raggedy Ann," replied the penny doll. "Tell us of yourself! Have you had a nice time?" "I shall not tell a thing until your hand is mended!" Raggedy Ann said. So the Indian ran and brought a bottle of glue. "Where's the hand?" Raggedy asked. "In my pocket," the penny doll answered. [Illustration] When Raggedy Ann had glued the penny doll's hand in place and wrapped a rag around it to hold it until the glue dried, she said, "When I tell you of this wonderful adventure, I know you will all feel very happy. It has made me almost burst my stitches with joy." The dolls all sat upon the floor around Raggedy Ann, the tin soldier with his arm over her shoulder. "Well, first when I left," said Raggedy Ann, "I was placed in the Stranger Friend's grip. It was rather stuffy in there, but I did not mind it; in fact I believe I must have fallen asleep, for when I awakened I saw the Stranger Friend's hand reaching into the grip. Then he lifted me from the grip and danced me upon his knee. 'What do you think of her?' he asked to three other men sitting nearby. "I was so interested in looking out of the window I did not pay any attention to what they said, for we were on a train and the scenery was just flying by! Then I was put back in the grip. "When next I was taken from the grip I was in a large, clean, light room and there were many, many girls all dressed in white aprons. "The stranger friend showed me to another man and to the girls who took off my clothes, cut my seams and took out my cotton. And what do you think! They found my lovely candy heart had not melted at all as I thought. Then they laid me on a table and marked all around my outside edges with a pencil on clean white cloth, and then the girls re-stuffed me and dressed me. "I stayed in the clean big light room for two or three days and nights and watched my Sisters grow from pieces of cloth into rag dolls just like myself!" "Your SISTERS!" the dolls all exclaimed in astonishment, "What do you mean, Raggedy?" "I mean," said Raggedy Ann, "that the Stranger Friend had borrowed me from Marcella so that he could have patterns made from me. And before I left the big clean white room there where hundreds of rag dolls so like me you would not have been able to tell us apart." "We could have told _you_ by your happy smile!" cried the French dolly. "But all of my sister dolls have smiles just like mine!" replied Raggedy Ann. "And shoe-button eyes?" the dolls all asked. "Yes, shoe-button eyes!" Raggedy Ann replied. "I would tell you from the others by your dress, Raggedy Ann," said the French doll, "Your dress is fifty years old! I could tell you by that!" "But my new sister rag dolls have dresses just like mine, for the Stranger Friend had cloth made especially for them exactly like mine." "I know how we could tell you from the other rag dolls, even if you all look exactly alike!" said the Indian doll, who had been thinking for a long time. "How?" asked Raggedy Ann with a laugh. "By feeling your candy heart! If the doll has a candy heart then it is you, Raggedy Ann!" Raggedy Ann laughed, "I am so glad you all love me as you do, but I am sure you would not be able to tell me from my new sisters, except that I am more worn, for each new rag doll has a candy heart, and on it is written, '_I love you_' just as is written on my own candy heart." "And there are hundreds and hundreds of the new rag dolls?" asked the little penny dolls. "Hundreds and hundreds of them, all named Raggedy Ann," replied Raggedy. "Then," said the penny dolls, "we are indeed happy and proud for you! For wherever one of the new Raggedy Ann dolls goes there will go with it the love and happiness that _you_ give to others." [Illustration] [Transcriber's Notes: There are a few variations in hyphenation between the introduction and the stories themselves. "Today" and "downstairs" occur in the introduction, while "to-day" and "down-stairs" are in the stories. Chicken coop is spelled once with and once without the hyphen.] 
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43692	----	Little Mother Stories. EDWARD BUTTONEYE AND HIS ADVENTURES Pictured by HILDA AUSTIN Written by CYRIL F. AUSTIN. Ernest Nister London No. 1874 E. P. Dutton & Co. New York EDWARD BUTTONEYE AND HIS ADVENTURES. _TO_ _A. B._ And, though he never could explain, I don't mind telling you That in that box he had been lain By those who made him, limb and brain, And stitched his eyes on, too. It's odd, you'll think, they joined his toes And gave him such a head and nose. But there on the broad countryside Was he, a homeless lad. Another might have sat and cried, But Edward, no. "Whate'er betide, If work is to be had, I'll take," thought he, "what Fortune brings And live in hopes of better things." A farmhouse stood not far away, So first there Edward tried, And was engaged to herd by day And night the farmer's sheep, which stray, Whene'er they can, and hide. And so a paper Edward bought And sat and watched and read and thought. He read through each advertisement To see if he could find A place he thought would suit his bent, In which he could be quite content And cultivate his mind. --He read so hard and thought so deep He quite forgot about the sheep. But when at last he looked around, His flock could not be seen. He shouted, called, and searched the ground, The sheep were nowhere to be found (They knew that he was green); And when in fear he ventured back, I scarce need say he got the sack. He went away with many sighs And sight a little dim, But suddenly, to his surprise, A woolly head with shining eyes Peered through the hedge at him. "If you will let me come with you," It said, "I always will be true." Our Edward with delight agreed; "It looks," he thought, "quite tame; A counsellor and friend I need, Besides, it may serve as a steed." And so he asked its name. "I'm Horace, so they all allege," It said, and scrambled through the hedge. So side by side, o'er hill and dale, The gallant heroes strode, And Horace frisked his stumpy tail And joked with every frog and snail And chaffed each slug and toad. But silent Edward longed for fame And by great deeds to make a name. He also wished he had a hat --The day was very warm-- But soon he ceased to think of that, For lo! beside the road there sat Two maids of sweetest charm. 'Twas saucy Sue and modest Moll, Who sported a red parasol. Then Edward's heart beat high with pride, He drew himself erect And said to Horace, "Quick, now! stride As if you wore Newfoundland hide And follow with respect." But, 'spite of all their dashing air, The maids preserved their glassy stare. A flush o'erspread poor Edward's cheek, He walked on very fast, And Horace followed, very meek. But all at once they heard a shriek From the fair dames they'd passed: --Enraged to see their sunshade red, A wild bull charged with lowered head. "Ah, here's my chance," brave Edward cried, And, counting not the cost, He rushed back to the maidens' side; To stop the bull he vainly tried And was most painfully tossed. "Alas!" he thought, "no luck to-day; --But _they_, at least, have got away." Sad Horace hastened to the spot And rendered him first aid, Then set off at his quickest trot For help. Poor Edward groaned a lot: "Why was I ever made?" --I'm not surprised he had the hump, He came down such an awful bump. And as he sat, there passed him by Two visions of delight; Each viewed with fond, maternal eye And hugged--it made poor Edward sigh-- A golliwoggy fright. He tried to cry to them out loud, But nothing came--he felt too proud. They walked straight past and soon were gone, Poor Edward could have cried. He knew that he belonged to one, That he would one day be her son, But he was dumb from pride. He felt that of the two he'd choose The one with soft red hair and shoes. But Horace soon returned and said He nowhere help could find; So Edward mounted him instead And held on by his charger's head. (Now wasn't Horace kind?) They travelled thus o'er hill and plain Till Edward was quite well again. To get a place where he could thrive Our Edward found was hard, But soon he was engaged to drive A railway train, and did contrive That Horace should be guard. One day he saw what made him quail --A sleepy tortoise on the rail! He found he hadn't time to stop, Though manfully he tried, So biff! and crash! and up and flop! They went. The tortoise did not hop But went on, sleepy-eyed. Poor Edward knew what was in store, --Of course he got the sack once more. The next employment Edward found Was towing someone's barge. Their cargo weighed full many a pound, And as beside the stream they wound Their burden felt so large That Horace, every hour or so, Said, "Are you sure coal doesn't grow?" But onward still brave Edward strode And onward trudged his steed; Though leaden grew their lumpy load No signs of giving in they showed Till, all at once, a reed Upset the barge, the cargo sank And left them workless on the bank. Soon after that they came across Some races in full swing. Said Edward, "Horses cannot toss And you can serve me as a hoss, --'Twill be the very thing." So Horace summoned all his strength And came in first by half a length. But Horace felt so very done And very short of breath (You see, he was not built to run So fast), he gasped that even one More race would be his death. So Edward mournfully supposed A jockey's life to him was closed. To give good Horace perfect rest They lay awhile at ease. They found a hammock suited best, Exchanging quip and merry jest With frogs and bumble-bees, And Edward helped stray leaves and twigs Along the stream with gentle digs. When Horace was quite well again They set out on their way. One day they heard a distant strain And, tramping o'er the dusty plain With music loud and gay, A brawny-chested regiment Marched past, on death or glory bent. The sight so fired brave Edward's soul, He set off in the rear. Said he, "The cavalry's our goal, --A charger is your proper rôle;" But Horace shook with fear. "If we," he thought, "the foe should seek, I shall be mutton in a week!" But when they reached the barrack-yard And wanted to enlist, The sergeant called out to the guard Their measurements, punched Edward hard And gave his neck a twist. "You've got no chest at all," said he. "No good!" thought Edward tearfully. "It's not my fault I've got no chest, They should have made it broad," He grumbled; but with noble zest He searched the country east and west To find some noble lord Who might excuse his tender age And take him on to be his page. And when at last he did succeed, While Horace stayed indoors, He took two poodles on a lead Out walking every day. Their breed Was such that on all fours They utterly disdained to go, Like Lion, Unicorn and Co. They led poor Edward such a dance, He scarce could hold them in; They tugged as if their only chance In life was to get home to France And join their kith and kin. At last they got away by force, And Edward got the sack--of course. He wandered on with Horace till They reached a sheltered spot, And watched with quite an envious thrill Two boys who handled with great skill A trim, fast-sailing yacht. "O for an opportunity," Sighed Edward, "to put out to sea!" The chance they wanted soon occurred --The boys went in to tea. By thoughts of danger undeterred They boarded, tacked and, in a word, Were happy as could be. They did not see the rising cloud That threatened every spar and shroud. With all their sails set to the breeze, They were quite unprepared To meet the squall. Great tow'ring seas Tossed them about like shipwrecked peas; They would most ill have fared Had not a tortoise saved the twain --He who derailed the railway train. He took them on his brawny back And swam with them ashore. "This slight return I owe for lack Of thought," said he, "when o'er the track I crawled;--I'd do much more, But this, at least, will prove to you How much that sad event I rue." They thanked him for his kindly deed And then resumed their march, But when the time was come to feed They found they'd nought to meet the need Except a piece of starch. Said Edward, "This will never do; Your wool, old chap, would be like glue." They had no work, they had no food, But hungrier they grew. At last said Horace, "What's the good Of starving slowly? In the wood There's game enough for two. I feel quite faint, so get a gun And see what you can shoot, my son." This was for Edward the last straw, And so he took a gun; For Horace he would brave the law, Whate'er betide. So when he saw A hare start up and run, He took fair aim with steady wrist And fired--but luckily he missed. A policeman heard the loud report And hurried to the scene. He hailed the poachers off to court, And there their shrift was very short --The judge's wit was keen: He sentenced them to prison-shop And hoped that long in there they'd stop. Now prison-shop, of course, is where All dolls, when made, must go Until some maiden, kind and fair, Buys them and saves them from despair. And this is why, you know, They have such eager, anxious eyes, As each to catch your notice tries. So Edward was marched off to jail And guarded night and day Amid a throng of beauties frail, While Horace, looking somewhat pale, Scanned all who passed that way, For both of them hoped she would see And rescue them from misery. At last there came a day of joy, She stopped before the shop, And with her was a handsome boy; They viewed with interest each toy From yacht to humming-top. (They were, I may remark off-hand, Penelope and Hildebrand.) Cold beads of perspiration stood On Edward's frantic brow; He feared lest his own mother should Not notice him (as if she could Have missed her own son, now!). But, scarcely glancing at the rest, Pen saw at once he was the best. "O what a pleasant person, look!" She cried to Hildebrand, "I must have him by hook or crook!" --In point of fact 'twas by a hook Held in the shopman's hand, Which hoisted Edward by the seat, A part adapted for the feat. Now Pen had put her pennies by To save poor dolls from fate By buying them, and you should try To do the same. The Buttoneye Was marked, "Price two and eight." 'Twas dear, but Pen was quite content To think her savings so well spent. The ransom very soon was paid And Edward, once more free, Borne off in triumph. Though arrayed In shabby coat and trousers frayed And baggy at the knee, He was more precious to Pen's heart Than if they'd been quite new and smart. And faithful Horace, too, was bought --Pen saw by Edward's eye No freedom for himself he sought If his pet lamb's fate should be fraught With doubt--he'd rather die. But Horace had to run like mad, So fast a pace his mistress had. "I'd go through twice as much for this," Thought Edward with a sigh As he received his hundredth kiss, And Horace, wrapped in wool and bliss, Just winked the other eye. And how they relished, to be sure, The other dolls' discomfiture! "I know the hard times you've been through," Said Pen, and kissed them both, "But nothing now need worry you For here your life begins anew--" ("Hurray!" fat Horace quoth), "--And when we seek the country air I'm sure we'll find adventures there." And Pen proved quite a prophetess For, shortly after that, They met a lovely--well, what?--guess! What dream of perfect loveliness D'you think I'm hinting at? Well, if your Dad is pleased with you, Perhaps he'll buy you that book[A] too. [A] The Little Blue Rabbit. Printed in Bavaria * * * * * THE LITTLE MOTHER STORIES. Uniform in price and similar in style: 1. Baby Finger Play. 2. The Three Baby Bears. 3. The Stories the Baby Bears Told. 4. The Baby Bears' Picnic. 5. The Little Toy Bearkins. 6. Toy Bearkins' Christmas Tree. 7. Little Blue Rabbit and his Adventures. 8. Edward Buttoneye and his Adventures. 9. Little Redskins. 10. The Animals' Trip to Sea. 
21861	----	file was produced from images generously made available by The University of Florida, The Internet Archive/Children's Library) [Illustration: Page 59.] THE DOLL AND HER FRIENDS; OR Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina. BY THE AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM MADRAS," "HISTORICAL CHARADES," ETC. ETC. WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY HABLOT K. BROWNE, ENGRAVED BY BAKER AND SMITH. BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. MDCCCLII. PRINTED BY THURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON. PREFACE. My principal intention, or rather aim, in writing this little Book, was to amuse Children by a story founded on one of their favorite diversions, and to inculcate a few such minor morals as my little plot might be strong enough to carry; chiefly the domestic happiness produced by kind tempers and consideration for others. And further, I wished to say a word in favor of that good old-fashioned plaything, the Doll, which one now sometimes hears decried by sensible people who have no children of their own. The Doll and Her Friends. CHAPTER I. I belong to a race, the sole end of whose existence is to give pleasure to others. None will deny the goodness of such an end, and I flatter myself most persons will allow that we amply fulfil it. Few of the female sex especially but will acknowledge, with either the smile or the sigh called forth by early recollections, that much of their youthful happiness was due to our presence; and some will even go so far as to attribute to our influence many a habit of housewifery, neatness, and industry, which ornaments their riper years. But to our _influence_, our silent, unconscious influence alone, can such advantages be ascribed; for neither example nor precept are in our power; our race cannot boast of intellectual endowments; and though there are few qualities, moral or mental, that have not in their turn been imputed to us by partial friends, truth obliges me to confess that they exist rather in the minds of our admirers than in our own persons. We are a race of mere dependents; some might even call us slaves. Unable to change our place, or move hand or foot at our own pleasure, and forced to submit to every caprice of our possessors, we cannot be said to have even a will of our own. But every condition has its share of good and evil, and I have often considered my helplessness and dependence as mere trifles compared with the troubles to which poor sensitive human beings are subject. Pain, sickness, or fatigue I never knew. While a fidgetty child cannot keep still for two minutes at a time, I sit contentedly for days together in the same attitude; and I have before now seen one of those irritable young mortals cry at a scratch, while I was hearing needles drawn in and out of every part of my body, or sitting with a pin run straight through my heart, calmly congratulating myself on being free from the inconveniences of flesh and blood. Of negative merits I possess a good share. I am never out of humor, never impatient, never mischievous, noisy, nor intrusive; and though I and my fellows cannot lay claim to brilliant powers either in word or deed, we may boast of the same qualifications as our wittiest king, for certainly none of us ever 'said a foolish thing,' if she 'never did a wise one.' Personal beauty I might almost, without vanity, call the 'badge of all our tribe.' Our very name is seldom mentioned without the epithet _pretty_; and in my own individual case I may say that I have always been considered pleasing and elegant, though others have surpassed me in size and grandeur. But our most striking characteristic is our power of inspiring strong attachment. The love bestowed on us by our possessors is proof against time, familiarity, and misfortune: 'Age cannot wither' us, 'nor custom stale' Our 'infinite variety.' With no trace of our original beauty left,--dress in tatters, complexion defaced, features undistinguishable, our very limbs mutilated, the mere wreck of our former selves,--who has not seen one of us still the delight and solace of some tender young heart; the confidant of its fancies, and the soother of its sorrows; preferred to all newer claimants, however high their pretensions; the still unrivalled favorite, in spite of the laughter of the nursery and the quiet contempt of the schoolroom? Young and gentle reader, your sympathy or your sagacity has doubtless suggested to you my name. I am, as you guess, a DOLL; and though not a doll of any peculiar pretensions, I flatter myself that my life may not be quite without interest to the young lovers of my race, and in this hope I venture to submit my memoirs to your indulgent consideration. I am but a small doll; not one of those splendid specimens of wax, modelled from the Princess Royal, with distinct fingers and toes, eyes that shut, and tongues that wag. No; such I have only contemplated from a respectful distance as I lay on my stall in the bazaar, while they towered sublime in the midst of the toys, the wonder and admiration of every passing child. I am not even one of those less magnificent, but still dignified, leathern-skinned individuals, requiring clothes to take off and put on, and a cradle to sleep in, with sheets, blankets, and every thing complete. Neither can I found my claim to notice upon any thing odd or unusual in my appearance: I am not a negro doll, with wide mouth and woolly hair; nor a doll with a gutta-percha face, which can be twisted into all kinds of grimaces. I am a simple English doll, about six inches high, with jointed limbs and an enamel face, a slim waist and upright figure, an amiable smile, and intelligent eye, and hair dressed in the first style of fashion. I never thought myself vain, but I own that in my youth I did pique myself upon my hair. There was but one opinion about _that_. I have often heard even grown-up people remark, 'How ingeniously that doll's wig is put on, and how nicely it is arranged!' while at the same time my rising vanity was crushed by the insinuation that I had an absurd smirk or a ridiculous stare. However, the opinions of human beings of mature age never much disturbed me. The world was large enough for them and me; and I could contentedly see them turn to their own objects of interest, while I awaited in calm security the unqualified praise of those whose praise alone was valuable to me--their children and grand-children. I first opened my eyes to the light in the Pantheon Bazaar. How I came there I know not; my conscious existence dates only from the moment in which a silver-paper covering was removed from my face, and the world burst upon my view. A feeling of importance was the first that arose in my mind. As the hand that held me turned me from side to side, I looked about. Dolls were before me, dolls behind, and dolls on each side. For a considerable time I could see nothing else. The world seemed made for dolls. But by degrees, as my powers of vision strengthened, my horizon extended, and I perceived that portions of space were allotted to many other objects. I descried, at various distances, aids to amusements in endless succession,--balls, bats, battledores, boxes, bags, and baskets; carts, cradles, and cups and saucers. I did not then know any thing of the alphabet, and I cannot say that I have quite mastered it even now; but if I were learned enough, I am sure I could go from A to Z, as initial letters of the wonders with which I soon made acquaintance. Not that I at once became aware of the uses, or even the names, of all I saw. No one took the trouble to teach me; and it was only by dint of my own intense observation that I gained any knowledge at all. I did not at first even know that I was a doll. But I made the most of opportunities, and my mind gradually expanded. I first learned to distinguish human beings. Their powers of motion made a decided difference between them and the other surrounding objects, and naturally my attention was early turned towards the actions of the shopwoman on whose stall I lived. She covered me and my companions with a large cloth every night, and restored the daylight to us in the morning. We were all perfectly helpless without her, and absolutely under her control. At her will the largest top hummed, or was silent; the whip cracked, or lay harmlessly by the side of the horse. She moved us from place to place, and exhibited or hid us at her pleasure; but she was always so extremely careful of our health and looks, and her life seemed so entirely devoted to us and to our advantage, that I often doubted whether she was our property or we hers. Her habits varied so little from day to day, that after watching her for a reasonable time, I felt myself perfectly acquainted with _her_, and in a condition to make observations upon others of her race. One day a lady and a little girl stopped at our stall. 'Oh, what a splendid doll,' exclaimed the child, pointing to the waxen beauty which outshone the rest of our tribe. It was the first time I had heard the word _Doll_, though I was well acquainted with the illustrious individual to whom it was applied; and it now flashed upon my mind, with pride and pleasure, that, however insignificant in comparison, I too was a doll. But I had not time to think very deeply about my name and nature just then, as I wished to listen to the conversation of the two human beings. 'May I buy her?' said the little girl. 'Can you afford it?' asked the lady in return. 'Remember your intentions for your brother.' 'Perhaps I have money enough for both,' answered the child. 'How much does she cost?' 'Seven shillings,' said the shopwoman, taking the doll from her place, and displaying her pretty face and hands to the utmost advantage. 'I have three half-crowns,' said the little girl. 'But if you spend seven shillings on the doll,' answered the lady, 'you will only have sixpence left for the paint-box.' 'What does a paint-box cost?' asked the child. 'We have them of all prices,' replied the shopkeeper; 'from sixpence to seven shillings.' The little girl examined several with great care, and stood some time in deliberation; at last she said, 'I don't think Willy would like a sixpenny one.' 'It would be of no use to him,' answered the lady. 'He draws well enough to want better colors. If you gave it to him, he would thank you and try to seem pleased, but he would not really care for it. However, he does not know that you thought of making him a birthday present, so you are at liberty to spend your money as you like.' 'Would he care for a seven shilling one?' asked the little girl. 'Yes; that is exactly what he wants.' 'Then he shall have it,' exclaimed the good-natured little sister. 'Poor dear Willy, how many more amusements I have than he!' She bought the best paint-box, and received sixpence in change. 'Is there any thing else I can show you?' asked the shopkeeper. 'No, thank you,' she replied; and turning to the elder lady, she said, 'May we go home at once, Mama? It would take me a long time to choose what I shall spend my sixpence in, and I should like to give Willy his paint-box directly.' 'By all means,' answered the lady; 'we will lose no time; and I will bring you again to spend the sixpence whenever you please.' Without one backward glance towards the beautiful doll, the child tripped away by the side of her companion, looking the brightest and happiest of her kind. I pondered long upon this circumstance; how long I cannot say, for dolls are unable to measure time, they can only date from any particularly striking epochs. For instance, we can say, 'Such an affair happened before I lost my leg;' or, 'Such an event took place before my new wig was put on;' but of the intricate divisions known to mortals by the names of hours, days, months, &c., we have no idea. However, I meditated on the kind little sister during what appeared to me a long but not tedious period, for I was gratified at gaining some insight into the qualities proper to distinguish the human race. Readiness to show kindness, and a preference of others' interests to her own, were virtues which I easily perceived in the little girl's conduct; but one thing perplexed me sadly. I could not understand why a doll would not have answered her kind intentions as well as a paint-box; why could she not have bought the doll which she admired so much, and have given _that_ to her brother. My thoughts were still engaged with this subject, when a boy approached the stall. Boys were new characters to me, and I was glad of the opportunity to observe one. He did not bestow a look on the dolls and other toys, but asked for a box of carpenter's tools. The shopkeeper dived into some hidden recess under the counter, and produced a clumsy-looking chest, the merits of which I could not discover; but the boy pronounced it to be 'just the thing,' and willingly paid down its price. I followed him with my eyes as he walked about with his great box under his arm, looking from side to side, till he caught sight of another boy rather younger than himself, advancing from an opposite corner. 'Why, Geoffrey,' exclaimed my first friend, 'where have you been all this time? I have been hunting every where for you.' Geoffrey did not immediately answer, his mouth being, as I perceived, quite full. When at last he could open his lips, he said, 'Will you have a cheesecake?' 'No, thank you,' replied his friend. 'We must go home to dinner so soon, that you will scarcely have time to choose your things. Where _have_ you been?' 'At the pastrycook's stall,' answered Geoffrey; 'and I must go back again before I can buy any thing. I left my five shillings there to be changed.' The boys returned together to the stall, and I saw its mistress hand a small coin to Geoffrey. 'Where is the rest?' said he. 'That is your change, sir,' she replied. 'Why, you don't mean that those two or three tarts and jellies cost four and sixpence!' he exclaimed, turning as red as the rosiest doll at my side. 'I think you will find it correct, sir,' answered the shopkeeper. 'Two jellies, sixpence each, make one shilling; two custards, sixpence each, two shillings; a bottle of ginger-beer, threepence, two and threepence; one raspberry cream, sixpence, two and ninepence; three gooseberry tarts, threepence, three shillings; two strawberry tarts, three and twopence; two raspberry ditto, three and fourpence; four cheesecakes, three and eightpence; two Bath buns, four shillings; and one lemon ice, four and sixpence.' 'What a bother!' said Geoffrey, as he pocketed the small remains of his fortune. 'I wish I could give her some of the tarts back again, for they weren't half so nice as they looked, except just the first one or two.' 'Because you were only hungry for the first one or two,' said the other boy. 'But it can't be helped now; come and spend the sixpence better.' 'There won't be any thing worth buying for sixpence,' said Geoffrey gloomily, as he shuffled in a lazy manner towards my stall. 'I want a spade,' said he. Several were produced, but they cost two shillings or half-a-crown. There were little wooden spades for sixpence; but from those he turned with contempt, saying they were only fit for babies. Nothing at our table suited him, and he walked towards our opposite neighbour, who sold books, maps, &c. On his asking for a dissected map, all the countries of the world were speedily offered to his choice; but alas! the price was again the obstacle. The cheapest map was half-a-crown; and Geoffrey's sixpence would buy nothing but a childish puzzle of Old Mother Hubbard. Geoffrey said it was a great shame that every thing should be either dear or stupid. 'Can't you lend me some money, Ned?' continued he. 'I can't, indeed,' replied the other; 'mine all went in this box of tools. Suppose you don't spend the sixpence at all now, but keep it till you get some more.' 'No, I won't do that; I hate saving my money.' So saying, he wandered from stall to stall, asking the price of every thing, as if his purse was as full as his stomach. 'How much is that sailor kite?' 'Two shillings, sir.'--'How much is that bat?' 'Seven and sixpence.'--'How much is that wooden box with secret drawer?' 'Three shillings.' 'How provoking!' he exclaimed. 'I want heaps of things, and this stupid sixpence is no good at all.' 'It is better than nothing,' said Edward. 'It is not every day that one's aunt sends one five shillings, to spend in the bazaar; and in common times sixpence is not to be despised. After all, there are plenty of things it will buy. Do you want a top?' 'No; I've got four.' 'Garden seeds?' 'What is the use of them, when I can't get a spade?' 'Steel pens? You said this morning you could not write with quills.' 'I don't like buying those kind of things with my own money.' 'A box? Yesterday you wanted a box.' 'I don't care for boxes that won't lock, and I can't get one with a lock and key for sixpence.' 'A knife?' 'Sixpenny knives have only one blade; I want two.' 'Sealing-wax? wafers? a penholder? a paint-box? India-rubber? pencils?' 'Stupid things!' 'A ball? You might have a very good ball.' 'Not a cricket ball; and I don't care for any other.' 'What a particular fellow you are! I am sure I could always find something to spend sixpence in. String? One is always wanting string. You may have a good ball of whipcord.' 'These sort of places don't sell it.' 'Then, I say again, keep your money till you want it.' 'No, that I'll never do, when I came on purpose to spend it. After all, the only thing I can think of,' continued Geoffrey, after a pause, 'is to go back to the pastrycook's. There was one kind of tart I did not taste, and perhaps it would be nicer than the others. I'll give you one if you like.' 'No, thank you; I am much obliged to you all the same; but I won't help you to spend your money in that way. Don't buy any more tarts. Come and walk about; there are plenty more shops to look at.' They sauntered on, but Geoffrey, by various turns, worked his way back to the pastrycook's; and as no persuasions could then bring him away, Edward walked off, not choosing, as he said, to encourage him. Presently I saw a tall gentleman enter the bazaar, and I wondered what he would buy. I did not then understand the difference between grown-up people and children, and as he approached my stall, I could not repress a hope that he would buy _me_. But his quick eye glanced over the tables without resting on any of the toys. 'Can I show you any thing, sir?' said my mistress. 'No, I am much obliged to you,' he answered, with a pleasant smile. 'I am only in search of some young people who, I dare say, have been better customers than I. Ah, here they are,' he continued, as the two boys of whom I had taken so much notice ran up to him from different ends of the room. 'Well, boys,' said he, 'what have you bought? Must we hire a wagon to carry your property home?' 'Not quite,' answered Edward. 'I have bought a wagon-load of amusement, but I can carry it home well enough myself; I have spent all my money in this box of tools.' 'A very sensible and useful purchase,' said the gentleman; 'they will give you plenty of pleasant employment. The only objection is, that they are likely to be lost or broken at school.' 'I do not mean to take them to school, papa. I shall use them in the holidays, and leave them with Willy when I go back to school; that was one reason why I bought them. Willy could do a good deal of carpentering on his sofa.' [Illustration: Page 25.] 'True, my boy, and a kind thought. They will be a great amusement to poor Willy, and he will take good care of them for you.' 'Now, Geoffrey, how have you invested your capital? I hope you have found a strong spade. It is fine weather for gardening.' 'No, I haven't,' stammered Geoffrey. 'Well, what have you bought?' 'I don't know,' said Geoffrey. 'Do you mean that you have not spent your money yet? Make haste, then, for I can only allow you five minutes more. I expected to find you ready to go home. Be brisk; there is every thing on that stall that the heart of boy can wish,' said the gentleman, pointing to my abode. But Geoffrey did not move. 'I don't want any thing,' said he at last. 'What a fortunate boy!' said the gentleman; but he presently added, 'Have you lost your money?' 'No.' 'Show it to me.' Geoffrey slowly produced his sixpence, almost hidden in the palm of his hand. 'Where is the rest?' asked the gentleman. 'Have you spent it?' 'Yes.' 'And nothing to show for it? Nothing?'--and the gentleman looked at the boy more narrowly. 'Nothing,' said he again, 'except a few crumbs of pie-crust on your waistcoat? Oh, Geoffrey!' There was a short silence, and the boy colored a good deal; at last he said, 'It was my own money.' 'You will wish it was your own again before long, I dare say,' said the gentleman. 'However, we must hope you will be wiser in time. Come home now to dinner.' 'I don't want any dinner,' said Geoffrey. 'Probably not, but Edward and I do. We have not dined on tarts; and I dare say Ned is as hungry as I am.' So saying, he led the way towards the door, leaving me, as usual, pondering over what had passed. One word used by the gentleman made a great impression on me--USEFUL. What could that mean? Various considerations were suggested by the question. Some things, it seemed, were useful, others not; and what puzzled me most was, that the very same things appeared to be useful to some people, and not to others. For instance, the sixpenny paint-box, which had been rejected as useless to Willy, was bought soon afterwards by a small boy, who said it would be the most useful toy he had. Could this be the case with every thing? Was it possible that every thing properly applied might have its use, and that its value depended upon those who used it? If so, why was Geoffrey blamed for spending his money in tarts? _He_ liked them. Perhaps he had plenty of food at home, and that uselessness consisted in a thing's not being really wanted. I revolved the subject in my mind, and tried to discover the use of every thing I saw, but I was not always successful. The subject was perplexing; and gradually all my thoughts became fixed on the point of most importance to myself--namely, my own use. How changed were my ideas since the time when I imagined the world to belong to dolls! Their whole race now seemed to be of very small importance; and as for my individual self, I could not be sure that I had any use at all, and still less _what_, or _to whom_. Day after day I lay on my counter unnoticed, except by the shopwoman who covered us up at night, and re-arranged us in the morning; and even this she did with such an indifferent air, that I could not flatter myself I was of the smallest use to _her_. Every necessary care was bestowed upon me in common with my companions; but I sighed for the tender attentions that I sometimes saw lavished by children upon their dolls, and wished that my mistress would nurse and caress me in the same manner. She never seemed to think of such a thing. She once said I was dusty, and whisked a brush over my face; but that was the only separate mark of interest I ever received from her. I had no reasonable ground of complaint, but I began to grow weary of the insipidity of my life, and to ask myself whether this could be my only destiny. Was I never to be of use to any body? From time to time other toys were carried away. Many a giddy top and lively ball left my side in childish company, and disappeared through those mysterious gates by which the busy human race entered our calm seclusion. At last even dolls had their day. The beautiful waxen princess no longer graced our dominions. She was bought by an elderly lady for a birthday present to a little grand-daughter; and on the very same day the 'old familiar faces' of six dolls who had long shared my counter vanished from my sight, one after another being bought and carried away. I was sorry to lose them, though while we lived together we had had our little miffs and jealousies. I had sometimes thought that the one with the red shoes was always sticking out her toes; that she of the flaxen ringlets was ready to let every breath of wind blow them over her neighbours' faces; that another with long legs took up more room than her share, much to my inconvenience. But now that they were all gone, and I never could hope to see them again, I would gladly have squeezed myself into as small compass as the baby doll in the walnut-shell, in order to make room for them once more. One thing, however, was satisfactory: dolls certainly had their use. Seven had been bought, and therefore why not an eighth? I had been sinking almost into a state of despondency, but now my hopes revived and my spirits rose. My turn might come. And my turn did come. Every circumstance of that eventful day is deeply impressed on my memory. I was as usual employed in making remarks upon the passing crowd, and wondering what might be the use of every body I saw, when I perceived the lady and the little girl who had been almost my first acquaintances among the human race. As they approached my stall, I heard the mama say, 'Have you decided what to buy with the sixpence?' 'Oh yes, quite,' answered the child; 'I am going to buy a _sixpenny doll_.' The words thrilled through me; her eyes seemed fixed on mine, and the sixpence was between her fingers. I imagined myself bought. But she continued: 'I think, if you don't mind the trouble, I should like to go round the bazaar first, to see which are the prettiest.' 'By all means,' replied the lady; and they walked on, carrying all my hopes with them. I had often fancied myself the prettiest doll of my size in the place; but such conceit would not support me now. I felt that there were dozens, nay scores, who more than equalled me; and all discontented notions of my neglected merit now sunk before the dread that I had really no merit to neglect. I began also to have some idea of what was meant by time. My past life had glided away so imperceptibly, that I did not know whether it had been long or short; but I learnt to count every moment while those two mortals were walking round the bazaar. I strained my eyes to catch sight of them again; but when at last they re-appeared, I scarcely dared to look, for fear of seeing a doll in the child's hands. But no; her hands were empty, except for the sixpence still between her finger and thumb. They came nearer--they stopped at another stall; I could not hear what they said, but they turned away, and once more stood opposite to me. The child remained for some moments as silent as myself, and then exclaimed, 'After all, Mama, I don't think there are any prettier dolls than these in the whole room.' 'What do you say to this one, Miss?' said our proprietor, taking up a great full-dressed Dutch doll, and laying her on the top of those of my size and class, completely hiding the poor little victims under her stiff muslin and broad ribbons. But on the child's answering, 'No, thank you, I only want a sixpenny doll not dressed,' the Dutch giantess was removed, and we once more asserted our humble claims. 'That seems to me a very pretty one,' said the mama, pointing to my next neighbour. The child for a moment hesitated, but presently exclaimed in a joyful tone, 'Oh no, _this_ is the beauty of all; this little darling with the real hair and blue ribbon in it; I will take this one, if you please.' And before I could be sure that she meant me, I was removed from my place, wrapped up in paper, and consigned to her hands. My long-cherished wishes were fulfilled, and I was bought. At first I could scarcely believe it. Notwithstanding all my planning and looking forward to this event, now that it really happened, I could not understand it. My senses seemed gone. What had so long occupied my mind was the work of a moment; but that moment was irrevocable, and my fate was decided. In my little mistress' hands I passed the boundaries of the world of toys, and entered upon a new state of existence. CHAPTER II. A very different life now opened before me. I had no longer any pretence for complaining of neglect. My young mistress devoted every spare moment to the enjoyment of my company, and set no limits to her caresses and compliments; while I in return regarded her with all the gratitude and affection which a doll can feel. My faculties as well as my feelings were called into fresh exercise; for though I had no longer the wide range of observation afforded by the daily crowd of strangers in the bazaar, I had the new advantage of making intimate acquaintance with a small circle of friends. Having hitherto been so completely without any position in the world, I could not at first help feeling rather shy at the idea of taking my place as member of a family; and it was therefore a relief to find that my lot was not cast amongst total strangers, but that I had already some slight clue to the characters of my future companions. My mistress, whose name was Rose, was sister to the Willy for whom she had bought the paint-box, and also to Edward, the purchaser of the tools. Geoffrey, the lover of tarts, was a cousin on a visit to them for the holidays; and they had also an elder sister named Margaret; besides their papa and mama, whom I had seen in the bazaar. The first of the family to whom I was introduced was Willy, and I soon became much interested in him. He was a pale thin boy, who spent the day on a sofa, to and from which he was carried in the morning and at night. In fine weather he went out in a wheel-chair; but he was unable to move, without help, and was obliged to endure many privations. Though he often looked suffering and weary, he was cheerful and patient, and always seemed pleased to hear other children describe enjoyments in which he could not share. Every body was fond of Willy, and anxious to amuse and comfort him. All that happened out of doors was told to him; all the kindest friends and pleasantest visitors came to see him; the new books were brought to him to read first; the best fruit and flowers always set apart for him; and all the in-door occupations arranged as much as possible with a view to his convenience. He and his little sister Rose were the dearest friends in the world, and certain to take part in whatever interested each other. As soon as Rose brought me home from the Pantheon, she ran up stairs with me to Willy, whom I then saw for the first time, sitting on the sofa with his feet up, and a table before him, on which stood several books, and my old acquaintances the paint-box and the chest of tools. 'Look at this, Willy; is not this pretty?' exclaimed Rose, laying me down on his open book. Willy looked up with a pleasant smile: 'Very pretty,' he answered. 'I suppose she is to be the lady of the new house; and with Ned's tools, I hope to make some furniture worth her acceptance.' 'Oh, thank you, Willy dear. And will you help me to choose a name for her? What do you think the prettiest name you know?' '_Rose_,' answered Willy, laughing; 'but I suppose that will not do. I dare say you want something very fine and out-of-the-way.' 'As fine as can be,' replied Rose; 'I have been thinking of Seraphina or Wilhelmina: which do you like best?' 'Call it Molly,' cried Edward, who just then entered the room; 'Molly and Betty are the best names: no nonsense in them.' 'Call it Stupid Donkey,' mumbled a voice behind him; and Geoffrey advanced, his mouth as usual full of something besides words. 'Have any nuts, Willy?' he asked, holding out a handful. 'No, thank you,' answered Willy; 'I must not eat them.' 'I wouldn't be you, I know,' said Geoffrey, cracking one between his teeth; 'never let to eat any thing but what's wholesome, and always reading, or doing something stupid. I believe you are helping Rose to play with that doll now. Put it into the fire; that is the way to treat dolls. Stupid things. I hate 'em!' 'Pray do not touch it, Geoffrey,' said Rose. 'Leave it alone, Geff,' said Edward. 'You have your things, and Rose has hers. I don't see the fun of dolls myself, but she does, and nobody shall interfere with her while I am here to protect her. Just remember that, will you?' 'The d-o-ll!' said Geoffrey, drawling the word, and making a face as if the pronouncing it turned him quite sick. 'Oh, the sweet doll! Perhaps you would like to stay and play with Rose, and Willy, and the d-o-ll, instead of coming out to cricket.' 'Nonsense, you foolish fellow, you know better,' answered Edward. 'But I won't have Rose bullied; and what's more, I won't have Willy quizzed. I should like to see you or me pass such an examination as Willy could if he were at school. Why, he can learn as much in a day as we do in a week.' 'Well, he is welcome to learn as much as he likes,' said Geoffrey; 'and let's you and I go and play. What stupid nuts these are! I've almost cracked one of my teeth with cracking them.' The boys ran off; and presently there came into the room the papa and mama, whom I already knew, and a young lady very like Rose, but older. I found she was Margaret, the eldest sister. They inquired whether Willy wanted any thing before they went out; and Margaret fetched a drawing that he wished to copy, while his father and mother wheeled his sofa and table nearer the window, that he might have more light. When he was made quite comfortable, they told Rose that she might stay and take care of him till they returned; and she said she would bring her box of scraps and begin dressing me. Then I came in for my share of notice, and had every reason to be satisfied with the praises bestowed on me. The mama said that I deserved very neatly-made clothes; the papa, that my hair would be a pattern for Margaret's; and Margaret said I was charming, and that she would make me a pink satin gown. They admired the name _Seraphina_, though the papa suggested various others which he thought might suit Rose's taste,--Sophonisba, Cleopatra, Araminta, Dulcinea, Ethelinda, &c.; but as she remained steady to her first choice, the LADY SERAPHINA was decided to be thenceforth my name and title. And now began the real business of my life. I was no longer doomed to fret at being of no use, for the object of my existence was plain enough, namely, to give innocent recreation to my young mistress when at leisure from her more serious employments. Every day she spent some hours in study with her mother or sister; and she would fly to me for relief between her lessons, and return to them with more vigor after passing a little time in my refreshing company. She often showed her tasks to me, and discussed their difficulties. I think she repeated the multiplication-table to me nearly a hundred times, while I sat on the _Tutor's Assistant_ waiting for the recurrence of the fatal words, 'Seven times nine.' Day after day she could get no farther; but as soon as she came to 'Seven times nine,' I was turned off the book, which had to be consulted for the answer. At last, one day she came running into the room in great glee, exclaiming, 'I have done the multiplication-table. I have said it quite right, sixty-three and all. I made no mistake even in dodging. And _you_ helped me, my darling Lady Seraphina. I never could have learned it perfect if you had not heard me say it so often. And now, look at your rewards. Margaret has made you a bonnet, and Willy has made you an arm-chair.' Beautiful, indeed, was the bonnet, and commodious the arm-chair; and I wore the one and reclined in the other all the time Rose was learning the French auxiliary verbs _être_ and _avoir_. I flattered myself I was of as much use in them as in the multiplication-table; but I do not recollect receiving any particular recompense. Indeed, after a little time, it would have been difficult to know what to give me, for I possessed every thing that a doll's heart could wish, or her head imagine. Such a variety of elegant dresses as Rose made for me would have been the envy of all my old friends in the bazaar. I had gowns of pink satin and white satin; blue silk and yellow silk; colored muslins without number, and splendid white lace. Bonnets enough to furnish a milliner's shop were mine; but I was not so partial to them as to my gowns, because they tumbled my hair. I believe a good many of my possessions were presents from Margaret to Rose on account of perfect lessons; but in course of time, I ceased to superintend Rose's studies. Margaret said that I interrupted the course of history; and the mama said that Rose was old enough to learn her lessons without bringing her play into them, and that I must be put away during school hours. Though I did not think that the fault was altogether mine, I quite acquiesced in the wisdom of this decree; for during Rose's last reading-lesson she had stopped so often to ask me which I liked best, Lycurgus or Solon, Pericles or Alcibiades, &c., that Margaret was almost out of patience. And though I made no answer, and had really no choice at all between the characters, I felt that I rather hindered business. I was therefore now left to myself for several hours in the morning; but I found ample and pleasant employment in surveying the comforts and beauties of my habitation. For I was not forced to perform the part of an insignificant pigmy in the vast abodes of the colossal race of man: I possessed a beautiful little house proportioned to my size, pleasantly situated on a table in the furthest corner of the schoolroom, and commanding an extensive view of the whole apartment. I must describe my house at full length. It had been originally, as I heard, a mere rough packing-case; but what of that? The best brick house in London was once but clay in the fields; and my packing-case was now painted outside and papered inside, and fitted up in a manner every way suitable for the occupation of a doll of distinction. My drawing-room was charming; light and cheerful, the walls papered with white and gold, and the floor covered with a drab carpet worked with flowers of every hue. Rose worked the carpet herself under the directions of Margaret, who prevailed on her to learn worsted-work for my sake. So there, again, how useful I was! From the ceiling hung a brilliant glass chandelier, a birthday present from Edward to Rose; and the mantel-piece was adorned by a splendid mirror cut out of a broken looking-glass by Willy, and framed by his hands. I cannot say that Willy ever seemed to care for me personally, but he took considerable interest in my upholstery, and much of my handsomest furniture was manufactured by him. He made my dining-room and drawing-room tables; the frames of my chairs, which were covered with silk by Margaret; my sofa, and my four-post bedstead; and it was he who painted the floor-cloth in my hall, and the capital picture of the Queen and Prince Albert which hung over the dining-room chimney-piece. I had a snug bed-room, containing a bed with pink curtains, a toilette-table, with a handsome looking-glass, pincushion, and rather large brush and comb; a washing-stand, towel-horse, chest of drawers, and wardrobe. But the last two, I must confess, were rather for show than for use. They were French-polished, and in appearance convenient as well as handsome, but in reality too small to hold my clothes. A few minor articles of dress were kept in them; but the mass of my gorgeous attire was always in larger boxes and trunks belonging to my mistress; her work-box, for instance, and at one time her desk; but her mama turned all my gowns out of the latter when she banished me from the lessons, and desired that, for the future, only writing materials should be kept in it. 'Every thing in its proper place, Rose,' I heard her say. 'You have plenty of little boxes for doll's clothes; and your doll ought to teach you to be more tidy instead of less so.' My dining-room was well adapted for all the purposes of hospitality, being furnished with a substantial dining-table, chairs, and a sideboard, on which there always stood two trays, one filled with decanters and wine-glasses, and the other with knives and forks. My kitchen was resplendent with saucepans, kettles, pots and pans, and plates and dishes, ranged upon the dresser, or hung from the walls. A joint of meat was always roasting before the fire, and a cook of my own race appeared to spend her life in basting it, for I never failed to find her thus employed when Rose was so kind as to take me into my kitchen. There was also a footman, who sat for ever in the hall; and I was inclined to consider him rather wanting in respect, till I discovered that, owing to a broken leg, he was unable to stand. I did not quite comprehend the use of my servants, as Rose herself did all the work of my house; but she said they were indispensable, and that if it were not for want of room, I should have a great many more. Besides all these arrangements for my comfort in-doors, I possessed a beautiful open phaeton, emblazoned with the royal arms of England, and drawn by four piebald horses with long tails, so spirited that they never left off prancing. Every day, after school-time, Rose brought this equipage to my door; and the four horses stood with their eight front feet in the air while I was dressed for my drive. Then, attired in my last new bonnet and cloak, I sat in state in my carriage, and was drawn round and round the room by Rose, till she said I was tired. She made many attempts to persuade the lame footman to stand on the footboard behind, but she never could manage it. He was a very helpless creature; and I am not quite certain that he even did his best, little as that might be. The first time Rose set him up behind the carriage, he tumbled head over heels into the middle of it, and stood there on his head till she picked him out again. Then he fell off behind, then on one side, and then on the other, till she was quite tired of his foolish tricks, and left him to sit quietly and stupidly in his old place in the hall. I lived in great comfort in my pleasant house, and being of a cheerful, contented temper, never felt lonely, although left to myself during great part of the day; for Rose was very obedient to her Mama's orders, and even if now and then tempted to forget the regulation herself, Willy was always at hand to remind her, and help to fix her attention on her business. But when it was all over, she flew to me with redoubled pleasure. One day she said to me, 'My dear Seraphina, I am afraid you must be very dull, alone all the morning.' I longed to assure her of the contrary; but not having the gift of speech, I could only listen submissively while she continued: 'It is a pity that you should sit doing nothing and wasting your time; so I have brought you some books, which you are to read while I am at my lessons; and I shall expect you to learn just as much as I do.' So saying, she seated me on my sofa, and placing a table with the books before me, 'Look,' continued she, 'I have made them for you myself, and covered them with these pretty red and green papers. This is your English History, and this is your French Grammar; and here is a Geography Book, and here is a History of Rome. Now read attentively, and do not let your thoughts wander; and be very careful not to dogs-ear the leaves: that always looks like a dunce. And mind you sit upright,' added she, looking back, as she left the room in obedience to a summons from her sister. I obeyed to the best of my power. To be sure, I did not know which was geography and which was grammar; and English and Roman history were both alike to me. But I did as I was bid. I sat upright in the place appointed me, staring as hard as I could at the open pages; and my worst enemy could not accuse me of dogs-earing a single leaf. When my mistress returned, she pleased me much by calling me a very good girl, and saying that if I continued to take so much pains, I could not fail to improve. On hearing this, Willy laughed, and said he hoped that that was a duplicate of Margaret's last speech; and Rose looked very happy, and answered that not only Margaret, but Mama had said the same. This was not my only duplicate of Rose's adventures. My education appeared to be conducted precisely on the same plan as her own. Before long, she brought a little pianoforte and set it up in my drawing-room. I thought it rather hid the pretty paper, but it was a handsome piece of furniture. 'Now, Lady Seraphina,' said Rose, 'I am obliged to practise for an hour every day, and you must do the same. See what a pretty piano I have given you. You need not mind its being meant for a housewife and pincushion; the notes are marked, and that is all you want. Now practise your scales, and be very careful to play right notes and count your time.' I sat at my piano with all due diligence, but I am sorry to say that my progress did not seem satisfactory. One day Rose said that she was sure I had forgotten to count; and another day, that I hurried the easy bars and slackened the difficult ones; then she accused me of not caring whether I played right notes or wrong, and torturing her ear by my false chords; then I banged the notes till I broke the strings: in short, there was no end to her complaints, till at last she wound them all up by declaring that both she and I hated music, and that if Mama and Margaret would take her advice, we should both leave it off. But still I practised regularly, and so, I suppose, did Rose; and gradually her reproaches diminished, and she grew more contented with me; and we both persevered, till she said that really, after all, I seemed to have a good ear, and to be likely to make a very respectable player. 'But you know it all depends upon yourself, Seraphina; your present improvement is the result of pains and practice. Pains and practice will do any thing.' It was fortunate for me that I had so careful a superintendent as Rose; for unless she had kept a constant watch over me, there is no saying how many awkward habits I might unconsciously have contracted. But she cured me of poking my head forward, of standing on one leg, of tilting my chair, of meddling with things that were not my own, of leaning against the furniture while I was speaking, of putting my elbows on the table, of biting my nails, of spilling my tea, and of making crumbs on the floor. I cannot say I was myself aware either of the faults or their cure; but I think one seldom does notice one's own faults, and therefore it is a great advantage to have kind friends who will point them out to us. I believed Rose when she told me of mine; so I had a right to believe her when she gave me the agreeable assurance of their cure, and to indulge the hope that I was becoming a pleasing, well-bred little doll. On one mortifying occasion, however, I must own that Rose's anxiety for my always following in her steps was the cause of a serious injury to me. She remarked that I had got into a horrid way of kicking off my shoes while I was learning my poetry; and she thought the best cure would be to make me wear sandals. I observed that she was sewing sandals to her own shoes at the time, and she consulted Willy about some means of doing the same by mine. Willy held me head downwards, and examined my feet. My shoes were painted, therefore sewing was out of the question. He advised glue. This was tried, but it came through the thin narrow ribbon of which my sandals were to be made, and looked very dirty. They were taken off; but the operation had spoilt the delicacy of my white stockings, and Rose said it was impossible to let me go such an untidy figure; we must try some other way. She asked Willy to lend her a gimlet, that she might bore holes at the sides of my feet, and glue the ribbon into them, so as not to show the glue. Willy said she was welcome to the gimlet, but that he advised her to leave it alone, for that she would only break my feet. But Rose would not be dissuaded, and began boring. It was on this occasion that I most peculiarly felt the advantage of that insensibility to pain which distinguishes my race. What mortal could have borne such an infliction without struggling and screaming? I, on the contrary, took it all in good part, and showed no signs of feeling even at the fatal moment when my foot snapped in two, and Rose, with a face of utter dismay, held up my own toes before my eyes. 'Oh, my poor Seraphina!' she exclaimed, 'what shall we do?' 'Glue it on again,' said Willy. 'You had better have taken my advice at first, but now you must make the best of it. Glue is your only friend.' So Rose glued the halves of my foot together, lamenting over me, and blaming herself so much all the time, that it seemed rather a comfort to her when Margaret, coming into the room, agreed with her that she had been foolish and awkward. Margaret said that ribbon might have been tied over my feet from the first, without using glue or gimlet either; and Rose called herself more stupid than ever, for not having thought of such an easy contrivance. My foot was glued, and for the purpose of standing, answered as well as ever; and Rose sewed me up in a pair of blue silk boots, and declared that I was prettier than before; and my misfortune was soon forgotten by every body but myself. I, however, could not but feel a misgiving that this was the first warning of my share in the invariable fate of my race. For I had already lived long enough to be aware that the existence of a doll, like that of every thing else, has its limits. Either by sudden accidents, such as loss of limbs, or by the daily wear and tear of life, decay gradually makes its progress in us, and we fade away as surely as the most delicate of the fragile race of mortals. Though the fracture of my foot was my own first misfortune, I had had opportunities of remarking the casualties to which dolls are liable. For it is not to be supposed that our devotion to human beings precludes us from cultivating the society of our own species. Dolls will be dolls; and they have a natural sympathy with each other, notwithstanding the companionship of the race of man. Most little girls are aware of this fact, and provide suitable society for their dolls. I myself had a large circle of silent acquaintances, to whom I was introduced by Rose's kindness and consideration. When other little girls came to drink tea with her, they often brought their dolls to spend the evening with me; and among them I had more than once the pleasure of recognising an old friend from the bazaar. Then I was in my glory. There was a constant supply of provisions in my larder; and at a moment's notice Rose would produce an excellent dinner, all ready cooked, and dished in a beautiful little china dinner-service. Willy compared her to the genius of Aladdin's lamp; and though I did not know what that might mean, I quite understood the advantage of being able to set such a banquet before my friends. I could always command salmon, a pair of soles, a leg of mutton, a leg of pork, a turkey, a pair of boiled fowls, a ham, a sucking pig, a hare, a loaf of bread, a fine Cheshire cheese, several pies, and a great variety of fruit, which was always ripe and in season, winter or summer. Rose's papa once observed that his hothouse produced none so fine; for the currants were as large as apples, and two cherries filled a dish. Rose and her companions performed the active duties of waiting at table on these occasions; but the lame footman was generally brought out of the hall, and propped up against the sideboard, where he stood looking respectable but awkward. At these pleasant parties I saw a great range of characters, for Rose's young visitors were various in their tastes, and their dolls used to be dressed in every known costume. Besides plenty of pretty English damsels, I was introduced now to a Turkish sultana, now to a Swiss peasant; one day to a captain in the British army, another day to an Indian rajah. One young lady liked to make her dolls personate celebrated characters; and when she visited us, most distinguished guests graced my table. I have had the honor of receiving the Queen and Prince Albert themselves; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Walter Scott, and Miss Edgeworth, have all dined with me on the same day, and Robinson Crusoe came in the evening. But it was at these social meetings that I became most fully aware of the liability of dolls to loss of limbs. I never remember giving a party at which the guests could boast of possessing all their legs and arms. Many an ingenious contrivance hid or supplied the deficiencies, and we were happy in spite of our losses; still, such was the case: and I saw that dolls, however beloved and respected, could not last for ever. For some time after my accident I had no particular adventures. I lived in peace and plenty, and amused myself with watching the family. They were all amiable and easy to understand, except Geoffrey; but he was a complete puzzle to me, and it was long before I could make out why he was so different from the rest. The others all seemed to like to help and please one another, but Geoffrey never seemed happy unless he was making himself disagreeable. If Willy was interested in a book, he was obliged to sit upon the second volume, or Geoffrey would be sure to run away with it. If Edward was in a hurry to go out, Geoffrey would hide his cap, and keep him a quarter of an hour hunting for it. The girls dared not leave their worsted-work within his reach for a moment; for he would unravel the canvass, or chop up the wool, or go on with the work after a pattern of his own composing, so that they would be obliged to spend half an hour in unpicking his cobbling. Margaret remonstrated with him in private, and made excuses for him in public, and did her best to prevent his tiresome tricks from annoying Willy; Edward tried rougher means of keeping him in order, which sometimes succeeded; but still he could find plenty of opportunities of being a torment: people always can when such is their taste. One day Margaret was keeping Willy company, while the rest of the party were gone to the Zoological Gardens. She had brought a drawing to finish, as he liked to see her draw, and was sometimes useful in suggesting improvements. But while they were thus employed, Margaret was summoned to some visitors, and went away, saying that her drawing would just have time to dry before she returned. But unfortunately, during her absence, Geoffrey came home. He had grown tired of the Gardens, which he had seen very often, and rather hungry, as he generally was; so after amusing himself by eating the cakes he had bought for the bear, he had nothing more to do, and tried to persuade his cousins to be tired also. But Edward was making himself agreeable to the monkeys, Rose was cultivating the friendship of the elephant, and their Papa and Mama were waiting to see the hippopotamus bathe; so that Geoffrey's proposals of leaving the Gardens were scouted, and he could only obtain leave from his uncle to go home by himself. He entered the room, as usual, with his mouth full, having spent his last penny in a piece of cocoanut as he came along the streets. While the cocoanut lasted, he was employed to his satisfaction; but when that was finished, he was again at a loss for something to do. He tried walking round the room on one leg, working heel and toe, and that succeeded very well, and did no harm till he unluckily came to the drawing-table, when he immediately brought himself to a stand on both feet. 'Hallo!' cried he, 'here's a daub! Is this your splendid performance, Will?' 'No,' replied Willy, 'it is Margaret's; and mind you don't touch it by accident, because it is wet.' 'Touch it by accident!' exclaimed Geoffrey; 'I am going to touch it on purpose. I wonder Margaret is not ashamed to do it so badly. I'll improve it for her. How kind of me!' Poor Willy, in dismay, tried to secure the drawing, but he could not move from his sofa, and Geoffrey danced round him, holding it at arm's-length. Then Willy caught at the bell-rope, but his mischievous cousin snatched it quicker, and tied it up out of his reach. Willy called all the servants as loud as he could, but no one was within hearing; and he threw himself back on his sofa, in despair, exclaiming, 'How can you be so ill-natured, when Margaret is always so kind to you?' 'Ill-natured!' answered the other; 'I'm doing her a favor. She admired the moonlight in the Diorama; now I shall make just such a moon in her drawing.' And while he spoke, a great yellow moon, like a guinea, rose in the midst of poor Margaret's brilliant sunset. 'That's the thing,' said Geoffrey; 'and now I shall put the cow jumping over it, and the little dog laughing to see such sport. Some figures always improve the foreground.' 'Oh, you have quite spoilt it!' cried Willy. 'How I wish I could stop you! I cannot imagine how you can like to be so mischievous and disagreeable. Oh, if Margaret would but come back.' At last Margaret came, and the troublesome Geoffrey expected great amusement from her displeasure; but he was disappointed. Margaret was one of those generous people who never resent an injury done to themselves. If Geoffrey had spoilt any body else's drawing, she would have been the first to punish him; but now she was much more vexed at Willy's distress than at the destruction of her own work, and instead of scolding Geoffrey, she gave herself up to consoling Willy. She assured him that there was no great harm done. She said the drawing was good for very little, and that she would copy it and improve it so much that he should be quite glad of the disaster; and she made a present of the spoilt drawing to Geoffrey, telling him she was sure he would one day be ashamed of so foolish a performance, but that meanwhile he might keep it as a specimen of his taste. He had not the manners to apologize, but he looked very silly and crest-fallen, and left the room in silence, with the drawing in his hand. When he was gone, Willy exclaimed, 'If it were not for losing Edward, I should wish the holidays were over; Geoffrey is so disagreeable.' 'He is very thoughtless,' Margaret replied; 'but we must not be too hard upon him. Let us recollect that he has no parents to teach him better, nor brothers and sisters to call forth his consideration for others. Poor Geoffrey has had neither example nor precept till now. But now Papa and Mama give him good precepts; and if we try to set him good examples, perhaps we may help him to improve.' 'Well, I'll hope for the best, and do what I can,' said Willy. 'Certainly he has some good qualities. He is as brave as a lion; and he is good-natured about giving away his own things, though he is so mischievous with other people's.' 'And he is clever in his way, notwithstanding his idleness,' added Margaret. 'Those foolish figures that he put into my drawing were uncommonly well done, though they were provoking to us.' 'You are the best girl in the world,' said Willy; 'and if you think Geoffrey will improve, I'll think so too; but you must own there is room for it.' Perhaps Geoffrey did improve, but it seemed slow work, faults being more easily acquired than cured; and for a long time I could perceive no difference in him. Indeed, as his next piece of mischief concerned myself, I thought him worse than ever. I have often wondered at the extreme dislike which boys have to dolls. I was the most inoffensive creature possible, giving myself no airs, and interfering with nobody; yet even the gentle Willy was indifferent to me. Edward, though he protected Rose in her patronage of me, despised me thoroughly himself; and Geoffrey never lost an opportunity of expressing his mortal hatred to me. I shrunk from Edward's contemptuous notice, but I was not at all afraid of him, well knowing that neither he nor Willy would hurt a hair of my head; but whenever Geoffrey came into the room, terror seized my mind. He never passed my house without making all kinds of ugly faces at me; and I felt instinctively that nothing but the presence of the other boys restrained him from doing me any harm in his power. I had hitherto never been alone with him, but at last the fatal moment arrived. One fine afternoon, Willy went out for a drive in his wheel-chair, Edward insisting upon drawing it himself, and the two girls walking on each side. Geoffrey accompanied them, intending to walk with them part of the way, and to go on by himself when he was tired of the slow pace of the chair. All seemed safe, and I hoped to enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted leisure. I always liked having my time to myself; and as Rose had set me no lessons, I reposed comfortably in my arm-chair by a blazing fire of black and red cloth, from the glare of which I was sheltered by a screen. My dog sat at my side, my cat lay at my feet, and I was as happy as a doll could be. Suddenly the silence was broken by a sound as of a turkey gabbling in the hall; presently this changed to a duck quacking on the stairs; then a cock crew on the landing-place, and a goose hissed close to the schoolroom door. I guessed but too well what these ominous sounds portended, and my heart sunk within me as the door burst open, and my dreaded enemy banged into the room. 'Why, they are not come home yet!' exclaimed he; 'so my talents have been wasted. I meant to have made them bid me not make every different noise. When they said, "Don't hiss," I would have crowed; and when they said, "Don't crow," I would have quacked, or barked, or bellowed, or mewed, till I had gone through all the noises I know. Now I have nothing to do.' He walked to the window and looked out. 'What a stupid street it is!' said he. 'If my uncle had not taken away my squirt, I would squirt at the people.' Then he yawned, and sauntered to the bookcase. 'What stupid books! I wonder any body can write them. I wish Edward had left his tools out; I should like to plane the top of the shelf. How stupid it is having nothing to do!' As he spoke, I shuddered to see him approaching my end of the room. He came nearer; he made a full stop in front of me, and looked me in the face. 'You stupid, ugly thing,' he exclaimed, 'don't stare so. I hate to have a doll's eyes goggling at me.' Gladly would I have withdrawn my eyes, if possible. But they had been painted wide open, and what could I do? I never was so ashamed of them in my life; but I had no control over them, so I stared on, and he grew more indignant. 'If you don't leave off,' he cried, 'I'll poke out your eyes, as I did those of the ugly picture in my room. I won't be stared at.' I longed for the gift of speech to represent to him, that if he would but leave off looking at me, I should give him no offence; but alas, I was silent, and could only stare as hard as ever. 'Oh, you will, will you?' said he 'then I know what I'll do: I'll hang you.' In vain I hoped for the return of the rest of the party. I listened anxiously for every sound, but no friendly step or voice was near, and I was completely in his power. He began rummaging his pockets, grinning and making faces at me all the time. Presently he drew forth a long piece of string, extremely dirty, looking as if it had been trailed in the mud. 'Now for it,' he exclaimed; 'now you shall receive the reward of all your stupidity and affectation. I do think dolls are the most affected creatures on the face of the earth.' He laid hold of me by my head, pushing my wig on one side. Alas for my beautiful hair, it was disarranged for ever! But that was a trifle compared with what followed. He tied one end of his muddy string round my neck, drawing it so tight that I foresaw I should be marked for life, and hung the other end to a nail in the wall. There I dangled, while he laughed and quizzed me, adding insult to injury. He twisted the string as tight as possible, and then let it whirl round and round till it was all untwisted again. I banged against the wall as I spun like a top, and wished that I could sleep like a top too. But I was wide awake to my misfortunes; and each interval of stillness, when the string was untwisted, only enhanced them, by showing in painful contrast the happy home whence I had been torn. For I was hung on the wall directly opposite my own house; and from my wretched nail I could distinguish every room in it. Between my twirls I saw my pretty drawing-room, with its comfortable arm-chair now vacant; and my convenient kitchen, with my respectable cook peacefully basting her perpetual mutton; I envied even my lame footman quietly seated in his chimney-corner, and felt that I had never truly valued the advantages of my home till now. Would they ever be restored to me? Should I once again be under the protection of my kind and gentle mistress, or was I Geoffrey's slave for ever? [Illustration: Page 72] These melancholy thoughts were interrupted by a step on the stairs. 'Hallo!' cried Geoffrey, 'who would have thought of their coming home just now?' and he was going to lift me down from my nail; but when the door opened, the housemaid came in alone, and he changed his mind. 'Why, Master Geoffrey,' said she, 'what are you doing here all alone? Some mischief, I'll be bound.' 'Bow, wow, wow,' answered he, dancing and playing all sorts of antics to prevent her seeing me. 'Come,' said she, 'those tricks won't go down with me. The more lively you are, the more I know you've been after something you ought to have let alone.' 'Hee haw, hee haw,' said Geoffrey, twitching her gown, and braying like a donkey. 'Well, you're speaking in your own voice at last,' said she, laughing. 'But let go of my gown, if you please; you are big enough to walk by yourself, and I want to set the room to rights. There's some young ladies coming to tea with Miss Rose.' She bustled about, dusting and putting every thing in order, and talking all the time, partly to Geoffrey and partly to herself, about the blacks that came in at the windows, and made a place want dusting a dozen times a day, when her eye fell on my unfortunate figure, which my persecutor had just set swinging like the pendulum of a clock. I was a deplorable object. He had forced me into the most awkward attitude he could invent. My arms were turned round in their sockets, one stretched towards the ceiling, the other at full length on one side. I was forced to kick one leg out in front, and the other behind; and my knees were bent up the wrong way. My wig had fallen off altogether from my head, and was now perched upon my toe. I was still swinging, when Sarah caught sight of me. She looked at me for a moment, and then turned round, opening her eyes at Geoffrey much wider than I had ever done. 'Why, you audacious, aggravating boy!' she exclaimed, making a dash at him with her duster; but he ran away laughing, and she was obliged to finish her speech to herself. 'To think of his being so mischievous and ill-natured! What will poor Miss Rose say! To be sure, there is nothing boys won't do; their equals for perverseness don't walk the earth. Though I ought not to speak against them, while there's Master William and Master Edward to contradict me. They are boys, to be sure; but as for that Geoffrey!' And here she shook her head in silence, as if Geoffrey's delinquencies were beyond the power of words to express. She then released me; and after restoring my limbs to their proper position, and smoothing my discomposed dress, she laid me gently on my bed, and placed my wig on my pillow beside me, with many kind expressions of pity and good-will. Repose was indeed needful after so agitating an adventure; and I was glad to be left quiet till the young people came in from their walk. I composed my ruffled spirits as well as I could; but I found it impossible not to be nervous at the idea of Rose's first seeing me in such a plight, and I anxiously awaited her return. They came in at last, Rose, Willy, and Margaret; and after establishing Willy on his sofa, Rose's next care was to visit me. 'O Willy! O Margaret!' she exclaimed, and burst into tears. 'What is the matter, my darling?' asked Margaret. Rose could not answer; but Sarah was there to tell the story, and do ample justice to my wrongs. Yet I could not help observing, in the midst of all her indignation, the difference of her manner towards her present hearers and towards Geoffrey. She never seemed on familiar terms with Willy, much less with Margaret or Rose. She neither cut jokes nor used rough language to them, but treated them with the respect due to her master's children; though, as I well knew, she was extremely fond of them, and disliked Geoffrey, in spite of her familiarity with him. I saw Geoffrey no more that day. Rose's young friends soon arrived, and consoled both her and me by their kind sympathy and attentions. One made an elegant cap to supply the loss of my wig; another strung a blue necklace to hide the black mark round my throat; Rose herself put me to bed, and placed a table by my bedside covered with teacups, each, she told me, containing a different medicine; and the young lady who had once brought Miss Edgeworth to dine with me, charged me to lie still and read 'Rosamond' till I was quite recovered. Next morning, as I lay contentedly performing my new part of an invalid, I heard a confidential conversation between Margaret and Geoffrey, in which I was interested. They were alone together, and she was taking the opportunity to remonstrate with him on his unkind treatment of me. 'What was the harm?' said Geoffrey. 'A doll is nothing but wood or bran, or some stupid stuff; it can't feel.' 'Of course,' answered Margaret, 'we all know _that_. It is wasteful and mischievous to spoil a pretty toy; but I am not speaking now so much for the sake of the doll as of Rose. Rose is not made of any stupid stuff; _she_ can feel. And what is more, she can feel for other people as well as herself. She would never play you such an ill-natured trick.' 'I should not mind it if she did,' argued Geoffrey; 'I am not such a baby.' 'You would not mind that particular thing,' answered Margaret, 'because you do not care about dolls; but you would mind her interfering with _your_ pleasures, or injuring your property. You would think it very ill-natured, for instance, if she threw away that heap of nuts which you have hoarded like a squirrel on your shelf of the closet.' 'Nuts are not nonsense like dolls,' said he. 'Besides, she may have as many of mine as she likes. I tried to make her eat some yesterday.' 'Yes, and half choked her by poking them into her mouth, when she told you she did not want them. She cares no more for nuts than you for dolls. You would think it no kindness if she teazed you to nurse her doll.' 'I should think not, indeed,' answered Geoffrey, indignant at the very idea. 'Of course not. Kindness is not shown by forcing our own pleasures down other people's throats, but by trying to promote theirs. That is really doing as we would be done by.' 'But doing as we would be done by is one's _duty_,' said Geoffrey. 'I fear it is a duty of which you seldom think,' replied his cousin. 'Why, one can't be thinking of _duty_ in those kind of things,' answered he. 'Why not?' asked Margaret. 'Because they are such trifles; duties are great things.' 'What sort of things do you consider to be duties?' Margaret inquired. 'Oh, such things as letting oneself be tortured, like Regulus; or forgiving an enemy who has shot poisoned arrows at one, like Coeur de Lion.' 'Well,' said Margaret smiling, 'such heroic duties as those do not seem likely to fall in your way just now, perhaps they never may. Our fellow-creatures are so kind to us, that we are seldom called upon to fulfil any but small duties towards them, or what you would consider such; for I cannot allow any duty to be small, especially that of doing as we would be done by. If we do not fulfil that in trifles, we shall probably never fulfil it at all. This is a serious thought, Geoffrey.' Geoffrey looked up; and as he seemed inclined to listen, Margaret continued talking to him kindly but gravely, bringing many things before his mind as duties which he had hitherto considered to be matters of indifference. But Margaret would not allow any thing to be a trifle in which one person could give pain or pleasure, trouble or relief, annoyance or comfort to another, or by which any one's own mind or habits could be either injured or improved. She maintained that there was a right and a wrong to every thing, and that right and wrong could never be trifles, whether in great things or small. By degrees the conversation turned upon matters far too solemn to be repeated by a mere plaything like myself; but I thought, as I heard her, that it might be better to be a poor wooden figure which could do neither right nor wrong, than a human being who neglected his appointed duties. Geoffrey said little, but he shook hands with Margaret when she had finished speaking, and I noticed from that day forward a gradual improvement in his conduct. Bad habits are not cured in a minute, and he did not become all at once as gentle and considerate as Willy, nor as kind and helpful as Edward; but he put himself in the right road, and seemed in a fair way of overtaking them in due time. He at once left off _active_ mischief; and if he could not avoid being occasionally troublesome, he at any rate cured himself of teazing people on purpose. And it was remarkable how many employments he found as soon as his mind was disengaged from mischief. Instead of his dawdling about all the morning calling things stupid, and saying he had nothing to do, all manner of pleasant occupations seemed to start up in his path, as if made to order for him, now that he had time to attend to them. When he relinquished the pleasure of spoiling things, he acquired the far greater pleasure of learning to make them. When Edward was no longer afraid of trusting him with his tools, it was wonderful what a carpenter he turned out. When Margaret could venture to leave drawing materials within his reach, he began to draw capitally. Good-natured Margaret gave him lessons, and said she would never wish for a better scholar. He found it was twice the pleasure to walk or play with Edward when he was thought an acquisition instead of a burden; and far more agreeable to have Rose and Willy anxious for his company than wishing to get rid of him. But the advantages were not confined to himself; the whole house shared in them; for his perpetual small annoyances had made every body uncomfortable, whereas now, by attention to what he used to look upon as trifles, he found he had the power of contributing his part towards the happiness of his fellow-creatures, which is no trifle. On the last day of the holidays, the young people were all assembled in the schoolroom till it was time for Edward and Geoffrey to start. While Edward was arranging various matters with Willy, I heard Geoffrey whisper to Margaret that he hoped she had forgiven him for spoiling that drawing of hers. She seemed at first really not to know what he meant; but when she recollected it, she answered with a smile, 'Oh, my dear Geoffrey, I had forgiven and forgotten it long ago. Pray never think of it again yourself.' Geoffrey next went up to Rose and put a little parcel into her hands. On opening it, she found a box of very pretty bonbons in the shape of various vegetables. When she admired them, he seemed much pleased, and said that he had saved up his money to buy them, in hopes she might like them for her dolls' feasts. Rose kissed and thanked him, and said she only wished he could stay and help her and her dolls to eat them. Every body took an affectionate leave of Geoffrey, and Willy said he was very sorry to lose him, and should miss him sadly. Edward and Geoffrey returned to school, and I never saw Geoffrey again; but a constant correspondence was kept up between him and his cousins, and I often heard pleasant mention of his progress and improvement. Time passed on; what length of time I cannot say, all seasons and their change being alike to me; but school-days and holidays succeeded one another, and our family grew older in appearance and habits. Rose gradually spent less time with me, and more with her books and music, till at last, though she still kept my house in order, she never actually played with me, unless younger children came to visit her, and _then_, indeed, I was as popular as ever. But on a little friend's one day remarking that I had worn the same gown for a month, Rose answered that she herself had the charge of her own clothes now, and that what with keeping them in order, and doing fancy-work as presents for her friends, she found no time to work for dolls. By and by, her time for needlework was fully engaged in Geoffrey's behalf. He was going to sea; and Rose was making purses, slippers, portfolios, and every thing she could think of as likely to please him. Perhaps _her_ most useful keepsake was a sailor's housewife; but many nice things were sent him from every one of the family. I saw a trunk full of presents packed and sent off. And when I recollected my first acquaintance with him, I could not but marvel over the change that had taken place, before books, drawing materials, and mathematical instruments could have been chosen as the gifts best suited to his taste. Edward used to come home from school as merry and good-humored as ever, and growing taller and stronger every holiday. Rose and Margaret were as flourishing as he; but poor Willy grew weaker, and thinner, and paler. Fresh springs and summers brought him no revival, but as they faded, he seemed to fade with them. He read more than ever; and his sisters were frequently occupied in reading and writing under his direction, for they were anxious to help him in his pursuits. His Papa and Mama sometimes said he studied too hard; and they used to sit with him, and try to amuse him by conversation, when they wished to draw him from his books. Doctors visited him, and prescribed many remedies; and his Mama gave him all the medicines herself, and took care that every order was implicitly obeyed. His father carried him up and down stairs, and waited upon him as tenderly as even Margaret; but he grew no better with all their care. He was always gentle and patient, but he appeared in less good spirits than formerly. He seemed to enjoy going out in his wheel-chair more than any thing; but one day he observed that the summer was fast coming to an end, and that then he must shut himself up in his room, for that he minded the cold more than he used. 'I wish we lived in a warmer country,' said Rose; 'perhaps then you might get better.' 'I do not know about _living_,' replied Willy. 'England is the best country to _live_ in; but I certainly should like to be out of the way of the cold for this next winter.' 'Why do not you tell Papa so?' asked Rose. 'Because I know very well he would take me a journey directly, however inconvenient it might be to him.' Rose said nothing more just then, but she took the first opportunity of telling her father what had passed; and he said he was very glad indeed that she had let him know. From that day forward something more than usual seemed in contemplation. Papa, Mama, and Margaret were constantly consulting together, and Edward, Rose, and Willy followed their example. As for me, nobody had time to bestow a look or a thought upon me; but I made myself happy by looking at and thinking of _them_. One morning two doctors together paid Willy a long visit. After they were gone, his Papa and Mama came into his room. 'Well, my boy,' his father exclaimed in an unusually cheerful tone, 'it is quite settled now; Madeira is the place, and I hope you like the plan.' 'Oh, Papa,' said Willy, 'is it really worth while?' 'Of course it is worth while, a hundred times over,' replied his father; 'and we will be off in the first ship.' 'The doctors strongly advise it, and we have all great hopes from it, my dear Willy,' said his mother. 'Then so have I,' said Willy; 'and, indeed, I like it extremely, and I am very grateful to you. The only thing I mind is, that you and my father should have to leave home and make a long sea voyage, when you do not like travelling, and Papa has so much to keep him in England.' 'Oh, never mind me,' said his mother; 'I shall like nothing so well as travelling, if it does you good.' 'And never mind me,' said his father; 'there is nothing of so much consequence to keep me in England, as your health to take me out of it.' 'Besides, my dear child,' said his mother, 'as the change of climate is so strongly recommended for you, it becomes a duty as well as a pleasure to try it.' 'So make your mind easy, my boy,' added his father; 'and I will go and take our passage for Madeira.' The father left the room, and the mother remained conversing with her sick child, whose spirits were unusually excited. I scarcely knew him again. He was generally slow and quiet, and rather desponding about himself; but he now thought he should certainly get well, and was so eager and anxious to start without delay, that his mother had some difficulty in reconciling him to the idea that no ship would sail till next month. She also took great pains to impress upon him the duty of resignation, in case the attempt should fail, after all, in restoring his health; and she finally left him, not less hopeful, but more calm and contented with whatever might befall him. And now began the preparations for the voyage. There was no time to spare, considering all that had to be done. Every body was at work; and though poor Willy himself could not do much to help, he thought of nothing else. His common books and drawings were changed for maps and voyages; the track to Madeira was looked up by him and Rose every day, and sometimes two or three times in the day, and every book consulted that contained the least reference to the Madeira Isles. Edward was an indefatigable packer. He was not to be one of the travellers, as his father did not choose to interrupt his school-education; but no one was more active than he in forwarding the preparations for the voyage, and no one more sanguine about its results. 'We shall have Willy back,' he would say, 'turned into a fine strong fellow, as good a cricketer as Geoffrey or I, and a better scholar than either of us.' Margaret and Rose were to go; and Rose's young friends all came to take leave of her, and talk over the plan, and find Madeira in the map, and look at views of the island, which had been given to Willy. And a sailor-friend, who had been all over the world, used to come and describe Madeira as one of the most beautiful of all the beautiful places he had visited, and tell of its blue sea, fresh and bright, without storms; its high mountains, neither barren nor bleak; and its climate, so warm and soft, that Willy might sit out all day in the beautiful gardens under hedges of fragrant geraniums. And when Willy talked of enjoying the gardens while his stronger sisters were climbing the hills, there was more to be told of cradles borne upon men's shoulders, in which Willy could be carried to the top of the highest hills as easily as his sisters on their mountain ponies. And now the packing was all finished, and the luggage sent on board, and every body was anxious to follow it; for the ship was reported as quite comfortable, and the house was decidedly the reverse. Margaret and her father had been on board to arrange the cabins, accompanied by their sailor-friend, who professed to know how to fit up a berth better than any body. He had caused all the furniture to be fastened, or, as he called it, _cleated_ to the floor, that it might not roll about in rough weather. The books were secured in the shelves by bars, and swinging tables hung from the ceilings. Willy's couch was in the most airy and convenient place at the stern cabin window, and there was an easy chair for him when he should be able to come out on deck. The ship was said to be in perfect order, whereas the house was in the utmost confusion and desolation: the carpets rolled up, the pictures taken down, the mirrors covered with muslin, the furniture and bookcases with canvass; not a vestige left of former habits and occupations, except me and my little mansion. But in the midst of all the bustle, I was as calm and collected as if nothing had happened. I sat quietly in my arm-chair, staring composedly at all that went on, contented and happy, though apparently forgotten by every body. Indeed, such was my placid, patient disposition, that I do not believe I should have uttered a sound or moved a muscle if the whole of London had fallen about my little ears. I did certainly sometimes wish to know what was to become of me, and at last that information was given me. The night before they sailed, Rose busied herself with Sarah in packing up my house and furniture, which were to be sent to a little girl who had long considered it her greatest treat to play with them. But Rose did not pack me up with my goods and chattels. 'My poor old Seraphina,' said she, as she removed me from my arm-chair, 'you and I have passed many a happy day together, and I do not like to throw you away as mere rubbish; but the new mistress of your house has already more dolls than she knows what to do with. You are no great beauty now, but I wish I knew any child who would care for you.' 'If you please to give her to me, Miss Rose,' said Sarah, 'my little niece, that your Mama is so kind as to put to school, would thank you kindly, and think her the greatest of beauties.' 'Oh, then, take her by all means, Sarah,' replied Rose; 'and here is a little trunk to keep her clothes in. I remember I used to be very fond of that trunk; so I dare say your little Susan will like it, though it is not quite new.' 'That she will, and many thanks to you, Miss. Susan will be as delighted with it now, as you were a year or two ago.' So they wrapped me up in paper, and Rose having given me a farewell kiss, which I would have returned if I could, Sarah put me and my trunk both into her great pocket; and on the same day that my old friends embarked for their distant voyage, I was carried to my new home. CHAPTER III. And now began a third stage of my existence, and a fresh variety of life. I at first feared that I should have great difficulty in reconciling myself to the change; and my reflections in Sarah's dark pocket were of the most gloomy cast. I dreaded poverty and neglect. How should I, accustomed to the refinements of polished life and the pleasures of cultivated society, endure to be tossed about with no home of my own, and perhaps no one who really cared for me? I knew that I was not in my first bloom, and it seemed unlikely that a new acquaintance should feel towards me like my old friend Rose, who had so long known my value. Perhaps I might be despised; perhaps allowed to go ragged, perhaps even dirty! My spirits sunk, and had I been human, I should have wept. But cheerful voices aroused me from this melancholy reverie, and I found myself restored to the pleasant light in the hands of a goodhumored-looking little girl, whose reception of me soon banished my fears. For, although altered since the days of my introduction to the world in the bazaar, so that my beauty was not quite what it had been, I still retained charms enough to make me a valuable acquisition to a child who had not much choice of toys; and my disposition and manners were as amiable and pleasing as ever. My new mistress and I soon loved each other dearly; and in her family I learned that people might be equally happy and contented under very different outward circumstances. Nothing could well be more unlike my former home than that to which I was now introduced. Susan, my little mistress, was a child of about the same age as Rose when she first bought me; but Susan had no money to spend in toys, and very little time to play with them, though she enjoyed them as much as Rose herself. She gave me a hearty welcome; and though she could offer me no furnished house, with its elegancies and comforts, she assigned me the best place in her power--the corner of a shelf on which she kept her books, slate, needlework, and inkstand. And there I lived, sitting on my trunk, and observing human life from a new point of view. And though my dignity might appear lowered in the eyes of the unthinking, I felt that the respectability of my character was really in no way diminished; for I was able to fulfil the great object of my existence as well as ever, by giving innocent pleasure, and being useful in my humble way. No other dolls now visited me; but I was not deprived of the enjoyments of inanimate society, for I soon struck up an intimate acquaintance with an excellent Pen in the inkstand by my side, and we passed our leisure hours very pleasantly in communicating to each other our past adventures. His knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness to many an industrious effort at improvement, in which he had been the willing instrument; and to many a hard struggle for honesty and independence, which figures of his writing had recorded. I liked to watch the good Pen at his work when the father of the family spent an hour in the evening in teaching Susan and her brothers to write; or when the careful mother took him in hand to help her in balancing her accounts, and ascertaining that she owed no one a penny, before she ventured upon any new purchase. Then my worthy friend was in his glory; and it was delightful to see how he enjoyed his work. He had but one fault, which was a slight tendency to splutter; and as he was obliged to keep that under restraint while engaged in writing, he made himself amends by a little praise of himself, when relating his exploits to a sympathising friend like myself. On his return with the inkstand to the corner of my shelf, he could not resist sometimes boasting when he had not made a single blot; or confessing to me, in perfect confidence, how much the thinness of Susan's upstrokes, or the thickness of her downstrokes, was owing to the clearness of his slit or the fineness of his nib. The family of which we made part lived frugally and worked hard: but they were healthy and happy. The father with his boys went out early in the morning to the daily labor by which they maintained the family. The mother remained at home, to take care of the baby and do the work of the house. She was the neatest and most careful person I ever saw, and she brought up her daughter Susan to be as notable as herself. Susan was an industrious little girl, and in her childish way worked almost as hard as her mother. She helped to sweep the house, and nurse the baby, and mend the clothes, and was as busy as a bee. But she was always tidy; and though her clothes were often old and shabby, I never saw them dirty or ragged. Indeed, I must own that, in point of _neatness_, Susan was even superior to my old friend Rose. Rose would break her strings, or lose her buttons, or leave holes in her gloves, till reproved by her Mama for untidiness: but Susan never forgot that 'a stitch in time saves nine,' and the stitch was never wanting. She used to go to school for some hours every day: and I should have liked to go with her, and help her in her studies, especially when I found that she was learning the multiplication-table, and I remembered how useful I had been to Rose in that very lesson; but dolls were not allowed at school, and I was obliged to wait patiently for Susan's company till she had finished all her business, both at school and at home. She had so little time to bestow upon me, that at first I began to fear that I should be of no use to her. The suspicion was terrible; for the wish to be useful has been the great idea of my life. It was my earliest hope, and it will be my latest pleasure. I could be happy under almost any change of circumstances; but as long as a splinter of me remains, I should never be able to reconcile myself to the degradation of thinking that I had been _of no use_. But I soon found I was in no danger of what I so much dreaded. In fact, I seemed likely to be even more useful to Susan than to Rose. Before I had been long in the house, she said one evening that she had an hour to spare, and that she would make me some clothes. 'Well and good,' answered her mother; 'only be sure to put your best work in them. If you mind your work, the doll will be of great use to you, and you can play without wasting your time.' This was good hearing for Susan and me, and she spent most of her leisure in working for me. While she was thus employed, I came down from my shelf, and was treated with as much consideration as when Rose and her companions waited at my table. A great change took place in my wardrobe. Rose had always dressed me in gay silks and satins, without much regard to under clothing; for, she said, as my gowns must be sewn on, what did any petticoats signify? So she sewed me up, and I looked very smart; and if there happened to be any unseemly cobbling, she hid it with beads or spangles. Once I remember a very long stitch baffled all her contrivances, and she said I must pretend it was a new-fashioned sort of embroidery. But Susan scorned all _make-shifts_. Nothing could have been more unfounded than my fears of becoming ragged or dirty. My attire was plain and suited to my station, but most scrupulously finished. She saw no reason why my clothes should not be made to take off and on, as well as if I had been a doll three feet high. So I had my plain gingham gowns with strings and buttons; and my shifts and petticoats run and felled, gathered and whipped, hemmed and stitched, like any lady's; and every thing was neatly marked with my initial S. But what Susan and I were most particularly proud of, was a pair of stays. They were a long time in hand, for the fitting them was a most difficult job; but when finished, they were such curiosities of needlework, that Susan's neat mother herself used to show off the stitching and the eyelet-holes to every friend that came to see her. Among them, Sarah the housemaid, who was sister to Susan's father, often called in to ask after us all. She was left in charge of the house where my former friends had lived, and they sometimes sent her commissions to execute for them. Then she was sure to come and bring us news of _the family_, as she always called Rose and her relations. Sometimes she told us that Master William was a little better; sometimes that she heard Miss Rose was very much grown; she had generally something to tell that we were all glad to hear. One evening, soon after my apparel was quite completed, I was sitting on my trunk, as pleased with myself as Susan was with me, when Sarah's head peeped in at the door. 'Good evening to you all,' said she; 'I thought as I went by you would like to hear that I have a letter from the family, and all's well. I have got a pretty little job to do for Master Willy. He is to have a set of new shirts sent out directly, made of very fine thin calico, because his own are too thick. See, here is the stuff I have been buying for them.' 'It is beautiful calico, to be sure,' said Susan's mother; 'but such fine stuff as that will want very neat work. I am afraid you will hardly be able to make them yourself.' 'Why, no,' answered Sarah, smiling and shaking her head. 'I am sorry to say, _there_ comes in my old trouble, not having learned to work neatly when I was young. Take warning by me, Susan, and mind your needlework now-a-days. If I could work as neatly as your mother, my mistress would have made me lady's maid and housekeeper by this time. But I could not learn any but rough work, more's the pity: so I say again, take warning by _me_, little niece; take pattern by your mother.' Susan looked at me and smiled, as much as to say, 'I have taken pattern by her;' but she had not time to answer, for Sarah continued, addressing the mother: [Illustration: Page 106] 'How I wish you could have time to do this job! for it would bring you in a pretty penny, and I know my mistress would be pleased with your work; but they are to be done very quickly, in time for the next ship, and I do not see that you _could_ get through them with only one pair of hands.' 'We have two pair of hands,' cried Susan; 'here are mine.' 'Ah, but what can they do?' asked Sarah, 'and how can they do it? It is not enough to have four fingers and a thumb. Hands must be handy.' 'And so they are,' answered Susan's mother. 'See whether any hands could do neater work than that.' And she pointed me out to Sarah. Sarah took me up, and turned me from side to side. Then she looked at my hems, then at my seams, then at my gathers, while I felt truly proud and happy, conscious that not a long stitch could be found in either. 'Well to be sure!' exclaimed she, after examining me all over; 'do you mean that all that is really Susan's own work?' 'Every stitch of it,' replied the mother; 'and I think better need not be put into any shirt, though Master William does deserve the best of every thing.' 'You never said a truer word, neither for Master William nor for little Susan,' replied Sarah; 'and I wish you joy, Susan, of being able to help your mother so nicely, for now I can leave you the job to do between you.' She then told them what was to be the payment for the work, which was a matter I did not myself understand, though I could see that it gave them great satisfaction. The money came at a most convenient time, to help in fitting out Susan's brother Robert for a place which had been offered to him in the country. It was an excellent place; but there were several things, as his mother well knew, that poor Robert wanted at starting, but would not mention for fear his parents should distress themselves to obtain them for him. Both father and mother had been saving for the purpose, without saying any thing about it to Robert; but they almost despaired of obtaining more than half the things they wanted, till this little sum of money came into their hands so opportunely. The father was in the secret, but Robert could scarcely believe his eyes, when one evening his mother and Susan laid on the table before him, one by one, all the useful articles he wished to possess. At first he seemed almost more vexed than pleased, for he thought of the saving and the slaving that his mother must have gone through to gain them; but when she told him how much of them was due to his little sister's neatness and industry, and how easy the work had been when shared between them, he was as much pleased as Susan herself. We were all very happy that evening, including even the humble friends on the shelf; for I sat on my trunk, and related to the Pen how useful I had been in teaching Susan to work; and the worthy Pen stood bolt upright in his inkstand, and confided to me with honest pride, that Robert had been chosen to his situation on account of his excellent writing. Time passed on, and I suppose we all grew older, as I noticed from time to time various changes that seemed to proceed from that cause. The baby, for instance, though still going by the name of 'Baby,' had become a strong able-bodied child, running alone, and very difficult to keep out of mischief. The most effectual way of keeping her quiet was to place me in her hands, when she would sit on the floor nursing me by the hour together, while her mother and sister were at work. Susan was become a tall strong girl, more notable than ever, and, like Rose before her, she gradually bestowed less attention on me; so that I was beginning to feel myself neglected, till on a certain birthday of her little sister's, she declared her intention of making me over altogether to the baby-sister for a birthday present. Then I once more rose into importance, and found powers which I thought declining, still undiminished. The baby gave a scream of delight when I was placed in her hand as her own. Till then she had only possessed one toy in the world, an old wooden horse, in comparison with which I seemed in the full bloom of youth and beauty. This horse, which she called JACK, had lost not merely the ornaments of mane and tail, but his head, one fore and one hind leg; so that nothing remained of the once noble quadruped but a barrel with the paint scratched off, rather insecurely perched upon a stand with wheels. But he was a faithful animal, and did his work to the last. The baby used to tie me on to his barrel, and Jack and I were drawn round and round the kitchen with as much satisfaction to our mistress, as in the days when I shone forth, in my gilt coach with its four prancing piebalds. But the baby's treatment of me, though gratifying from its cordiality, had a roughness and want of ceremony that affected my enfeebled frame. I could not conceal from myself that the infirmities I had observed in other dolls were gradually gaining ground upon me. Nobody ever said a harsh word to me, or dropped a hint of my being less pretty than ever, and the baby called me 'Beauty, beauty,' twenty times a day; but still I knew very well that not only had my rosy color and fine hair disappeared, but I had lost the whole of one leg and half of the other, and the lower joints of both my arms. In fact, as my worthy friend the Pen observed, both he and I were reduced to stumps. The progress of decay caused me no regret, for I felt that I had done my work, and might now gracefully retire from public life, and resign my place to newer dolls. But though contented with my lot, I had still one anxious wish ungratified. The thought occupied my mind incessantly; and the more I dwelt upon it, the stronger grew the hope that I might have a chance of seeing my old first friends once more. This was now my only remaining care. News came from them from time to time. Sarah brought word that Master William was better; that they had left Madeira, and gone travelling about elsewhere. Then that the father had been in England upon business, and gone back again; that Mr. Edward had been over to foreign parts one summer holidays to see his family, and on his return had come to give her an account of them. Sarah was always very bustling when she had any news to bring of the family, but one day she called on us in even more flurry than usual. She was quite out of breath with eagerness. 'Sit down and rest a minute before you begin to speak,' said her quiet sister-in-law. 'There must be some great news abroad. It seems almost too much for you.' Susan nodded, and began to unpack a great parcel she had brought with her. 'It don't seem bad news, to judge by your face,' said the other; for now that Sarah had recovered breath, her smiles succeeded one another so fast, that she seemed to think words superfluous. 'I guess, I guess,' cried Susan. 'They are coming home.' 'They are, indeed,' answered Sarah at last; 'they are coming home as fast as steam-engines can bring them: and here is work more than enough for you and mother till they come. Miss Margaret is going to be married, and you are to make the wedding-clothes.' So saying, she finished unpacking her parcel, and produced various fine materials which required Susan's neatest work. 'These are for you to begin with,' said she, 'but there is more coming.' She then read a letter from the ladies with directions about the needlework, to which Susan and her mother listened with great attention. Then Sarah jumped up, saying she must not let the grass grow under her feet, for she had plenty to do. The whole house was to be got ready; and she would not have a thing out of its place, nor a speck of dust to be found, for any money. Susan and her mother lost no time either; their needles never seemed to stop: and I sat on the baby's lap watching them, and enjoying the happy anticipation that my last wish would soon be accomplished. But though Susan was as industrious as a girl could be, and just now wished to work harder than ever, she was not doomed to 'all work and no play;' for her father took care that his children should enjoy themselves at proper times. In summer evenings, after he came home from his work, they used often to go out all together for a walk in the nearest park, when he and his wife would rest under the trees, and read over Robert's last letter, while the children amused themselves. Very much we all enjoyed it, for even I was seldom left behind. Susan would please the baby by dressing me in my best clothes for the walk; and the good-natured father would laugh merrily at us, and remark how much good the fresh air did me. We were all very happy; and when my thoughts travelled to other scenes and times, I sometimes wondered whether my former friends enjoyed themselves as much in their southern gardens, as this honest family in their English fields. Our needlework was finished and sent to Sarah's care to await Margaret's arrival, for which we were very anxious. On returning home one evening after our walk, we passed, as we often did, through the street in which I had formerly lived. Susan was leading her little sister, who, on her part, clutched me in a way very unlike the gentleness which Susan bestowed upon her. On arriving at the well-known house, we saw Sarah standing at the area-gate. We stopped to speak to her. 'When are they expected?' asked Susan's mother. 'They may be here any minute,' answered Sarah; 'Mr. Edward has just brought the news.' The street-door now opened, and two gentlemen came out and stood on the steps. One was a tall fine-looking boy, grown almost into a young man; but I could not mistake the open good-humored countenance of my old friend Edward. The other was older, and I recognised him as the traveller who used to describe Madeira to Willy. They did not notice us, for we stood back so as not to intrude, and their minds were evidently fully occupied with the expected meeting. We all gazed intently down the street, every voice hushed in eager interest. Even my own little mistress, usually the noisiest of her tribe, was silent as myself. It was a quiet street and a quiet time, and the roll of the distant carriages would scarcely have seemed to break the silence, had it not been for our intense watching, and hoping that the sound of every wheel would draw nearer. We waited long, and were more than once disappointed by carriages passing us and disappearing at the end of the street. Edward and his friend walked up and down, east and west, north and south, in hopes of descrying the travellers in the remotest distance. But after each unavailing walk, they took up their post again on the steps. At last a travelling carriage laden with luggage turned the nearest corner, rolled towards us, and stopped at the house. The two gentlemen rushed down the steps, flung open the carriage-door, and for some moments all was hurry and agitation, and I could distinguish nothing. I much feared that I should now be obliged to go home without actually seeing my friends, for they had passed so quickly from the carriage to the house, and there had been so much confusion and excitement during those few seconds, that my transient glance scarcely allowed me to know one from another; but in course of time Sarah came out again, and asked Susan's father to help in unloading the carriage, desiring us to sit meanwhile in the housekeeper's room. So we waited till the business was finished, when, to my great joy, we were summoned to the sitting-room, and I had the happiness of seeing all the family once more assembled. I was delighted to find how much less they were altered than I. I had been half afraid that I might see one without a leg, another without an arm, according to the dilapidations which had taken place in my own frame; but strange to say, their sensitive bodies, which felt every change of weather, shrunk from a rough touch, and bled at the scratch of a pin, had outlasted mine, though insensible to pain or sickness. There stood the father, scarcely altered; his hair perhaps a little more gray, but his eyes as quick and bright as ever. And there was the mother, still grave and gentle, but looking less sad and careworn than in the days of Willy's constant illness. And there was, first in interest to me, my dear mistress, Rose, as tall as Margaret, and as handsome as Edward. I could not imagine her condescending to play with me now. Margaret looked just as in former times, good and graceful; but she stood a little apart with the traveller friend by her side, and I heard Rose whisper to Susan that the wedding was to take place in a fortnight. They were only waiting for Geoffrey to arrive. His ship was daily expected, and they all wished him to be present. And Willy, for whose sake the long journey had been made, how was he? Were all their hopes realized? Edward shook his head when Susan's mother asked that question; but Willy was there to answer it himself. He was standing by the window, leaning on a stick, it is true, but yet able to stand. As he walked across the room, I saw that he limped slightly, but could move about where he pleased. He still looked thin and pale, but the former expression of suffering and distress had disappeared, and his countenance was as cheerful as his manner. I could see that he was very much better, though not in robust health like Edward's. He thanked Susan's mother for her kind inquiries, and said that, though he had not become all that his sanguine brother hoped, he had gained health more than enough to satisfy himself; that he was most thankful for his present comfort and independence; and that if he was not quite so strong as other people, he hoped he should at any rate make a good use of the strength that was allowed him. Turning to Edward, who still looked disappointed, he continued: 'Who could have ventured to hope, Edward, three years ago, that you and I should now be going to college together?' And then even Edward smiled and seemed content. As we turned to leave the room, Susan and her little sister lingered for a moment behind the others, and the child held me up towards Rose. Rose started, and exclaimed, 'Is it possible? It really _is_ my poor old Seraphina. Who would have thought of her being still in existence? What a good, useful doll she has been! I really must give her a kiss once more for old friendship's sake.' So saying, she kissed both me and the baby, and we left the house. And now there remains but little more for me to relate. My history and my existence are fast drawing to an end; my last wish has been gratified by my meeting with Rose, and my first hope realized by her praise of my usefulness. She has since given the baby a new doll, and I am finally laid on the shelf, to enjoy, in company with my respected friend the Pen, a tranquil old age. When he, like myself, was released from active work, and replaced by one of Mordan's patent steel, he kindly offered to employ his remaining leisure in writing from my dictation, and it is in compliance with his advice that I have thus ventured to record my experience. That experience has served to teach me that, as all inanimate things have some destined use, so all rational creatures have some appointed duties, and are happy and well employed while fulfilling them. With this reflection, I bid a grateful farewell to those young patrons of my race who have kindly taken an interest in my memoirs, contentedly awaiting the time when the small remnant of my frame shall be reduced to dust, and my quiet existence sink into a still more profound repose. THE END. 
49227	----	[Illustration: BABY ETHEL GOES TO CHURCH.--Page 106.] [Illustration: Flaxie Frizzle SERIES By SOPHIE MAY ILLUSTRATED FLAXIE'S KITTYLEEN. LEE & SHEPARD BOSTON.] _FLAXIE FRIZZLE STORIES_ KITTYLEEN BY SOPHIE MAY AUTHOR OF LITTLE PRUDY STORIES DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY STORIES ETC. BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY LEE AND SHEPARD. _Electrotyped and Printed by_ ALFRED MUDGE AND SON, BOSTON. PREFACE. _To Mothers_: This story--the fifth of the Flaxie Frizzle Series--deals less with the little child whose name it bears than with Flaxie Frizzle herself, Kittyleen being from first to last an interloper. It aims to show the gradual improvement of Flaxie's character under the various disciplines of child-life and the sweet influence of a good and happy home. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. KITTYLEEN 7 II. THE LITTLE WIDOW 23 III. FLAXIE'S WILL 35 IV. CRACKERS AND CHEESE 50 V. SPONGE-CAKE 62 VI. A NEW FRIEND 75 VII. THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE 91 VIII. FLAXIE IN CHURCH 106 IX. PRIMROSE BOWER 125 X. THE LAST FEATHER 145 XI. THE RUNAWAY RINGS 164 XII. THE HUNT 176 XIII. ETHEL'S KETTLEDRUM 189 KITTYLEEN. CHAPTER I. KITTYLEEN. A pretty brown and white dove was walking up the steep roof of Dr. Gray's house just as the door-bell rang. Perhaps she heard the bell, for she stopped and pecked her wings, then flew down to the ground, and looked up to see who was there. It was Kittyleen. Kittyleen was a snip of a girl, three years old, whose long name was Katharine Garland. She looked like the dove, for she was brown and white all over: brown eyes and hair, brown cloak, white fur cap, and white tippet. Her young nurse, Martha, had come with her, but there is not much to say here concerning Martha, except that she had the toothache. She did not intend to enter the house; she had only come to escort Kittyleen. "I want to wing the bell myse'f," said Miss Kittyleen, standing on tiptoe, and bursting a button off one of her brown boots. But she could not reach the bell. Just then the doctor's daughter, Mary Gray, opened the door, and seeing Kittyleen, threw both arms around her, exclaiming,-- "Oh, you darling, I'm so glad you've come!" "Well, I'm afraid you'll be sorry enough by and by," said Martha, with a one-sided smile, that made her look like a squirrel with a nut in his cheek. "She's full of mischief, Kittyleen is, and her ma's painting china, and wanted her out of the way. But if she's _too_ much trouble, her ma wants you to send her right home." "Oh, _she_ won't trouble anybody. She and little Ethel will have a beautiful time together," said Mary, untying the child's white tippet. Mary Gray, or Flaxie Frizzle, as people persisted in calling her sometimes, was nine years old, and had for some time felt a great care of Kittyleen. Everybody felt the care of Mrs. Garland's children. There were six of them, and their mother was always painting china. She did it beautifully, with graceful vines trailing over it, and golden butterflies ready to alight on sprays of lovely flowers. Sometimes the neighbors thought it would be a fine thing if she would keep her little ones at home rather more; but if she had done that she could not have painted china. Flaxie took off Kittyleen's fur cap, and patted it softly, as she hung it on the hat-tree. "That's my white pussy," remarked Kittyleen, eying it lovingly. "But it don't hurt; it hasn't any feet." "Well, good-by, pet, don't get into mischief," said Martha, making another wry face as she tried to smile. And then, without one word to Flaxie as to the length of Kittyleen's visit, she hurried home to put a poultice on her face and help about the ironing; for, as she said to herself, "The work was only fun, now the three youngest children were out of the way." Flaxie led Kittyleen into the back parlor to show her to the family. Little Ethel did not look particularly pleased, for she remembered that the baby-guest was very fond of sweetmeats, and sometimes snatched more than her share. Mrs. Gray was embroidering a table-cover as a birthday present for Aunt Jane Abbott, and was feeling very much hurried; but she smiled and said to Flaxie, as she kissed the wee visitor,-- "So your little pet has come again? Well, we will do all we can to make her happy; but you know Julia and I are both busy over these presents, and you must take the chief care of Kittyleen yourself." "Yes'm, you know I always do," replied Flaxie; "and she behaves better with me than she does with her mother." Nobody thought of Kittyleen's staying any longer than to dinner and supper; but there was never any certainty about the Garland children's visits, especially when it began to storm. It began now at eleven o'clock, and snowed all day without ceasing; and then the wind rose, and blew the flakes east and west and north and south, till the men in the streets could hardly keep their hats on their heads, much less hold an umbrella. Of course Kittyleen couldn't go home that night, for she lived on Prospect Street, half a mile away. Preston Gray said with a sarcastic smile that "it was a comfort to know that her mother would be easy about her." But Kittyleen made a grieved lip. The sun had set, there were no stars in the sky, and the windows looked black and dismal. She parted the curtains and peeped out. "All dark out there," said she, sadly. "Did God forget about the moon? I are goin' to cry! Yes, Flaxie, I are; I want to see my mamma, and I are goin' to cry." Two tiny tears gathered in the dove-like brown eyes, ready to fall. Dr. Gray rose from his chair and paced the floor. He never could bear to see a little girl cry. "I wonder," said he,--"I do wonder where Mary keeps that beautiful big wax doll!" "O papa!" said Flaxie, clasping her hands, "_don't_, papa!" "The wax doll is in my cabinet," replied Mrs. Gray, not regarding her daughter's distress; "and if Kittyleen won't cry she shall see it to-morrow." "O mamma, please don't," repeated Flaxie. But Kittyleen was happy from that moment. She _wanted_ to stay now. She liked Flaxie's chamber, with its fine pictures and soft carpet, and the silk quilt upon the bed. She liked Flaxie's "nightie," with its pretty edging, and laughed because it had a "long end to it," long enough to wrap up her little pink toes. Ethel, who was still younger than Kittyleen, had gone to bed long ago; but Kittyleen was too full of frolic, and when she went at last she would not lie still, but kept springing up and turning somersets all over the bed, lisping, as she caught her breath, "See dolly in the mornin'! Me velly much obliged!" "There, there, hush, Kittyleen," said Flaxie, crossly, "I want to go to sleep." "Wish I had dolly here now; want to luf her _this_ way," continued the little prattler, smoothing Flaxie's cheek with her tiny hand. "No, no, you mustn't love _my_ doll in that way; it isn't the way to love dolls. You mustn't touch her at all; you mustn't go anywhere near her, Kittyleen Garland," exclaimed Flaxie, growing alarmed. She had more treasures of value, perhaps, than any other little girl in Rosewood, and was always afraid of their being injured. Indeed, she was too anxiously careful of some of them, and it was partly for this reason that her mother had promised to show Kittyleen the wax doll. Of all Flaxie's possessions this was the very chief, and she loved the pretty image with as much of a mother's love as a little girl is able to feel, always calling her "my only child" in forgetfulness of all her other dolls, black, white, and gray. The "Princess Aurora Arozarena," as she was called, was as large as a live baby six months old. Flaxie had owned her for two years, keeping her mostly in close confinement in her mother's cabinet, and never allowing little sister Ethel anything more than a tantalizing glimpse of her majesty's lustrous robes. This august being was dressed in fine silk, with gloves and sash to match, and always when she mounted the throne, and sometimes when she didn't, she wore a crown upon her regal head. Her throne, I may add, was a round cricket, dotted with brass nails. You will see at once that it would be no light trial to have this adorable doll breathed upon by such a little gypsy as Kittyleen. "O mamma," pleaded Flaxie next morning, "please hold her tight when you show"--and then, as Kittyleen skipped into the room she added, "Hold the w-a-x d-o-l-l tight when you show it!" "_I_ heard," said Kittyleen. "Diddle o-k-p-g! _I_ heard!" Mrs. Gray and Flaxie both laughed; but the terrible child added, dancing up and down, "See dolly _now_! me velly much obliged!" "Me velly much obliged" was her way of saying "if you please," and Flaxie often remarked upon it as "very cunning"; but she saw nothing cunning in it now, and frowned severely as Mrs. Gray led the way up-stairs to her own chamber, unlocked the cabinet, and took out the much-desired, crowned, and glittering Aurora Arozarena. "Kittyleen may look at it, but she is not to touch it. Ethel never has touched it. And when you hear the breakfast bell, Mary, you may put the doll back in the cabinet, and that will be the last of it; so try not to look so wretched." "Oh! oh! oh!" cried Kittyleen, too full of delight to do anything but scream. "Open eyes! shut eyes! Oh! oh! oh!" She did not offer to touch the shining lady; and this grand exhibition _would_ have been the last of it if Flaxie had not somehow, in her anxiety and haste, forgotten to turn the key on the royal prisoner when she put her back in the cabinet. The storm was not over. The snow turned to rain and poured continually. Mrs. Garland had nearly time to paint a whole set of china; for of course Kittyleen could not go home that day. In the afternoon the child, having quarrelled with little Ethel, strayed alone into Mrs. Gray's chamber. There on the great bracket against the wall stood that wonderful inlaid cabinet, pretty enough in itself to be gazed at and examined by curious little folks, even if there had been nothing inside. Kittyleen knew, however, that it contained the doll--Flaxie's doll--that was too sacred for little girls to touch. She could not have told afterwards why she did it, but she climbed on a chair and pulled at one of the doors of the cabinet. She certainly did not expect it would open, but to her intense delight it did open, and there in plain sight on a shelf lay the beautiful princess, fast asleep. "Oh, my!" exclaimed Kittyleen in a perfect tremor of joy. The princess lay there and smiled. You could almost see her breathe. "Mustn't touch!" whispered Kittyleen to her meddling fingers. Touch? Oh, no indeed! But she swayed to and fro upon the chair and gazed. And evermore as she gazed, the longing grew upon her to know how much of Princess Arozarena was wax and how much was living flesh and blood. Had she teeth? a tongue? were there two holes in that pretty nose? "I've got a nose, dolly, you've got a nose; everybody in this house has got a nose, two holes--way--in." Here she picked a pin out of her collar and flourished it over those waxen nostrils. If they were hollow-- Oh, she wasn't going to hurt dolly! Not for anyfing in this world! But _would_ the pin go in? That was all she wanted to know; and she never would know till she tried. "Why, it went in just as easy!" Such a tender, soft dolly! Kittyleen admired her more than ever. "_Some_ dollies are _so_ hard!" But why did this one lie with her eyes closed? She had slept long enough. "I fink her eyes are booful. Wake up, dolly." That was what Flaxie had said in the morning, and dolly had opened her bright eyes very wide. But she wouldn't open them now for Kittyleen. Kittyleen blew upon them; the lids would not stir. "I fink it's funny! I fink it's velly funny," said baby, her breath coming short and fast. What _was_ the way to get them open? They must be in there just the same. Yes, they _must_ be in there; but where? She wouldn't hurt those dear eyes, oh, not for anyfing! But the longer they hid away from her the more she wanted to see them. What _were_ they made of? There was one way to get at the secret of their wondrous beauty. She could explore a little with the pin. Dolly wasn't alive; pins wouldn't hurt. Gently! gently! Oh, yes, Kittyleen meant to be very gentle! But somehow that was a bad old pin! What made it bend right up? What did make it dig so and scratch? I grieve to tell the rest. Princess Arozarena had been beautiful, but when she lost one eye she was horrid. Kittyleen caught her up in remorse, and the other eye flew open. Kittyleen screamed in fright. It seemed as if the doll was alive, as if that eye was looking right at her. It was too much to bear. Trembling, she opened the closet door, and threw the poor, scratched, miserable doll, with her one blazing eye, head-first into the clothes-bag. CHAPTER II. THE LITTLE WIDOW. Did she go down-stairs then and tell anybody what she had done? That would have been the right way, but Kittyleen was only a baby. She felt sadly frightened, and roved all about the chambers crying, till Dora Whalen heard her from the back stairs, and took her down to the kitchen in her arms. "The poor little thing is homesick," thought Dora, and fed her with raisins. When Flaxie went up to her mother's room soon afterward, she saw that the cabinet door was open and the doll gone, and was much troubled, though not prepared for the worst. After long search, the mangled remains of the once blooming princess were brought to light, and then Flaxie's heart almost broke. She could not be comforted, and she could not forgive Kittyleen. It was of no use suggesting a new head for the poor, wounded doll. What was her mother thinking of? Didn't she know that Arozarena was just like a _person_? And who ever heard of a person's losing one head, and then going and having another fitted on? "She wouldn't be my own child with a new head and face; and you wouldn't talk of such a thing, mamma, if you'd ever lost a beautiful doll like this! You'd see the difference and know how I feel." [Illustration: KITTYLEEN SCREAMED IN FRIGHT.--Page 21.] Phil and little Ethel looked on with solemn interest as their elder sister raved. So sad a day as this had not been known in the house since Preston's dear dog, Tantra Bogus, ate poison by mistake and died. Princess Arozarena was almost like living flesh and blood to these little children. They could not remember the time when she did not exist, and it was really heartrending to think now of her dire and unexpected fate. Mrs. Gray dropped her work and told the children of a sorrow she had known in her own early youth as grievous as this. She, too, had lost a bright, particular doll, and it had come to its end by the teeth of a neighbor's dog. "Was it a mad dog?" asked Flaxie, with a sob. And Phil wondered if his mother could have cried. "Indeed I cried." "Why, you great, big, grown-up woman! Oh, but you weren't our mother then, _were_ you? and you couldn't have been if you'd tried, for we weren't born!" Having settled this in his mind, Phil saw less absurdity in her crying over a doll. "Naughty Kittyleen, pick folks' eyes out," exclaimed little Ethel, returning to the subject anew. "_Effel_ wouldn't pick eyes out! No, in-deed!" Never before had the baby felt herself so good and high-minded, so worthy of praise. "_I_ think Kittyleen ought to be shut up in the closet and whipped," declared Phil; and this opinion was so gratifying to Flaxie that she kissed him, and said she should never call him a naughty brother again. "I suppose mother wouldn't shut her up because she is a visitor, but I _should_ think she might send her home," muttered Flaxie, angrily. "My daughter, would you have me send little Kittyleen home in the rain?" "Yes'm, I think she has stayed long enough," sobbed Flaxie, pressing her hands in anguish to her bosom. "But she is such a little thing, hardly more than a baby. I dare say she never dreamed of spoiling your doll. You can't think the child did it on purpose!" "Of course she did! She's the queerest girl," cried Phil, "can't stay at home, can't let things alone. I think," pursued he, encouraged by the curling of Flaxie's lip--"I think 'twould be a good plan for Kittyleen to go to Heaven! Folks don't want her down here!" "Stop, my son, that will do! we will not talk any longer on this subject; but Mary, if you please, you may hold some worsted for me to wind." Mrs. Gray hoped that a night's sleep would soothe her daughter's grief; but the little girl awoke next morning as sorrowful as ever. Dark clouds were still lingering in the wintry sky, and clouds quite as heavy shut all the sunshine out of poor Flaxie's heart. She came down to breakfast weeping, a black scarf over her shoulders and a bow of black ribbon pinned at her throat. She had felt a melancholy desire to "go into mourning," and let the world know that death or worse than death had befallen her "only child." "What does this mean?" asked Dr. Gray, who had quite forgotten yesterday's tragedy. Phil spoke for her. He was getting into high favor with his sister by his zeal in espousing her cause. "Flaxie's little girl is killed dead, and Flaxie is a _widow_ now," said he. Dr. Gray raised his coffee-cup to his lips to hide a smile. Kittyleen peeped up at the little "widow" with innocent curiosity, but was frowned down severely, and began to cry. Her tears, however, were small and few. She could not possibly grieve much over her own naughtiness, committed so long ago as yesterday; but even if she had been as sorry as she ever knew how to be, the nice buckwheat cakes and syrup would have consoled her. Mrs. Gray was pained to see that Flaxie still cherished bitter feeling against a child of that tender age. "My daughter," said she, after breakfast, "if Kittyleen were older and had tried wilfully to destroy your doll and make you unhappy, I should not blame you so much. But just see what a simple, unconscious little thing she is, hardly wiser than your kitten. Don't you feel really ashamed of being angry with her?" "Yes, mamma, I do," replied Flaxie, hanging her head. "But it is hard to forgive children sometimes, when they ought to be at home, you know, and not going 'round to other people's houses to make trouble!" "Is Kittyleen at fault for going where her mother sends her? You are old enough, my daughter, to be more reasonable. Is this the way you are beginning to receive the discipline of your life?" Flaxie knew what "discipline" meant. It was the name her mother gave to all troubles, both great and small, assuring Flaxie they are sent to us in love, to do us good, unless, alas, we receive them in a perverse spirit, and then they only make us worse. "You _can_ forgive Kittyleen, my child; God will help you; and until you do it you will have no peace; you will live in darkness and gloom. Go away by yourself for a while, and when I see you again I hope there will be a little light in your soul." About an hour afterward, Flaxie, with a beaming smile, came into the parlor where her sister Julia sat amusing Kittyleen. She had a plate of golden-brown cookies in her hand, baked in the form of stars, fishes, and elephants. "Here's a star for you, all sugar and spice," said she very pleasantly to Kittyleen. "And I'll forgive you for scratching my doll all up and digging her eyes out. She's just ruined, did you know it? _Ruined!_ And you're a bad little girl; _but I forgive you_!" "Mary, my child, my child, is _that_ what you meant to say?" The grieved look on Mrs. Gray's face touched Flaxie's heart in a moment. "No, mamma, it wasn't what I meant at all. She isn't bad, and I didn't know I was going to say that. I do forgive you, Kittyleen, really and truly. You never meant the least harm. Kiss me, darling! Flaxie loves you just the same, for you're only a baby and didn't know any better." There was no "half-way work" about this. Kittyleen, perfectly willing to be forgiven, nestled up to Flaxie and laid her soft cheek against hers, murmuring, without meaning anything at all,-- "Me vely much obliged." And at that moment the clouds broke away and the tardy sun came out. A ray of light shone over Mrs. Gray's face,--partly sunshine from the sky, and partly an inner sunshine from her happy heart. She was a good mother, and nothing gave her so much joy as to see her children rise above selfishness and sincerely strive to do right. Kittyleen went home after dinner, loaded with toys. Flaxie was the one to fasten her cloak and tippet, and lead her by the hand to the front door; but not a word did she say to Martha about the "murder" of her waxen child. Not a word did any one say about it; and Mrs. Garland would never have heard of Kittyleen's mischief if the little one had not told of it herself. Mr. Garland was quite disturbed, but his wife was too busy painting to pay much attention. "My dear," said he, "Mary Gray is an uncommon little girl to bear what she does from Kittyleen. Suppose, as a reward for her patience, you send her a handsome present at Christmas." "Very well," replied Mrs. Garland, serenely, "I'll send her a piece of the china I'm painting." "No, no, she won't care anything about that. Buy her something really pretty," said Mr. Garland, who had no true love for the fine arts, and secretly wished his wife's paint-tubes and brushes were sunk in the sea. "Oh, well, you may buy her something yourself! I don't want to bother my head about it," said Mrs. Garland, drawing a rim of gold around a teacup. And Mr. Garland, who could get no help from his wife, was obliged to go to Mrs. Prim, a particular friend of the Gray family, and ask her what she thought Flaxie would like for a Christmas present. CHAPTER III. FLAXIE'S WILL. "_A doll's piano!_ Why, if there is anything in this world that I've always wanted, it's just this little piano! And oh, to think of Mr. Garland's giving it to me, when he couldn't have known I wanted it! Did _you_ tell him, Preston? And oh, _see_ the keys! Hear me! There, that's the Grasshopper's Dance! Tinkle! tinkle! tinkle! Oh, _so_ sweet! I couldn't play it any better on my big piano, or half so well. "Hush, Preston Gray, you needn't laugh! What if I _am_ nine years old? Can't I like a little, cunning, beautiful doll's piano? And what's the harm, when you know I needed it to finish off the furniture in my dolls' parlor, and go with the chairs and sofas and tables and lamps and everything grand? "This chair is just the thing for Princess Aurora Arozarena to sit in when she plays the piano. Now _would_ you ever know any thing had happened to Aurora? Only her hair is a little darker, and her eyes are black instead of blue, and she hasn't _quite_ the same kind of nose and mouth." So Flaxie talked on and on; and the new treasure, the doll's piano, was kept for a long time in the back parlor in one of the alcoves, that people from far and near might hear and see it. The tiny white and black keys gave all the notes with a merry little tinkling sound that was enough to take a doll right off its feet and set it to dancing. A wee chair was always before it, and in the chair sat the princess, who had come to life again, and never knew she had been dead. Her happy young mother, Flaxie Frizzle, often knelt behind her, playing little jingling, squeaking tunes, exactly adapted to the ears of her royal highness, who would have played for herself if her long-wristed, light gloves had not been so exquisitely tight. The piano was a great comfort in itself; and when Flaxie came to understand that it was a token of Mr. Garland's approval and gratitude, she valued it more than ever. About this time she had a most uncomfortable siege of chicken-pox, and was obliged for two days to keep her room, looking sadly disfigured by the pink, puffy blotches which rose on her skin, and feeling very forlorn because her poor red eyes were too weak to admit of her reading. "What does make me look so?" said she, almost crying, as she gazed at her face in the glass. "And, oh, Ninny, I feel a great deal worse than I look! I can tell you people wouldn't laugh so much about chicken-pox if they knew how it feels!" "Yes, dear, I'm sure it must be dreadful," returned Ninny,--her real name was Julia,--with ready sympathy. "You woke me up ever so many times last night screaming." "Screaming? Why, I didn't know it! I must have been crazy!" When ill, it was no unusual thing for the Gray children to be slightly delirious; and Flaxie often laughed over the droll speeches which she was reported to have made, but of which she herself could not recall a single word. "What did I say last night when I was crazy?" "You sat up in bed and cried for your '_little pinono_,'--the doll's piano, I suppose. And sometimes you seemed to think it had turned into a wolf, for you kept saying, 'Why, what great, big teeth you've got! Oh, they're to eat you the better, my dear!'" Flaxie smiled faintly, and then, feeling very miserable, wiped away a tear, thinking,-- "Perhaps I am very, very ill. How do I know? Fannie Townsend never was crazy in her life, nor Blanche Jones. And what made doctor papa look at my tongue this morning, unless he thought I was growing worse? He gave me powders, too, and told me to stay up-stairs and keep warm. Maybe I'm going to have a fever. I didn't eat anything for my breakfast but half a cracker, and my head aches so I don't want any dinner.--Julia," said she, interrupting herself in the midst of these gloomy musings, "do people ever die of chicken-pox?" "No, indeed, not that I ever heard of. What put that into your head?" "Now, Julia, you don't know the least thing about it! What do _you_ know about fevers and medicines and things like that? Just because your papa is a doctor, that's no reason you should shake your head and think there's nothing the matter with me, when I'm feeling so bad!" Julia would not, on any account, have laughed at her poor little sister; so she slipped quietly out of the room before Flaxie had time to continue this train of absurd and amusing remarks. Finding herself alone, however, the reflections of the chicken-pox patient grew more and more sombre. What _was_ the difference between this and small-pox? She had heard of a red flag which was hoisted when that good clergyman, Mr. Branch, lay ill in a house away from everybody, and at last died, almost alone. Probably Doctor Papa would never send a little girl like her--his own daughter, too--to a house with a red flag! Still she might die; and if she did, Julia would naturally be very sorry she had spoken so lightly--not to say disrespectfully--of a disease whose miseries she had never felt; that is, the chicken-pox. An hour or two afterwards, Mrs. Prim called at Flaxie's room, and after feeling her pulse, and saying, "Oh, _you_ are not very ill," she turned to Grandma Gray, who had come in, and began a conversation with her about Blanche Jones's father. "Yes," said Mrs. Prim, "Mr. Jones is really aware at last that his disease is consumption. He knows he can never recover, and has made his will." "Has he, indeed?" returned Grandma Gray. "I am truly glad to hear it." "I tell my husband," went on Mrs. Prim, sitting very straight in her chair,--"I tell my husband I think it is every man's duty to make a will; yes, and every woman's duty, too. Mr. Prim agrees with me, and we each of us intend this very afternoon to have our wills drawn up and signed." "A wise and proper thing, I am sure," remarked Grandma Gray. "Grandma," asked Flaxie, as soon as their visitor had gone, "please tell me what's a will, and why is it 'a wise and proper thing'?" "Perhaps, little Mary, I cannot make you understand. But Mr. Prim has a great deal of money, and so has Mrs. Prim; and if either of them should die, perhaps it would not be known what was best to do with the money that was left. So Mr. Prim is going to write his wishes about _his_ money on a sheet of paper. He is going to say, 'I wish to give so many thousand dollars to my wife, and so many thousand dollars to somebody else,' etc. And Mrs. Prim will do the same about _her_ money. She will say, 'I wish to give so many thousand dollars to Mr. Prim, and so many thousand dollars to somebody else,' etc." "Well, if she wishes to give it, why doesn't she do it, and not write about it?" "Oh, she only means that she wishes it to be given away after she is dead! Not _now_, Mary!" "Oh, yes'm, I understand, I understand now. Why, grandmamma, I've heard ever so often about people's making wills, but I never knew before what it meant." In the afternoon, when Madam Gray had quite forgotten this conversation, she was startled by hearing Flaxie say plaintively,-- "Grandma, do little girls ever make wills?" "Not that I ever heard of, my dear; but they certainly have a right to do so, if they like." "Well, if they haven't a great deal of money, can they give away something besides money? I mean, have they a right to make a will and give away their books and toys and pretty things?" "Oh, yes." "And is it 'wise and proper'? You know," added Flaxie, turning her aching head upon the pillow,--"you know I have a great many beautiful things, and if I ever die there is my sweet little new piano, and--and--I don't expect I _shall_ die, but if I ever do die, you know." Madam Gray understood her granddaughter's mood in a moment. Flaxie had a touch of 'melancholy.' Though very well aware that her disease was not of a dangerous nature, she liked to fancy that it was dangerous. Even now she had brought herself almost to the verge of tears, just by picturing to her own mind how sorry everybody would feel when she actually died of chicken-pox. Grandma Gray thought it might amuse and interest her to let her make a will, so she brought her a sheet of paper and a pencil, and instructed her as to the proper form of words to use. Here is a copy of Flaxie's will:-- "I, Mary Gray, of Laurel Grove, N. Y., third child of Dr. Ephraim Gray, do hereby give and bequeath my personal property in the following manner:-- "_First._ I give and bequeath my pretty doll's piano to Kittyleen Garland, whose real name is Katharine. I give it to her, because I was cross to her for scratching my doll's eyes out, and have been sorry for it ever since. To her heirs and assigns forever. "_Second._ I give and bequeath my beautiful wax large doll with the new head to my dear little sister Ethel; but she must not play with it till she knows how to hold it without letting it fall. I give this to Ethel, her heirs and assigns forever. "_Third._ My Bible and all my _nice_ books, and my gold pen and handsome inkstand to my sister Julia, if she wants them. "_Fourth._ The money in my box,--I don't know whether to give it to my father or mother or the missionaries. "_Fifth._ I cannot think of anything more, and am willing my papa and mamma should take care of the rest. Their heirs and assigns forever." "Shall I say amen at the end?" asked Flaxie, who had become very much interested, and already felt decidedly better. "Oh, no," replied her father, who had come in and was looking on with no little amusement; "only sign your name, and then your grandmother and Preston and I will add our names also, as witnesses. Then it will be a real will, my daughter, and will stand in court." Flaxie did not know what he meant by "standing in court," but it sounded business-like and mysterious, and she took the pen her father offered her and signed her name with a feeling of great importance. Then Dr. Gray, grandma, and Preston added their names, and her father put four seals of red wax on the paper, and the whole thing was finished, as she believed, "according to law." After this, for the first time that day, she felt hungry; and just as she was beginning to wonder if it was not nearly supper-time, her mother appeared with the tea-tray, on which were some slices of thin toast, a glass of ruby-colored jelly, and a goblet of milk. Flaxie's eyes brightened; she felt that life was still worth living, and forgot to weave any more doleful fancies concerning the chicken-pox. Next day she was well enough to go down-stairs; and to add to the pleasure she felt in meeting the whole family together again, her father announced to her that as soon as the disfiguring blotches should be gone from her face, she might take a little journey to Hilltop to "regain her strength." That was just like Doctor Papa. He was always giving his children happy surprises; and it was really a blessing to belong to him, and even to be ill once in a while, for the sake of the compensation which he always managed should follow the illness. CHAPTER IV. CRACKERS AND CHEESE. But there is always a drop of bitter in our sweetest cup. In Flaxie's cup just now were two bitter drops. First, though she longed for the visit, she regretted to miss "dear, darling Miss Pike," who was coming from Hilltop next week. Still, as this excellent lady intended to spend the winter at Dr. Gray's as governess in his family, Flaxie's being gone at the very first of her stay did not really matter so much. As for the second bitter drop, it seemed to Flaxie that if she could only take this journey alone, with the sole care of her own self, her own ticket, and her own valise, she should be "perfectly happy." She was no longer so _very_ young. Last summer she had seen a girl of her own age travelling alone, with a book, a parasol, and a paper of candy; and the girl had carried her head so grandly, as if it had long been her habit to manage her own affairs, and she had looked withal so fascinating and distinguished, that Flaxie had often thought of her with envy. Why was _she_ always considered so young and insignificant? What was lacking in _her_ that she could not also travel alone? "Why, Frizzle dear, you'd get switched off to Canada or something," said Preston. "I shall go with you to keep you on the right track." But Flaxie insisted. "Why, I'm nine years old and three months and six days; and it's only the least bit of a ride to Hilltop, and I know every step of the way." "You'd make a comical appearance travelling alone, now, wouldn't you?" returned Preston, who, though the dearest brother in the world, was becoming of late too much of a tease. He wore steel-bowed spectacles, and his eyes laughed through them sometimes with a dazzling, flashing light, which his little sister could not bear to meet. He thought she had too high an opinion of herself, and he "liked," as he expressed it, "to take her down." "I am not sure, indeed, that Flaxie would not have been allowed by her parents to go to Hilltop alone if it had not been for this same desire of Preston's to take her down." Ah, well, there are greater trials in life than travelling with a dear elder brother, even if he does laugh at you once in a while. But I must describe this journey, which you will see turned out, after all, rather differently from what Preston expected. Flaxie packed her three favorite common dolls, Peppermint Drop, Dr. Smith, and Christie Gretchen, her box of water-colors, her charcoal and drawing-paper, all her games and part of her books; but was persuaded to take out some of these articles, in order to make room for her clothes. A valise will not hold everything, and clothes are needed, even for a two weeks' visit. Julia wove her sister's flaxen curls tightly together in one long braid, so that it might remain smooth during the journey, and Flaxie stood a long while before the hall mirror, pulling her hat this way and that, to make sure it was straight. In her excitement she had hardly stopped to eat any breakfast; but when the good-bys were all over, and she was walking to the station with Preston, she suddenly recollected this, and complained to him that she was hungry. "Well, that's a funny idea! I believe girls are always hungry," he responded. Still the thought disturbed him. He never could bear to have anybody uncomfortable, and, of course, he would not allow his little sister to start on a journey fasting. "See here, Flaxie, we haven't time now to go back for anything to eat; but couldn't you nibble a cracker, or a ginger-snap, or something?" And he led her into a small grocery, where a man stood behind the counter selling a paper of cloves. There were no ginger-snaps to be had, but the man succeeded in finding some very dry, hard crackers at the bottom of a barrel. Flaxie did not want the crackers, but thought it might be impolite to say so. Still less did she want the mouldy, crumbling cheese, which he produced from its hiding-place under a box. She looked on in silence while he cut off a pound of this and weighed it in a piece of brown paper. "Take one of these crackers, Chicky, and put it in your pocket," said Preston, in the kindest possible manner; and Flaxie obeyed him, looking rather downcast. She wished she had not complained of needing food. There were seventeen more crackers; and these the grocer counted out, and put in a paper bag, scarcely large enough to hold them. He was a slow man, who walked with crutches; and while he was debating whether to get a larger bag or to tie this one up with a string, a steam-whistle was heard, and the cars whizzed by the door. Flaxie darted out in quick alarm. "Oh, don't worry now, don't worry! I know what I'm about, _I_ never get left," said Preston, in a reassuring tone. He would have liked it much better if Flaxie had relied entirely upon him. "They are going to stop at the station to take in freight. People will laugh at you if they see you run." Nevertheless he was running, too; for even as he spoke he happened to remember that this train did not always stop for freight; and indeed it did not wait now five minutes. The children reached the station out of breath, and Preston had a scramble to buy tickets, check Flaxie's valise, and enter the cars with her before the train moved off. It was rather mortifying; but he did not allow himself to look in the least chagrined. He adjusted his spectacles, threw his head back a little, and gazed about him coolly, as if he particularly liked to be late, and would not on any account have come earlier. [Illustration: FLAXIE AND THAT MISERABLE CRACKER.--Page 58.] "Why, if there isn't Kittyleen!" said Flaxie. But Kittyleen was only going to Rosewood, the next station. "Marfa" was with her, and would bring her back next day "if she was willing to come." Flaxie did not seat herself at once. She had a little chat with Kittyleen, after which I regret to say she stood on her tiptoes for some moments, gazing in the mirror at the farther end of the car. "There, there, sit down, Chicky, your hat is all right," said Preston, who considered her the prettiest little girl he knew, and felt that she did him credit. "And here are your check and your ticket. If you ever expect to travel alone you must learn to take care of your things." "Oh, yes, I know it! I always keep my ticket when I ride with papa; and very often he goes into another car and leaves me alone," remarked Flaxie. If this was meant as a hint, it was lost on Preston. He began to read a newspaper, while his young companion looked out of the window at the trees, houses, and fences that flew past in a dizzy blur. She thought she would count the trees, just to amuse herself, and had got as far as eighty-seven, when Preston suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. The conductor was standing near, waiting for her ticket. Rather bewildered, yet anxious to appear prompt and experienced, she put her hand hastily in her pocket, and drew forth, not her ticket, but that miserable, forgotten cracker. The conductor, a good-natured, red-cheeked man, said, "No, I thank you," and shook his sides with laughing. Flaxie blushed painfully. Once she would not have minded it so very much, for she had been formerly a pert child; but in growing older, she was growing more modest, sensitive, and retiring. She withdrew the cracker and produced the ticket, feeling with shame that she was behaving very unlike the elegant little girl who travelled with a book, a parasol, and a paper of candy. But she was to suffer still more. The conductor had scarcely passed out of hearing when Preston said, in his wise, elder-brotherly tone, "Here, child, if this is the way you're going to behave, I might as well have that ticket myself; your check, too. Oh, yes, and give me the key to your valise, and now your porte-monnaie. Wouldn't you like to have me take care of your handkerchief?" He spoke half in jest, still it was quite too bad of him, for Flaxie was not a careless child; neither did she need "taking down," or at all events, she did not need it any more than Preston himself. "I don't see what makes you think I'm such a baby. I'm only four years younger than you," she remonstrated, sighing heavily as she handed to him, one after another, the contents of her little cloak-pocket. He took them from her with a condescending smile. "There, now, I feel easier," said he, settling himself comfortably; "you'll have all _you_ want to do to take care of the crackers and cheese. Why don't you eat them instead of offering them to the conductor? He has had his breakfast. Won't they laugh, though, at home, when I tell them about that?" "Oh, Preston Gray, if you do tell about that!" Flaxie had borne her trials thus far with patience, but now the tears started and she was battling to keep them back. Preston saw that he had gone too far, and though secretly wondering why it was that "girls can never take jokes," he resolved to make himself more agreeable during the rest of the journey. CHAPTER V. SPONGE-CAKE. "Those crackers aren't very nice, that's a fact," said he, looking penitently at the overflowing paper bag, which stood upright on the seat between them. "Not half as bad as the cheese," returned Flaxie. "Well, I don't blame you for not liking mouldy cheese; I don't like it myself," admitted Preston. "But I suppose, now, Chicky, if you had a piece of pie or a cake or a sandwich, you'd enjoy it, and feel more comfortable, wouldn't you?" The gentle tone and manner touched his little sister, and called back her happiest smiles in a moment. "Oh, I don't care the least bit about anything! I'm not very hungry, Preston; really I'm not." "Yes, but I don't want you to be hungry at all," said the benevolent brother. "I want people that travel with me to feel all right and have a good time." Here he took out his purse and looked at the silver in it; there seemed to be plenty. "I wish a boy would come in with something besides pop-corn and peanuts, and all that sort of nonsense, don't you? I'll tell you what I'll do," added he, returning the purse to his pocket. "I'll get out at Bremen and buy you a great square of sponge-cake." "Oh, but Preston, you can't buy it there!" "What's the reason I can't?" "Because they don't keep it at Bremen. Sharon is the place; _Sharon_, near Hilltop." "Where did you get your information?" returned the lad, rather ruffled. "As often as I've travelled this road I think I ought to know that Bremen is a famous place for sponge-cake. There's an old woman living there that bakes it by the ton." "Why, Preston Gray, that old woman lives at _Sharon_! I've seen her my own self. Don't you suppose I know? Why, Uncle Ben has bought sponge-cake of her ever so many times and brought it home to Aunt Charlotte." One of Preston's dazzling smiles shone through his spectacles as he rejoined,-- "Oh, I dare say he has bought sponge-cake and carried it home to Aunt Charlotte; but that's no sign he has bought it at Sharon. You're mistaken, that's all. Now when you get to Bremen, and you see people stepping out of this car and coming back loaded with sponge-cake, perhaps you'll give up that I'm right." Flaxie was ready to retort what she did not believe people _would_ get out at Bremen, or if they did they would not find any cake. She was fond of having the last word, but remembering her blunder with the cracker, she said no more, and even thought meekly,-- "Oh, well, perhaps it _is_ Bremen! I almost hope so, for I don't want to wait till we get to Sharon." She had regained her spirits by this time, and found it very pleasant to be travelling with a kind brother like Preston, who had not a fault in the world except looking down upon her rather too much. In a few minutes the train halted at Bremen, a small way-station. It did not look at all familiar to Preston. He had supposed Bremen was much larger, but that was probably because he had not been on this road for a whole year, and had forgotten some of the stopping-places. The famous old cake-woman; could it be that she lived here? He had half a mind to ask the conductor; but no; Flaxie would hear him. "Oh, are you getting out?" said she. To be sure he was. He was already hurrying down the aisle, too proud to confess that he could possibly have made a mistake. He was just behind a woman with a baby in her arms, and had to wait for both the baby and the woman to be helped out. By the time he had got out himself, and before he had a moment to look around him, the cars were moving on again! It was the most astonishing thing! There he stood at the door of a wretched little wood-shed, close by the platform, swinging, his arms and crying, "Stop! stop!" But nobody heard except the baby and its mother, and nobody answered except the baby with an "Argoo, argoo," out of its silly little throat. So this was Bremen! This wood-shed and two or three houses! It was a sad predicament for Preston, but a worse one for Flaxie. She, too, cried, "Stop! stop!" bounding up and down on the seat like an India-rubber ball. But the cars paid as little heed to her as they had paid to her brother. On they went, rattle, rattle, rattle. What cared they for a passenger overboard? What cared they for a passenger's sister left frantic and forlorn? She would have appealed to the conductor, but he was in the next car. So was the brakeman, so was even the pop-corn boy. The people went on talking and reading without minding her. They probably thought her a very restless child, for they had not seen her quiet that morning. So it was not till she began to wring her hands and sob aloud that they suspected anything unusual had happened. "What is the matter, little girl?" asked an old lady, leaning forward and offering her a paper of sassafras lozenges. Flaxie waved it away. "Was it your brother that just left the car?" asked a kind old gentleman, suddenly recollecting the handsome lad in spectacles. "Did he get out on purpose?" "Yes, sir, oh, yes, sir! on purpose to get me some cake! But he's lost over! Oh, dear, he's lost over! I can't make 'em stop." "How far were you going, my child?" "I don't _know_ how far. I'm going to Hilltop to see Milly Allen. I don't _know_ how far! Oh, dear, I didn't want any cake. I told him I wasn't _very_ hungry. I told him the old woman lived at _Sharon_. He didn't believe what I said, and that's why he got left! Oh, dear, if he hadn't got out!" "It isn't safe to get out unless you know where you are going," said the old lady wisely; but the remark did not seem to be of any particular use just now. And then she put the sassafras lozenges back in her satchel. _They_ didn't seem to be of any particular use, either. "Oh, dear!" wailed Flaxie, "if I'd only travelled alone! I wanted to travel alone!" The old gentleman did not quite understand. It seemed to him that she certainly _was_ travelling alone, and if that was what she wanted she ought to be satisfied. He folded his newspaper, put it in his hat, and came to sit down beside her. He was a better comforter than the old lady, for he had a dozen dear grandchildren at home, while she, poor soul, had only a tortoise-shell cat. "I wouldn't shed another least drop of a tear," said the good old gentleman, hitting and upsetting the crackers, which tumbled out of the bag upon the floor. "Not one tear would I shed," said he, picking up the crackers. "Your brother will come on to Hilltop to-morrow, or maybe he can come this very afternoon; and then won't you both laugh about this? You'll ask him, 'Where's that cake?' And what do you suppose he'll answer to that?" "Oh, I don't want the cake; _that_ isn't what I want. My head aches and my throat aches, and I've just had the chicken-pox; and--and--oh, dear, I wish I was at home!" "Where is your home, my little girl?" "My home is at Laurel Grove, near Rosewood." "And what is your name and your father's name?" "He is Dr. Gray, and I am Mary Frances Gray." "Ah, indeed! Why, I know your father very well," said the cheery old gentleman. "Will you shake hands? There, now, we're good friends, aren't we? And I'm going to Hilltop and beyond. I'm Dr. White,--tell your papa,--_old_ Dr. White. Let's see, have you any ticket?" Flaxie uttered a cry of despair. Till that moment she had not realized the full extent of her woes. "Oh, Preston took my ticket, and my money, and _all_ my things! Oh, _should_ you have thought he would?" "Ah, well; we'll see what we can do," said Dr. White. "Oh, when I get to Hilltop I can't open my valise, for where's my check? I mean my key! Oh, if I'd travelled alone! Preston wanted to take care of me; but he's taken care of me _too much_!" Dr. White found it hard to keep his face properly sober; yet he knew his little friend would consider a smile very ill-timed. "I've been to Hilltop more than ever he has, for Milly Allen is just my age; and I could have gone alone _beau_tifully. He has bothered me so. But he didn't mean to bother me," added she, ashamed to complain of him before a stranger. "Only--" Here she sprang up suddenly, and those miserable crackers rolled out again, followed by the cheese,--"only I ought to have a ticket, you know. Do conductors ever let you travel without your ticket?" asked she, raising her brimming eyes anxiously to her new friend's face. "It depends upon circumstances, Miss Mary. This conductor will do it, I'll be bound." "Will he? Oh, I'm so glad!" said Flaxie, greatly relieved, though rather surprised. Why should this conductor let _her_ go free? He had never seen her before, and knew nothing about her except that she carried crackers in her pocket. He appeared presently, smiling and holding out his hand; but after Dr. White had said something to him in a low tone, he patted Flaxie's head with an "All right. Don't lose your luncheon, my dear," and passed on to the next seat. "Did you tell him how my brother got lost over? Did you tell him everything?" asked Flaxie, looking quite gay and excited. "Yes, almost everything. And now your troubles are over, Miss Mary, for he will give your name to the new conductor, and then when we get to Hilltop I can put you in a hack that will take you right to your uncle's door." "Oh, no, sir, I don't want any hack! Uncle Ben will be there, waiting for me, with a sleigh, and Cousin Freddy, too. They always come to the depot with a sleigh, except in the summer, and then they come with a carryall or a wagon." And, in truth, on arriving at Hilltop, the first persons to be seen were Uncle Ben Allen, his son Freddy, and, best of all, his daughter Milly, Flaxie's darling "twin cousin." "But where's Preston?" asked Freddy. "He stopped at a wood shed on the way, to buy a piece of sponge-cake," replied Dr. White, shaking hands with Uncle Ben, as Freddy tucked Flaxie into the sleigh. CHAPTER VI. A NEW FRIEND. Preston lingered at the wood-shed and about the tiny station of Bremen all that morning and most of the afternoon. It was a very solitary place, and he had ample time for reflection. "Well, this is one way to take care of your little sister! Anybody'd think I was five years old! I can't stand it to be such a fool! Oh ho! I thought 'twas great fun, didn't I, to make her give up her money and tickets? I wanted to 'take her down,' but now I'm taken down myself, and how do I like it?" To judge by his clouded face and the stamping he made with his heels, he did not like it at all. "Poor little Flaxie, I know she's rushing round that car and crying! What will she do with herself? _She_ won't get off anywhere? Oh, no, _Flaxie_ isn't such a goose as to get off a car unless there's some sense in it! There's only one goose in the family, and that's Preston Gray. No, _she_ won't get off. And let's see, the conductor will remember her, on account of that cracker. He'll know she did have a ticket, so of course he'll let her go free. _She_'ll do well enough. She'll make friends on the cars; she's always making friends, she's so pretty and sweet." In this way, by praising his sister and scolding himself, Preston tried to find a little consolation as he strode up and down the narrow sleigh-track--which the people of Bremen called a road. What he ought to do he could not decide. After a while a man came along the road, dragging a pail of flour on a sled. "Do you know how far it is to Hilltop, sir?" asked Preston, feeling himself very young and small, for the man stared at him as if _he_ considered him a mere baby, and thought of taking him up pickaback. "Hilltop, did you ask? Why, where are your folks? Where did you come from, travelling round here alone?" "Oh, I came from Laurel Grove, just the other side of Rosewood," replied Preston, as dignified as a boy _can_ be who feels himself crushed to the earth by unmerited contempt. "I got off the cars a few minutes ago, and--and--thought I'd wait for the next train. When does the next train go?" "Well, it beats me to guess what you got off the cars for!" said this very disrespectful man, setting one foot on the sled and eying Preston all over. "You hadn't ought to get off the cars, sonny, it ain't safe; children get their necks broke that way." "Can you tell me how far it is to Hilltop?" asked Preston, with an increase of dignity. "Well, it's a good fifty miles or more, and you can't go till five o'clock this afternoon. You'd better speak to the folks that live in that red house yonder, and ask 'em to see you safe on board the cars, and when you once get on, you stick there! Don't you get off this side of Hilltop. Now mind, little shaver!" And with this very cutting advice and another disrespectful stare, the man toiled on with his sled and the pail of flour. "I hope he was impolite enough," thought Preston, indignantly. He did not relish being looked down upon. Neither had Flaxie relished it, you remember. "So I can't get to Hilltop till evening. A pretty piece of work! They'll be just rising from the supper-table, Flaxie and all; and won't they have a jolly time laughing at me? They'll ask what I came for at that time of day? Freddy'll call me a caterpillar and a snail, and everything else he can think of. No, _sir_, you don't catch me going to Hilltop to be laughed at! All I went for in the first place was to take care of Flaxie. No fun in it now. No use, either! Guess I'll go home. But what shall I do with the check and the purse and the key? Oh, Flaxie, I wish I'd let you alone." While he was lamenting in this strain, he became conscious of a pair of sorrowful eyes raised to his face. They were the eyes of a thin and unhappy-looking but handsome black and white spaniel. It was a tender, respectful gaze; and to a boy who has just felt himself looked down upon, it is consoling to be looked up to, even by a dog. "Here, Rover, Rover, good fellow! Here, Rover," said he, softly patting the shaggy head. There was a magical charm for all animals in Preston's touch; and this poor creature crouched before him with a mournful, loving whine, got in front of him as he moved about, sat down at his feet and licked his boots when he stood still, and behaved altogether as if he had found a dear friend. "I can't think what you mean, Rover. There, that's your name, I know by the way you wag your tail! But, Rover, you never saw _me_ before. What makes you think you know me?" The handsome animal whined again at the sound of Preston's voice, pushing his nose into the boy's hand, and going off into a sort of dog-ecstasy. It was really quite touching. All the more so as there was something in the curl of his tail, the droop of his ears, that suggested to Preston his own lost dog, the beloved and ever-lamented Tantra Bogus. "Tantra Bogus was larger and sleeker and fatter, but he had the same white spot in his forehead and his eyes were the same color," said Preston, his heart stirred with tender memories, as he stooped and laid his cheek lovingly against the rough black face. "Ah, Rover, you do love me! But I can't see why! I guessed your name, and I'll warrant I can guess who your master is, too. It's that impudent man with the sled. Because, sir, you've been half starved, and he's just the man to starve a dog." There was a crunching sound in the snow, and Preston looked up, half expecting to see the "impudent man" again; but this time it was a lady. Certainly they had strange people in Bremen, for this lady was the ugliest being he had ever seen. Large, half-open lips, big red nose, small red eyes. But he did not forget to raise his cap respectfully. "Dear old Rover, I'm glad he's found a friend at last," said the lady to Preston, in the sweetest tones. "He lost his master three weeks ago, and mourns him so much that it is very pitiful. He won't stay in the house with his master's family, but lingers about this shed day and night." "Poor fellow, poor fellow," said Preston; and the dog capered about him, going out of his head again with rapture. "Yes," said the lady, setting down a little bundle in the snow, and weaving the silver pin more securely into her shawl, "you are the very first person Rover has cared for, or taken the least notice of. The family are afraid he will starve to death. There, now! I have an idea! But perhaps you are in a hurry?" added she, with a particularly sweet smile. It was surprising how an ugly mouth like hers could smile so agreeably. "No, ma'am, no hurry. I've got to wait seven hours. Going to--going to--" Here Preston's words were lost in an indistinct muttering, his mouth being pretty close to Rover's nose. "Then if you'll wait here a few minutes I'll bring Rover something to eat. They'll all be so glad; and perhaps he'll take it from _you_, though he won't from any one else." Observe, she did not address Preston as "sonny," or call him a "shaver." She did not even say "my boy" or "my child" or "my dear," or ask him any embarrassing questions. He was convinced that she was a perfect lady, and answered briskly,-- "Oh, do bring him a piece of meat, ma'am! You see I can wait, for I'm going to--" But not knowing whether to say Hilltop or Laurel Grove, he prudently left the sentence unfinished. The lady hastened to the red house near by, and Preston, still caressing the dog, watched her as she returned with a light step, bearing a plate of meat in her hand. There was something very interesting about her homeliness; he could not help looking at her face, and the more he looked the better he liked it. "This is nice roast beef, a real Thanksgiving dinner, Rover," said she, with loving good-will. "Do eat it and make me happy." As if he were grateful, and really anxious to please her, this dog, who had so long refused his food, thrust his nose immediately into the heaped-up plate before him and began to eat. If Preston moved away, however, he stopped, turned about, and followed him uneasily. "It is very plain that the charm lies in you," said the lady, smiling, as Preston patted Rover's head, and he began to eat again. It had been dreadful, she said, to see him pining away, and to hear him moaning day and night. Mrs. Danforth, his master's widow, could hardly bear it, and her son, who lived with her, had declared that Rover must be taken out of town and given to a new master or he would surely die of grief. "Now look here, ma'am," cried Preston, looking up with sudden animation, "why couldn't he go home with me? I've lost my dog. Why couldn't he go home with me and be _my_ dog, you know?" "I don't see why not, if you would like him. I know Mr. Danforth would be glad to give him up to a boy so kind as you are. Where do you live?" "At Laurel Grove, ma'am." And feeling a growing desire to stand well in the lady's esteem, he tried to explain the situation. "But I--perhaps I sha'n't go home--that is, not to-day. I didn't know what I _should_ do. I stopped here on the way. I hadn't decided, you know," said he, vaguely. The lady looked at him in some surprise. Perhaps she doubted whether he could be trusted with a dog. But she did not say anything like that. "Do you live at Laurel Grove? Why, that is just where _I_ am going. I came from Hilltop yesterday to visit the Danforths on my way, and I'm going to Laurel Grove to-day, to Dr. Gray's." "Why, Dr. Gray is my father! And now I know who _you_ are. You're Miss Pike! I might have known it was you," he went on, thinking aloud, "for you look just as I expected you would." He could not dream how this little speech hurt Miss Pike. She had moved forward to shake hands with him, but at his last words her cheeks flushed and she drew back again. Was she thinking that very likely he had heard her called "that homely Miss Pike?" But the next moment she smiled pleasantly, holding out her hand. "And now I know who _you_ are. You're Master Preston Gray. 'I might have known it was you, for you look just as I expected you would!'" "Oh, Flaxie told you I wore spectacles, _didn't_ she?" Preston was somewhat sensitive about those. "I have to wear them, for if I take them off I'm blind almost," said he by way of apology. "Yes, I know, you dear blessed boy! Your sister has told me, and all the Allen family have told me, too, how patient you've been. I'm so glad I've met you, Master Preston. And now what shall I say to your father when I shall see him to-day?" The boy looked up, and then he looked down. "Oh, are you going to see my father to-day?" "Yes, I shall start at three o'clock this afternoon in the baggage-car. I'm told there's no passenger-car, and I must go as baggage, or wait till six o'clock to-morrow morning, and I don't like to start so early as that, should you?" "No, ma'am, I shouldn't; it's pretty dark at six. Look here, Miss Pike, if I take Rover I shall have to take him in the baggage car, sha'n't I?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Well, I've a good mind to take him to-day, if Mr. Danforth will let me. I don't want to go to Hilltop now; it isn't very convenient." "Ah?" said Miss Pike. "I didn't care much about going to Hilltop anyway, not now; I only came to take care of my little sister." "Ah?" said Miss Pike again, with an upward slide to her voice. "Oh, I suppose you think I didn't take care of her very well. I suppose you think it's sort of queer my being here, but you see--" Here he struggled so long with something in his throat that she helped him by saying,-- "Oh, possibly you got left." What a bright, far-seeing woman she was! "Yes, ma'am, I did get left. That was just how it was. If it had not been for trying to get some sponge-cake--" "Well, I'm glad you stopped here," broke in the delightful Miss Pike, who seemed to care nothing at all about the little particulars. So good of her _not_ to care! "I'm glad I met you. And as your little sister will not need you any more, couldn't you go home this afternoon to be company for me?--Why, just see, Rover has eaten every bit of his dinner!" "Oh, I'd like to go with you, ma'am, if I hadn't carried off Flaxie's check and key," demurred Preston. "You see, I took them to keep them safe." Rather too safe, Miss Pike thought; but she said, without the shadow of a smile, "Why not send the key and check to your sister by mail?" CHAPTER VII. THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE. And so it was settled. Preston dined at the red house; and Mr. Danforth, who turned out to be a very different person from the man with the sled, was glad enough to give up Rover to a gentle, well-bred little boy, who would be sure to treat him kindly. "I never saw you before," said Mr. Danforth, "but I know your father very well; and I am not afraid to trust my dog to the care of Dr. Gray's son." Accordingly, Miss Pike and Preston and Rover had a very cosey ride home that afternoon in the baggage-car. So very cosey it was and so social, with nobody to disturb them but the baggage-master occasionally coming in and going out, that Preston almost laid his heart bare before the kindly Miss Pike. He told her how dreadful it was to have your eyes cut with sharp instruments; how tedious it was to recite Latin to Mr. Garland; how fine it would be to leave off study and become a gentleman farmer, with the chance of receiving silver prizes for sheep and poultry. She listened with motherly sympathy, and he was tempted to go still further, and relate the history of all his sisters and his little brother. It might amuse her to hear Flaxie's great composition, entitled "Domestic Animals," the one she wrote last fall, that had been so freely laughed at by everybody far and near. He knew it by heart, every single word of it; but just as he was about to say, "Oh, Miss Pike, would you like to hear what a funny composition Flaxie wrote last fall?" a sudden thought checked him. Was this a kind thing to do? The composition was very foolish, certainly, but his little sister had long ago grown thoroughly ashamed of it, though very proud of it at first. "It would cut her up dreadfully to have Miss Pike hear it. So what's the use? I'm sure I don't like to have Flaxie make fun of _me_," thought he. He had been greatly humbled to-day, and nothing makes us so tender of others as suffering keenly ourselves. Miss Pike had been struck from the first with the remarkably frank and noble expression of Preston's face. Possibly she would have admired him still more if she had known of the temptation he was resisting. It _was_ a temptation, for the composition would have amused Miss Pike, and he knew it. Here it is, that you may see it for yourselves. FLAXIE'S COMPOSITION. "DOMESTIC ANIMALS. "There is classed throughout the species domestic animals. The cat is very domestic, and the turkey and the spider and the cow. The elephant is not very domestic, but he is a very useful animal. The pig is a very useful animal and very domestic. Were it not for the pig, what should we have to bake with our beans, or in which to fry our doughnuts? Ought we not then to be very thankful to the domestic animals for thus treating us so kindly?" * * * * * Preston never afterward thought of this little trip without the warmest gratitude to Miss Pike. He had dreaded meeting the family, but she explained matters to them so charmingly that nobody thought of laughing at him. And then the handsome Rover was such a surprise and so generally admired that the mishaps of the day, dreadful as they had been at the time, seemed hardly worth mentioning now. "So you've been adopted by a dog, my son," said Dr. Gray. "How nice it was that you stopped at Bremen!" said Julia. "I suppose you really saved poor Rover's life. But then if it hadn't been just you, he wouldn't have 'adopted' you. You make dogs love you by just looking at them." "And I don't wonder," thought Miss Pike. Until to-day she had never seen any of the Gray family except Mrs. Gray and Flaxie, but now, as she gazed about the room, she perceived at once that it was a most delightful home. Mrs. Gray was a pretty, black-eyed woman, who seldom sat still many minutes at a time except when the children were safely asleep. Dr. Gray was a large, cheerful, agreeable man, fond of telling short stories. Julia, almost a young lady, had a remarkably sweet face, and it was a pleasure to see what care she took of noisy Phil and dainty little Ethel. But loveliest of all was Madam Gray, the little fairy grandmother, with her white hair, white cap, white ribbons, and dear, benevolent face. She sat peacefully knitting, in her easy-chair, while everybody was talking and laughing around her; and Miss Pike fancied she was thinking of the friends of her youth, for something in her calm and quiet face seemed to say,-- "They are all gone into a world of light, And I alone sit lingering here." "And long may you linger, you dear, sweet, beautiful old lady," thought Miss Pike, who knew, without being told, that the whole family were better for blessed Grandma Gray. In a little more than two weeks Flaxie returned from Hilltop, this time "all sole alone," declaring she had had a "perfectly lovely visit," that well repaid her for the chicken-pox. She confided to her mother that it was easy enough travelling alone, for then you could keep your ticket and your check, and were not burdened with any troublesome crackers and cheese. But she said nothing of this sort to Preston, for her mother assured her it was wiser to drop the subject. Mrs. Gray never approved of teasing. Miss Pike was gratified to see that Flaxie had improved very much since the days when she went to school with the twin cousin, Milly Allen, at Hilltop. "The pure and gentle influences of her home are moulding her into a fine little girl. She is less rude, less forward, more amiable, and thoughtful of others." For her part, Flaxie told everybody that Miss Pike was her "favorite friend," and it made her "too happy for anything" to have her in the house all the time. Lessons were taught every morning in the large pink chamber over the dining-room. It was a school for the whole family, from Julia, who learned French and painting, down to tiny Ethel, who was allowed sometimes to sit in the room and draw pictures on the slate, or hold kitty in her lap, if she wouldn't "'peak one word." Yes, and often Rover came, too, the quietest scholar of all, and perfectly happy to crouch at his young master's feet and receive a caressing pat now and then. It was far more interesting than going to the brick school-house, which was poorly heated and not ventilated at all. Flaxie was inclined to sore throats and Julia to headaches, and it was for their sakes that Doctor Papa had decided this winter to have a governess in the house. He could not have chosen a better one. Miss Pike was an excellent young lady, highly educated and refined. Moreover, there was a peculiar charm about her, you hardly knew what it was, though you could not be with her five minutes without feeling it. Flaxie remembered how she used to go to the white school-house at Hilltop with her cousin Milly, and sit and admire Miss Pike, and "wish she could see her soul," which Aunt Charlotte said was so much more beautiful than her face. And now Flaxie sat in an armed chair in the pink chamber and admired her just the same. Somehow there was a happy feeling all over the room because Miss Pike was in it. Flaxie's thoughts grew calm and pleasant, as if the world were made of sunshine and flowers; and she wished with all her heart to be truly good and always growing better. She hoped she should never do another wrong thing as long as she lived. But there was one drawback to this home school, and that was Kittyleen. Did anything ever happen at the village, particularly at Dr. Gray's, that Kittyleen Garland did not find it out sooner or later? No, indeed. It was of no use trying to keep this little brown-eyed maid away unless you locked the door. "I can read some now. If I go to school I can read _all_," said Miss Kittyleen, coming in all out of breath and peeping at the children from between the rounds of a chair. Then Flaxie had to take her down-stairs to Mrs. Gray, who dropped her work to amuse her. Next day it would be the same thing over again. "Fought I'd come up and look out o' your winner, Miss Pike.--There now, Effel, draw a little baby on the slate, and I'll say oh! oh!" But Ethel, who had been taught to obey orders, always shook her head sternly at Kittyleen, whispering, "Effie don't 'peak a word." Miss Pike was never vexed with sweet little wayward Kittyleen; but she did think Mrs. Garland ought to keep her at home. It was Flaxie whose temper was most tried, for Flaxie was always the one to take the young rogue down-stairs; and she found it hard sometimes to refrain from shaking her just a wee bit. "What _made_ you throw Ethel's kitty out of the window?" she would say. "_You_ are the little girl that picked my dolly's eyes out. O, Kittyleen, I made my will, and I _was_ going to give you the prettiest, cunningest present; but if you don't stay at home I shall make my will all over again, and not give you one single thing." Kittyleen had often heard of Flaxie's "will," and had formed various opinions as to what it might be. Sometimes she thought it was a very large pin-cushion, sometimes she thought it was a sort of Christmas box; but she always cried when Flaxie said she should "make it all over again," feeling that this was more than she could bear. "O Flatsie, please don't," she would plead, with her little arms around her friend's neck. "It's such a _pretty_ will! Me velly much obliged." "Oh, you good-for-nothing, darling little goosie. Let me kiss that snarl of hair. Does your hair ache, Kittyleen, when it is snarled?" So the scolding generally ended in a kiss, for let Baby Kittyleen do what she would, Flaxie very well knew there was no guile in her tiny heart. "Do you suppose, mamma, I'll ever grow patient and good, like you and grammy and Miss Pike?" asked Flaxie one night, in a tone of deep discouragement. "I can't keep my patience with Kittyleen when she comes and rubs out my figures on the slate. Why, mamma, I was real naughty to-day, I _lost my calm_." "But you do try to be patient, dear, I know you try," said Mrs. Gray. "Yes, mamma, but I lost my calm," repeated the little girl dolefully. "I ought not to. I ought to do unto Kittyleen as I'd like to have other people do unto Ethel. That's the Golden-Rule way, Julia says. And should I like to have anybody whirl Ethel round by the shoulders and call her a _disgustable_ girl?" "She is a remarkably sweet child, my daughter. She loves you in spite of everything." "Well, mamma, I love her, too, only I'd love her better if she didn't always go where she isn't wanted." "Kittyleen goes _everywhere_," broke in little Ethel, on a high key. "She goes to church, Kittyleen does. Mayn't I go to church, I won't 'peak a word." "Oh, mamma, do let her," said Flaxie, forgetting her late distress of mind, and taking up a new subject. "She'd behave ever so much better than Kittyleen; and she has a new bonnet, too." "Do you suppose it does Kittyleen any good to go to church?" asked Mrs. Gray, smiling. "No'm, but it would do Ethel good, for she'd sit still and hear every word like a little lady." "Do _you_ hear every word, Mary?" "N--o, mamma, not always, but I mean to. And Ethel has such a pretty bonnet." "Please, mamma," echoed the little one eagerly, "such a pretty bonnet. And I won't 'peak a word." "Well," said Mrs. Gray, kissing baby's cherry lips. "Perhaps we'll let the _bonnet_ go to church; we will see." CHAPTER VIII. FLAXIE IN CHURCH. The little one went to church the very next Sunday, and though sister "Ninny" had her in charge, Flaxie felt that she could not drop her off her own mind for a moment. So charming was wee Ethel in her blue silk bonnet, with a lace frill about the face, that Flaxie was obliged to turn half around and gaze at her, completely lost in admiration. "Oh, she's the sweetest, best little dear! Ninny needn't say she isn't as pretty as Kittyleen, for she certainly is! Anyway, her _bonnet_ is just as pretty, and a great deal newer! Now there's Fanny Townsend's little sister, I should think Fanny'd be ashamed to have her wear such a bonnet." Good Mr. Lee was preaching a sermon, which he thought the children in the congregation could nearly all understand; but the words seemed to Flaxie to run together without any meaning; she was not trying to listen. "How Kittyleen does nestle about! Her mother doesn't watch her a bit. She lets her do everything and go everywhere. I think she's a queer woman. My mamma wouldn't let Ethel stir out of the house if she couldn't behave better than Kittyleen. No, she'd tie her in a chair. "Why, there's Sadie Stockwell sitting with Aunty Prim. That's my dress Sadie has on. Pity Sadie's father can't buy her any dresses! Pity he drinks so, and is so poor! Pity Sadie is so lame, with her shoulders all hitched up! How kind of Miss Pike, to give Sadie that beautiful book! When I grow up I'm going to be just like Miss Pike and make people love me. Perhaps I can be good if I'm _not_ very homely." Here Flaxie stole another glance at Ethel's bonnet. "Darling! She's just as still as a lady. I suppose she's saying to herself, 'Effel won't 'peak a word.' What if she _should_ speak! Just think! I wonder if Mr. Lee knows she's at church? He loves Ethel, for he sent her a little box of honey. I shouldn't think he'd like to keep bees. I should think he'd be afraid they'd sting his little boy.--There, I must look up at Mr. Lee and hear what he says." She raised her eyes to the pulpit. "How queer his head looks where the hair is so bald! The top of it is just as smooth and white! Why, it shines like the ivory ball on Ninny's parasol. What did make Mr. Lee's hair all go off? Doctor Papa said _he_ didn't know what made it go off, for Mr. Lee isn't old a bit, he's almost young." Gazing at the smooth, ivory-white top of the minister's head naturally reminded the little girl of something Phil had said not long ago when his hair was to be cut. "Please don't cut it _very_ short," said little Phil, "don't cut it as short as Mr. Lee's." Flaxie was in great danger of smiling as she recollected this. "Why don't I listen to the sermon?" thought she. "It's very wicked not to listen. Oh, he's gone way by the text! What is he saying about the brook of Cherith? They don't have Bible places in my geography, and I never heard of the brook of Cherith." Next moment, after a fond glance at Ethel, her eye fell upon Preston, and this gave still another turn to her thoughts. "I should think Preston would be ashamed ever to say anything more to me about my 'Domestic Animals.' The composition he wrote the other day is ever so much worse than that." It was "The Story of Evangeline." Miss Pike had read Longfellow's beautiful poem aloud, and then asked the children to write down all they could remember of it. Here, in Preston's own words, is THE STORY OF EVANGELINE. "Evangeline lived in Nova Scotia. She was engaged to Gabriel. He was a blacksmith's son. The English soldiers came and told the French to leave. They left. Evangeline and Gabriel did not go on the same boat. They got mixed up and separated. Evangeline did not like it. She and her priest went all round out West to try to find Gabriel. He did not try to find _her_. Then she heard he had gone up North to trade for mules, and she went to hunt him up. She did not find him. Then she grew very old and went to live with the Quakers. She was a nun. One Sunday morning she picked some flowers and went to the poor-house, and found an old man in bed dying. She said, Gabriel. He looked up. They kissed each other and he died." Dr. Gray said this story ought to be entitled "The Fatal Effects of a Kiss." Even grandma had laughed heartily on reading it, though Preston himself could see nothing in it to laugh at. But it was by no means of Evangeline or her fatal kiss that Preston was thinking just now. Sitting quietly beside his father, he was looking up at the minister and drinking in every word of the sermon. He had long been noted for his excellent behavior at church, and Mr. Lee had more than once said to the boy's father that none of the grown people listened to their pastor with more respectful attention than young Preston Gray. I am afraid Mr. Lee would not have said anything like that about Flaxie. She sat still enough, often very still indeed, but her eyes were roving all about, and so were her thoughts. Miss Pike observed this, and it occurred to her that it would be a very sad thing if Flaxie should allow her inattention to grow into a confirmed habit. Very likely she said something of the sort to Dr. Gray, for she felt a great interest in the child's improvement. At any rate, that afternoon, when the four o'clock dinner was over and the Gray family were seated in the back parlor,--Miss Pike, grandma, and all,--Doctor Papa said, rather unexpectedly,-- "Now suppose we ask these little people what the sermon was about this morning?" He chanced to be looking at Flaxie as he spoke, but she said quickly,-- "Oh, please ask Julia first, papa, for she is the oldest. No, I mean Ethel, for she is the youngest." This was too absurd. "Isn't _Phil_ young enough? Perhaps we may begin with him. Think hard, my son, and see if you can remember anything Mr. Lee said to-day." Little Phil knitted his brows, but like Flaxie he had been looking around, not listening. "Oh, papa, there was a woman there, had a thing on all bangled with beads." "Yes, my son; but what did the minister say?" Phil rolled his eyes. "Oh, there was a little girl there, about as big as Ethel, had a white bonnet on and a white cloak." "Yes; but what did the minister say?" "Oh, Ethel," said crestfallen little Phil, turning to his baby sister for comfort, "you and I are too small. We can't remember what they preach, can we?" "We won't be too hard on you, my little son," said Doctor Papa. "You are only five years old; but I am sure Mr. Lee says some things that even you can understand. Will you really try next Sunday to listen?" "I don't know how, papa," replied the little fellow, dropping his head. "But I only asked you to try. You can try, can't you, Philip? Now, next Sunday afternoon there will be a particularly large, yellow banana in the fruit-dish at dessert, and it will go to the small boy who can tell me something--just a little something--the minister said." Phil's eyes began to shine. Oh, wouldn't he look straight at Mr. Lee next Sunday, and bring home lots and lots of the sermon! "There, it's Flaxie's turn now," said he, as Flaxie with a very sober face wedged her chair between her mother and Miss Pike. "Mr. Lee said," began she, hurriedly, "he said something about a brook,--I forget the name of the brook,--and he said something about a man,--I can't think what the man's name was,--and the ravens came and fed him." "The ravens are right. Go on. Why did the ravens feed him?" "I don't know, papa." Flaxie looked helpless. "I didn't hear the rest. I had to watch Ethel for fear she'd talk." Dr. Gray said nothing more. He merely looked at his little daughter. "Oh, papa, I won't do so again. I won't, truly. I'll hear every single word. But sometimes, you know, I can't understand." "You could have understood this, my daughter; it was all very simple. Now, Preston?" "It was about the prophet Elijah, sir. Elijah was a very solemn kind of man. He lived alone in the mountains and talked with God. There was a wicked king called Ahab, who worshipped idols, and Elijah went to him and told him it was wrong, and Ahab was very angry, and Elijah had to run away. He was told to go to the brook Cherith and drink the waters of it, and the ravens would come and feed him. And the ravens did. They brought him bread and meat night and morning till the brook dried up and Elijah had to go somewhere else. I believe," said Preston, reflecting, "I believe that's all I can remember." "You have done well. Do you know to what nation Elijah belonged?" "No, sir." "Can Julia tell?" "Yes, sir, he was an Arab." Julia always looked very modest and pretty in answering questions. She went on now, with her hands folded in her lap. "Elijah had long thick hair hanging down his back, and he wore a cape of sheepskin; they called it a mantle. And he used to hide his face in it sometimes, and sometimes he rolled it up and used it for a staff." "What is a raven?" "It is a kind of crow." "Oh, I thought it was a kind of ostrich," said Flaxie. This extraordinary statement brought a smile to Preston's face, but his father said, "I was just thinking of a little story about an ostrich. God has strange ways of saving people's lives sometimes." The children looked attentive, and Mrs. Gray drew Ethel into her lap to keep her quiet, while papa pared his orange and began: "It was more than fifty years ago that Mr. Broadbent, a missionary, was travelling in Cape Colony. Where is that, Mary?" "Oh, Africa, Africa; way down there at the bottom of the map." "He had his family with him, and a few friends and some Hottentots. There were fourteen in the party. They were crossing a sandy table-land. What is that, Julia?" "High and flat land, like a table." "Right. They rode in wagons, drawn by oxen. It was a week's journey, but they had not enough food to start with, and could buy but little at the last town on the way. So after they had travelled two days there was not much left but a small sack of rice and some tea and coffee. What would become of them? Five more days across a country where nothing grew, not even a blade of grass! Now and then they saw a bird flying overhead, but it was very swift, and far away, and they could hardly ever hit it with their guns." "Oh, dear, did they starve?" asked Flaxie. "There, now, if those birds had only been ravens!" "The party stopped to rest, and they sent one of the Hottentots to watch the oxen; but I dare say he fell asleep, for several of the oxen strayed away. "It seemed a great pity, for he had to go to look them up and was gone a long time, and the travellers could not afford to wait." "Well, if they were going to starve, papa, it didn't make any difference whether they waited or not." "When the Hottentot came back he had a great piece of news to tell. He had found the nest of an ostrich, with forty eggs in it." "Oh, papa, are ostrich eggs good to eat? Do tell us about it." "So I will, my daughter, if I am not interrupted too often." Flaxie blushed, and hid her face on Miss Pike's shoulder. "The nest of an ostrich is a curiosity, and Mr. Broadbent waded through two or three miles of deep sand to see this one. You would think the mother bird had studied arithmetic all her life, for she seemed to have counted the eggs and set them in their places with perfect exactness. In the middle were fourteen close together, and three or four feet away from them were the other twenty-six eggs in an unbroken circle, as even as a row of gold beads. "The ostrich had been sitting on the ones in the middle. She expected to hatch just fourteen birds. She had not sat on the outer eggs at all, and there they were, entirely fresh and good to eat. She was saving them as food for the babies. She meant to break them, one after another, and give them to her chickens as fast as they should come out of the shell. "It would be just as much food as the fourteen little ones would need, before they were old enough to go abroad with her and pick up their living in the desert. How do you suppose the ostrich knew this? She had hardly any brain, a very stupid bird indeed. It must have been taught her directly from Heaven. "Well, you see now that the travellers did not starve. For a meal they broke one of these eggs into a bowl, beat it well, and mixed with it a little flour, pepper, and salt, and fried it in a pan. It served very well instead of bread with their tea and coffee, and when they arrived at their station they had two or three eggs to spare." "Is that all?" asked Preston, as his father paused and offered a piece of orange to Ethel. "It was almost as good as the ravens, wasn't it?" "I want to ask one question," said Julia. "How large is an ostrich egg?" "It weighs perhaps three pounds, and is almost as large around the middle as Ethel's waist." "Well, I'm glad those people didn't starve," remarked Flaxie, "I was afraid one while they would." I have introduced this true story here, partly for its own sake, and partly to give you a picture of one of the delightful Sunday afternoons at Dr. Gray's. If I had time I would like to tell you of the strong efforts which Flaxie made from this very day to overcome the bad habit of letting her thoughts wander in church. But this book is so small, and there are yet so many events waiting to be described, that I must now hasten on to something else. In April Miss Pike went home, carrying with her the hearts of all the Grays, both young and old. The whole family insisted so strongly upon her coming back the next winter that she said,-- "Thank you; perhaps I may come, for I have been very happy at Laurel Grove, and love every one of you dearly. But," she added, smiling, "you forget that you may not be here next winter. If Dr. Gray should be elected to Congress, won't you all go to Washington?" "Oh, he does not expect to be elected," replied Mrs. Gray. "But if we _should_ go to Washington, we shall want you to go there with us. Now, please remember." "How delightful! Well, Mrs. Gray, I will say to you as you say to little Ethel, '_We will see_.'" CHAPTER IX. PRIMROSE BOWER. Flaxie did not hear this conversation, or she would have built various castles in the air in regard to "going to Congress." It is true, people often talked before her of the coming "election," and spoke of Dr. Gray as a "candidate;" but the words were mysterious, and soon faded out of her mind. The snow and mud had disappeared. Dandelions were shining everywhere in the tender grass, and Ethel said, gleefully,-- "Oh, see the _dandy-diddles_!" The birds burst forth into song and the trees into leaves. Flaxie pointed to the soft, fresh leaf-buds slowly unfolding, and said to her mother, "Miss Pike calls them the beautiful thoughts the trees have kept all winter shut up in their hearts. Miss Pike is so funny!" Summer came, and by the last of June Grandpa and Grandma Curtis and Grandma Hyde arrived from Kentucky. This made three grandmothers in the house at one time. The Gray family were remarkably rich in grandmothers; and there was still another, a fourth one, who might have come if she had not been too feeble, and that was dear Grandma Pressy. The two from Kentucky were entirely unlike, yet each in her way was excellent and charming,--tall, queenly Grandma Hyde, wearing gray silk and a turban, and always piecing together a silk patch-work quilt; roly-poly Grandma Curtis, clad entirely in black, and always knitting children's stockings with needles that clicked. But they were alike in one respect; they both remembered everything they had ever seen or heard of, and everything that had ever happened since the world began. Yes, and they were both gifted with wondrous powers of story-telling. Tiny Grandma Gray, with her sweet, low voice, had hardly a chance to speak; for the Kentucky ladies were talking morning, noon, and night. It was delightful to hear them, and Grandma Gray listened and laughed, her white cap-strings fluttering, and said she was renewing her youth. But by-and-by it began to tire her head, for she was very delicate indeed, and she complained that she could not sleep. Still she _would_ stay in the parlor, she enjoyed the talking so much; and Mrs. Prim came one day, and declared she should carry her off. "You must stay with me a while and be quiet," said Mrs. Prim, who liked to manage everything, "and Mary shall come with you to take care of you." Flaxie did not spring up and exclaim, "Oh, Auntie Prim, thank you, thank you, I'd be so glad to go!" for the truth was she did not wish to go in the least. At the same time, she felt it a high honor to be invited to Mrs. Prim's to take care of Grandma Gray. She could remember the time, not so very long ago, when she had been sent away from home because Grandma Gray could not bear the noise she made. "I'm growing a great deal stiller and a great deal better as I grow up," thought the little girl, with a throb of pride, "but I didn't suppose Auntie Prim knew it." "We don't like to spare our dear little Mary," said both the Kentucky grandmothers in a breath; and then Flaxie felt prouder than ever. "Oh, she can come home every day to see you, and you will be surprised at the number of pillow-cases she will make; she always sews very steadily at my house," replied Mrs. Prim. "Run now, Mary, and get your hat." Mrs. Prim had the finest house and grounds in Laurel Grove, but it was very still there, oh, altogether too still! The gardener never talked, except to himself, the chambermaid was rather deaf, and Kitty, the cook, did not like any one in her nice, orderly kitchen. Flaxie thought it a very dull place, except at the hours when Mr. Prim came home to his meals. One day she sat in the parlor, sewing "over and over" upon a pillow-case. Out of doors it was a lovely June day. The trees, and grass, and birds, and flowers, were nodding at one another, and having a gay time, and Flaxie longed to be with them. But no, at "Primrose Bower," as Mr. Prim called his home, it was necessary to stay in the house; for Auntie Prim thought a little girl nine years old ought to "sew her seams," and _then_ she might play, perhaps, if she found any time. Strange there shouldn't be any dog at Primrose Bower, or even a cat; but Grandma Gray was there, and that was a comfort. The more Flaxie waited upon the silver-haired, sweet-voiced, fairy grandmother, the better she loved her; only dear Grandma Gray was always going to sleep on the sofa, and then you had to keep still enough to hear a pin drop for fear of waking her up. "Well," said Auntie Prim, coming into the parlor with her bonnet on, "I gave you work enough to last a good while, didn't I, Mary?" "Yes, 'm, ever so long," replied Flaxie, with a sorrowful glance at the pillow-case. "So you won't mind staying in the house with grandma, will you? I'm going to the stores to buy a calico dress and various things; but when I come back you may run home, and stay as long as you like." "Yes, 'm," said Flaxie, meekly. She thought Auntie Prim spent a good deal of time at the stores, and was afraid if she bought "various things" it would be pretty late by the time she came back; and Flaxie did want to ask Grandma Curtis a few questions about Venus, the colored girl who lived at her house in Kentucky, and she wanted a ride before dark on Preston's pony. "Let me see," said Auntie Prim, thoughtfully, "perhaps it would be better for you to promise me not to leave this room while I'm gone. You mean well, Mary, but you're _so_ fond of running! Yes, on account of Grandma Gray, I think I should feel easier if you were to make me a promise." "Yes, 'm, I will promise! I'll stay right here. I'll not go out of this room," replied Flaxie, so sweetly that Mrs. Prim never suspected the child's sensitive pride was wounded. "She thinks I'm a horrid little girl. She thinks I'm just awful," said Flaxie to herself, as she looked out of the window and watched her aunt walking away with a gray-fringed parasol in one hand and a shopping-bag in the other. "My mamma would have trusted me without any promise! She'd _know_ I wouldn't run off and leave Grandma Gray!" Very soon Grandma Gray came in and said she was going to _try_ to get a nap on the sofa, and hoped Flaxie would keep pretty still. "Yes, 'm," sighed Flaxie; and after this she breathed as softly as possible for fear of making a noise. Grandma was asleep in two minutes, with her handkerchief over her eyes, and that made the room seem more lonesome than ever. Outside a stray cat came and sat on the window-sill, begging to come in; and as she opened her mouth to mew, she looked, Flaxie thought, like a wee, wee old lady, whose little teeth were more than half gone. Flaxie loved cats; why not let her in? _But no!_ The window had a fly-screen, and besides, Auntie Prim didn't approve of cats. "It's _no, no, no_, all the time. I don't like Primrose Bower," thought poor Flaxie, dropping her work and stealing on tiptoe to the mantel, to smell the flowers in the bronze vase. They were lovely roses and lilies, but they looked as if they longed to be out of doors, where they could bend their tired heads. The chairs seemed rather uncomfortable, too, standing up so stiff and straight against the gilded walls. Even the gilded fireboard looked as if it was set in the fireplace very hard, and had no hope of ever coming out. "Oh, it's so still here, and so shut up! I wish there was something alive in the room," thought the little sewing-girl, going back to her task. She did not know that close behind her there _was_ something alive--dreadfully alive--a cross, disappointed, hungry bee! How had he got there, into that shut-up room where even the little flies never dared come? But there he was, and he would not go away without doing mischief. Perhaps he had had some family trouble, which had soured his temper; or perhaps he mistook Flaxie for a new variety of blush rose, of great size and sweetness. At any rate, he flew straight toward her, and without the least ceremony stung her on the wrist. Poor Flaxie! Was it not rather severe? Particularly as she dared not scream. "I must scream, I will scream," she thought in agony; "I will, I will!" _But no._ For grandma was fast asleep. She must not wake grandma, though the sky should fall. "I'll run out-doors. I'll run home to mamma. I _must_ go where I can scream." _But no!_ She couldn't even go into the entry. Hadn't she promised? And you must know Flaxie belonged to the sort of little girls who hold a promise to be as sacred as the oath of a queen. So she stayed where she was, and bore the anguish in silence. She could not possibly help hopping up and down, but she hopped softly; she could not help groaning, but she groaned in whispers; she could not keep the tears back, but she sobbed them noiselessly into her handkerchief. I don't know what you think of this, little reader, but I think it was truly grand and heroic. Are you nine years old, and have you ever borne the sting of a bee, or the drawing of a tooth, without uttering a sound? Ah, you have! Then I would like to see you, and shake hands! Grandma Gray woke presently, and saw Flaxie shaking with sobs, her head buried in the cushion of Uncle Prim's chair. You may be sure she was not long in learning what the matter was, and in calling Kitty from the kitchen to bathe the poor puffed wrist with arnica. "Ah, thin, and a bee always knows what is swate," said Irish Kate, bathing the wrist softly. "The blessed little darling!" murmured grandma, not referring, of course, to the bee. "To think you shouldn't have made one bit of noise to disturb your grandmother! I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd screamed with all your might." "But, grandma, I promised you I wouldn't make a noise." "So you did, precious child. I forgot that." "And I promised Auntie Prim I'd stay in this room. Oh, how I did want to go out and scream!" "Little Mary," said gentle Grandma Gray, taking Flaxie in her arms, "I'm proud of you, my dear!" "Ah, wasn't it worth all Flaxie had suffered to hear such words as these? When had anybody been proud of her before?" The pain was over, but the little wrist was still "a sight to behold" when Auntie Prim came home with her calico dress and "various things" in her bag; and grandma said, in a ringing voice,-- "Mrs. Prim, we have a little girl here who is quite a heroine. Yes, a heroine, I say!" "Do you mean our little Mary? Why, what has she done?" asked auntie, coolly, as she put away her bonnet and parasol. But she wasn't quite so cool after she had heard the story. "Why, you good, high-minded little girl! A grown woman couldn't have been braver," said she, and actually kissed Flaxie. "It is a great pity I bound you by a promise; I needn't have done it. Some little girls can be trusted without any promises," she added, looking at grandma with an approving smile. Flaxie blushed for joy. She had always had a vague feeling of being looked down upon by Auntie Prim, as a wild little girl who was "_so_ fond of running"; and now to have this stern, good woman praise her so! "But," said auntie, unrolling the dotted brown calico and laying it across her lap, "how came that bee in _here_, with the doors shut and the fly-screens all in?" As she spoke, _two_ bees buzzed and circled slowly above her head. In her surprise I must confess Mrs. Prim screamed. Flaxie was delighted. Mrs. Prim, however, was a little ashamed, for the minister, Mr. Lee, at that moment entered the door. "Ah, what's this?" said he, laughing; "are you hiding away my bees?" "_Your_ bees?" cried Mrs. Prim; and she looked up at Mr. Lee, who stood, hat in hand, his bald head shining, as Flaxie had once fancied, like the ivory ball on Julia's parasol. "Yes, ma'am, _my_ bees! They swarmed this afternoon, and your gardener told me he suspected some of them had come down here, and settled in your chimney. He saw them flying over the roof of the house." Mrs. Prim was a good woman, and had a high respect for her pastor. It seemed very strange and very improper that she should set a trap for his bees; but she laughed, and they all laughed, and she said Stillwater, the gardener, should go out on the roof through the sky-window, and look down the parlor chimney, and see what was going on inside. Stillwater did so, and reported that a fine family of bees had begun housekeeping in the chimney. "Yes," said Mr. Prim, who came in just then, "and they are making themselves too much at home altogether! Why, they think they have a right not only to the chimney, but to the whole parlor, and mean to creep out around the edges of the fireboard, and peep at us whenever they choose. "But they needn't have stung my good little Mary, and they must not sting her again," said Mr. Lee, patting her head. He had been very much pleased of late by Flaxie's attentive behavior at church; and he thought now, as he looked at her fine young face, that she was improving faster in character than any other little girl he knew in Laurel Grove. And to prevent further mischief from the bees, the fireboard was fastened in very firmly. Uncle Prim did this with little wads of gilt paper; and even Auntie Prim, who was so particular, declared no one could have made it look better. "I'm glad you like my beehive, ladies," said Uncle Prim, with a low bow. "And now I hope the bees will do their duty, and fill it with the very nicest honey, from the very sweetest flowers that grow in Primrose garden; and Mr. Lee is heartily welcome to every drop!" "Thank you, sir," returned Mr. Lee, "but if the honey is going to belong to me, I shall take pleasure in presenting it to little Mary. She has well earned it by being such a martyr this afternoon." Flaxie had no clear idea what a martyr meant, but was sure from Mr. Lee's tone it must be something he approved. Therefore, she ran home in the finest spirits, to relate the stirring events of the afternoon to her family, and the two admiring grandmothers. "And mamma," asked she, as soon as she saw her mother alone, "may I give the honey to Sadie Stockwell next Christmas? Let me go my own self, please, with Blackdrop and the little sleigh, and carry it." "Perhaps so, my dear. But it is quite uncertain where you will be next Christmas," replied Mrs. Gray, who had strong reason to think she might be in Washington. Flaxie, however, had forgotten all about Washington. "Oh, perhaps I'm going to Hilltop," thought she. "But that wouldn't be quite so splendid as to have Milly come to my house. If she can come to my house next winter, and go to school to Miss Pike in the pink chamber, I'll be perfectly happy." The little girl's dreams that night were of going to some wonderful country she had never seen before. It must have been somewhere in fairyland, for "Everything was strange and new, And honey-bees had lost their stings, And horses were born with eagles' wings." CHAPTER X. THE LAST FEATHER. Things happen to us sometimes that are even better than we have dreamed. To be with Miss Pike in the pink chamber again had seemed happiness to Flaxie; but to be with Miss Pike in Washington, going everywhere and seeing everything, this was bliss indeed! Dr. Gray was elected to Congress; Preston was sent to boarding-school; Julia stayed with Grandma Gray at Mrs. Prim's; and Mrs. Gray went with her husband and the three youngest children to board in Washington for the winter. Flaxie had never before seen so beautiful a city, though she had travelled much more than ordinary girls of her age. For days she never tired of looking down from the window of her fourth-story room, upon the clean, white avenue, and watching the horses, carriages, and people passing to and fro. High, high above the heads of the people was a network of telegraph wires glistening in the sun, and Flaxie thought if the wires would only go higher yet, and bind the stars and the earth together, how grand it would be. She called this chamber her "sky-room," and shared it with her "favorite friend," Miss Pike. At the same hotel were Mrs. Garland and Kittyleen, and Kittyleen's cousin Cora, a girl of Flaxie's own age. Truly, as little Ethel had said, Kittyleen did "go everywhere"; but who would have thought of her following the Grays to Washington? But then, this was Mrs. Garland's native city, and she had come here to spend part of the winter, and take lessons in painting. Kittyleen was just as pretty, and dear, and sweet, as ever,--and just as troublesome. Her room was next Miss Pike's, and of course Miss Pike or Flaxie could not stir without her following them, for Kittyleen adored Flaxie; and besides, her mamma was always busy painting. She followed them to the Capitol, when they went to look at the statues and pictures; she followed them to the stores, when they went shopping. Little Ethel never cared to go anywhere without her mother, and Phil had some larger boys for playmates; but Kittyleen felt that _she_ belonged to _Flaxie_. Mrs. Garland laughed, and said she ought to be tied to Flaxie's side by a blue ribbon, like a little Skye terrier. And here I think I must tell you how Kittyleen went to the White House to the President's reception, where she was as much out of place as a humming-bird in a flock of crows. But it was not the child's fault. Her mother was very thoughtless, or she would not have asked Miss Pike to take her; and Miss Pike had no idea what she was doing, or she would not have consented. But first I shall be obliged to speak of Flaxie's vanity. You may have observed long ago that she was fond of looking in the glass; and I regret to say the habit still continued. In most respects she was constantly improving; but Doctor Papa said he really feared the nice new clothes she wore at Washington had a bad effect upon her mind. The strange ladies at the hotel sometimes said in her hearing as she passed by, "Who is that pretty little girl? Isn't she lovely?" This was unfortunate; for now she never went anywhere, and saw people looking at her, but she fancied they were thinking, "Isn't she lovely?" And on the Saturday afternoon when she was going to the President's reception she wished to look as pretty as possible, so that the people at the White House, and perhaps the President himself, might admire her. "Mamma," said she, "may I wear my crushed-strawberry dress, and my long-button gloves, and my bonnet with the red bird?" "Oh, no, my dear, they are quite unsuitable. I am very sorry now that I promised to take you at all, for I'm afraid there will be a great crowd." "But I never saw the President, mamma, and I like a great crowd. And I'll be _so_ careful of my best bonnet!" pleaded Flaxie in a whining tone, very irritating to her mother, who was dressing in haste. It sounded like the troublesome teasing Flaxie of two or three years ago. "My little daughter," said Mrs. Gray, pausing as she pinned her collar, "you cannot believe that I know better than you do how you should dress? Very well, I will allow you to wear your best bonnet on this condition: If that scarlet bird gets broken, you are not to have another bird this winter, no, nor even a feather!" Flaxie hesitated. Much as she wished to look "lovely," she did not like to do anything her mamma disapproved. Still, how _could_ she hurt her bonnet, just wearing it to a party? "Make haste, child, here are Miss Pike and Kittyleen," said Mrs. Gray. And the little girl finally laid aside her every-day hat she had been holding in her hand, put on her best bonnet with a blushing, downcast face, and walked slowly behind her mother. Little Ethel threw kisses after them, though quite disturbed in her small mind because "Kittyleen went everywhere," while she and Phil had to stay with Mrs. Fry. Mrs. Gray and Miss Pike did not consider what a foolish thing they were doing, till they walked up the gravel path to the White House, and saw the long line of carriages. "This is no place for children; it is a great crowd," said Mrs. Gray, nervously. Mounting the front steps, they saw seated on one side of the large entrance hall a band of musicians, all in uniform, playing bugles, fifes, cornets, and drums. There were no children to be seen, and none of the vast number of people who had entered, or were entering the hall, seemed to take the slightest notice of Flaxie's beautiful clothes. They all stood in a line, three or four abreast, and if they could be said to be looking at anything it was at the beautiful windows straight before them,--not glass windows, the panes were lovely gems of various shapes and sizes, and nearly all the colors of the rainbow; and of course you could not look through them into the White House. "Keep fast hold of my hand, Mary," said Mrs. Gray. "The people are crowding in behind us." "Keep fast hold of my hand, Kittyleen," said Miss Pike, "or I shall lose you." "Where are we going?" asked little Kittyleen, who might have been going up in a balloon for all she knew to the contrary. "We are trying to go through a door, but you can't see the door, there are so many people ahead of us." "Well, when we come to the door and get through it, then we shall see the President, sha'n't we?" said Flaxie. "But oh, dear, I don't care so much about him as I did! It takes so long, and the people push so." By this time, the little party of four were wedged in very tight. They could not move one step, except as they were pushed. Flaxie's crushed-strawberry dress was crushed quite out of sight, and nothing was to be seen of her but two bewildered blue eyes, a tuft of flaxen hair, and--sad to relate--a broken-winged bird of Paradise! And where was little Kittyleen? By looking down, down, among the ladies' cloaks and skirts, Miss Pike could just espy the top of the little girl's bonnet, and the end of her nose. "It isn't very comfortable, _is_ it, Kittyleen?" said Miss Pike, pitying, but not knowing how to help her. "No'm, it isn't _very_ com-fi-a-ble," replied the darling, catching her breath. The crowd had been moving very, very slowly, but now it stopped altogether. "The people at the front, who got in first, are halting to shake hands with the President," said a man in the crowd; "and we must wait for them to move on." They waited perhaps fifteen minutes; and all the while the people behind could not stand still, but kept pushing. "Don't they know we _can't_ move? Why do they push?" grumbled Flaxie, indignantly. "Do tell them to keep still, mamma; tell the people behind to keep still." Mrs. Gray only laughed. "Mamma, they don't obey the Golden Rule, or they wouldn't push so and hurt." Flaxie was always talking about the Golden Rule. "My daughter, we are here and must bear it. Try to be brave and not cry." "Oh, mamma, I don't mean to cry; but they squeeze so hard that they squeeze the tears right out of my eyes. I just know I shall die!" Flaxie's wail was piteous, indeed; but it was little Kittyleen--ever so much shorter and younger and frailer; dear, patient Kittyleen--who was in far more danger of being hurt. She must have been almost suffocated by this time, for absolutely nothing, not even the crown of her bonnet, was to be seen. In real alarm Miss Pike exclaimed, "How shall I get this child up to give her some air?" "What, a little child here? Can't you lift her up, ma'am, and set her on my shoulder?" said a gentleman just ahead. Mrs. Gray and Miss Pike plunged down for Kittyleen, and succeeded in drawing her up from her dangerous hiding-place among the cloaks and skirts, and setting her aloft upon the kind stranger's shoulders. She gave several little shuddering gasps, and her eyes were full of tears; but when Miss Pike asked, "Darling, how do you feel now?" she answered, with a pathetic little smile,-- "I feel more com-fi-a-ble." But Flaxie was still crying. It was not only for the discomfort. She saw now what a silly girl she had been to wear her best clothes; and the broken wing of the bird of Paradise dangling before her eyes added the last feather to her weight of misery. The crowd began to move again by half-inch steps. The open door was reached at last. Now they were fairly inside the White House; yet still there was one room to cross, in order to reach the President. But Flaxie's feelings were greatly changed. She no longer expected the President to admire, or even look at her. Why should he, so forlorn and dilapidated as she was, and so very, very small? But she had little time for these humble reflections. As they entered the door of the White House a current of warm air met them, and Mrs. Gray grew instantly faint. A strange lady in the crowd caught a fan from another strange lady, and gave it to Miss Pike. Miss Pike fanned Mrs. Gray a moment, and then she and some one else dragged her out from the narrow line of people who were pushing toward the next room, and extended her upon the floor before an open window. Mrs. Gray was perfectly colorless, and her eyes were closed. "She has lost her consciousness," said some one, just as Flaxie broke through the crowd and rushed toward her. "Oh, mamma, mamma, _are_ you dead? Speak to me, speak to me, mamma," wailed the child. And Mrs. Gray opened her eyes, and smiled. She was obliged to smile in order to reassure her little daughter, but she was of course too weak yet to go back to the dreadful crowd. She needed and must have rest and quiet and fresh air. "Children, do you care much about seeing the President?" asked Miss Pike. "He looks very much like other men; he doesn't wear a crown." "Oh, _doesn't_ wear a crown?" echoed little Kittyleen. Perhaps she had fancied he did, or, at any rate, that he was in some way a very grand and radiant being. "Well, _I_ don't want to see him,--not with my things all torn off and looking like this," said Flaxie, in deep discouragement. She was nearly as anxious to leave the White House as she had been to enter it. But when and how could they ever get out? "Ladies," said a gentleman who had left the crowd in disgust, and stood by the wall with his arms folded,--"ladies, if you are ill and want to go home, I can put you out of the window. Will you allow me?" It sounded very funny, and Miss Pike laughed; but he was quite in earnest. "Would you like to have me put you out, madam? Here, mount this stool." "Indeed, I would like it; but can you do it, sir?" asked Miss Pike. "I'm pretty heavy." The polite gentleman answered by lifting her up by the shoulders, so that she found no trouble in climbing out of the low window, and alighting upon the piazza. "Oh, thank you, sir," said she. "Now I will stand here, and help down the other lady and the children." This was easily managed; and soon all the little party were safely drawing long breaths, and laughing in the pure air outside; and Miss Pike said, "Here we are at the back of the house, and if the servants should spy us they would take us for a set of tramps. But, Mrs. Gray, I don't care for that, I'm so very thankful to have got you and Kittyleen out alive." They hastened down the steps of the back piazza, and got around to the front door, and into the gravel path, and thence to the street, as fast as possible. When Doctor Papa came home to early dinner, his wife related the adventure. "We made a great mistake in taking the children," said she, "but dear little Kittyleen was wonderfully patient and reasonable." Flaxie twisted uneasily in her chair, feeling that all praise of the little one was a rebuke to herself. "Yes, papa, Kittyleen was very good. I don't see how she _could_ be so good. But you see I--why, I had a dreadful time. I was so afraid about mamma. Why, I wasn't sure when I saw her there on the floor that she was really alive! She lay there as much as ten minutes, I think, without any _conscience_ at all!" "Oh, not half a minute," laughed Mrs. Gray. And then she laughed again as she held up a fan, a pretty painted one with ivory sticks. "I'm afraid the owner of this fan will think I _never_ had any conscience! It was given to Miss Pike to fan me when I fainted, and we couldn't tell who gave it, and so we had to bring it home." "You might have left it with one of the porters at the front door," said Doctor Papa. "Oh, we never thought of that! What a pity!" As they were going down to dinner, Flaxie saw her now ruined bird of Paradise lying in the basket of rubbish, ready for Lena the chambermaid to carry away. Her mother had put it there without saying a word. Flaxie knew she had lost her pretty bird and could not have another one, "no, not even a feather"; and though it seemed a hard punishment, she felt that it was just. A few days after this all the Grays and Miss Pike, with Kittyleen and her cousin, Cora Garland, went to Mount Vernon to see the tomb and the old home of General Washington. It was delightful; and the next spring, when Congress had risen and all these gay times were only a memory, Flaxie never tired of telling Grandma Gray how she had played on the tiny piano that once belonged to Lady Washington, and how "just exactly" it had sounded like her own doll's piano in the back parlor at home. Grandma Gray listened kindly to these reminiscences, and so indeed did all Flaxie's playmates at Laurel Grove, though I wonder they did not sometimes smile at the constant refrain, "Last winter, when I was at Washington." One little story, the adventures of the runaway rings, you will find in the next chapter, in Flaxie's own words, as she related it to Grandma Gray. CHAPTER XI. THE RUNAWAY RINGS.--FLAXIE'S STORY. "Oh, dear, the old man is out! Why, grandma, don't you know what I mean? I mean the rain-man! He always comes out of that little weather-house on the mantel, and looks around, you know, before it begins to rain. "And there, just see, it's pouring this minute, and there are lots of people going by with umbrellas. It makes me think of that time last winter, when it rained so hard, and I lost those rings. Do you want to hear about it? Well, you just lie still and I'll tell you, and we'll have a beautiful time. Isn't it a perfect state of bliss to think I've got home, and can take care of you? "But I did like to be at Washington. It didn't seem like winter, with the rain a-raining, and the sun a-shining, and no snow hardly ever, and the streets as clean as a floor. "Besides, you know how I love Miss Pike; she's my favorite friend. And a hotel is splendid, there are so many children in it. Only they're not all alike. Some are ever so nice, and some _would_ be nice if they didn't have temper. "Now, there was Cora Garland, Kittyleen's cousin. She had a temper like this: see me walk across the floor, grandma, with my head thrown back,--so. _That_ was the kind of temper _she_ had. But she didn't have it very often, and she was good to Ethel and Kittyleen and Phil. I liked Cora; I mean, almost always I did. And I never saw a girl with so many rings and earrings and gold bracelets and things. Did you ever see an honest, true diamond, grammy, hard enough to scratch on the window-pane, and bright enough to put your eyes out--almost? Well, one of Cora's rings was a diamond. I suppose it came out of a mine. And one of her rings was red; I forget the name of it; fiery, rosy red, and all of a twinkle, with a row of pearls around it, like little white currants. "Well, I used to borrow Cora's rings and bracelets sometimes, and she used to borrow these old silver bangles. I don't see what she wanted of _them_. You see they are just bands of silver, with five-cent pieces dangling down! But mamma didn't approve of my wearing Cora's things. "'Little Mary, I don't approve of borrowed finery,' said she. "So she wanted me to take them back. And I always did take them back; but sometimes I forgot, and borrowed them over again. I don't remember now how I happened to forget. "Oh, I _thought_ I wasn't telling the story right. We lived up, up, up, away up on the fourth floor! Did _you_ ever go up in an elevator? You wouldn't like it, but I did. Our room was large and ever so pretty, with two windows in it, where you could look right out on the avenue. And there was a fireman, who used to come in and fix the fire in the grate. "I slept with Miss Pike, and sometimes I wouldn't wake in the morning till ever so late, and she would go down to breakfast without me. But she didn't care; she said she didn't expect me to get up when I was asleep, for how could I, you know? And by and by she always came back and curled my hair, and let me go down to breakfast with Ethel and Kittyleen and Phil and Cora. "But before I'd go down, and before Miss Pike would come back, and while I'd be asleep, the fireman would come in with his bucket and fix the fire. I ought to tell about this, so you'll understand better when I get to the rings. You never knew whether there was coal-dust on the fireman's face or not, for he was always as black as could be, and couldn't be any blacker. His name was Lijar, just as if he came out of the Bible and had been fed by ravens; but somehow I didn't think he was very pious. No, I seemed to think he was rather _un_-pious, because he rolled his eyes around so much, and kept laughing to himself. "And there I'd be fast asleep on the bed; but sometimes I'd just peep out under my eyelashes, and he'd be taking down some of the pretty things from the mantel and looking at them and laughing to himself. I thought it was very impolite. He oughtn't to have touched a single thing, now ought he, with his hands so black and dirty? But I never once thought of his stealing,--_not then_. "Well, one night, after I'd borrowed those rings back again,--the diamond ring and the red one with white currants round it,--I put both the rings in a blue box, or I thought I did, and set the box on the bureau right under the looking-glass. And Lena stood at the door and saw me. "Why, I forgot to tell you about Lena! She was the chambermaid, that went around all day with a pink handkerchief tied on her head, and a broom, and a pail. She was French. She always walked into my room before I was up, same as Lijar did. And she laughed, and shook the feather-duster at me sometimes. I suppose she wished I wasn't there on the bed, for she wanted to take off the sheets. She didn't know how to talk the American language very well, and I didn't blame her; for of course French people have to learn to talk, just like babies. But she was a pretty girl, and I supposed she was a great deal better than Lijar. She told me one day she could say her prayers in French, and so I never once thought of her stealing,--_not then_. "That night--the night I lost the rings--she was there in the hall, and I was coming along, waltzing a waltz. She set down her broom and pail, and took those rings and put them on her little finger. I let her do it. And she said, 'Oh, _wee, wee_,' and kept smiling. "I remember it was in the evening, and I had just come up from playing in the public parlor, and I had on my crushed-strawberry dress and an orange in my hand, and Lena said I was as pretty as her little sister, and I asked if her little sister wore curls. And she said, 'No, she don't ever does.' That was the best Lena could talk. "Then she gave me back the rings, and I was going right to bed, so I put them in the box on the bureau,--or I thought I did,--and Lena stood at the door and looked at me the whole time. I remember there was pink cotton in the box, and the sweetest picture on the cover. It was Miss Pike's box; she has got it now. "Then I went to bed, and Miss Pike set up the screen between me and the gas-light, and she read, and I went to sleep. How I did sleep! I'd been playing blind-man's-buff, and was so tired; and I never woke up next morning till after Lijar had been in to fix the fire, and Lena had been in to bring the clean towels. The first thing I knew I opened my eyes, and there were Miss Pike and Cora and Kittyleen all laughing at me. "'Come, you little sleepy girl,' said Miss Pike; and she kissed me on both cheeks. I never once thought about the rings, but got up and let her curl my hair. She said it was Washington's birthday, and curled a curl and laughed, but I knew Kittyleen and Cora were very hungry waiting. "After breakfast they came up with me, and so did Ethel and Phil. And I remember how it rained, harder than it does now, ever so much. And we stood by that beautiful window, and looked out to see the soldiers parade. "They didn't mind the rain, dripping on their pretty caps and uniforms and white gloves. First they put out one foot, and then they put out the other foot, and at the same time, to the music. Cora said it was like wooden dolls, with joints in their knees. "She didn't see that I hadn't any rings on my fingers, and I didn't see it myself. We were watching the soldiers on the street, and the people on the pavement following on after the soldiers. The people all had umbrellas. You couldn't see their heads; all you could see was umbrellas. "The children wanted to dress up their dolls like soldiers. They were girl dolls, with Kate Greenaway dresses, but Miss Pike said they could be woman's-rights soldiers, why not? And she is so kind! She made some shiny black soldier-caps, and we tucked up the dolls' curls; and so cunning and brave as they looked! "Afterwards I remember Miss Pike went to the next room to read to Mrs. Garland, and I waited for her; and the children went down to lunch with mamma. But oh, when they were all gone, then I thought of those rings, and went to the box on the bureau. But just think, grandma, they weren't there! There was the pink cotton in the box, but not a ring to be seen! "A perfectly awful feeling went over me. I know I must have turned pale, for I had to pour my handkerchief wringing wet with cologne. Why, just you think! Did you ever have anything so terrible happen to _you_? Why, those rings cost more money than I had in this world! And Cora's grandfather gave her the red ring, that died! "I hunted and hunted, under the bed and under the rugs, and pulled the things out of the drawers. And I knew papa would have to pay for them, and he'd think I was very expensive! He would have to cure ever so many sick people for it, and ride in the night for days and days to pay for those rings! 'Specially the beautiful red one with white currants round it. And she thinking so much of her grandpa that died! I knew she'd never forgive me, but always go around with her head thrown back; and how I should feel! "I wished then I'd obeyed mamma, and not borrowed what didn't belong to me. It was just awful to have mamma and Miss Pike know it. I wished I needn't be obliged to tell." CHAPTER XII. THE HUNT.--FLAXIE'S STORY, CONTINUED. "When Miss Pike came in from reading to Kittyleen's mother I was crying in the bed. "First I wanted to say I was crying about my silver mug that Kittyleen dented all up, hitting it against the grate; and so I was--a little. I could always cry about that! But my truly tears were for the rings, and I wouldn't let myself be so mean as not to tell the truth. Besides, I wanted Miss Pike to help me find them, you know. "Then I told her; I _made_ myself tell. And she said, 'Ah, little Mary, you've been borrowing again!' "I knew she was displeased, because she was so cool in her manner, and said 'little Mary.' "'Oh, please don't blame me,' said I. And I told her I was sure Lena had stolen the rings, for she knew where they were, and saw me put them in the box. 'Oh, little Mary, is that all the reason you have for saying so?' said she. She thought it wasn't any reason at all, unless I knew it was true. "'But I do know it, Miss Pike,' said I. 'Lena always wanted those rings for her little sister; and when she came in this morning, and found me asleep, she could take them as well as not. I always thought she had a horrid face; she looks as if she'd steal!' "I spoke so sure and certain that I expected Miss Pike would believe me and ring the bell for Lena; and I was going to hide under the bed when Lena came in. But instead of that, she only stood there looking displeased, and said 'Oh, little Mary' again. "Then she talked about the Golden Rule, and of course I didn't want to hear about _that_, not just then. 'Was it kind to s'pect people,' she said, 'was it right?' "And I knew in my heart it wasn't, but I thought Lena took those rings just the same. "Then Miss Pike began to hunt everywhere; in all my pockets, and in my doll's pockets, and in the waste-basket, and in the books, and under the table. The more she hunted the worse I felt. Every time she didn't find the rings I kept thinking she'd say, 'Little Mary,' again, and talk about 'hoping this will be a lesson to you, little Mary.' But she didn't. She was just as sweet! She went with me to early dinner, and let me have lady-fingers and ice-cream, and three nuts and six raisins, just as she always did. "And after dinner she hunted again. She took all the clothes out of the closet, and shook them and put them back again; and oh, I don't know what she didn't do, and it was no use. "'Oh, _shall_ I have to tell Cora?' said I. And she said yes. I'd have to tell her and mamma; but I needn't do it quite yet; not till we'd hunted a little longer. "Then she kissed me as if she loved me after all, on both cheeks; and I sat down and read 'Wonders of the Deep,' and cried. "I remember how homely Lena looked to me when I met her in the hall, and how I despised her. I couldn't eat much supper, and I didn't drink a drop of water, because I'd been reading 'Wonders of the Deep.' Now, water is all full of little live things. I never used to know it, you see. I used to swallow 'em, and not think. "But no matter for the insects now. I was talking about despising Lena; but you don't know yet whether she was bad or not, grandma. I'm telling it by degrees, to make it sound like a story. "Now we will go back to Lijar. Something queer happened next morning. He didn't come to fix the fire till it all went out, and then a new man came. Lijar didn't come at all. Miss Pike asked where he was, and the new man said, 'In the lock up.' He said he had been put in the lock-up for stealing. Miss Pike thought it was very strange and couldn't believe it, because she always liked Lijar. 'What did he steal?' she asked. And the new man said, 'A gold watch and chain.' "'Then he stole those rings,' said I, as quick as a flash. Miss Pike couldn't hush me. I spoke right out before the fireman, and told how Lijar took things off the mantel, and looked at them with his dirty fingers when I was asleep. "I said I was so sorry _now_ to think I'd s'pected Lena, for I _knew_ Lena was a good girl, and 'twas Lijar that stole all the time. "'Do please write a note to the President,' said I, 'and ask him to make Lijar give back those beautiful rings.' "But Miss Pike never stirred. She said, 'Little Mary, you don't know any more about Lijar to-day than you knew about Lena yesterday. You're hasty again.' 'I don't think I'm hasty, at all,' said I. 'Lijar is a horrid thief, or what did they put him in the lock-up for? If he'd steal a big watch, wouldn't he steal little rings? If he'd steal one thing wouldn't he steal everything?' said I. 'And _I_ think the President ought to know it.' "But Miss Pike didn't pay the least attention, only laughed. You know she has such good judgment, and Doctor Papa says so himself. I was glad afterward that she didn't write to the President, for mother said it wasn't the President's business to go to the lock-up, and I suppose a letter would only have bothered him. Besides, if he _had_ gone,--well, just you be patient, grandma! "Miss Pike curled my hair, and I went down to breakfast with the children; I wasn't to say anything to Cora,--not yet. Miss Pike was going to hunt again. "I thought she was a very queer woman to keep hunting when she _knew_ it was no use. I came back after breakfast feeling very bad, for it seemed as if Cora had been looking at my hands all the while I was eating. I opened the door of our room, and what do you think? There stood Miss Pike, smiling, and she had both those rings on a knitting-needle, holding them up for me to see. "'Look at your runaway rings,' said she. I screamed right out, I was so happy. "It wasn't Lijar, and it wasn't Lena. "Miss Pike had found them in that room, and you can't guess where. "She had hunted in that bureau five hundred and sixty times, and taken the things all out. But this time she took out one of the drawers, and sat down on the floor to look it over. It was the next to the upper drawer that she took out, and she happened to look up at the empty place in the bureau where the drawer belonged, and there she saw something shining through a crack. It was those rings, both of them. They had got pushed into the crack and stuck there,--stuck on a splinter. "Miss Pike said of course I had put them in the upper drawer, instead of the box. It was because I was so sleepy. I don't see how she ever found them, though, and she don't see; for they were sticking to that splinter very tight, and might have stuck there for years and years, if she hadn't happened to sit on the floor and look up, and catch them shining. "Oh, grandma, I tell you there wasn't a feeling in me that wasn't happy! I went right into Mrs. Garland's room, and laughed right out before I could speak. "'Here they are, Cora, your runaway rings,' said I. She didn't know what I meant till I told her how terribly they'd been lost. And I said I'd never borrow them any more. I didn't want to be an expensive girl, and my papa such a poor doctor. And Mrs. Garland laughed and said, 'That is right,' only she thought my father wasn't such a _very_ poor doctor. "I wished Mrs. Garland had said Kittyleen should stop borrowing, too. For Kittyleen--oh, well, I try to be patient with little Kittyleen! "I met Lena coming out of our room, smiling the pleasantest smile. "'I did been to your room, Miss Mary,' said she. She didn't tell about bringing a bunch of violets, but that was what she brought. She called them 'vi'lets,' when she gave them to Miss Pike to put in water for me. Why, it made me feel so cruel and unkind and ashamed to smell those 'vi'lets.' She bought them herself, Lena did. Oh, she never knew what I'd said about her stealing those rings for her little sister! "There, that's pretty near the end. Oh, no, I forgot about Lijar. He hadn't stolen a watch, or touched one. He hadn't stolen anything. And he hadn't been put in the lock-up, either. Perhaps somebody had been put in the lock-up, but it wasn't Lijar. Lijar had broken his leg, and that was all that ailed _him_. "Miss Pike went to his house to see him, and I went with her. It was a queer old house full of children,--oh, ever so many children. Lijar was in awful pain, so Miss Pike said, but he didn't groan any, and of course he couldn't possibly look pale, so you wouldn't have known how much he was in pain. "He thanked us for the oranges, and his wife said he was always good and kind, and then she put her apron to her eyes and cried, and told Miss Pike she'd rather be hurt herself than to have her 'old man' hurt. Then I felt cruel and unkind again, to think how I'd called him horrid, when he wasn't horrid at all, and it was another man that stole. "There, grandma, I wouldn't tell this story to anybody but you. But it's the very last time I'll talk so about people, unless I know it's certainly true. If Miss Pike _didn't_ say, 'I hope this will be a lesson to you, little Mary,' it will be a lesson all the same, I just about know. "And now, grandma, if you can spare me, I must go out and talk with mamma and Miss Pike about Ethel's party. Yes'm, it will be Ethel's birthday to-morrow, the 20th of March, and ever since we got home she has been wanting a party. Mamma wasn't going to let her have one. She said it would be too much trouble, for her friends are such little bits of things that their mammas would have to come, too, to keep them in order; and then _I_ said, 'Oh, mamma, if you are willing, you could let me ask _my_ little girls to a party, the little girls of _my_ age! Ethel likes them just as well as _her_ little girls, and she'd be ever so pleased; and she does want a party so much!' "Mamma thought it was a queer idea, but I'm pretty sure she'll consent. It isn't for _my_ sake, you know, it's for Ethel, and we can call it Ethel's kettledrum." CHAPTER XIII. ETHEL'S KETTLEDRUM. Not long after this, "homely Miss Pike" sat by the window in the back parlor, drawing her thread in and out, in and out, of a piece of pretty pink silk. Little Kittyleen, who had returned from Washington, and as usual spent most of her time at Dr. Gray's, had been lying on the rug, gazing up wonderingly at Miss Pike's large, wide mouth. At last she broke forth suddenly, as if thinking aloud,-- "Most everybody has whiskers, _don't_ they, Miss Pike?" "Why, have _I_ any whiskers, Kittyleen?" "No'm; but you've got some growing." Miss Pike laughed softly to herself. She had always known she was very plain, and of course she was aware of the rather thick, dark beard on her upper lip. Kittyleen's little speech amused her, and yet the tears sprang to her eyes. "If I had had my way about it," thought she, "I should have had a form like this perfect wax doll I am dressing, and very much such a pink and white face, with wavy, soft hair, the color of old gold; sweet, red lips, straight nose, not a spot or a freckle anywhere. Then the whole world would have admired me, and I fancy it might be pleasant to be admired. "Ah, but the One who made me knew what is best! If I can't be beautiful, I can try to be good; and I'm not going to cry about my homely body, for I'm sure to leave it behind me one of these days when I'm called up to Heaven." Then with a happy smile the excellent young lady took the tape-measure out of her work-basket and measured the slender, round waist of "little miss," as she called the doll. "Oh, Miss Pike, where did you get that? She's larger than my Princess Aurora Arozarena, and I do believe she's handsomer," cried Flaxie, rushing in from the kitchen, where she had been stoning raisins. "Ethel told me you were dressing an elegant doll, and I couldn't wait another minute to see it." "Well, I'm glad you think she's handsome," replied Miss Pike, trimming the silk basque carefully. "I think myself she's almost a perfect beauty. I fell in love with her last winter when we were in Washington, and bought her instead of buying myself a new bonnet." "Why, Miss Pike, how funny! I didn't know young ladies ever wanted dolls. Though why not?" she thought next minute. Could anybody in the whole world be so "grown up" as not to love that exquisite "little miss," who sat up in Miss Pike's lap with the most knowing of smiles, as if she were just going to speak? "Oh, yes, young ladies love dolls," said Miss Pike, embracing the waxen image tenderly, as she fitted on the pink basque. "But I think I shall give up mine. In fact, I did not intend her for myself. I thought I would buy her and give her to some poor little girl, who never knew what it was to have a good time. And now I'm hurrying to get her dressed in season for Ethel's party. Don't you think she'll look well there? And of course there'll be some poor little girl among your guests, or perhaps a sick little girl; and I'll give _her_ the doll." "Oh, is that it?" said Flaxie, more surprised than ever. She had not issued invitations yet for her party,--or Ethel's party,--and Miss Pike's words set her to thinking. Why, there were no poor little girls or any sick ones who ever went to parties! The children she played with were all well and happy. They had pleasant homes--not quite as pleasant as Flaxie's--and plenty to eat and wear. But of course there were other children in town. "Let me think. Oh, there's Sadie Stockwell. _She_ is a poor girl." Sadie was not exactly sick, but she was lame. Something dreadful had happened to her when she was a baby, and her head seemed to be driven down between her shoulders, as if she had no neck. She made you think of a flower growing on a leaf-stalk without any stem. Her face was sweet, but sad and pale. She was shorter than most little girls of her age, and walked slowly and painfully with a pair of crutches. Sadie was a good little girl. Why wasn't she ever invited to parties? Flaxie did not know why, only "somehow she never was." She lived ever so far away from the other girls; perhaps that was one reason. Brother Preston was in the shed with Rover, cracking walnuts for to-morrow's candy. Sister Julia was in the kitchen, finishing the raisins Flaxie had been stoning for cake; and Dora Whalen stood by the ironing-table, ironing the finest and best damask table-cloth for Ethel's party, though the table-cloth might have been as coarse as the pony's red blanket and it would have been all the same to the baby. Flaxie walked about from room to room in deep thought. Finally, she paused at the open door of her mother's chamber, and looked in. On the floor beside Mrs. Gray stood a basket piled with very small dolls, which she was dressing with strips of bright ribbon, and bows of narrow taste. One of these tiny dolls was to be placed under each guest's plate, and carried home as a memento of Ethel's first party. "Mamma," asked Flaxie, still in a brown study, "how many dollies did you buy, and how many girls am I going to invite?" "Well, Mary, here are twenty dollies. I thought you and Ethel would each want one, and I meant you should ask eighteen little girls." "Could I ask one more, mamma?" "Eighteen is a large number, Mary; isn't it enough? Oh, do you want little Kittyleen?" "Kittyleen, mamma? Why, no, indeed! She'd spoil everything. I don't want Kittyleen! I mean Ethel wouldn't want her; it's Ethel's kettledrum, of course." Flaxie was careful to say repeatedly, "It is Ethel's kettledrum," lest she should forget it was not her own. "Well, dear, who is the 'one more,' if not Kittyleen?" Flaxie did not answer directly. "Mamma," said she, "what do you suppose Miss Pike said? She said _of course_ I'd have some poor girls and sick girls. Must I, mamma?" Mrs. Gray felt a sudden pricking of conscience. Why hadn't she thought of that herself? "Poor girls, Mary? Sick girls? Why, _of course_, as Miss Pike says, they are the very ones to enjoy your party, my daughter." "Then, mamma, please buy another dolly, and I'll ask Sadie Stockwell. She won't take up a great deal of room. She never goes anywhere except to school, and never has any good times. I don't know what we could do with her, though," added Flaxie, with a puzzled look, "and I'm afraid the other girls won't like it, for she can't play." "But the girls _must_ like it, my daughter. You have all done wrong not to invite her to your parties long ago, for she is an excellent child, and never rough or ill-mannered. As for entertaining her, you and Julia can talk to her and show her your playthings and picture-books, can't you? I'm sure, Mary, you'll all be happier if you have Sadie." "So I think, too," cried Flaxie, and skipped away joyfully, her light curls flying as she ran. Sober little Sadie, who lived with eight brothers and sisters in an old, worn-out house, dressed in old, worn-out clothes, and looked old and worn-out herself,--how her solemn little face brightened at the unexpected honor of an invitation to Flaxie's--no, _Ethel's_--party! Mrs. Stockwell, too, was very much gratified, especially as Mrs. Gray had sent Sadie one of Flaxie's dresses, a pretty blue cambric, which could be altered over to fit her, as well as anything ever could fit her poor, crooked little figure. Happy Sadie! She rode next day with Preston Gray in the little basket phaeton, after Blackdrop, the pony, and she felt like rubbing her eyes to make sure she was awake. She smiled beamingly at the cunning little steed and his silver-mounted harness, and at Rover, trotting now here and now there. She smiled at her crutches, which lay across the floor of the phaeton; she smiled at the very mud-puddles which winked back at her sleepily from the side of the road. If there had been any grass, she would have thought it was emeralds; if there had been ice, she would have thought it was diamonds. When Preston lifted her from the phaeton at his father's gate, and Mrs. Gray and Flaxie both came out to meet her, followed by Kittyleen, who was there, of course, she hobbled up the path with a sparkle of joy and expectation in her sad brown eyes. The people of Laurel Grove had always been kind to her, and given her mother plenty of half-worn garments to "make over" for all the family; but there are things that poor children prize even more than old clothes, and nothing had ever seemed quite so desirable to poor, lame Sadie as a little girls' tea-party. This was chiefly because parties were unknown joys. She had dreamed of them, but never seen them. How the little guests amused themselves, and what they had to eat, it would be worth a great deal to know. Still, until to-day she had as little expectation of ever going to a party, as of mounting an owl's back and flying up to the moon. Yet here she was. What a beautiful house! What lovely pictures and books and playthings and flowers! How very happy the people must be who lived here all the time! It is true she was a little frightened at first, being a sensitive child, and not really sure whether the party had begun or not. The little girls kept arriving, one after another, and they were all extremely kind; but nobody thought to tell her the precise moment when the party would begin. By and by, however, Miss Pike, who seemed in gay spirits, sprang up and said,-- "Let's all play 'Button, Button,' and immediately bashful little Sadie felt quite at home. Who would have thought of _such_ a game at an elegant party? And Miss Pike hadn't gone half around with the button before she let it fall, softly and slyly, into Sadie's own hand." This was another surprise. Then, when the company were playing blind-man's-buff, Miss Pike took Sadie into a corner and began a long story, with Ethel in her lap and Kittyleen by her side. Sadie listened in rapture. No matter for the blind-man's-buff; _she_ didn't wish to play. No matter for the "Magical Music," the "I Spy," the "Marching on to Old Quebec." Miss Pike's stories were better than all the games in the world. Besides, Flaxie and her friends never seemed to forget Sadie, but kept coming up between the pauses to say something pleasant. They all agreed among themselves that it was the nicest party they had ever attended, and Kittyleen didn't spoil it; and they said this to Flaxie. "Oh," said Flaxie, delighted, "then it's Miss Pike that makes it so nice." But she was mistaken. It was Sadie, though nobody suspected it. They were all trying to give the lame girl pleasure, and we never make others happy without feeling happy ourselves. But the best was to come. Supper was served, and all the girls were summoned to the dining-room to a feast such as _one_ of the party had never seen before. Sandwiches, cakes, tarts, pyramids of candy, glasses of whipped cream; but what _was_ that in the middle of the table? A little "Lady Bountiful" in a small chair. She was as large as a child two years old, but no baby of that age ever had such long, fair ringlets, such starry eyes, such rosy cheeks, such a sweet-smiling mouth, made up for endless kisses. Her pink silk dress was trimmed with rich lace, and bore a sweeping train. You could just see in front the points of her tiny pink boots; and as for her gloves, they were long tan-colored kids,--the height of fashion,--and buttoned from wrist to elbow. Just before this marvel of beauty stood a small light-stand, bearing a birthday cake on a silver tray; and the beauty was pointing sweetly with both hands at the cake, which was a very large one, heavily frosted, and marked in letters of cedar, "Ethel." But no one thought of the cake for looking at "little miss." She was so wondrously bewitching, so "alive looking" that they all exclaimed in chorus, "Oh, what a beauty!" They wanted to rush upon her and embrace her; but being far too well-bred for that, they took their seats in perfect order, only murmuring over and over again to one another,-- "Oh, isn't she just too sweet for anything?" All but Flaxie Frizzle's Kittyleen, who smothered Flaxie with kisses, and teased her with questions. Was it Ethel's doll? Who gave it to her? Was _that_ her kettledrum? Presently Mrs. Gray cut the birthday cake; and while she was passing it, that roguish Miss Pike stole up behind Ethel, and set a beautiful wreath of flowers upon her head. Everybody laughed as the little one suddenly dropped her cake to the floor, and cried "Oh!" But it was not till the close of supper that a single word was said about the doll. Then Mrs. Gray remarked,-- "Suppose we pass her round and look at her? But here is a piece of paper pinned to her dress. We will read it first, and see what it says." She unpinned the paper and read aloud,-- "_I wish to be given to a sick little girl or a lame girl._" It was half a minute before anybody could take the sense of this. What, wasn't it Ethel's doll, after all? Then they understood it, and all cried out, "Oh, Sadie! Sadie! Sadie!" The poor bewildered child turned very pale. This was too much happiness for her. She wasn't used to anything like this. She rose to her feet, caught up her crutches,--though where she wanted to go she did not know,--dropped them, and fell down crying. But she was crying for joy. It wasn't possible, no, surely it _wasn't_ possible that this loveliest of all presents was intended for her. And there was Miss Pike. She stood holding the doll's trunk in her hand, full of the dainty underclothing and every-day dresses and outside wraps that she had been making for weeks. But when she saw Sadie crying I must confess she cried, too, though she was intending to laugh. But you know laughter and tears lie very near together. And, indeed, it was very touching to everybody when Sadie sobbed out, not knowing any one heard her,-- "_My_ dolly! Oh, I never 'spected to have such a good time as _this_, not till I went to Heaven!" Thus ended Ethel's first party. And everybody said it was a great success. "But where was the kettledrum? I kept looking and looking, and I didn't see it," mourned Flaxie Frizzle's Kittyleen. THE END. Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small capitals have been rendered in full capitals. A number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note. 
32094	----	THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ BY L. FRANK BAUM AUTHOR OF THE ROAD TO OZ, DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ, THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ, THE LAND OF OZ, OZMA OF OZ, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN R. NEILL The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago COPYRIGHT 1913 By L Frank Baum All RIGHTS RESERVED Affectionately Dedicated to my young friend Sumner Hamilton Britton of Chicago [Illustration] PROLOGUE Through the kindness of Dorothy Gale of Kansas, afterward Princess Dorothy of Oz, an humble writer in the United States of America was once appointed Royal Historian of Oz, with the privilege of writing the chronicle of that wonderful fairyland. But after making six books about the adventures of those interesting but queer people who live in the Land of Oz, the Historian learned with sorrow that by an edict of the Supreme Ruler, Ozma of Oz, her country would thereafter be rendered invisible to all who lived outside its borders and that all communication with Oz would, in the future, be cut off. The children who had learned to look for the books about Oz and who loved the stories about the gay and happy people inhabiting that favored country, were as sorry as their Historian that there would be no more books of Oz stories. They wrote many letters asking if the Historian did not know of some adventures to write about that had happened before the Land of Oz was shut out from all the rest of the world. But he did not know of any. Finally one of the children inquired why we couldn't hear from Princess Dorothy by wireless telegraph, which would enable her to communicate to the Historian whatever happened in the far-off Land of Oz without his seeing her, or even knowing just where Oz is. That seemed a good idea; so the Historian rigged up a high tower in his back yard, and took lessons in wireless telegraphy until he understood it, and then began to call "Princess Dorothy of Oz" by sending messages into the air. Now, it wasn't likely that Dorothy would be looking for wireless messages or would heed the call; but one thing the Historian was sure of, and that was that the powerful Sorceress, Glinda, would know what he was doing and that he desired to communicate with Dorothy. For Glinda has a big book in which is recorded every event that takes place anywhere in the world, just the moment that it happens, and so of course the book would tell her about the wireless message. And that was the way Dorothy heard that the Historian wanted to speak with her, and there was a Shaggy Man in the Land of Oz who knew how to telegraph a wireless reply. The result was that the Historian begged so hard to be told the latest news of Oz, so that he could write it down for the children to read, that Dorothy asked permission of Ozma and Ozma graciously consented. That is why, after two long years of waiting, another Oz story is now presented to the children of America. This would not have been possible had not some clever man invented the "wireless" and an equally clever child suggested the idea of reaching the mysterious Land of Oz by its means. L. FRANK BAUM. "OZCOT" at HOLLYWOOD in CALIFORNIA [Illustration] LIST OF CHAPTERS CHAPTER PAGE 1--OJO AND UNC NUNKIE 19 2--THE CROOKED MAGICIAN 23 3--THE PATCHWORK GIRL 35 4--THE GLASS CAT 47 5--A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT 55 6--THE JOURNEY 67 7--THE TROUBLESOME PHONOGRAPH 83 8--THE FOOLISH OWL AND THE WISE DONKEY 91 9--THEY MEET THE WOOZY 99 10--SHAGGY MAN TO THE RESCUE 115 11--A GOOD FRIEND 127 12--THE GIANT PORCUPINE 147 13--SCRAPS AND THE SCARECROW 159 14--OJO BREAKS THE LAW 179 15--OZMA'S PRISONER 191 16--PRINCESS DOROTHY 203 17--OZMA AND HER FRIENDS 215 18--OJO IS FORGIVEN 223 19--TROUBLE WITH THE TOTTENHOTS 235 20--THE CAPTIVE YOOP 255 21--HIPHOPPER THE CHAMPION 267 22--THE JOKING HORNERS 275 23--PEACE IS DECLARED 287 24--OJO FINDS THE DARK WELL 299 25--THEY BRIBE THE LAZY QUADLING 303 26--THE TRICK RIVER 311 27--THE TIN WOODMAN OBJECTS 323 28--THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ 335 [Illustration] OJO AND UNK NUNKIE CHAP. ONE [Illustration] "Where's the butter, Unc Nunkie?" asked Ojo. Unc looked out of the window and stroked his long beard. Then he turned to the Munchkin boy and shook his head. "Isn't," said he. "Isn't any butter? That's too bad, Unc. Where's the jam then?" inquired Ojo, standing on a stool so he could look through all the shelves of the cupboard. But Unc Nunkie shook his head again. "Gone," he said. "No jam, either? And no cake--no jelly--no apples--nothing but bread?" "All," said Unc, again stroking his beard as he gazed from the window. The little boy brought the stool and sat beside his uncle, munching the dry bread slowly and seeming in deep thought. "Nothing grows in our yard but the bread tree," he mused, "and there are only two more loaves on that tree; and they're not ripe yet. Tell me, Unc; why are we so poor?" The old Munchkin turned and looked at Ojo. He had kindly eyes, but he hadn't smiled or laughed in so long that the boy had forgotten that Unc Nunkie could look any other way than solemn. And Unc never spoke any more words than he was obliged to, so his little nephew, who lived alone with him, had learned to understand a great deal from one word. "Why are we so poor, Unc?" repeated the boy. "Not," said the old Munchkin. "I think we are," declared Ojo. "What have we got?" "House," said Unc Nunkie. "I know; but everyone in the Land of Oz has a place to live. What else, Unc?" "Bread." "I'm eating the last loaf that's ripe. There; I've put aside your share, Unc. It's on the table, so you can eat it when you get hungry. But when that is gone, what shall we eat, Unc?" The old man shifted in his chair but merely shook his head. "Of course," said Ojo, who was obliged to talk because his uncle would not, "no one starves in the Land of Oz, either. There is plenty for everyone, you know; only, if it isn't just where you happen to be, you must go where it is." The aged Munchkin wriggled again and stared at his small nephew as if disturbed by his argument. "By to-morrow morning," the boy went on, "we must go where there is something to eat, or we shall grow very hungry and become very unhappy." "Where?" asked Unc. "Where shall we go? I don't know, I'm sure," replied Ojo. "But _you_ must know, Unc. You must have traveled, in your time, because you're so old. I don't remember it, because ever since I could remember anything we've lived right here in this lonesome, round house, with a little garden back of it and the thick woods all around. All I've ever seen of the great Land of Oz, Unc dear, is the view of that mountain over at the south, where they say the Hammerheads live--who won't let anybody go by them--and that mountain at the north, where they say nobody lives." "One," declared Unc, correcting him. "Oh, yes; one family lives there, I've heard. That's the Crooked Magician, who is named Dr. Pipt, and his wife Margolotte. One year you told me about them; I think it took you a whole year, Unc, to say as much as I've just said about the Crooked Magician and his wife. They live high up on the mountain, and the good Munchkin Country, where the fruits and flowers grow, is just the other side. It's funny you and I should live here all alone, in the middle of the forest, isn't it?" "Yes," said Unc. "Then let's go away and visit the Munchkin Country and its jolly, good-natured people. I'd love to get a sight of something besides woods, Unc Nunkie." "Too little," said Unc. "Why, I'm not so little as I used to be," answered the boy earnestly. "I think I can walk as far and as fast through the woods as you can, Unc. And now that nothing grows in our back yard that is good to eat, we must go where there is food." Unc Nunkie made no reply for a time. Then he shut down the window and turned his chair to face the room, for the sun was sinking behind the tree-tops and it was growing cool. By and by Ojo lighted the fire and the logs blazed freely in the broad fireplace. The two sat in the firelight a long time--the old, white-bearded Munchkin and the little boy. Both were thinking. When it grew quite dark outside, Ojo said: "Eat your bread, Unc, and then we will go to bed." [Illustration] But Unc Nunkie did not eat the bread; neither did he go directly to bed. Long after his little nephew was sound asleep in the corner of the room the old man sat by the fire, thinking. THE CROOKED MAGICIAN CHAP. TWO [Illustration] Just at dawn next morning Unc Nunkie laid his hand tenderly on Ojo's head and awakened him. "Come," he said. Ojo dressed. He wore blue silk stockings, blue knee-pants with gold buckles, a blue ruffled waist and a jacket of bright blue braided with gold. His shoes were of blue leather and turned up at the toes, which were pointed. His hat had a peaked crown and a flat brim, and around the brim was a row of tiny golden bells that tinkled when he moved. This was the native costume of those who inhabited the Munchkin Country of the Land of Oz, so Unc Nunkie's dress was much like that of his nephew. Instead of shoes, the old man wore boots with turnover tops and his blue coat had wide cuffs of gold braid. The boy noticed that his uncle had not eaten the bread, and supposed the old man had not been hungry. Ojo was hungry, though; so he divided the piece of bread upon the table and ate his half for breakfast, washing it down with fresh, cool water from the brook. Unc put the other piece of bread in his jacket pocket, after which he again said, as he walked out through the doorway: "Come." Ojo was well pleased. He was dreadfully tired of living all alone in the woods and wanted to travel and see people. For a long time he had wished to explore the beautiful Land of Oz in which they lived. When they were outside, Unc simply latched the door and started up the path. No one would disturb their little house, even if anyone came so far into the thick forest while they were gone. At the foot of the mountain that separated the Country of the Munchkins from the Country of the Gillikins, the path divided. One way led to the left and the other to the right--straight up the mountain. Unc Nunkie took this right-hand path and Ojo followed without asking why. He knew it would take them to the house of the Crooked Magician, whom he had never seen but who was their nearest neighbor. All the morning they trudged up the mountain path and at noon Unc and Ojo sat on a fallen tree-trunk and ate the last of the bread which the old Munchkin had placed in his pocket. Then they started on again and two hours later came in sight of the house of Dr. Pipt. It was a big house, round, as were all the Munchkin houses, and painted blue, which is the distinctive color of the Munchkin Country of Oz. There was a pretty garden around the house, where blue trees and blue flowers grew in abundance and in one place were beds of blue cabbages, blue carrots and blue lettuce, all of which were delicious to eat. In Dr. Pipt's garden grew bun-trees, cake-trees, cream-puff bushes, blue buttercups which yielded excellent blue butter and a row of chocolate-caramel plants. Paths of blue gravel divided the vegetable and flower beds and a wider path led up to the front door. The place was in a clearing on the mountain, but a little way off was the grim forest, which completely surrounded it. Unc knocked at the door of the house and a chubby, pleasant-faced woman, dressed all in blue, opened it and greeted the visitors with a smile. "Ah," said Ojo; "you must be Dame Margolotte, the good wife of Dr. Pipt." "I am, my dear, and all strangers are welcome to my home." "May we see the famous Magician, Madam?" "He is very busy just now," she said, shaking her head doubtfully. "But come in and let me give you something to eat, for you must have traveled far in order to get to our lonely place." "We have," replied Ojo, as he and Unc entered the house. "We have come from a far lonelier place than this." "A lonelier place! And in the Munchkin Country?" she exclaimed. "Then it must be somewhere in the Blue Forest." "It is, good Dame Margolotte." "Dear me!" she said, looking at the man, "you must be Unc Nunkie, known as the Silent One." Then she looked at the boy. "And you must be Ojo the Unlucky," she added. "Yes," said Unc. "I never knew I was called the Unlucky," said Ojo, soberly; "but it is really a good name for me." "Well," remarked the woman, as she bustled around the room and set the table and brought food from the cupboard, "you were unlucky to live all alone in that dismal forest, which is much worse than the forest around here; but perhaps your luck will change, now you are away from it. If, during your travels, you can manage to lose that 'Un' at the beginning of your name 'Unlucky,' you will then become Ojo the Lucky, which will be a great improvement." "How can I lose that 'Un,' Dame Margolotte?" "I do not know how, but you must keep the matter in mind and perhaps the chance will come to you," she replied. Ojo had never eaten such a fine meal in all his life. There was a savory stew, smoking hot, a dish of blue peas, a bowl of sweet milk of a delicate blue tint and a blue pudding with blue plums in it. When the visitors had eaten heartily of this fare the woman said to them: "Do you wish to see Dr. Pipt on business or for pleasure?" Unc shook his head. "We are traveling," replied Ojo, "and we stopped at your house just to rest and refresh ourselves. I do not think Unc Nunkie cares very much to see the famous Crooked Magician; but for my part I am curious to look at such a great man." The woman seemed thoughtful. "I remember that Unc Nunkie and my husband used to be friends, many years ago," she said, "so perhaps they will be glad to meet again. The Magician is very busy, as I said, but if you will promise not to disturb him you may come into his workshop and watch him prepare a wonderful charm." "Thank you," replied the boy, much pleased. "I would like to do that." She led the way to a great domed hall at the back of the house, which was the Magician's workshop. There was a row of windows extending nearly around the sides of the circular room, which rendered the place very light, and there was a back door in addition to the one leading to the front part of the house. Before the row of windows a broad seat was built and there were some chairs and benches in the room besides. At one end stood a great fireplace, in which a blue log was blazing with a blue flame, and over the fire hung four kettles in a row, all bubbling and steaming at a great rate. The Magician was stirring all four of these kettles at the same time, two with his hands and two with his feet, to the latter, wooden ladles being strapped, for this man was so very crooked that his legs were as handy as his arms. Unc Nunkie came forward to greet his old friend, but not being able to shake either his hands or his feet, which were all occupied in stirring, he patted the Magician's bald head and asked: "What?" "Ah, it's the Silent One," remarked Dr. Pipt, without looking up, "and he wants to know what I'm making. Well, when it is quite finished this compound will be the wonderful Powder of Life, which no one knows how to make but myself. Whenever it is sprinkled on anything, that thing will at once come to life, no matter what it is. It takes me several years to make this magic Powder, but at this moment I am pleased to say it is nearly done. You see, I am making it for my good wife Margolotte, who wants to use some of it for a purpose of her own. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Unc Nunkie, and after I've finished my task I will talk to you." "You must know," said Margolotte, when they were all seated together on the broad window-seat, "that my husband foolishly gave away all the Powder of Life he first made to old Mombi the Witch, who used to live in the Country of the Gillikins, to the north of here. Mombi gave to Dr. Pipt a Powder of Perpetual Youth in exchange for his Powder of Life, but she cheated him wickedly, for the Powder of Youth was no good and could work no magic at all." "Perhaps the Powder of Life couldn't either," said Ojo. [Illustration] "Yes; it is perfection," she declared. "The first lot we tested on our Glass Cat, which not only began to live but has lived ever since. She's somewhere around the house now." "A Glass Cat!" exclaimed Ojo, astonished. "Yes; she makes a very pleasant companion, but admires herself a little more than is considered modest, and she positively refuses to catch mice," explained Margolotte. "My husband made the cat some pink brains, but they proved to be too high-bred and particular for a cat, so she thinks it is undignified in her to catch mice. Also she has a pretty blood-red heart, but it is made of stone--a ruby, I think--and so is rather hard and unfeeling. I think the next Glass Cat the Magician makes will have neither brains nor heart, for then it will not object to catching mice and may prove of some use to us." "What did old Mombi the Witch do with the Powder of Life your husband gave her?" asked the boy. "She brought Jack Pumpkinhead to life, for one thing," was the reply. "I suppose you've heard of Jack Pumpkinhead. He is now living near the Emerald City and is a great favorite with the Princess Ozma, who rules all the Land of Oz." "No; I've never heard of him," remarked Ojo. "I'm afraid I don't know much about the Land of Oz. You see, I've lived all my life with Unc Nunkie, the Silent One, and there was no one to tell me anything." "That is one reason you are Ojo the Unlucky," said the woman, in a sympathetic tone. "The more one knows, the luckier he is, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life." "But tell me, please, what you intend to do with this new lot of the Powder of Life, which Dr. Pipt is making. He said his wife wanted it for some especial purpose." "So I do," she answered. "I want it to bring my Patchwork Girl to life." "Oh! A Patchwork Girl? What is that?" Ojo asked, for this seemed even more strange and unusual than a Glass Cat. "I think I must show you my Patchwork Girl," said Margolotte, laughing at the boy's astonishment, "for she is rather difficult to explain. But first I will tell you that for many years I have longed for a servant to help me with the housework and to cook the meals and wash the dishes. No servant will come here because the place is so lonely and out-of-the-way, so my clever husband, the Crooked Magician, proposed that I make a girl out of some sort of material and he would make her live by sprinkling over her the Powder of Life. This seemed an excellent suggestion and at once Dr. Pipt set to work to make a new batch of his magic powder. He has been at it a long, long while, and so I have had plenty of time to make the girl. Yet that task was not so easy as you may suppose. At first I couldn't think what to make her of, but finally in searching through a chest I came across an old patchwork quilt, which my grandmother once made when she was young." "What is a patchwork quilt?" asked Ojo. "A bed-quilt made of patches of different kinds and colors of cloth, all neatly sewed together. The patches are of all shapes and sizes, so a patchwork quilt is a very pretty and gorgeous thing to look at. Sometimes it is called a 'crazy-quilt,' because the patches and colors are so mixed up. We never have used my grandmother's many-colored patchwork quilt, handsome as it is, for we Munchkins do not care for any color other than blue, so it has been packed away in the chest for about a hundred years. When I found it, I said to myself that it would do nicely for my servant girl, for when she was brought to life she would not be proud nor haughty, as the Glass Cat is, for such a dreadful mixture of colors would discourage her from trying to be as dignified as the blue Munchkins are." "Is blue the only respectable color, then?" inquired Ojo. "Yes, for a Munchkin. All our country is blue, you know. But in other parts of Oz the people favor different colors. At the Emerald City, where our Princess Ozma lives, green is the popular color. But all Munchkins prefer blue to anything else and when my housework girl is brought to life she will find herself to be of so many unpopular colors that she'll never dare be rebellious or impudent, as servants are sometimes liable to be when they are made the same way their mistresses are." Unc Nunkie nodded approval. "Good i-dea," he said; and that was a long speech for Unc Nunkie because it was two words. "So I cut up the quilt," continued Margolotte, "and made from it a very well-shaped girl, which I stuffed with cotton-wadding. I will show you what a good job I did," and she went to a tall cupboard and threw open the doors. Then back she came, lugging in her arms the Patchwork Girl, which she set upon the bench and propped up so that the figure would not tumble over. [Illustration] [Illustration: Ojo] THE PATCHWORK GIRL CHAP. THREE [Illustration] Ojo examined this curious contrivance with wonder. The Patchwork Girl was taller than he, when she stood upright, and her body was plump and rounded because it had been so neatly stuffed with cotton. Margolotte had first made the girl's form from the patchwork quilt and then she had dressed it with a patchwork skirt and an apron with pockets in it--using the same gay material throughout. Upon the feet she had sewn a pair of red leather shoes with pointed toes. All the fingers and thumbs of the girl's hands had been carefully formed and stuffed and stitched at the edges, with gold plates at the ends to serve as finger-nails. "She will have to work, when she comes to life," said Margolotte. The head of the Patchwork Girl was the most curious part of her. While she waited for her husband to finish making his Powder of Life the woman had found ample time to complete the head as her fancy dictated, and she realized that a good servant's head must be properly constructed. The hair was of brown yarn and hung down on her neck in several neat braids. Her eyes were two silver suspender-buttons cut from a pair of the Magician's old trousers, and they were sewed on with black threads, which formed the pupils of the eyes. Margolotte had puzzled over the ears for some time, for these were important if the servant was to hear distinctly, but finally she had made them out of thin plates of gold and attached them in place by means of stitches through tiny holes bored in the metal. Gold is the most common metal in the Land of Oz and is used for many purposes because it is soft and pliable. The woman had cut a slit for the Patchwork Girl's mouth and sewn two rows of white pearls in it for teeth, using a strip of scarlet plush for a tongue. This mouth Ojo considered very artistic and lifelike, and Margolotte was pleased when the boy praised it. There were almost too many patches on the face of the girl for her to be considered strictly beautiful, for one cheek was yellow and the other red, her chin blue, her forehead purple and the center, where her nose had been formed and padded, a bright yellow. "You ought to have had her face all pink," suggested the boy. "I suppose so; but I had no pink cloth," replied the woman. "Still, I cannot see as it matters much, for I wish my Patchwork Girl to be useful rather than ornamental. If I get tired looking at her patched face I can whitewash it." "Has she any brains?" asked Ojo. "No; I forgot all about the brains!" exclaimed the woman. "I am glad you reminded me of them, for it is not too late to supply them, by any means. Until she is brought to life I can do anything I please with this girl. But I must be careful not to give her too much brains, and those she has must be such as are fitted to the station she is to occupy in life. In other words, her brains mustn't be very good." "Wrong," said Unc Nunkie. "No; I am sure I am right about that," returned the woman. "He means," explained Ojo, "that unless your servant has good brains she won't know how to obey you properly, nor do the things you ask her to do." "Well, that maybe true," agreed Margolotte; "but, on the contrary, a servant with too much brains is sure to become independent and high-and-mighty and feel above her work. This is a very delicate task, as I said, and I must take care to give the girl just the right quantity of the right sort of brains. I want her to know just enough, but not too much." With this she went to another cupboard which was filled with shelves. All the shelves were lined with blue glass bottles, neatly labeled by the Magician to show what they contained. One whole shelf was marked: "Brain Furniture," and the bottles on this shelf were labeled as follows: "Obedience," "Cleverness," "Judgment," "Courage," "Ingenuity," "Amiability," "Learning," "Truth," "Poesy," "Self Reliance." "Let me see," said Margolotte; "of those qualities she must have 'Obedience' first of all," and she took down the bottle bearing that label and poured from it upon a dish several grains of the contents. "'Amiability' is also good and 'Truth.'" She poured into the dish a quantity from each of these bottles. "I think that will do," she continued, "for the other qualities are not needed in a servant." Unc Nunkie, who with Ojo stood beside her, touched the bottle marked "Cleverness." "Little," said he. "A little 'Cleverness'? Well, perhaps you are right, sir," said she, and was about to take down the bottle when the Crooked Magician suddenly called to her excitedly from the fireplace. "Quick, Margolotte! Come and help me." She ran to her husband's side at once and helped him lift the four kettles from the fire. Their contents had all boiled away, leaving in the bottom of each kettle a few grains of fine white powder. Very carefully the Magician removed this powder, placing it all together in a golden dish, where he mixed it with a golden spoon. When the mixture was complete there was scarcely a handful, all told. [Illustration] "That," said Dr. Pipt, in a pleased and triumphant tone, "is the wonderful Powder of Life, which I alone in the world know how to make. It has taken me nearly six years to prepare these precious grains of dust, but the little heap on that dish is worth the price of a kingdom and many a king would give all he has to possess it. When it has become cooled I will place it in a small bottle; but meantime I must watch it carefully, lest a gust of wind blow it away or scatter it." Unc Nunkie, Margolotte and the Magician all stood looking at the marvelous Powder, but Ojo was more interested just then in the Patchwork Girl's brains. Thinking it both unfair and unkind to deprive her of any good qualities that were handy, the boy took down every bottle on the shelf and poured some of the contents in Margolotte's dish. No one saw him do this, for all were looking at the Powder of Life; but soon the woman remembered what she had been doing, and came back to the cupboard. "Let's see," she remarked; "I was about to give my girl a little 'Cleverness,' which is the Doctor's substitute for 'Intelligence'--a quality he has not yet learned how to manufacture." Taking down the bottle of "Cleverness" she added some of the powder to the heap on the dish. Ojo became a bit uneasy at this, for he had already put quite a lot of the "Cleverness" powder in the dish; but he dared not interfere and so he comforted himself with the thought that one cannot have too much cleverness. Margolotte now carried the dish of brains to the bench. Ripping the seam of the patch on the girl's forehead, she placed the powder within the head and then sewed up the seam as neatly and securely as before. "My girl is all ready for your Powder of Life, my dear," she said to her husband. But the Magician replied: "This powder must not be used before to-morrow morning; but I think it is now cool enough to be bottled." He selected a small gold bottle with a pepper-box top, so that the powder might be sprinkled on any object through the small holes. Very carefully he placed the Powder of Life in the gold bottle and then locked it up in a drawer of his cabinet. "At last," said he, rubbing his hands together gleefully, "I have ample leisure for a good talk with my old friend Unc Nunkie. So let us sit down cosily and enjoy ourselves. After stirring those four kettles for six years I am glad to have a little rest." "You will have to do most of the talking," said Ojo, "for Unc is called the Silent One and uses few words." "I know; but that renders your uncle a most agreeable companion and gossip," declared Dr. Pipt. "Most people talk too much, so it is a relief to find one who talks too little." Ojo looked at the Magician with much awe and curiosity. "Don't you find it very annoying to be so crooked?" he asked. "No; I am quite proud of my person," was the reply. "I suppose I am the only Crooked Magician in all the world. Some others are accused of being crooked, but I am the only genuine." He was really very crooked and Ojo wondered how he managed to do so many things with such a twisted body. When he sat down upon a crooked chair that had been made to fit him, one knee was under his chin and the other near the small of his back; but he was a cheerful man and his face bore a pleasant and agreeable expression. "I am not allowed to perform magic, except for my own amusement," he told his visitors, as he lighted a pipe with a crooked stem and began to smoke. "Too many people were working magic in the Land of Oz, and so our lovely Princess Ozma put a stop to it. I think she was quite right. There were several wicked Witches who caused a lot of trouble; but now they are all out of business and only the great Sorceress, Glinda the Good, is permitted to practice her arts, which never harm anybody. The Wizard of Oz, who used to be a humbug and knew no magic at all, has been taking lessons of Glinda, and I'm told he is getting to be a pretty good Wizard; but he is merely the assistant of the great Sorceress. I've the right to make a servant girl for my wife, you know, or a Glass Cat to catch our mice--which she refuses to do--but I am forbidden to work magic for others, or to use it as a profession." "Magic must be a very interesting study," said Ojo. "It truly is," asserted the Magician. "In my time I've performed some magical feats that were worthy the skill of Glinda the Good. For instance, there's the Powder of Life, and my Liquid of Petrifaction, which is contained in that bottle on the shelf yonder--over the window." "What does the Liquid of Petrifaction do?" inquired the boy. "Turns everything it touches to solid marble. It's an invention of my own, and I find it very useful. Once two of those dreadful Kalidahs, with bodies like bears and heads like tigers, came here from the forest to attack us; but I sprinkled some of that Liquid on them and instantly they turned to marble. I now use them as ornamental statuary in my garden. This table looks to you like wood, and once it really was wood; but I sprinkled a few drops of the Liquid of Petrifaction on it and now it is marble. It will never break nor wear out." "Fine!" said Unc Nunkie, wagging his head and stroking his long gray beard. "Dear me; what a chatterbox you're getting to be, Unc," remarked the Magician, who was pleased with the compliment. But just then there came a scratching at the back door and a shrill voice cried: "Let me in! Hurry up, can't you? Let me in!" Margolotte got up and went to the door. "Ask like a good cat, then," she said. [Illustration] "Mee-ee-ow-w-w! There; does that suit your royal highness?" asked the voice, in scornful accents. "Yes; that's proper cat talk," declared the woman, and opened the door. At once a cat entered, came to the center of the room and stopped short at the sight of strangers. Ojo and Unc Nunkie both stared at it with wide open eyes, for surely no such curious creature had ever existed before--even in the Land of Oz. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE GLASS CAT CHAP. 4 [Illustration] The cat was made of glass, 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, and 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 clear glass, and it had a spun-glass tail that was really beautiful. "Well, Doc Pipt, do you mean to introduce us, or not?" demanded the cat, in a tone of annoyance. "Seems to me you are forgetting your manners." "Excuse me," returned the Magician. "This is Unc Nunkie, the descendant of the former kings of the Munchkins, before this country became a part of the Land of Oz." "He needs a hair-cut," observed the cat, washing its face. "True," replied Unc, with a low chuckle of amusement. "But he has lived alone in the heart of the forest for many years," the Magician explained; "and, although that is a barbarous country, there are no barbers there." "Who is the dwarf?" asked the cat. "That is not a dwarf, but a boy," answered the Magician. "You have never seen a boy before. He is now small because he is young. With more years he will grow big and become as tall as Unc Nunkie." "Oh. Is that magic?" the glass animal inquired. "Yes; but it is Nature's magic, which is more wonderful than any art known to man. For instance, my magic made you, and made you live; and it was a poor job because you are useless and a bother to me; but I can't make you grow. You will always be the same size--and the same saucy, inconsiderate Glass Cat, with pink brains and a hard ruby heart." "No one can regret more than I the fact that you made me," asserted the cat, crouching upon the floor and slowly swaying its spun-glass tail from side to side. "Your world is a very uninteresting place. I've wandered through your gardens and in the forest until I'm tired of it all, and when I come into the house the conversation of your fat wife and of yourself bores me dreadfully." "That is because I gave you different brains from those we ourselves possess--and much too good for a cat," returned Dr. Pipt. "Can't you take 'em out, then, and replace 'em with pebbles, so that I won't feel above my station in life?" asked the cat, pleadingly. "Perhaps so. I'll try it, after I've brought the Patchwork Girl to life," he said. The cat walked up to the bench on which the Patchwork Girl reclined and looked at her attentively. "Are you going to make that dreadful thing live?" she asked. The Magician nodded. "It is intended to be my wife's servant maid," he said. "When she is alive she will do all our work and mind the house. But you are not to order her around, Bungle, as you do us. You must treat the Patchwork Girl respectfully." "I won't. I couldn't respect such a bundle of scraps under any circumstances." "If you don't, there will be more scraps than you will like," cried Margolotte, angrily. "Why didn't you make her pretty to look at?" asked the cat. "You made me pretty--very pretty, indeed--and I love to watch my pink brains roll around when they're working, and to see my precious red heart beat." She went to a long mirror, as she said this, and stood before it, looking at herself with an air of much pride. "But that poor patched thing will hate herself, when she's once alive," continued the cat. "If I were you I'd use her for a mop, and make another servant that is prettier." "You have a perverted taste," snapped Margolotte, much annoyed at this frank criticism. "I think the Patchwork Girl is beautiful, considering what she's made of. Even the rainbow hasn't as many colors, and you must admit that the rainbow is a pretty thing." The Glass Cat yawned and stretched herself upon the floor. "Have your own way," she said. "I'm sorry for the Patchwork Girl, that's all." Ojo and Unc Nunkie slept that night in the Magician's house, and the boy was glad to stay because he was anxious to see the Patchwork Girl brought to life. The Glass Cat was also a wonderful creature to little Ojo, who had never seen or known anything of magic before, although he had lived in the Fairyland of Oz ever since he was born. Back there in the woods nothing unusual ever happened. Unc Nunkie, who might have been King of the Munchkins, had not his people united with all the other countries of Oz in acknowledging Ozma as their sole ruler, had retired into this forgotten forest nook with his baby nephew and they had lived all alone there. Only that the neglected garden had failed to grow food for them, they would always have lived in the solitary Blue Forest; but now they had started out to mingle with other people, and the first place they came to proved so interesting that Ojo could scarcely sleep a wink all night. Margolotte was an excellent cook and gave them a fine breakfast. While they were all engaged in eating, the good woman said: "This is the last meal I shall have to cook for some time, for right after breakfast Dr. Pipt has promised to bring my new servant to life. I shall let her wash the breakfast dishes and sweep and dust the house. What a relief it will be!" "It will, indeed, relieve you of much drudgery," said the Magician. "By the way, Margolotte, I thought I saw you getting some brains from the cupboard, while I was busy with my kettles. What qualities have you given your new servant?" "Only those that an humble servant requires," she answered. "I do not wish her to feel above her station, as the Glass Cat does. That would make her discontented and unhappy, for of course she must always be a servant." Ojo was somewhat disturbed as he listened to this, and the boy began to fear he had done wrong in adding all those different qualities of brains to the lot Margolotte had prepared for the servant. But it was too late now for regret, since all the brains were securely sewn up inside the Patchwork Girl's head. He might have confessed what he had done and thus allowed Margolotte and her husband to change the brains; but he was afraid of incurring their anger. He believed that Unc had seen him add to the brains, and Unc had not said a word against it; but then, Unc never did say anything unless it was absolutely necessary. As soon as breakfast was over they all went into the Magician's big workshop, where the Glass Cat was lying before the mirror and the Patchwork Girl lay limp and lifeless upon the bench. "Now, then," said Dr. Pipt, in a brisk tone, "we shall perform one of the greatest feats of magic possible to man, even in this marvelous Land of Oz. In no other country could it be done at all. I think we ought to have a little music while the Patchwork Girl comes to life. It is pleasant to reflect that the first sounds her golden ears will hear will be delicious music." As he spoke he went to a phonograph, which was screwed fast to a small table, and wound up the spring of the instrument and adjusted the big gold horn. "The music my servant will usually hear," remarked Margolotte, "will be my orders to do her work. But I see no harm in allowing her to listen to this unseen band while she wakens to her first realization of life. My orders will beat the band, afterward." The phonograph was now playing a stirring march tune and the Magician unlocked his cabinet and took out the gold bottle containing the Powder of Life. They all bent over the bench on which the Patchwork Girl reclined. Unc Nunkie and Margolotte stood behind, near the windows, Ojo at one side and the Magician in front, where he would have freedom to sprinkle the powder. The Glass Cat came near, too, curious to watch the important scene. "All ready?" asked Dr. Pipt. "All is ready," answered his wife. So the Magician leaned over and shook from the bottle some grains of the wonderful Powder, and they fell directly on the Patchwork Girl's head and arms. [Illustration] [Illustration] A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT CHAP. 5 [Illustration] "It will take a few minutes for this powder to do its work," remarked the Magician, sprinkling the body up and down with much care. But suddenly the Patchwork Girl threw up one arm, which knocked the bottle of powder from the crooked man's hand and sent it flying across the room. Unc Nunkie and Margolotte were so startled that they both leaped backward and bumped together, and Unc's head joggled the shelf above them and upset the bottle containing the Liquid of Petrifaction. The Magician uttered such a wild cry that Ojo jumped away and the Patchwork Girl sprang after him and clasped her stuffed arms around him in terror. The Glass Cat snarled and hid under the table, and so it was that when the powerful Liquid of Petrifaction was spilled it fell only upon the wife of the Magician and the uncle of Ojo. With these two the charm worked promptly. They stood motionless and stiff as marble statues, in exactly the positions they were in when the Liquid struck them. Ojo pushed the Patchwork Girl away and ran to Unc Nunkie, filled with a terrible fear for the only friend and protector he had ever known. When he grasped Unc's hand it was cold and hard. Even the long gray beard was solid marble. The Crooked Magician was dancing around the room in a frenzy of despair, calling upon his wife to forgive him, to speak to him, to come to life again! The Patchwork Girl, quickly recovering from her fright, now came nearer and looked from one to another of the people with deep interest. Then she looked at herself and laughed. Noticing the mirror, she stood before it and examined her extraordinary features with amazement--her button eyes, pearl bead teeth and puffy nose. Then, addressing her reflection in the glass, she exclaimed: "Whee, but there's a gaudy dame! Makes a paint-box blush with shame. Razzle-dazzle, fizzle-fazzle! Howdy-do, Miss What's-your-name?" She bowed, and the reflection bowed. Then she laughed again, long and merrily, and the Glass Cat crept out from under the table and said: "I don't blame you for laughing at yourself. Aren't you horrid?" "Horrid?" she replied. "Why, I'm thoroughly delightful. I'm an Original, if you please, and therefore incomparable. Of all the comic, absurd, rare and amusing creatures the world contains, I must be the supreme freak. Who but poor Margolotte could have managed to invent such an unreasonable being as I? But I'm glad--I'm awfully glad!--that I'm just what I am, and nothing else." "Be quiet, will you?" cried the frantic Magician; "be quiet and let me think! If I don't think I shall go mad." "Think ahead," said the Patchwork Girl, seating herself in a chair. "Think all you want to. I don't mind." "Gee! but I'm tired playing that tune," called the phonograph, speaking through its horn in a brazen, scratchy voice. "If you don't mind, Pipt, old boy, I'll cut it out and take a rest." The Magician looked gloomily at the music-machine. "What dreadful luck!" he wailed, despondently. "The Powder of Life must have fallen on the phonograph." He went up to it and found that the gold bottle that contained the precious powder had dropped upon the stand and scattered its life-giving grains over the machine. The phonograph was very much alive, and began dancing a jig with the legs of the table to which it was attached, and this dance so annoyed Dr. Pipt that he kicked the thing into a corner and pushed a bench against it, to hold it quiet. "You were bad enough before," said the Magician, resentfully; "but a live phonograph is enough to drive every sane person in the Land of Oz stark crazy." [Illustration] "No insults, please," answered the phonograph in a surly tone. "You did it, my boy; don't blame me." "You've bungled everything, Dr. Pipt," added the Glass Cat, contemptuously. "Except me," said the Patchwork Girl, jumping up to whirl merrily around the room. "I think," said Ojo, almost ready to cry through grief over Unc Nunkie's sad fate, "it must all be my fault, in some way. I'm called Ojo the Unlucky, you know." "That's nonsense, kiddie," retorted the Patchwork Girl cheerfully. "No one can be unlucky who has the intelligence to direct his own actions. The unlucky ones are those who beg for a chance to think, like poor Dr. Pipt here. What's the row about, anyway, Mr. Magic-maker?" "The Liquid of Petrifaction has accidentally fallen upon my dear wife and Unc Nunkie and turned them into marble," he sadly replied. "Well, why don't you sprinkle some of that powder on them and bring them to life again?" asked the Patchwork Girl. The Magician gave a jump. "Why, I hadn't thought of that!" he joyfully cried, and grabbed up the golden bottle, with which he ran to Margolotte. Said the Patchwork Girl: "Higgledy, piggledy, dee-- What fools magicians be! His head's so thick He can't think quick, So he takes advice from me." Standing upon the bench, for he was so crooked he could not reach the top of his wife's head in any other way, Dr. Pipt began shaking the bottle. But not a grain of powder came out. He pulled off the cover, glanced within, and then threw the bottle from him with a wail of despair. "Gone--gone! Every bit gone," he cried. "Wasted on that miserable phonograph when it might have saved my dear wife!" Then the Magician bowed his head on his crooked arms and began to cry. Ojo was sorry for him. He went up to the sorrowful man and said softly: "You can make more Powder of Life, Dr. Pipt." "Yes; but it will take me six years--six long, weary years of stirring four kettles with both feet and both hands," was the agonized reply. "Six years! while poor Margolotte stands watching me as a marble image." "Can't anything else be done?" asked the Patchwork Girl. The Magician shook his head. Then he seemed to remember something and looked up. "There is one other compound that would destroy the magic spell of the Liquid of Petrifaction and restore my wife and Unc Nunkie to life," said he. "It may be hard to find the things I need to make this magic compound, but if they were found I could do in an instant what will otherwise take six long, weary years of stirring kettles with both hands and both feet." "All right; let's find the things, then," suggested the Patchwork Girl. "That seems a lot more sensible than those stirring times with the kettles." "That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." "Scraps?" repeated the girl. "Did you call me 'Scraps'? Is that my name?" "I--I believe my poor wife had intended to name you 'Angeline,'" said the Magician. "But I like 'Scraps' best," she replied with a laugh. "It fits me better, for my patchwork is all scraps, and nothing else. Thank you for naming me, Miss Cat. Have you any name of your own?" "I have a foolish name that Margolotte once gave me, but which is quite undignified for one of my importance," answered the cat. "She called me 'Bungle.'" "Yes," sighed the Magician; "you were a sad bungle, taken all in all. I was wrong to make you as I did, for a more useless, conceited and brittle thing never before existed." "I'm not so brittle as you think," retorted the cat. "I've been alive a good many years, for Dr. Pipt experimented on me with the first magic Powder of Life he ever made, and so far I've never broken or cracked or chipped any part of me." "You seem to have a chip on your shoulder," laughed the Patchwork Girl, and the cat went to the mirror to see. "Tell me," pleaded Ojo, speaking to the Crooked Magician, "what must we find to make the compound that will save Unc Nunkie?" "First," was the reply, "I must have a six-leaved clover. That can only be found in the green country around the Emerald City, and six-leaved clovers are very scarce, even there." "I'll find it for you," promised Ojo. "The next thing," continued the Magician, "is the left wing of a yellow butterfly. That color can only be found in the yellow country of the Winkies, West of the Emerald City." "I'll find it," declared Ojo. "Is that all?" "Oh, no; I'll get my Book of Recipes and see what comes next." Saying this, the Magician unlocked a drawer of his cabinet and drew out a small book covered with blue leather. Looking through the pages he found the recipe he wanted and said: "I must have a gill of water from a dark well." "What kind of a well is that, sir?" asked the boy. "One where the light of day never penetrates. The water must be put in a gold bottle and brought to me without any light ever reaching it." "I'll get the water from the dark well," said Ojo. "Then I must have three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, and a drop of oil from a live man's body." Ojo looked grave at this. "What is a Woozy, please?" he inquired. "Some sort of an animal. I've never seen one, so I can't describe it," replied the Magician. "If I can find a Woozy, I'll get the hairs from its tail," said Ojo. "But is there ever any oil in a man's body?" The Magician looked in the book again, to make sure. "That's what the recipe calls for," he replied, "and of course we must get everything that is called for, or the charm won't work. The book doesn't say 'blood'; it says 'oil,' and there must be oil somewhere in a live man's body or the book wouldn't ask for it." "All right," returned Ojo, trying not to feel discouraged; "I'll try to find it." The Magician looked at the little Munchkin boy in a doubtful way and said: "All this will mean a long journey for you; perhaps several long journeys; for you must search through several of the different countries of Oz in order to get the things I need." "I know it, sir; but I must do my best to save Unc Nunkie." "And also my poor wife Margolotte. If you save one you will save the other, for both stand there together and the same compound will restore them both to life. Do the best you can, Ojo, and while you are gone I shall begin the six years' job of making a new batch of the Powder of Life. Then, if you should unluckily fail to secure any one of the things needed, I will have lost no time. But if you succeed you must return here as quickly as you can, and that will save me much tiresome stirring of four kettles with both feet and both hands." "I will start on my journey at once, sir," said the boy. "And I will go with you," declared the Patchwork Girl. "No, no!" exclaimed the Magician. "You have no right to leave this house. You are only a servant and have not been discharged." Scraps, who had been dancing up and down the room, stopped and looked at him. "What is a servant?" she asked. "One who serves. A--a sort of slave," he explained. "Very well," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'm going to serve you and your wife by helping Ojo find the things you need. You need a lot, you know, such as are not easily found." "It is true," sighed Dr. Pipt. "I am well aware that Ojo has undertaken a serious task." Scraps laughed, and resuming her dance she said: "Here's a job for a boy of brains: A drop of oil from a live man's veins; A six-leaved clover; three nice hairs From a Woozy's tail, the book declares Are needed for the magic spell, And water from a pitch-dark well. The yellow wing of a butterfly To find must Ojo also try, And if he gets them without harm, Doc Pipt will make the magic charm; But if he doesn't get 'em, Unc Will always stand a marble chunk." The Magician looked at her thoughtfully. "Poor Margolotte must have given you some of the quality of poesy, by mistake," he said. "And, if that is true, I didn't make a very good article when I prepared it, or else you got an overdose or an underdose. However, I believe I shall let you go with Ojo, for my poor wife will not need your services until she is restored to life. Also I think you may be able to help the boy, for your head seems to contain some thoughts I did not expect to find in it. But be very careful of yourself, for you're a souvenir of my dear Margolotte. Try not to get ripped, or your stuffing may fall out. One of your eyes seems loose, and you may have to sew it on tighter. If you talk too much you'll wear out your scarlet plush tongue, which ought to have been hemmed on the edges. And remember you belong to me and must return here as soon as your mission is accomplished." "I'm going with Scraps and Ojo," announced the Glass Cat. "You can't," said the Magician. "Why not?" "You'd get broken in no time, and you couldn't be a bit of use to the boy and the Patchwork Girl." "I beg to differ with you," returned the cat, in a haughty tone. "Three heads are better than two, and my pink brains are beautiful. You can see 'em work." "Well, go along," said the Magician, irritably. "You're only an annoyance, anyhow, and I'm glad to get rid of you." "Thank you for nothing, then," answered the cat, stiffly. Dr. Pipt took a small basket from a cupboard and packed several things in it. Then he handed it to Ojo. "Here is some food and a bundle of charms," he said. "It is all I can give you, but I am sure you will find friends on your journey who will assist you in your search. Take care of the Patchwork Girl and bring her safely back, for she ought to prove useful to my wife. As for the Glass Cat--properly named Bungle--if she bothers you I now give you my permission to break her in two, for she is not respectful and does not obey me. I made a mistake in giving her the pink brains, you see." Then Ojo went to Unc Nunkie and kissed the old man's marble face very tenderly. "I'm going to try to save you, Unc," he said, just as if the marble image could hear him; and then he shook the crooked hand of the Crooked Magician, who was already busy hanging the four kettles in the fireplace, and picking up his basket left the house. The Patchwork Girl followed him, and after them came the Glass Cat. THE JOURNEY CHAP. SIX [Illustration] Ojo had never traveled before and so he only knew that the path down the mountainside led into the open Munchkin Country, where large numbers of people dwelt. Scraps was quite new and not supposed to know anything of the Land of Oz, while the Glass Cat admitted she had never wandered very far away from the Magician's house. There was only one path before them, at the beginning, so they could not miss their way, and for a time they walked through the thick forest in silent thought, each one impressed with the importance of the adventure they had undertaken. Suddenly the Patchwork Girl laughed. It was funny to see her laugh, because her cheeks wrinkled up, her nose tipped, her silver button eyes twinkled and her mouth curled at the corners in a comical way. "Has something pleased you?" asked Ojo, who was feeling solemn and joyless through thinking upon his uncle's sad fate. "Yes," she answered. "Your world pleases me, for it's a queer world, and life in it is queerer still. Here am I, made from an old bed-quilt and intended to be a slave to Margolotte, rendered free as air by an accident that none of you could foresee. I am enjoying life and seeing the world, while the woman who made me is standing helpless as a block of wood. If that isn't funny enough to laugh at, I don't know what is." "You're not seeing much of the world yet, my poor, innocent Scraps," remarked the Cat. "The world doesn't consist wholly of the trees that are on all sides of us." "But they're part of it; and aren't they pretty trees?" returned Scraps, bobbing her head until her brown yarn curls fluttered in the breeze. "Growing between them I can see lovely ferns and wild-flowers, and soft green mosses. If the rest of your world is half as beautiful I shall be glad I'm alive." "I don't know what the rest of the world is like, I'm sure," said the cat; "but I mean to find out." "I have never been out of the forest," Ojo added; "but to me the trees are gloomy and sad and the wild-flowers seem lonesome. It must be nicer where there are no trees and there is room for lots of people to live together." "I wonder if any of the people we shall meet will be as splendid as I am," said the Patchwork Girl. "All I have seen, so far, have pale, colorless skins and clothes as blue as the country they live in, while I am of many gorgeous colors--face and body and clothes. That is why I am bright and contented, Ojo, while you are blue and sad." "I think I made a mistake in giving you so many sorts of brains," observed the boy. "Perhaps, as the Magician said, you have an overdose, and they may not agree with you." "What had you to do with my brains?" asked Scraps. "A lot," replied Ojo. "Old Margolotte meant to give you only a few--just enough to keep you going--but when she wasn't looking I added a good many more, of the best kinds I could find in the Magician's cupboard." "Thanks," said the girl, dancing along the path ahead of Ojo and then dancing back to his side. "If a few brains are good, many brains must be better." "But they ought to be evenly balanced," said the boy, "and I had no time to be careful. From the way you're acting, I guess the dose was badly mixed." "Scraps hasn't enough brains to hurt her, so don't worry," remarked the cat, which was trotting along in a very dainty and graceful manner. "The only brains worth considering are mine, which are pink. You can see 'em work." After walking a long time they came to a little brook that trickled across the path, and here Ojo sat down to rest and eat something from his basket. He found that the Magician had given him part of a loaf of bread and a slice of cheese. He broke off some of the bread and was surprised to find the loaf just as large as it was before. It was the same way with the cheese: however much he broke off from the slice, it remained exactly the same size. "Ah," said he, nodding wisely; "that's magic. Dr. Pipt has enchanted the bread and the cheese, so it will last me all through my journey, however much I eat." "Why do you put those things into your mouth?" asked Scraps, gazing at him in astonishment. "Do you need more stuffing? Then why don't you use cotton, such as I am stuffed with?" "I don't need that kind," said Ojo. "But a mouth is to talk with, isn't it?" "It is also to eat with," replied the boy. "If I didn't put food into my mouth, and eat it, I would get hungry and starve." "Ah, I didn't know that," she said. "Give me some." Ojo handed her a bit of the bread and she put it in her mouth. "What next?" she asked, scarcely able to speak. "Chew it and swallow it," said the boy. Scraps tried that. Her pearl teeth were unable to chew the bread and beyond her mouth there was no opening. Being unable to swallow she threw away the bread and laughed. "I must get hungry and starve, for I can't eat," she said. [Illustration] "Neither can I," announced the cat; "but I'm not fool enough to try. Can't you understand that you and I are superior people and not made like these poor humans?" "Why should I understand that, or anything else?" asked the girl. "Don't bother my head by asking conundrums, I beg of you. Just let me discover myself in my own way." With this she began amusing herself by leaping across the brook and back again. "Be careful, or you'll fall in the water," warned Ojo. "Never mind." "You'd better. If you get wet you'll be soggy and can't walk. Your colors might run, too," he said. "Don't my colors run whenever I run?" she asked. "Not in the way I mean. If they get wet, the reds and greens and yellows and purples of your patches might run into each other and become just a blur--no color at all, you know." "Then," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'll be careful, for if I spoiled my splendid colors I would cease to be beautiful." "Pah!" sneered the Glass Cat, "such colors are not beautiful; they're ugly, and in bad taste. Please notice that my body has no color at all. I'm transparent, except for my exquisite red heart and my lovely pink brains--you can see 'em work." "Shoo--shoo--shoo!" cried Scraps, dancing around and laughing. "And your horrid green eyes, Miss Bungle! You can't see your eyes, but we can, and I notice you're very proud of what little color you have. Shoo, Miss Bungle, shoo--shoo--shoo! If you were all colors and many colors, as I am, you'd be too stuck up for anything." She leaped over the cat and back again, and the startled Bungle crept close to a tree to escape her. This made Scraps laugh more heartily than ever, and she said: "Whoop-te-doodle-doo! The cat has lost her shoe. Her tootsie's bare, but she don't care, So what's the odds to you?" "Dear me, Ojo," said the cat; "don't you think the creature is a little bit crazy?" "It may be," he answered, with a puzzled look. "If she continues her insults I'll scratch off her suspender-button eyes," declared the cat. "Don't quarrel, please," pleaded the boy, rising to resume the journey. "Let us be good comrades and as happy and cheerful as possible, for we are likely to meet with plenty of trouble on our way." It was nearly sundown when they came to the edge of the forest and saw spread out before them a delightful landscape. There were broad blue fields stretching for miles over the valley, which was dotted everywhere with pretty, blue domed houses, none of which, however, was very near to the place where they stood. Just at the point where the path left the forest stood a tiny house covered with leaves from the trees, and before this stood a Munchkin man with an axe in his hand. He seemed very much surprised when Ojo and Scraps and the Glass Cat came out of the woods, but as the Patchwork Girl approached nearer he sat down upon a bench and laughed so hard that he could not speak for a long time. This man was a woodchopper and lived all alone in the little house. He had bushy blue whiskers and merry blue eyes and his blue clothes were quite old and worn. "Mercy me!" exclaimed the woodchopper, when at last he could stop laughing. "Who would think such a funny harlequin lived in the Land of Oz? Where did you come from, Crazy-quilt?" "Do you mean me?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "Of course," he replied. "You misjudge my ancestry. I'm not a crazy-quilt; I'm patchwork," she said. "There's no difference," he replied, beginning to laugh again. "When my old grandmother sews such things together she calls it a crazy-quilt; but I never thought such a jumble could come to life." "It was the Magic Powder that did it," explained Ojo. "Oh, then you have come from the Crooked Magician on the mountain. I might have known it, for--Well, I declare! here's a glass cat. But the Magician will get in trouble for this; it's against the law for anyone to work magic except Glinda the Good and the royal Wizard of Oz. If you people--or things--or glass spectacles--or crazy-quilts--or whatever you are, go near the Emerald City, you'll be arrested." "We're going there, anyhow," declared Scraps, sitting upon the bench and swinging her stuffed legs. "If any of us takes a rest, We'll be arrested sure, And get no restitution 'Cause the rest we must endure." "I see," said the woodchopper, nodding; "you're as crazy as the crazy-quilt you're made of." "She really _is_ crazy," remarked the Glass Cat. "But that isn't to be wondered at when you remember how many different things she's made of. For my part, I'm made of pure glass--except my jewel heart and my pretty pink brains. Did you notice my brains, stranger? You can see 'em work." "So I can," replied the woodchopper; "but I can't see that they accomplish much. A glass cat is a useless sort of thing, but a Patchwork Girl is really useful. She makes me laugh, and laughter is the best thing in life. There was once a woodchopper, a friend of mine, who was made all of tin, and I used to laugh every time I saw him." "A tin woodchopper?" said Ojo. "That is strange." "My friend wasn't always tin," said the man, "but he was careless with his axe, and used to chop himself very badly. Whenever he lost an arm or a leg he had it replaced with tin; so after a while he was all tin." "And could he chop wood then?" asked the boy. "He could if he didn't rust his tin joints. But one day he met Dorothy in the forest and went with her to the Emerald City, where he made his fortune. He is now one of the favorites of Princess Ozma, and she has made him the Emperor of the Winkies--the Country where all is yellow." "Who is Dorothy?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "A little maid who used to live in Kansas, but is now a Princess of Oz. She's Ozma's best friend, they say, and lives with her in the royal palace." "Is Dorothy made of tin?" inquired Ojo. "Is she patchwork, like me?" inquired Scraps. "No," said the man; "Dorothy is flesh, just as I am. I know of only one tin person, and that is Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman; and there will never be but one Patchwork Girl, for any magician that sees you will refuse to make another one like you." "I suppose we shall see the Tin Woodman, for we are going to the Country of the Winkies," said the boy. "What for?" asked the woodchopper. "To get the left wing of a yellow butterfly." "It is a long journey," declared the man, "and you will go through lonely parts of Oz and cross rivers and traverse dark forests before you get there." "Suits me all right," said Scraps. "I'll get a chance to see the country." "You're crazy, girl. Better crawl into a rag-bag and hide there; or give yourself to some little girl to play with. Those who travel are likely to meet trouble; that's why I stay at home." [Illustration] The woodchopper then invited them all to stay the night at his little hut, but they were anxious to get on and so left him and continued along the path, which was broader, now, and more distinct. They expected to reach some other house before it grew dark, but the twilight was brief and Ojo soon began to fear they had made a mistake in leaving the woodchopper. "I can scarcely see the path," he said at last. "Can you see it, Scraps?" "No," replied the Patchwork Girl, who was holding fast to the boy's arm so he could guide her. "I can see," declared the Glass Cat. "My eyes are better than yours, and my pink brains--" "Never mind your pink brains, please," said Ojo hastily; "just run ahead and show us the way. Wait a minute and I'll tie a string to you; for then you can lead us." He got a string from his pocket and tied it around the cat's neck, and after that the creature guided them along the path. They had proceeded in this way for about an hour when a twinkling blue light appeared ahead of them. "Good! there's a house at last," cried Ojo. "When we reach it the good people will surely welcome us and give us a night's lodging." But however far they walked the light seemed to get no nearer, so by and by the cat stopped short, saying: "I think the light is traveling, too, and we shall never be able to catch up with it. But here is a house by the roadside, so why go farther?" "Where is the house, Bungle?" "Just here beside us, Scraps." Ojo was now able to see a small house near the pathway. It was dark and silent, but the boy was tired and wanted to rest, so he went up to the door and knocked. "Who is there?" cried a voice from within. "I am Ojo the Unlucky, and with me are Miss Scraps Patchwork and the Glass Cat," he replied. "What do you want?" asked the Voice. "A place to sleep," said Ojo. "Come in, then; but don't make any noise, and you must go directly to bed," returned the Voice. Ojo unlatched the door and entered. It was very dark inside and he could see nothing at all. But the cat exclaimed: "Why, there's no one here!" "There must be," said the boy. "Some one spoke to me." "I can see everything in the room," replied the cat, "and no one is present but ourselves. But here are three beds, all made up, so we may as well go to sleep." "What is sleep?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "It's what you do when you go to bed," said Ojo. "But why do you go to bed?" persisted the Patchwork Girl. "Here, here! You are making altogether too much noise," cried the Voice they had heard before. "Keep quiet, strangers, and go to bed." The cat, which could see in the dark, looked sharply around for the owner of the Voice, but could discover no one, although the Voice had seemed close beside them. She arched her back a little and seemed afraid. Then she whispered to Ojo: "Come!" and led him to a bed. With his hands the boy felt of the bed and found it was big and soft, with feather pillows and plenty of blankets. So he took off his shoes and hat and crept into the bed. Then the cat led Scraps to another bed and the Patchwork Girl was puzzled to know what to do with it. "Lie down and keep quiet," whispered the cat, warningly. "Can't I sing?" asked Scraps. "No." "Can't I whistle?" asked Scraps. "No." "Can't I dance till morning, if I want to?" asked Scraps. "You must keep quiet," said the cat, in a soft voice. "I don't want to," replied the Patchwork Girl, speaking as loudly as usual. "What right have you to order me around? If I want to talk, or yell, or whistle--" Before she could say anything more an unseen hand seized her firmly and threw her out of the door, which closed behind her with a sharp slam. She found herself bumping and rolling in the road and when she got up and tried to open the door of the house again she found it locked. "What has happened to Scraps?" asked Ojo. "Never mind. Let's go to sleep, or something will happen to us," answered the Glass Cat. So Ojo snuggled down in his bed and fell asleep, and he was so tired that he never wakened until broad daylight. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE TROUBLESOME PHONOGRAPH CHAP. 7 [Illustration] When the boy opened his eyes next morning he looked carefully around the room. These small Munchkin houses seldom had more than one room in them. That in which Ojo now found himself had three beds, set all in a row on one side of it. The Glass Cat lay asleep on one bed, Ojo was in the second, and the third was neatly made up and smoothed for the day. On the other side of the room was a round table on which breakfast was already placed, smoking hot. Only one chair was drawn up to the table, where a place was set for one person. No one seemed to be in the room except the boy and Bungle. Ojo got up and put on his shoes. Finding a toilet stand at the head of his bed he washed his face and hands and brushed his hair. Then he went to the table and said: "I wonder if this is my breakfast?" "Eat it!" commanded a Voice at his side, so near that Ojo jumped. But no person could he see. He was hungry, and the breakfast looked good; so he sat down and ate all he wanted. Then, rising, he took his hat and wakened the Glass Cat. "Come on, Bungle," said he; "we must go." He cast another glance about the room and, speaking to the air, he said: "Whoever lives here has been kind to me, and I'm much obliged." There was no answer, so he took his basket and went out the door, the cat following him. In the middle of the path sat the Patchwork Girl, playing with pebbles she had picked up. "Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "I thought you were never coming out. It has been daylight a long time." "What did you do all night?" asked the boy. "Sat here and watched the stars and the moon," she replied. "They're interesting. I never saw them before, you know." "Of course not," said Ojo. "You were crazy to act so badly and get thrown outdoors," remarked Bungle, as they renewed their journey. "That's all right," said Scraps. "If I hadn't been thrown out I wouldn't have seen the stars, nor the big gray wolf." "What wolf?" inquired Ojo. "The one that came to the door of the house three times during the night." "I don't see why that should be," said the boy, thoughtfully; "there was plenty to eat in that house, for I had a fine breakfast, and I slept in a nice bed." "Don't you feel tired?" asked the Patchwork Girl, noticing that the boy yawned. "Why, yes; I'm as tired as I was last night; and yet I slept very well." "And aren't you hungry?" "It's strange," replied Ojo. "I had a good breakfast, and yet I think I'll now eat some of my crackers and cheese." Scraps danced up and down the path. Then she sang: "Kizzle-kazzle-kore; The wolf is at the door, There's nothing to eat but a bone without meat, And a bill from the grocery store." "What does that mean?" asked Ojo. "Don't ask me," replied Scraps. "I say what comes into my head, but of course I know nothing of a grocery store or bones without meat or--very much else." "No," said the cat; "she's stark, staring, raving crazy, and her brains can't be pink, for they don't work properly." "Bother the brains!" cried Scraps. "Who cares for 'em, anyhow? Have you noticed how beautiful my patches are in this sunlight?" Just then they heard a sound as of footsteps pattering along the path behind them and all three turned to see what was coming. To their astonishment they beheld a small round table running as fast as its four spindle legs could carry it, and to the top was screwed fast a phonograph with a big gold horn. [Illustration] "Hold on!" shouted the phonograph. "Wait for me!" "Goodness me; it's that music thing which the Crooked Magician scattered the Powder of Life over," said Ojo. "So it is," returned Bungle, in a grumpy tone of voice; and then, as the phonograph overtook them, the Glass Cat added sternly: "What are you doing here, anyhow?" "I've run away," said the music thing. "After you left, old Dr. Pipt and I had a dreadful quarrel and he threatened to smash me to pieces if I didn't keep quiet. Of course I wouldn't do that, because a talking-machine is supposed to talk and make a noise--and sometimes music. So I slipped out of the house while the Magician was stirring his four kettles and I've been running after you all night. Now that I've found such pleasant company, I can talk and play tunes all I want to." Ojo was greatly annoyed by this unwelcome addition to their party. At first he did not know what to say to the newcomer, but a little thought decided him not to make friends. "We are traveling on important business," he declared, "and you'll excuse me if I say we can't be bothered." "How very impolite!" exclaimed the phonograph. "I'm sorry; but it's true," said the boy. "You'll have to go somewhere else." "This is very unkind treatment, I must say," whined the phonograph, in an injured tone. "Everyone seems to hate me, and yet I was intended to amuse people." "It isn't you we hate, especially," observed the Glass Cat; "it's your dreadful music. When I lived in the same room with you I was much annoyed by your squeaky horn. It growls and grumbles and clicks and scratches so it spoils the music, and your machinery rumbles so that the racket drowns every tune you attempt." "That isn't my fault; it's the fault of my records. I must admit that I haven't a clear record," answered the machine. "Just the same, you'll have to go away," said Ojo. "Wait a minute," cried Scraps. "This music thing interests me. I remember to have heard music when I first came to life, and I would like to hear it again. What is your name, my poor abused phonograph?" "Victor Columbia Edison," it answered. "Well, I shall call you 'Vic' for short," said the Patchwork Girl. "Go ahead and play something." "It'll drive you crazy," warned the cat. "I'm crazy now, according to your statement. Loosen up and reel out the music, Vic." "The only record I have with me," explained the phonograph, "is one the Magician attached just before we had our quarrel. It's a highly classical composition." "A what?" inquired Scraps. "It is classical music, and is considered the best and most puzzling ever manufactured. You're supposed to like it, whether you do or not, and if you don't, the proper thing is to look as if you did. Understand?" "Not in the least," said Scraps. "Then, listen!" At once the machine began to play and in a few minutes Ojo put his hands to his ears to shut out the sounds and the cat snarled and Scraps began to laugh. "Cut it out, Vic," she said. "That's enough." But the phonograph continued playing the dreary tune, so Ojo seized the crank, jerked it free and threw it into the road. However, the moment the crank struck the ground it bounded back to the machine again and began winding it up. And still the music played. "Let's run!" cried Scraps, and they all started and ran down the path as fast as they could go. But the phonograph was right behind them and could run and play at the same time. It called out, reproachfully: "What's the matter? Don't you love classical music?" "No, Vic," said Scraps, halting. "We will passical the classical and preserve what joy we have left. I haven't any nerves, thank goodness, but your music makes my cotton shrink." "Then turn over my record. There's a rag-time tune on the other side," said the machine. "What's rag-time?" "The opposite of classical." "All right," said Scraps, and turned over the record. The phonograph now began to play a jerky jumble of sounds which proved so bewildering that after a moment Scraps stuffed her patchwork apron into the gold horn and cried: "Stop--stop! That's the other extreme. It's extremely bad!" Muffled as it was, the phonograph played on. "If you don't shut off that music I'll smash your record," threatened Ojo. The music stopped, at that, and the machine turned its horn from one to another and said with great indignation: "What's the matter now? Is it possible you can't appreciate rag-time?" "Scraps ought to, being rags herself," said the cat; "but I simply can't stand it; it makes my whiskers curl." "It is, indeed, dreadful!" exclaimed Ojo, with a shudder. "It's enough to drive a crazy lady mad," murmured the Patchwork Girl. "I'll tell you what, Vic," she added as she smoothed out her apron and put it on again, "for some reason or other you've missed your guess. You're not a concert; you're a nuisance." "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," asserted the phonograph sadly. "Then we're not savages. I advise you to go home and beg the Magician's pardon." "Never! He'd smash me." "That's what we shall do, if you stay here," Ojo declared. "Run along, Vic, and bother some one else," advised Scraps. "Find some one who is real wicked, and stay with him till he repents. In that way you can do some good in the world." The music thing turned silently away and trotted down a side path, toward a distant Munchkin village. "Is that the way _we_ go?" asked Bungle anxiously. "No," said Ojo; "I think we shall keep straight ahead, for this path is the widest and best. When we come to some house we will inquire the way to the Emerald City." THE FOOLISH OWL AND THE WISE DONKEY CHAP. 8 [Illustration] On they went, and half an hour's steady walking brought them to a house somewhat better than the two they had already passed. It stood close to the roadside and over the door was a sign that read: "Miss Foolish Owl and Mr. Wise Donkey: Public Advisers." When Ojo read this sign aloud Scraps said laughingly: "Well, here is a place to get all the advice we want, maybe more than we need. Let's go in." The boy knocked at the door. "Come in!" called a deep bass voice. So they opened the door and entered the house, where a little light-brown donkey, dressed in a blue apron and a blue cap, was engaged in dusting the furniture with a blue cloth. On a shelf over the window sat a great blue owl with a blue sunbonnet on her head, blinking her big round eyes at the visitors. "Good morning," said the donkey, in his deep voice, which seemed bigger than he was. "Did you come to us for advice?" "Why, we came, anyhow," replied Scraps, "and now we are here we may as well have some advice. It's free, isn't it? "Certainly," said the donkey. "Advice doesn't cost anything--unless you follow it. Permit me to say, by the way, that you are the queerest lot of travelers that ever came to my shop. Judging you merely by appearances, I think you'd better talk to the Foolish Owl yonder." They turned to look at the bird, which fluttered its wings and stared back at them with its big eyes. "Hoot-ti-toot-ti-toot!" cried the owl. "Fiddle-cum-foo, Howdy--do? Riddle-cum, tiddle-cum, Too-ra-la-loo!" "That beats your poetry, Scraps," said Ojo. "It's just nonsense!" declared the Glass Cat. "But it's good advice for the foolish," said the donkey, admiringly. "Listen to my partner, and you can't go wrong." Said the owl in a grumbling voice: "Patchwork Girl has come to life; No one's sweetheart, no one's wife; Lacking sense and loving fun, She'll be snubbed by everyone." "Quite a compliment! Quite a compliment, I declare," exclaimed the donkey, turning to look at Scraps. "You are certainly a wonder, my dear, and I fancy you'd make a splendid pincushion. If you belonged to me, I'd wear smoked glasses when I looked at you." "Why?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "Because you are so gay and gaudy." "It is my beauty that dazzles you," she asserted. "You Munchkin people all strut around in your stupid blue color, while I--" "You are wrong in calling me a Munchkin," interrupted the donkey, "for I was born in the Land of Mo and came to visit the Land of Oz on the day it was shut off from all the rest of the world. So here I am obliged to stay, and I confess it is a very pleasant country to live in." "Hoot-ti-toot!" cried the owl; "Ojo's searching for a charm, 'Cause Unc Nunkie's come to harm. Charms are scarce; they're hard to get; Ojo's got a job, you bet!" "Is the owl so very foolish?" asked the boy. "Extremely so," replied the donkey. "Notice what vulgar expressions she uses. But I admire the owl for the reason that she _is_ positively foolish. Owls are supposed to be so very wise, generally, that a foolish one is unusual, and you perhaps know that anything or anyone unusual is sure to be interesting to the wise." The owl flapped its wings again, muttering these words: "It's hard to be a glassy cat-- No cat can be more hard than that; She's so transparent, every act Is clear to us, and that's a fact." "Have you noticed my pink brains?" inquired Bungle, proudly. "You can see 'em work." "Not in the daytime," said the donkey. "She can't see very well by day, poor thing. But her advice is excellent. I advise you all to follow it." "The owl hasn't given us any advice, as yet," the boy declared. "No? Then what do you call all those sweet poems?" "Just foolishness," replied Ojo. "Scraps does the same thing." "Foolishness! Of course! To be sure! The Foolish Owl must be foolish or she wouldn't be the Foolish Owl. You are very complimentary to my partner, indeed," asserted the donkey, rubbing his front hoofs together as if highly pleased. [Illustration] "The sign says that _you_ are wise," remarked Scraps to the donkey. "I wish you would prove it." "With great pleasure," returned the beast. "Put me to the test, my dear Patches, and I'll prove my wisdom in the wink of an eye." "What is the best way to get to the Emerald City?" asked Ojo. "Walk," said the donkey. "I know; but what road shall I take?" was the boy's next question. "The road of yellow bricks, of course. It leads directly to the Emerald City." "And how shall we find the road of yellow bricks?" "By keeping along the path you have been following. You'll come to the yellow bricks pretty soon, and you'll know them when you see them because they're the only yellow things in the blue country." "Thank you," said the boy. "At last you have told me something." "Is that the extent of your wisdom?" asked Scraps. "No," replied the donkey; "I know many other things, but they wouldn't interest you. So I'll give you a last word of advice: move on, for the sooner you do that the sooner you'll get to the Emerald City of Oz." "Hoot-ti-toot-ti-toot-ti-too!" screeched the owl; "Off you go! fast or slow, Where you're going you don't know. Patches, Bungle, Munchkin lad, Facing fortunes good and bad, Meeting dangers grave and sad, Sometimes worried, sometimes glad-- Where you're going you don't know, Nor do I, but off you go!" "Sounds like a hint, to me," said the Patchwork Girl. "Then let's take it and go," replied Ojo. They said good-bye to the Wise Donkey and the Foolish Owl and at once resumed their journey. [Illustration] [Illustration] THEY MEET THE WOOZY CHAP. NINE [Illustration] "There seem to be very few houses around here, after all," remarked Ojo, after they had walked for a time in silence. "Never mind," said Scraps; "we are not looking for houses, but rather the road of yellow bricks. Won't it be funny to run across something yellow in this dismal blue country?" "There are worse colors than yellow in this country," asserted the Glass Cat, in a spiteful tone. "Oh; do you mean the pink pebbles you call your brains, and your red heart and green eyes?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "No; I mean you, if you must know it," growled the cat. "You're jealous!" laughed Scraps. "You'd give your whiskers for a lovely variegated complexion like mine." "I wouldn't!" retorted the cat. "I've the clearest complexion in the world, and I don't employ a beauty-doctor, either." "I see you don't," said Scraps. "Please don't quarrel," begged Ojo. "This is an important journey, and quarreling makes me discouraged. To be brave, one must be cheerful, so I hope you will be as good-tempered as possible." They had traveled some distance when suddenly they faced a high fence which barred any further progress straight ahead. It ran directly across the road and enclosed a small forest of tall trees, set close together. When the group of adventurers peered through the bars of the fence they thought this forest looked more gloomy and forbidding than any they had ever seen before. They soon discovered that the path they had been following now made a bend and passed around the enclosure, but what made Ojo stop and look thoughtful was a sign painted on the fence which read: "BEWARE OF THE WOOZY!" "That means," he said, "that there's a Woozy inside that fence, and the Woozy must be a dangerous animal or they wouldn't tell people to beware of it." "Let's keep out, then," replied Scraps. "That path is outside the fence, and Mr. Woozy may have all his little forest to himself, for all we care." "But one of our errands is to find a Woozy," Ojo explained. "The Magician wants me to get three hairs from the end of a Woozy's tail." "Let's go on and find some other Woozy," suggested the cat. "This one is ugly and dangerous, or they wouldn't cage him up. Maybe we shall find another that is tame and gentle." "Perhaps there isn't any other, at all," answered Ojo. "The sign doesn't say: 'Beware _a_ Woozy'; it says: 'Beware _the_ Woozy,' which may mean there's only one in all the Land of Oz." "Then," said Scraps, "suppose we go in and find him? Very likely if we ask him politely to let us pull three hairs out of the tip of his tail he won't hurt us." "It would hurt _him_, I'm sure, and that would make him cross," said the cat. "You needn't worry, Bungle," remarked the Patchwork Girl; "for if there is danger you can climb a tree. Ojo and I are not afraid; are we, Ojo?" "I am, a little," the boy admitted; "but this danger must be faced, if we intend to save poor Unc Nunkie. How shall we get over the fence?" "Climb," answered Scraps, and at once she began climbing up the rows of bars. Ojo followed and found it more easy than he had expected. When they got to the top of the fence they began to get down on the other side and soon were in the forest. The Glass Cat, being small, crept between the lower bars and joined them. Here there was no path of any sort, so they entered the woods, the boy leading the way, and wandered through the trees until they were nearly in the center of the forest. They now came upon a clear space in which stood a rocky cave. So far they had met no living creature, but when Ojo saw the cave he knew it must be the den of the Woozy. It is hard to face any savage beast without a sinking of the heart, but still more terrifying is it to face an unknown beast, which you have never seen even a picture of. So there is little wonder that the pulses of the Munchkin boy beat fast as he and his companions stood facing the cave. The opening was perfectly square, and about big enough to admit a goat. "I guess the Woozy is asleep," said Scraps. "Shall I throw in a stone, to waken him?" "No; please don't," answered Ojo, his voice trembling a little. "I'm in no hurry." But he had not long to wait, for the Woozy heard the sound of voices and came trotting out of his cave. As this is the only Woozy that has ever lived, either in the Land of Oz or out of it, I must describe it to you. The creature was all squares and flat surfaces and edges. Its head was an exact square, like one of the building-blocks a child plays with; therefore it had no ears, but heard sounds through two openings in the upper corners. Its nose, being in the center of a square surface, was flat, while the mouth was formed by the opening of the lower edge of the block. The body of the Woozy was much larger than its head, but was likewise block-shaped--being twice as long as it was wide and high. The tail was square and stubby and perfectly straight, and the four legs were made in the same way, each being four-sided. The animal was covered with a thick, smooth skin and had no hair at all except at the extreme end of its tail, where there grew exactly three stiff, stubby hairs. The beast was dark blue in color and his face was not fierce nor ferocious in expression, but rather good-humored and droll. Seeing the strangers, the Woozy folded his hind legs as if they had been hinged and sat down to look his visitors over. "Well, well," he exclaimed; "what a queer lot you are! At first I thought some of those miserable Munchkin farmers had come to annoy me, but I am relieved to find you in their stead. It is plain to me that you are a remarkable group--as remarkable in your way as I am in mine--and so you are welcome to my domain. Nice place, isn't it? But lonesome--dreadfully lonesome." "Why did they shut you up here?" asked Scraps, who was regarding the queer, square creature with much curiosity. "Because I eat up all the honey-bees which the Munchkin farmers who live around here keep to make them honey." "Are you fond of eating honey-bees?" inquired the boy. "Very. They are really delicious. But the farmers did not like to lose their bees and so they tried to destroy me. Of course they couldn't do that." "Why not?" "My skin is so thick and tough that nothing can get through it to hurt me. So, finding they could not destroy me, they drove me into this forest and built a fence around me. Unkind, wasn't it?" "But what do you eat now?" asked Ojo. "Nothing at all. I've tried the leaves from the trees and the mosses and creeping vines, but they don't seem to suit my taste. So, there being no honey-bees here, I've eaten nothing for years." "You must be awfully hungry," said the boy. "I've got some bread and cheese in my basket. Would you like that kind of food?" "Give me a nibble and I will try it; then I can tell you better whether it is grateful to my appetite," returned the Woozy. So the boy opened his basket and broke a piece off the loaf of bread. He tossed it toward the Woozy, who cleverly caught it in his mouth and ate it in a twinkling. "That's rather good," declared the animal. "Any more?" "Try some cheese," said Ojo, and threw down a piece. The Woozy ate that, too, and smacked its long, thin lips. "That's mighty good!" it exclaimed. "Any more?" "Plenty," replied Ojo. So he sat down on a stump and fed the Woozy bread and cheese for a long time; for, no matter how much the boy broke off, the loaf and the slice remained just as big. "That'll do," said the Woozy, at last; "I'm quite full. I hope the strange food won't give me indigestion." "I hope not," said Ojo. "It's what I eat." "Well, I must say I'm much obliged, and I'm glad you came," announced the beast. "Is there anything I can do in return for your kindness?" "Yes," said Ojo earnestly, "you have it in your power to do me a great favor, if you will." "What is it?" asked the Woozy. "Name the favor and I will grant it." "I--I want three hairs from the tip of your tail," said Ojo, with some hesitation. "Three hairs! Why, that's all I have--on my tail or anywhere else," exclaimed the beast. "I know; but I want them very much." "They are my sole ornaments, my prettiest feature," said the Woozy, uneasily. "If I give up those three hairs I--I'm just a blockhead." "Yet I must have them," insisted the boy, firmly, and he then told the Woozy all about the accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, and how the three hairs were to be a part of the magic charm that would restore them to life. The beast listened with attention and when Ojo had finished the recital it said, with a sigh: "I always keep my word, for I pride myself on being square. So you may have the three hairs, and welcome. I think, under such circumstances, it would be selfish in me to refuse you." "Thank you! Thank you very much," cried the boy, joyfully. "May I pull out the hairs now?" "Any time you like," answered the Woozy. So Ojo went up to the queer creature and taking hold of one of the hairs began to pull. He pulled harder. He pulled with all his might; but the hair remained fast. "What's the trouble?" asked the Woozy, which Ojo had dragged here and there all around the clearing in his endeavor to pull out the hair. "It won't come," said the boy, panting. "I was afraid of that," declared the beast. "You'll have to pull harder." "I'll help you," exclaimed Scraps, coming to the boy's side. "You pull the hair, and I'll pull you, and together we ought to get it out easily." "Wait a jiffy," called the Woozy, and then it went to a tree and hugged it with its front paws, so that its body couldn't be dragged around by the pull. "All ready, now. Go ahead!" Ojo grasped the hair with both hands and pulled with all his strength, while Scraps seized the boy around his waist and added her strength to his. But the hair wouldn't budge. Instead, it slipped out of Ojo's hands and he and Scraps both rolled upon the ground in a heap and never stopped until they bumped against the rocky cave. [Illustration] "Give it up," advised the Glass Cat, as the boy arose and assisted the Patchwork Girl to her feet. "A dozen strong men couldn't pull out those hairs. I believe they're clinched on the under side of the Woozy's thick skin." "Then what shall I do?" asked the boy, despairingly. "If on our return I fail to take these three hairs to the Crooked Magician, the other things I have come to seek will be of no use at all, and we cannot restore Unc Nunkie and Margolotte to life." "They're goners, I guess," said the Patchwork Girl. "Never mind," added the cat. "I can't see that old Unc and Margolotte are worth all this trouble, anyhow." But Ojo did not feel that way. He was so disheartened that he sat down upon a stump and began to cry. The Woozy looked at the boy thoughtfully. "Why don't you take me with you?" asked the beast. "Then, when at last you get to the Magician's house, he can surely find some way to pull out those three hairs." Ojo was overjoyed at this suggestion. "That's it!" he cried, wiping away the tears and springing to his feet with a smile. "If I take the three hairs to the Magician, it won't matter if they are still in your body." "It can't matter in the least," agreed the Woozy. "Come on, then," said the boy, picking up his basket; "let us start at once. I have several other things to find, you know." But the Glass Cat gave a little laugh and inquired in her scornful way: "How do you intend to get the beast out of this forest?" That puzzled them all for a time. "Let us go to the fence, and then we may find a way," suggested Scraps. So they walked through the forest to the fence, reaching it at a point exactly opposite that where they had entered the enclosure. "How did you get in?" asked the Woozy. "We climbed over," answered Ojo. "I can't do that," said the beast. "I'm a very swift runner, for I can overtake a honey-bee as it flies; and I can jump very high, which is the reason they made such a tall fence to keep me in. But I can't climb at all, and I'm too big to squeeze between the bars of the fence." Ojo tried to think what to do. "Can you dig?" he asked. "No," answered the Woozy, "for I have no claws. My feet are quite flat on the bottom of them. Nor can I gnaw away the boards, as I have no teeth." "You're not such a terrible creature, after all," remarked Scraps. "You haven't heard me growl, or you wouldn't say that," declared the Woozy. "When I growl, the sound echoes like thunder all through the valleys and woodlands, and children tremble with fear, and women cover their heads with their aprons, and big men run and hide. I suppose there is nothing in the world so terrible to listen to as the growl of a Woozy." "Please don't growl, then," begged Ojo, earnestly. "There is no danger of my growling, for I am not angry. Only when angry do I utter my fearful, ear-splitting, soul-shuddering growl. Also, when I am angry, my eyes flash fire, whether I growl or not." "Real fire?" asked Ojo. "Of course, real fire. Do you suppose they'd flash imitation fire?" inquired the Woozy, in an injured tone. "In that case, I've solved the riddle," cried Scraps, dancing with glee. "Those fence-boards are made of wood, and if the Woozy stands close to the fence and lets his eyes flash fire, they might set fire to the fence and burn it up. Then he could walk away with us easily, being free." "Ah, I have never thought of that plan, or I would have been free long ago," said the Woozy. "But I cannot flash fire from my eyes unless I am very angry." "Can't you get angry 'bout something, please?" asked Ojo. "I'll try. You just say 'Krizzle-Kroo' to me." "Will that make you angry?" inquired the boy. "Terribly angry." "What does it mean?" asked Scraps. "I don't know; that's what makes me so angry," replied the Woozy. He then stood close to the fence, with his head near one of the boards, and Scraps called out "Krizzle-Kroo!" Then Ojo said "Krizzle-Kroo!" and the Glass Cat said "Krizzle-Kroo!" The Woozy began to tremble with anger and small sparks darted from his eyes. Seeing this, they all cried "Krizzle-Kroo!" together, and that made the beast's eyes flash fire so fiercely that the fence-board caught the sparks and began to smoke. Then it burst into flame, and the Woozy stepped back and said triumphantly: "Aha! That did the business, all right. It was a happy thought for you to yell all together, for that made me as angry as I have ever been. Fine sparks, weren't they?" [Illustration] "Reg'lar fireworks," replied Scraps, admiringly. In a few moments the board had burned to a distance of several feet, leaving an opening big enough for them all to pass through. Ojo broke some branches from a tree and with them whipped the fire until it was extinguished. "We don't want to burn the whole fence down," said he, "for the flames would attract the attention of the Munchkin farmers, who would then come and capture the Woozy again. I guess they'll be rather surprised when they find he's escaped." "So they will," declared the Woozy, chuckling gleefully. "When they find I'm gone the farmers will be badly scared, for they'll expect me to eat up their honey-bees, as I did before." "That reminds me," said the boy, "that you must promise not to eat honey-bees while you are in our company." "None at all?" "Not a bee. You would get us all into trouble, and we can't afford to have any more trouble than is necessary. I'll feed you all the bread and cheese you want, and that must satisfy you." "All right; I'll promise," said the Woozy, cheerfully. "And when I promise anything you can depend on it, 'cause I'm square." "I don't see what difference that makes," observed the Patchwork Girl, as they found the path and continued their journey. "The shape doesn't make a thing honest, does it?" "Of course it does," returned the Woozy, very decidedly. "No one could trust that Crooked Magician, for instance, just because he _is_ crooked; but a square Woozy couldn't do anything crooked if he wanted to." "I am neither square nor crooked," said Scraps, looking down at her plump body. "No; you're round, so you're liable to do anything," asserted the Woozy. "Do not blame me, Miss Gorgeous, if I regard you with suspicion. Many a satin ribbon has a cotton back." Scraps didn't understand this, but she had an uneasy misgiving that she had a cotton back herself. It would settle down, at times, and make her squat and dumpy, and then she had to roll herself in the road until her body stretched out again. [Illustration] [Illustration] SHAGGY MAN TO THE RESCUE CHAP. 10 [Illustration] They had not gone very far before Bungle, who had run on ahead, came bounding back to say that the road of yellow bricks was just before them. At once they hurried forward to see what this famous road looked like. It was a broad road, but not straight, for it wandered over hill and dale and picked out the easiest places to go. All its length and breadth was paved with smooth bricks of a bright yellow color, so it was smooth and level except in a few places where the bricks had crumbled or been removed, leaving holes that might cause the unwary to stumble. "I wonder," said Ojo, looking up and down the road, "which way to go." "Where are you bound for?" asked the Woozy. "The Emerald City," he replied. "Then go west," said the Woozy. "I know this road pretty well, for I've chased many a honey-bee over it." "Have you ever been to the Emerald City?" asked Scraps. "No. I am very shy by nature, as you may have noticed, so I haven't mingled much in society." "Are you afraid of men?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "Me? With my heart-rending growl--my horrible, shudderful growl? I should say not. I am not afraid of anything," declared the Woozy. "I wish I could say the same," sighed Ojo. "I don't think we need be afraid when we get to the Emerald City, for Unc Nunkie has told me that Ozma, our girl Ruler, is very lovely and kind, and tries to help everyone who is in trouble. But they say there are many dangers lurking on the road to the great Fairy City, and so we must be very careful." "I hope nothing will break me," said the Glass Cat, in a nervous voice. "I'm a little brittle, you know, and can't stand many hard knocks." "If anything should fade the colors of my lovely patches it would break my heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "I'm not sure you have a heart," Ojo reminded her. "Then it would break my cotton," persisted Scraps. "Do you think they are all fast colors, Ojo?" she asked anxiously. "They seem fast enough when you run," he replied; and then, looking ahead of them, he exclaimed: "Oh, what lovely trees!" They were certainly pretty to look upon and the travelers hurried forward to observe them more closely. "Why, they are not trees at all," said Scraps; "they are just monstrous plants." That is what they really were: masses of great broad leaves which rose from the ground far into the air, until they towered twice as high as the top of the Patchwork Girl's head, who was a little taller than Ojo. The plants formed rows on both sides of the road and from each plant rose a dozen or more of the big broad leaves, which swayed continually from side to side, although no wind was blowing. But the most curious thing about the swaying leaves was their color. They seemed to have a general groundwork of blue, but here and there other colors glinted at times through the blue--gorgeous yellows, turning to pink, purple, orange and scarlet, mingled with more sober browns and grays--each appearing as a blotch or stripe anywhere on a leaf and then disappearing, to be replaced by some other color of a different shape. The changeful coloring of the great leaves was very beautiful, but it was bewildering, as well, and the novelty of the scene drew our travelers close to the line of plants, where they stood watching them with rapt interest. Suddenly a leaf bent lower than usual and touched the Patchwork Girl. Swiftly it enveloped her in its embrace, covering her completely in its thick folds, and then it swayed back upon its stem. [Illustration] "Why, she's gone!" gasped Ojo, in amazement, and listening carefully he thought he could hear the muffled screams of Scraps coming from the center of the folded leaf. But, before he could think what he ought to do to save her, another leaf bent down and captured the Glass Cat, rolling around the little creature until she was completely hidden, and then straightening up again upon its stem. "Look out," cried the Woozy. "Run! Run fast, or you are lost." Ojo turned and saw the Woozy running swiftly up the road. But the last leaf of the row of plants seized the beast even as he ran and instantly he disappeared from sight. The boy had no chance to escape. Half a dozen of the great leaves were bending toward him from different directions and as he stood hesitating one of them clutched him in its embrace. In a flash he was in the dark. Then he felt himself gently lifted until he was swaying in the air, with the folds of the leaf hugging him on all sides. At first he struggled hard to escape, crying out in anger: "Let me go! Let me go!" But neither struggles nor protests had any effect whatever. The leaf held him firmly and he was a prisoner. Then Ojo quieted himself and tried to think. Despair fell upon him when he remembered that all his little party had been captured, even as he was, and there was none to save them. "I might have expected it," he sobbed, miserably. "I'm Ojo the Unlucky, and something dreadful was sure to happen to me." He pushed against the leaf that held him and found it to be soft, but thick and firm. It was like a great bandage all around him and he found it difficult to move his body or limbs in order to change their position. The minutes passed and became hours. Ojo wondered how long one could live in such a condition and if the leaf would gradually sap his strength and even his life, in order to feed itself. The little Munchkin boy had never heard of any person dying in the Land of Oz, but he knew one could suffer a great deal of pain. His greatest fear at this time was that he would always remain imprisoned in the beautiful leaf and never see the light of day again. No sound came to him through the leaf; all around was intense silence. Ojo wondered if Scraps had stopped screaming, or if the folds of the leaf prevented his hearing her. By and by he thought he heard a whistle, as of some one whistling a tune. Yes; it really must be some one whistling, he decided, for he could follow the strains of a pretty Munchkin melody that Unc Nunkie used to sing to him. The sounds were low and sweet and, although they reached Ojo's ears very faintly, they were clear and harmonious. Could the leaf whistle, Ojo wondered? Nearer and nearer came the sounds and then they seemed to be just the other side of the leaf that was hugging him. Suddenly the whole leaf toppled and fell, carrying the boy with it, and while he sprawled at full length the folds slowly relaxed and set him free. He scrambled quickly to his feet and found that a strange man was standing before him--a man so curious in appearance that the boy stared with round eyes. He was a big man, with shaggy whiskers, shaggy eyebrows, shaggy hair--but kindly blue eyes that were gentle as those of a cow. On his head was a green velvet hat with a jeweled band, which was all shaggy around the brim. Rich but shaggy laces were at his throat; a coat with shaggy edges was decorated with diamond buttons; the velvet breeches had jeweled buckles at the knees and shags all around the bottoms. On his breast hung a medallion bearing a picture of Princess Dorothy of Oz, and in his hand, as he stood looking at Ojo, was a sharp knife shaped like a dagger. "Oh!" exclaimed Ojo, greatly astonished at the sight of this stranger; and then he added: "Who has saved me, sir?" "Can't you see?" replied the other, with a smile; "I'm the Shaggy Man." "Yes; I can see that," said the boy, nodding. "Was it you who rescued me from the leaf?" "None other, you may be sure. But take care, or I shall have to rescue you again." Ojo gave a jump, for he saw several broad leaves leaning toward him; but the Shaggy Man began to whistle again, and at the sound the leaves all straightened up on their stems and kept still. The man now took Ojo's arm and led him up the road, past the last of the great plants, and not till he was safely beyond their reach did he cease his whistling. "You see, the music charms 'em," said he. "Singing or whistling--it doesn't matter which--makes 'em behave, and nothing else will. I always whistle as I go by 'em and so they always let me alone. To-day as I went by, whistling, I saw a leaf curled and knew there must be something inside it. I cut down the leaf with my knife and--out you popped. Lucky I passed by, wasn't it?" "You were very kind," said Ojo, "and I thank you. Will you please rescue my companions, also?" "What companions?" asked the Shaggy Man. "The leaves grabbed them all," said the boy. "There's a Patchwork Girl and--" "A what?" "A girl made of patchwork, you know. She's alive and her name is Scraps. And there's a Glass Cat--" "Glass?" asked the Shaggy Man. "All glass." "And alive?" "Yes," said Ojo; "she has pink brains. And there's a Woozy--" "What's a Woozy?" inquired the Shaggy Man. "Why, I--I--can't describe it," answered the boy, greatly perplexed. "But it's a queer animal with three hairs on the tip of its tail that won't come out and--" "What won't come out?" asked the Shaggy Man; "the tail?" "The hairs won't come out. But you'll see the Woozy, if you'll please rescue it, and then you'll know just what it is." [Illustration] "Of course," said the Shaggy Man, nodding his shaggy head. And then he walked back among the plants, still whistling, and found the three leaves which were curled around Ojo's traveling companions. The first leaf he cut down released Scraps, and on seeing her the Shaggy Man threw back his shaggy head, opened wide his mouth and laughed so shaggily and yet so merrily, that Scraps liked him at once. Then he took off his hat and made her a low bow, saying: "My dear, you're a wonder. I must introduce you to my friend the Scarecrow." When he cut down the second leaf he rescued the Glass Cat, and Bungle was so frightened that she scampered away like a streak and soon had joined Ojo, when she sat beside him panting and trembling. The last plant of all the row had captured the Woozy, and a big bunch in the center of the curled leaf showed plainly where he was. With his sharp knife the Shaggy Man sliced off the stem of the leaf and as it fell and unfolded out trotted the Woozy and escaped beyond the reach of any more of the dangerous plants. [Illustration] [Illustration] A GOOD FRIEND CHAP. 11. [Illustration] Soon the entire party was gathered on the road of yellow bricks, quite beyond the reach of the beautiful but treacherous plants. The Shaggy Man, staring first at one and then at the other, seemed greatly pleased and interested. "I've seen queer things since I came to the Land of Oz," said he, "but never anything queerer than this band of adventurers. Let us sit down a while, and have a talk and get acquainted." "Haven't you always lived in the Land of Oz?" asked the Munchkin boy. "No; I used to live in the big, outside world. But I came here once with Dorothy, and Ozma let me stay." "How do you like Oz?" asked Scraps. "Isn't the country and the climate grand?" "It's the finest country in all the world, even if it is a fairyland, and I'm happy every minute I live in it," said the Shaggy Man. "But tell me something about yourselves." So Ojo related the story of his visit to the house of the Crooked Magician, and how he met there the Glass Cat, and how the Patchwork Girl was brought to life and of the terrible accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte. Then he told how he had set out to find the five different things which the Magician needed to make a charm that would restore the marble figures to life, one requirement being three hairs from a Woozy's tail. "We found the Woozy," explained the boy, "and he agreed to give us the three hairs; but we couldn't pull them out. So we had to bring the Woozy along with us." "I see," returned the Shaggy Man, who had listened with interest to the story. "But perhaps I, who am big and strong, can pull those three hairs from the Woozy's tail." "Try it, if you like," said the Woozy. So the Shaggy Man tried it, but pull as hard as he could he failed to get the hairs out of the Woozy's tail. So he sat down again and wiped his shaggy face with a shaggy silk handkerchief and said: "It doesn't matter. If you can keep the Woozy until you get the rest of the things you need, you can take the beast and his three hairs to the Crooked Magician and let him find a way to extract 'em. What are the other things you are to find?" "One," said Ojo, "is a six-leaved clover." "You ought to find that in the fields around the Emerald City," said the Shaggy Man. "There is a Law against picking six-leaved clovers, but I think I can get Ozma to let you have one." "Thank you," replied Ojo. "The next thing is the left wing of a yellow butterfly." "For that you must go to the Winkie Country," the Shaggy Man declared. "I've never noticed any butterflies there, but that is the yellow country of Oz and it's ruled by a good friend of mine, the Tin Woodman." "Oh, I've heard of him!" exclaimed Ojo. "He must be a wonderful man." "So he is, and his heart is wonderfully kind. I'm sure the Tin Woodman will do all in his power to help you to save your Unc Nunkie and poor Margolotte." "The next thing I must find," said the Munchkin boy, "is a gill of water from a dark well." "Indeed! Well, that is more difficult," said the Shaggy Man, scratching his left ear in a puzzled way. "I've never heard of a dark well; have you?" "No," said Ojo. "Do you know where one may be found?" inquired the Shaggy Man. "I can't imagine," said Ojo. "Then we must ask the Scarecrow." "The Scarecrow! But surely, sir, a scarecrow can't know anything." "Most scarecrows don't, I admit," answered the Shaggy Man. "But this Scarecrow of whom I speak is very intelligent. He claims to possess the best brains in all Oz." "Better than mine?" asked Scraps. "Better than mine?" echoed the Glass Cat. "Mine are pink, and you can see 'em work." "Well, you can't see the Scarecrow's brains work, but they do a lot of clever thinking," asserted the Shaggy Man. "If anyone knows where a dark well is, it's my friend the Scarecrow." "Where does he live?" inquired Ojo. "He has a splendid castle in the Winkie Country, near to the palace of his friend the Tin Woodman, and he is often to be found in the Emerald City, where he visits Dorothy at the royal palace." "Then we will ask him about the dark well," said Ojo. "But what else does this Crooked Magician want?" asked the Shaggy Man. "A drop of oil from a live man's body." "Oh; but there isn't such a thing." "That is what I thought," replied Ojo; "but the Crooked Magician said it wouldn't be called for by the recipe if it couldn't be found, and therefore I must search until I find it." "I wish you good luck," said the Shaggy Man, shaking his head doubtfully; "but I imagine you'll have a hard job getting a drop of oil from a live man's body. There's blood in a body, but no oil." [Illustration: I HATE DIGNITY] "There's cotton in mine," said Scraps, dancing a little jig. "I don't doubt it," returned the Shaggy Man admiringly. "You're a regular comforter and as sweet as patchwork can be. All you lack is dignity." "I hate dignity," cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. "Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor the other." "She's just crazy," explained the Glass Cat. The Shaggy Man laughed. "She's delightful, in her way," he said. "I'm sure Dorothy will be pleased with her, and the Scarecrow will dote on her. Did you say you were traveling toward the Emerald City?" "Yes," replied Ojo. "I thought that the best place to go, at first, because the six-leaved clover may be found there." "I'll go with you," said the Shaggy Man, "and show you the way." "Thank you," exclaimed Ojo. "I hope it won't put you out any." "No," said the other, "I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I've been a rover all my life, and although Ozma has given me a suite of beautiful rooms in her palace I still get the wandering fever once in a while and start out to roam the country over. I've been away from the Emerald City several weeks, this time, and now that I've met you and your friends I'm sure it will interest me to accompany you to the great city of Oz and introduce you to my friends." "That will be very nice," said the boy, gratefully. "I hope your friends are not dignified," observed Scraps. "Some are, and some are not," he answered; "but I never criticise my friends. If they are really true friends, they may be anything they like, for all of me." "There's some sense in that," said Scraps, nodding her queer head in approval. "Come on, and let's get to the Emerald City as soon as possible." With this she ran up the path, skipping and dancing, and then turned to await them. "It is quite a distance from here to the Emerald City," remarked the Shaggy Man, "so we shall not get there to-day, nor to-morrow. Therefore let us take the jaunt in an easy manner. I'm an old traveler and have found that I never gain anything by being in a hurry. 'Take it easy' is my motto. If you can't take it easy, take it as easy as you can." After walking some distance over the road of yellow bricks Ojo said he was hungry and would stop to eat some bread and cheese. He offered a portion of the food to the Shaggy Man, who thanked him but refused it. "When I start out on my travels," said he, "I carry along enough square meals to last me several weeks. Think I'll indulge in one now, as long as we're stopping anyway." Saying this, he took a bottle from his pocket and shook from it a tablet about the size of one of Ojo's finger-nails. "That," announced the Shaggy Man, "is a square meal, in condensed form. Invention of the great Professor Wogglebug, of the Royal College of Athletics. It contains soup, fish, roast meat, salad, apple-dumplings, ice cream and chocolate-drops, all boiled down to this small size, so it can be conveniently carried and swallowed when you are hungry and need a square meal." "I'm square," said the Woozy. "Give me one, please." So the Shaggy Man gave the Woozy a tablet from his bottle and the beast ate it in a twinkling. "You have now had a six course dinner," declared the Shaggy Man. "Pshaw!" said the Woozy, ungratefully, "I want to taste something. There's no fun in that sort of eating." "One should only eat to sustain life," replied the Shaggy Man, "and that tablet is equal to a peck of other food." "I don't care for it. I want something I can chew and taste," grumbled the Woozy. "You are quite wrong, my poor beast," said the Shaggy Man in a tone of pity. "Think how tired your jaws would get chewing a square meal like this, if it were not condensed to the size of a small tablet--which you can swallow in a jiffy." "Chewing isn't tiresome; it's fun," maintained the Woozy. "I always chew the honey-bees when I catch them. Give me some bread and cheese, Ojo." "No, no! You've already eaten a big dinner!" protested the Shaggy Man. "May be," answered the Woozy; "but I guess I'll fool myself by munching some bread and cheese. I may not be hungry, having eaten all those things you gave me, but I consider this eating business a matter of taste, and I like to realize what's going into me." Ojo gave the beast what he wanted, but the Shaggy Man shook his shaggy head reproachfully and said there was no animal so obstinate or hard to convince as a Woozy. At this moment a patter of footsteps was heard, and looking up they saw the live phonograph standing before them. It seemed to have passed through many adventures since Ojo and his comrades last saw the machine, for the varnish of its wooden case was all marred and dented and scratched in a way that gave it an aged and disreputable appearance. "Dear me!" exclaimed Ojo, staring hard. "What has happened to you?" "Nothing much," replied the phonograph in a sad and depressed voice. "I've had enough things thrown at me, since I left you, to stock a department store and furnish half a dozen bargain-counters." "Are you so broken up that you can't play?" asked Scraps. "No; I still am able to grind out delicious music. Just now I've a record on tap that is really superb," said the phonograph, growing more cheerful. "That is too bad," remarked Ojo. "We've no objection to you as a machine, you know; but as a music-maker we hate you." "Then why was I ever invented?" demanded the machine, in a tone of indignant protest. They looked at one another inquiringly, but no one could answer such a puzzling question. Finally the Shaggy Man said: "I'd like to hear the phonograph play." Ojo sighed. "We've been very happy since we met you, sir," he said. "I know. But a little misery, at times, makes one appreciate happiness more. Tell me, Phony, what is this record like, which you say you have on tap?" "It's a popular song, sir. In all civilized lands the common people have gone wild over it." "Makes civilized folks wild folks, eh? Then it's dangerous." "Wild with joy, I mean," explained the phonograph. "Listen. This song will prove a rare treat to you, I know. It made the author rich--for an author. It is called 'My Lulu.'" Then the phonograph began to play. A strain of odd, jerky sounds was followed by these words, sung by a man through his nose with great vigor of expression: "Ah want mah Lulu, mah cross-eyed Lulu; Ah want mah loo-loo, loo-loo, loo-loo, Lu! Ah love mah Lulu, mah cross-eyed Lulu, There ain't nobody else loves loo-loo, Lu!" "Here--shut that off!" cried the Shaggy Man, springing to his feet. "What do you mean by such impertinence?" "It's the latest popular song," declared the phonograph, speaking in a sulky tone of voice. "A popular song?" "Yes. One that the feeble-minded can remember the words of and those ignorant of music can whistle or sing. That makes a popular song popular, and the time is coming when it will take the place of all other songs." "That time won't come to us, just yet," said the Shaggy Man, sternly: "I'm something of a singer myself, and I don't intend to be throttled by any Lulus like your cross-eyed one. I shall take you all apart, Mr. Phony, and scatter your pieces far and wide over the country, as a matter of kindness to the people you might meet if allowed to run around loose. Having performed this painful duty I shall--" But before he could say more the phonograph turned and dashed up the road as fast as its four table-legs could carry it, and soon it had entirely disappeared from their view. The Shaggy Man sat down again and seemed well pleased. "Some one else will save me the trouble of scattering that phonograph," said he; "for it is not possible that such a music-maker can last long in the Land of Oz. When you are rested, friends, let us go on our way." [Illustration] During the afternoon the travelers found themselves in a lonely and uninhabited part of the country. Even the fields were no longer cultivated and the country began to resemble a wilderness. The road of yellow bricks seemed to have been neglected and became uneven and more difficult to walk upon. Scrubby underbrush grew on either side of the way, while huge rocks were scattered around in abundance. But this did not deter Ojo and his friends from trudging on, and they beguiled the journey with jokes and cheerful conversation. Toward evening they reached a crystal spring which gushed from a tall rock by the roadside and near this spring stood a deserted cabin. Said the Shaggy Man, halting here: "We may as well pass the night here, where there is shelter for our heads and good water to drink. Road beyond here is pretty bad; worst we shall have to travel; so let's wait until morning before we tackle it." They agreed to this and Ojo found some brushwood in the cabin and made a fire on the hearth. The fire delighted Scraps, who danced before it until Ojo warned her she might set fire to herself and burn up. After that the Patchwork Girl kept at a respectful distance from the darting flames, but the Woozy lay down before the fire like a big dog and seemed to enjoy its warmth. For supper the Shaggy Man ate one of his tablets, but Ojo stuck to his bread and cheese as the most satisfying food. He also gave a portion to the Woozy. When darkness came on and they sat in a circle on the cabin floor, facing the firelight--there being no furniture of any sort in the place--Ojo said to the Shaggy Man: "Won't you tell us a story?" "I'm not good at stories," was the reply; "but I sing like a bird." "Raven, or crow?" asked the Glass Cat. "Like a song bird. I'll prove it. I'll sing a song I composed myself. Don't tell anyone I'm a poet; they might want me to write a book. Don't tell 'em I can sing, or they'd want me to make records for that awful phonograph. Haven't time to be a public benefactor, so I'll just sing you this little song for your own amusement." They were glad enough to be entertained, and listened with interest while the Shaggy Man chanted the following verses to a tune that was not unpleasant: "I'll sing a song of Ozland, where wondrous creatures dwell And fruits and flowers and shady bowers abound in every dell, Where magic is a science and where no one shows surprise If some amazing thing takes place before his very eyes. Our Ruler's a bewitching girl whom fairies love to please; She's always kept her magic sceptre to enforce decrees To make her people happy, for her heart is kind and true And to aid the needy and distressed is what she longs to do. And then there's Princess Dorothy, as sweet as any rose, A lass from Kansas, where they don't grow fairies, I suppose; And there's the brainy Scarecrow, with a body stuffed with straw, Who utters words of wisdom rare that fill us all with awe. I'll not forget Nick Chopper, the Woodman made of Tin, Whose tender heart thinks killing time is quite a dreadful sin, Nor old Professor Wogglebug, who's highly magnified And looks so big to everyone that he is filled with pride. Jack Pumpkinhead's a dear old chum who might be called a chump, But won renown by riding round upon a magic Gump; The Sawhorse is a splendid steed and though he's made of wood He does as many thrilling stunts as any meat horse could. And now I'll introduce a beast that ev'ryone adores-- The Cowardly Lion shakes with fear 'most ev'ry time he roars, And yet he does the bravest things that any lion might, Because he knows that cowardice is not considered right. There's Tik-tok--he's a clockwork man and quite a funny sight-- He talks and walks mechanically, when he's wound up tight; And we've a Hungry Tiger who would babies love to eat But never does because we feed him other kinds of meat. It's hard to name all of the freaks this noble Land's acquired; 'Twould make my song so very long that you would soon be tired; But give attention while I mention one wise Yellow Hen And Nine fine Tiny Piglets living in a golden pen. Just search the whole world over--sail the seas from coast to coast-- No other nation in creation queerer folks can boast; And now our rare museum will include a Cat of Glass, A Woozy, and--last but not least--a crazy Patchwork Lass." Ojo was so pleased with this song that he applauded the singer by clapping his hands, and Scraps followed suit by clapping her padded fingers together, although they made no noise. The cat pounded on the floor with her glass paws--gently, so as not to break them--and the Woozy, which had been asleep, woke up to ask what the row was about. "I seldom sing in public, for fear they might want me to start an opera company," remarked the Shaggy Man, who was pleased to know his effort was appreciated. "Voice, just now, is a little out of training; rusty, perhaps." [Illustration] "Tell me," said the Patchwork Girl earnestly, "do all those queer people you mention really live in the Land of Oz?" "Every one of 'em. I even forgot one thing: Dorothy's Pink Kitten." "For goodness sake!" exclaimed Bungle, sitting up and looking interested. "A Pink Kitten? How absurd! Is it glass?" "No; just ordinary kitten." "Then it can't amount to much. I have pink brains, and you can see 'em work." "Dorothy's kitten is all pink--brains and all--except blue eyes. Name's Eureka. Great favorite at the royal palace," said the Shaggy Man, yawning. The Glass Cat seemed annoyed. "Do you think a pink kitten--common meat--is as pretty as I am?" she asked. "Can't say. Tastes differ, you know," replied the Shaggy Man, yawning again. "But here's a pointer that may be of service to you: make friends with Eureka and you'll be solid at the palace." "I'm solid now; solid glass." "You don't understand," rejoined the Shaggy Man, sleepily. "Anyhow, make friends with the Pink Kitten and you'll be all right. If the Pink Kitten despises you, look out for breakers." "Would anyone at the royal palace break a Glass Cat?" "Might. You never can tell. Advise you to purr soft and look humble--if you can. And now I'm going to bed." Bungle considered the Shaggy Man's advice so carefully that her pink brains were busy long after the others of the party were fast asleep. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE GIANT PORCUPINE CHAP. 12 [Illustration] Next morning they started out bright and early to follow the road of yellow bricks toward the Emerald City. The little Munchkin boy was beginning to feel tired from the long walk, and he had a great many things to think of and consider besides the events of the journey. At the wonderful Emerald City, which he would presently reach, were so many strange and curious people that he was half afraid of meeting them and wondered if they would prove friendly and kind. Above all else, he could not drive from his mind the important errand on which he had come, and he was determined to devote every energy to finding the things that were necessary to prepare the magic recipe. He believed that until dear Unc Nunkie was restored to life he could feel no joy in anything, and often he wished that Unc could be with him, to see all the astonishing things Ojo was seeing. But alas Unc Nunkie was now a marble statue in the house of the Crooked Magician and Ojo must not falter in his efforts to save him. The country through which they were passing was still rocky and deserted, with here and there a bush or a tree to break the dreary landscape. Ojo noticed one tree, especially, because it had such long, silky leaves and was so beautiful in shape. As he approached it he studied the tree earnestly, wondering if any fruit grew on it or if it bore pretty flowers. Suddenly he became aware that he had been looking at that tree a long time--at least for five minutes--and it had remained in the same position, although the boy had continued to walk steadily on. So he stopped short, and when he stopped, the tree and all the landscape, as well as his companions, moved on before him and left him far behind. Ojo uttered such a cry of astonishment that it aroused the Shaggy Man, who also halted. The others then stopped, too, and walked back to the boy. "What's wrong?" asked the Shaggy Man. "Why, we're not moving forward a bit, no matter how fast we walk," declared Ojo. "Now that we have stopped, we are moving backward! Can't you see? Just notice that rock." Scraps looked down at her feet and said: "The yellow bricks are not moving." "But the whole road is," answered Ojo. "True; quite true," agreed the Shaggy Man. "I know all about the tricks of this road, but I have been thinking of something else and didn't realize where we were." "It will carry us back to where we started from," predicted Ojo, beginning to be nervous. "No," replied the Shaggy Man; "it won't do that, for I know a trick to beat this tricky road. I've traveled this way before, you know. Turn around, all of you, and walk backward." "What good will that do?" asked the cat. "You'll find out, if you obey me," said the Shaggy Man. So they all turned their backs to the direction in which they wished to go and began walking backward. In an instant Ojo noticed they were gaining ground and as they proceeded in this curious way they soon passed the tree which had first attracted his attention to their difficulty. "How long must we keep this up, Shags?" asked Scraps, who was constantly tripping and tumbling down, only to get up again with a laugh at her mishap. "Just a little way farther," replied the Shaggy Man. A few minutes later he called to them to turn about quickly and step forward, and as they obeyed the order they found themselves treading solid ground. "That task is well over," observed the Shaggy Man. "It's a little tiresome to walk backward, but that is the only way to pass this part of the road, which has a trick of sliding back and carrying with it anyone who is walking upon it." [Illustration] With new courage and energy they now trudged forward and after a time came to a place where the road cut through a low hill, leaving high banks on either side of it. They were traveling along this cut, talking together, when the Shaggy Man seized Scraps with one arm and Ojo with another and shouted: "Stop!" "What's wrong now?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "See there!" answered the Shaggy Man, pointing with his finger. Directly in the center of the road lay a motionless object that bristled all over with sharp quills, which resembled arrows. The body was as big as a ten-bushel-basket, but the projecting quills made it appear to be four times bigger. "Well, what of it?" asked Scraps. "That is Chiss, who causes a lot of trouble along this road," was the reply. "Chiss! What is Chiss?" "I think it is merely an overgrown porcupine, but here in Oz they consider Chiss an evil spirit. He's different from a reg'lar porcupine, because he can throw his quills in any direction, which an American porcupine cannot do. That's what makes old Chiss so dangerous. If we get too near, he'll fire those quills at us and hurt us badly." "Then we will be foolish to get too near," said Scraps. "I'm not afraid," declared the Woozy. "The Chiss is cowardly, I'm sure, and if it ever heard my awful, terrible, frightful growl, it would be scared stiff." "Oh; can you growl?" asked the Shaggy Man. "That is the only ferocious thing about me," asserted the Woozy with evident pride. "My growl makes an earthquake blush and the thunder ashamed of itself. If I growled at that creature you call Chiss, it would immediately think the world had cracked in two and bumped against the sun and moon, and that would cause the monster to run as far and as fast as its legs could carry it." "In that case," said the Shaggy Man, "you are now able to do us all a great favor. Please growl." "But you forget," returned the Woozy; "my tremendous growl would also frighten you, and if you happen to have heart disease you might expire." "True; but we must take that risk," decided the Shaggy Man, bravely. "Being warned of what is to occur we must try to bear the terrific noise of your growl; but Chiss won't expect it, and it will scare him away." The Woozy hesitated. "I'm fond of you all, and I hate to shock you," it said. "Never mind," said Ojo. "You may be made deaf." "If so, we will forgive you." "Very well, then," said the Woozy in a determined voice, and advanced a few steps toward the giant porcupine. Pausing to look back, it asked: "All ready?" "All ready!" they answered. "Then cover up your ears and brace yourselves firmly. Now, then--look out!" The Woozy turned toward Chiss, opened wide its mouth and said: "Quee-ee-ee-eek." "Go ahead and growl," said Scraps. "Why, I--I _did_ growl!" retorted the Woozy, who seemed much astonished. "What, that little squeak?" she cried. [Illustration] "It is the most awful growl that ever was heard, on land or sea, in caverns or in the sky," protested the Woozy. "I wonder you stood the shock so well. Didn't you feel the ground tremble? I suppose Chiss is now quite dead with fright." The Shaggy Man laughed merrily. "Poor Wooz!" said he; "your growl wouldn't scare a fly." The Woozy seemed to be humiliated and surprised. It hung its head a moment, as if in shame or sorrow, but then it said with renewed confidence: "Anyhow, my eyes can flash fire; and good fire, too; good enough to set fire to a fence!" "That is true," declared Scraps; "I saw it done myself. But your ferocious growl isn't as loud as the tick of a beetle--or one of Ojo's snores when he's fast asleep." "Perhaps," said the Woozy, humbly, "I have been mistaken about my growl. It has always sounded very fearful to me, but that may have been because it was so close to my ears." "Never mind," Ojo said soothingly; "it is a great talent to be able to flash fire from your eyes. No one else can do that." [Illustration] As they stood hesitating what to do Chiss stirred and suddenly a shower of quills came flying toward them, almost filling the air, they were so many. Scraps realized in an instant that they had gone too near to Chiss for safety, so she sprang in front of Ojo and shielded him from the darts, which stuck their points into her own body until she resembled one of those targets they shoot arrows at in archery games. The Shaggy Man dropped flat on his face to avoid the shower, but one quill struck him in the leg and went far in. As for the Glass Cat, the quills rattled off her body without making even a scratch, and the skin of the Woozy was so thick and tough that he was not hurt at all. [Illustration] When the attack was over they all ran to the Shaggy Man, who was moaning and groaning, and Scraps promptly pulled the quill out of his leg. Then up he jumped and ran over to Chiss, putting his foot on the monster's neck and holding it a prisoner. The body of the great porcupine was now as smooth as leather, except for the holes where the quills had been, for it had shot every single quill in that one wicked shower. "Let me go!" it shouted angrily. "How dare you put your foot on Chiss?" "I'm going to do worse than that, old boy," replied the Shaggy Man. "You have annoyed travelers on this road long enough, and now I shall put an end to you." "You can't!" returned Chiss. "Nothing can kill me, as you know perfectly well." "Perhaps that is true," said the Shaggy Man in a tone of disappointment. "Seems to me I've been told before that you can't be killed. But if I let you go, what will you do?" "Pick up my quills again," said Chiss in a sulky voice. "And then shoot them at more travelers? No; that won't do. You must promise me to stop throwing quills at people." "I won't promise anything of the sort," declared Chiss. "Why not?" "Because it is my nature to throw quills, and every animal must do what Nature intends it to do. It isn't fair for you to blame me. If it were wrong for me to throw quills, then I wouldn't be made with quills to throw. The proper thing for you to do is to keep out of my way." "Why, there's some sense in that argument," admitted the Shaggy Man, thoughtfully; "but people who are strangers, and don't know you are here, won't be able to keep out of your way." "Tell you what," said Scraps, who was trying to pull the quills out of her own body, "let's gather up all the quills and take them away with us; then old Chiss won't have any left to throw at people." "Ah, that's a clever idea. You and Ojo must gather up the quills while I hold Chiss a prisoner; for, if I let him go, he will get some of his quills and be able to throw them again." So Scraps and Ojo picked up all the quills and tied them in a bundle so they might easily be carried. After this the Shaggy Man released Chiss and let him go, knowing that he was harmless to injure anyone. "It's the meanest trick I ever heard of," muttered the porcupine gloomily. "How would you like it, Shaggy Man, if I took all your shags away from you?" "If I threw my shags and hurt people, you would be welcome to capture them," was the reply. Then they walked on and left Chiss standing in the road sullen and disconsolate. The Shaggy Man limped as he walked, for his wound still hurt him, and Scraps was much annoyed because the quills had left a number of small holes in her patches. When they came to a flat stone by the roadside the Shaggy Man sat down to rest, and then Ojo opened his basket and took out the bundle of charms the Crooked Magician had given him. "I am Ojo the Unlucky," he said, "or we would never have met that dreadful porcupine. But I will see if I can find anything among these charms which will cure your leg." Soon he discovered that one of the charms was labelled: "For flesh wounds," and this the boy separated from the others. It was only a bit of dried root, taken from some unknown shrub, but the boy rubbed it upon the wound made by the quill and in a few moments the place was healed entirely and the Shaggy Man's leg was as good as ever. "Rub it on the holes in my patches," suggested Scraps, and Ojo tried it, but without any effect. "The charm you need is a needle and thread," said the Shaggy Man. "But do not worry, my dear; those holes do not look badly, at all." "They'll let in the air, and I don't want people to think I'm airy, or that I've been stuck up," said the Patchwork Girl. "You were certainly stuck up until we pulled out those quills," observed Ojo, with a laugh. So now they went on again and coming presently to a pond of muddy water they tied a heavy stone to the bundle of quills and sunk it to the bottom of the pond, to avoid carrying it farther. SCRAPS AND THE SCARECROW CHAP. 13 [Illustration] From here on the country improved and the desert places began to give way to fertile spots; still no houses were yet to be seen near the road. There were some hills, with valleys between them, and on reaching the top of one of these hills the travelers found before them a high wall, running to the right and the left as far as their eyes could reach. Immediately in front of them, where the wall crossed the roadway, stood a gate having stout iron bars that extended from top to bottom. They found, on coming nearer, that this gate was locked with a great padlock, rusty through lack of use. "Well," said Scraps, "I guess we'll stop here." "It's a good guess," replied Ojo. "Our way is barred by this great wall and gate. It looks as if no one had passed through in many years." "Looks are deceiving," declared the Shaggy Man, laughing at their disappointed faces, "and this barrier is the most deceiving thing in all Oz." "It prevents our going any farther, anyhow," said Scraps. "There is no one to mind the gate and let people through, and we've no key to the padlock." [Illustration] "True," replied Ojo, going a little nearer to peep through the bars of the gate. "What shall we do, Shaggy Man? If we had wings we might fly over the wall, but we cannot climb it and unless we get to the Emerald City I won't be able to find the things to restore Unc Nunkie to life." "All very true," answered the Shaggy Man, quietly; "but I know this gate, having passed through it many times." "How?" they all eagerly inquired. "I'll show you how," said he. He stood Ojo in the middle of the road and placed Scraps just behind him, with her padded hands on his shoulders. After the Patchwork Girl came the Woozy, who held a part of her skirt in his mouth. Then, last of all, was the Glass Cat, holding fast to the Woozy's tail with her glass jaws. "Now," said the Shaggy Man, "you must all shut your eyes tight, and keep them shut until I tell you to open them." "I can't," objected Scraps. "My eyes are buttons, and they won't shut." [Illustration] So the Shaggy Man tied his red handkerchief over the Patchwork Girl's eyes and examined all the others to make sure they had their eyes fast shut and could see nothing. "What's the game, anyhow--blind-man's-buff?" asked Scraps. "Keep quiet!" commanded the Shaggy Man, sternly. "All ready? Then follow me." He took Ojo's-hand and led him forward over the road of yellow bricks, toward the gate. Holding fast to one another they all followed in a row, expecting every minute to bump against the iron bars. The Shaggy Man also had his eyes closed, but marched straight ahead, nevertheless, and after he had taken one hundred steps, by actual count, he stopped and said: "Now you may open your eyes." They did so, and to their astonishment found the wall and the gateway far behind them, while in front the former Blue Country of the Munchkins had given way to green fields, with pretty farm-houses scattered among them. "That wall," explained the Shaggy Man, "is what is called an optical illusion. It is quite real while you have your eyes open, but if you are not looking at it the barrier doesn't exist at all. It's the same way with many other evils in life; they seem to exist, and yet it's all seeming and not true. You will notice that the wall--or what we thought was a wall--separates the Munchkin Country from the green country that surrounds the Emerald City, which lies exactly in the center of Oz. There are two roads of yellow bricks through the Munchkin Country, but the one we followed is the best of the two. Dorothy once traveled the other way, and met with more dangers than we did. But all our troubles are over for the present, as another day's journey will bring us to the great Emerald City." They were delighted to know this, and proceeded with new courage. In a couple of hours they stopped at a farmhouse, where the people were very hospitable and invited them to dinner. The farm folk regarded Scraps with much curiosity but no great astonishment, for they were accustomed to seeing extraordinary people in the Land of Oz. The woman of this house got her needle and thread and sewed up the holes made by the porcupine quills in the Patchwork Girl's body, after which Scraps was assured she looked as beautiful as ever. "You ought to have a hat to wear," remarked the woman, "for that would keep the sun from fading the colors of your face. I have some patches and scraps put away, and if you will wait two or three days I'll make you a lovely hat that will match the rest of you." "Never mind the hat," said Scraps, shaking her yarn braids; "it's a kind offer, but we can't stop. I can't see that my colors have faded a particle, as yet; can you?" "Not much," replied the woman. "You are still very gorgeous, in spite of your long journey." The children of the house wanted to keep the Glass Cat to play with, so Bungle was offered a good home if she would remain; but the cat was too much interested in Ojo's adventures and refused to stop. "Children are rough playmates," she remarked to the Shaggy Man, "and although this home is more pleasant than that of the Crooked Magician I fear I would soon be smashed to pieces by the boys and girls." After they had rested themselves they renewed their journey, finding the road now smooth and pleasant to walk upon and the country growing more beautiful the nearer they drew to the Emerald City. By and by Ojo began to walk on the green grass, looking carefully around him. "What are you trying to find?" asked Scraps. "A six-leaved clover," said he. "Don't do that!" exclaimed the Shaggy Man, earnestly. "It's against the Law to pick a six-leaved clover. You must wait until you get Ozma's consent." "She wouldn't know it," declared the boy. "Ozma knows many things," said the Shaggy Man. "In her room is a Magic Picture that shows any scene in the Land of Oz where strangers or travelers happen to be. She may be watching the picture of us even now, and noticing everything that we do." "Does she always watch the Magic Picture?" asked Ojo. "Not always, for she has many other things to do; but, as I said, she may be watching us this very minute." "I don't care," said Ojo, in an obstinate tone of voice; "Ozma's only a girl." The Shaggy Man looked at him in surprise. "You ought to care for Ozma," said he, "if you expect to save your uncle. For, if you displease our powerful Ruler, your journey will surely prove a failure; whereas, if you make a friend of Ozma, she will gladly assist you. As for her being a girl, that is another reason why you should obey her laws, if you are courteous and polite. Everyone in Oz loves Ozma and hates her enemies, for she is as just as she is powerful." Ojo sulked a while, but finally returned to the road and kept away from the green clover. The boy was moody and bad tempered for an hour or two afterward, because he could really see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover, if he found one, and in spite of what the Shaggy Man had said he considered Ozma's law to be unjust. They presently came to a beautiful grove of tall and stately trees, through which the road wound in sharp curves--first one way and then another. As they were walking through this grove they heard some one in the distance singing, and the sounds grew nearer and nearer until they could distinguish the words, although the bend in the road still hid the singer. The song was something like this: "Here's to the hale old bale of straw That's cut from the waving grain, The sweetest sight man ever saw In forest, dell or plain. It fills me with a crunkling joy A straw-stack to behold, For then I pad this lucky boy With strands of yellow gold." "Ah!" exclaimed the Shaggy Man; "here comes my friend the Scarecrow." [Illustration] "What, a live Scarecrow?" asked Ojo. "Yes; the one I told you of. He's a splendid fellow, and very intelligent. You'll like him, I'm sure." Just then the famous Scarecrow of Oz came around the bend in the road, riding astride a wooden Sawhorse which was so small that its rider's legs nearly touched the ground. The Scarecrow wore the blue dress of the Munchkins, in which country he was made, and on his head was set a peaked hat with a flat brim trimmed with tinkling bells. A rope was tied around his waist to hold him in shape, for he was stuffed with straw in every part of him except the top of his head, where at one time the Wizard of Oz had placed sawdust, mixed with needles and pins, to sharpen his wits. The head itself was merely a bag of cloth, fastened to the body at the neck, and on the front of this bag was painted the face--ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The Scarecrow's face was very interesting, for it bore a comical and yet winning expression, although one eye was a bit larger than the other and the ears were not mates. The Munchkin farmer who had made the Scarecrow had neglected to sew him together with close stitches and therefore some of the straw with which he was stuffed was inclined to stick out between the seams. His hands consisted of padded white gloves, with the fingers long and rather limp, and on his feet he wore Munchkin boots of blue leather with broad turns at the tops of them. The Sawhorse was almost as curious as its rider. It had been rudely made, in the beginning, to saw logs upon, so that its body was a short length of a log, and its legs were stout branches fitted into four holes made in the body. The tail was formed by a small branch that had been left on the log, while the head was a gnarled bump on one end of the body. Two knots of wood formed the eyes, and the mouth was a gash chopped in the log. When the Sawhorse first came to life it had no ears at all, and so could not hear; but the boy who then owned him had whittled two ears out of bark and stuck them in the head, after which the Sawhorse heard very distinctly. This queer wooden horse was a great favorite with Princess Ozma, who had caused the bottoms of its legs to be shod with plates of gold, so the wood would not wear away. Its saddle was made of cloth-of-gold richly encrusted with precious gems. It had never worn a bridle. As the Scarecrow came in sight of the party of travelers, he reined in his wooden steed and dismounted, greeting the Shaggy Man with a smiling nod. Then he turned to stare at the Patchwork Girl in wonder, while she in turn stared at him. "Shags," he whispered, drawing the Shaggy Man aside, "pat me into shape, there's a good fellow!" While his friend punched and patted the Scarecrow's body, to smooth out the humps, Scraps turned to Ojo and whispered: "Roll me out, please; I've sagged down dreadfully from walking so much and men like to see a stately figure." She then fell upon the ground and the boy rolled her back and forth like a rolling-pin, until the cotton had filled all the spaces in her patchwork covering and the body had lengthened to its fullest extent. Scraps and the Scarecrow both finished their hasty toilets at the same time, and again they faced each other. "Allow me, Miss Patchwork," said the Shaggy Man, "to present my friend, the Right Royal Scarecrow of Oz. Scarecrow, this is Miss Scraps Patches; Scraps, this is the Scarecrow. Scarecrow--Scraps; Scraps--Scarecrow." They both bowed with much dignity. "Forgive me for staring so rudely," said the Scarecrow, "but you are the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld." "That is a high compliment from one who is himself so beautiful," murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head. "But, tell me, good sir, are you not a trifle lumpy?" "Yes, of course; that's my straw, you know. It bunches up, sometimes, in spite of all my efforts to keep it even. Doesn't your straw ever bunch?" "Oh, I'm stuffed with cotton," said Scraps. "It never bunches, but it's inclined to pack down and make me sag." "But cotton is a high-grade stuffing. I may say it is even more stylish, not to say aristocratic, than straw," said the Scarecrow politely. "Still, it is but proper that one so entrancingly lovely should have the best stuffing there is going. I--er--I'm _so_ glad I've met you, Miss Scraps! Introduce us again, Shaggy." [Illustration] "Once is enough," replied the Shaggy Man, laughing at his friend's enthusiasm. "Then tell me where you found her, and--Dear me, what a queer cat! What are _you_ made of--gelatine?" "Pure glass," answered the cat, proud to have attracted the Scarecrow's attention. "I am much more beautiful than the Patchwork Girl. I'm transparent, and Scraps isn't; I've pink brains--you can see 'em work; and I've a ruby heart, finely polished, while Scraps hasn't any heart at all." "No more have I," said the Scarecrow, shaking hands with Scraps, as if to congratulate her on the fact. "I've a friend, the Tin Woodman, who has a heart, but I find I get along pretty well without one. And so--Well, well! here's a little Munchkin boy, too. Shake hands, my little man. How are you?" Ojo placed his hand in the flabby stuffed glove that served the Scarecrow for a hand, and the Scarecrow pressed it so cordially that the straw in his glove crackled. Meantime, the Woozy had approached the Sawhorse and begun to sniff at it. The Sawhorse resented this familiarity and with a sudden kick pounded the Woozy squarely on its head with one gold-shod foot. "Take that, you monster!" it cried angrily. The Woozy never even winked. "To be sure," he said; "I'll take anything I have to. But don't make me angry, you wooden beast, or my eyes will flash fire and burn you up." The Sawhorse rolled its knot eyes wickedly and kicked again, but the Woozy trotted away and said to the Scarecrow: "What a sweet disposition that creature has! I advise you to chop it up for kindling-wood and use me to ride upon. My back is flat and you can't fall off." "I think the trouble is that you haven't been properly introduced," said the Scarecrow, regarding the Woozy with much wonder, for he had never seen such a queer animal before. "The Sawhorse is the favorite steed of Princess Ozma, the Ruler of the Land of Oz, and he lives in a stable decorated with pearls and emeralds, at the rear of the royal palace. He is swift as the wind, untiring, and is kind to his friends. All the people of Oz respect the Sawhorse highly, and when I visit Ozma she sometimes allows me to ride him--as I am doing to-day. Now you know what an important personage the Sawhorse is, and if some one--perhaps yourself--will tell me your name, your rank and station, and your history, it will give me pleasure to relate them to the Sawhorse. This will lead to mutual respect and friendship." The Woozy was somewhat abashed by this speech and did not know how to reply. But Ojo said: "This square beast is called the Woozy, and he isn't of much importance except that he has three hairs growing on the tip of his tail." The Scarecrow looked and saw that this was true. "But," said he, in a puzzled way, "what makes those three hairs important? The Shaggy Man has thousands of hairs, but no one has ever accused him of being important." So Ojo related the sad story of Unc Nunkie's transformation into a marble statue, and told how he had set out to find the things the Crooked Magician wanted, in order to make a charm that would restore his uncle to life. One of the requirements was three hairs from a Woozy's tail, but not being able to pull out the hairs they had been obliged to take the Woozy with them. The Scarecrow looked grave as he listened and he shook his head several times, as if in disapproval. "We must see Ozma about this matter," he said. "That Crooked Magician is breaking the Law by practicing magic without a license, and I'm not sure Ozma will allow him to restore your uncle to life." "Already I have warned the boy of that," declared the Shaggy Man. At this Ojo began to cry. "I want my Unc Nunkie!" he exclaimed. "I know how he can be restored to life, and I'm going to do it--Ozma or no Ozma! What right has this girl Ruler to keep my Unc Nunkie a statue forever?" "Don't worry about that just now," advised the Scarecrow. "Go on to the Emerald City, and when you reach it have the Shaggy Man take you to see Dorothy. Tell her your story and I'm sure she will help you. Dorothy is Ozma's best friend, and if you can win her to your side your uncle is pretty safe to live again." Then he turned to the Woozy and said: "I'm afraid you are not important enough to be introduced to the Sawhorse, after all." [Illustration] "I'm a better beast than he is," retorted the Woozy, indignantly. "My eyes can flash fire, and his can't." "Is this true?" inquired the Scarecrow, turning to the Munchkin boy. "Yes," said Ojo, and told how the Woozy had set fire to the fence. "Have you any other accomplishments?" asked the Scarecrow. "I have a most terrible growl--that is, _sometimes_," said the Woozy, as Scraps laughed merrily and the Shaggy Man smiled. But the Patchwork Girl's laugh made the Scarecrow forget all about the Woozy. He said to her: "What an admirable young lady you are, and what jolly good company! We must be better acquainted, for never before have I met a girl with such exquisite coloring or such natural, artless manners." "No wonder they call you the Wise Scarecrow," replied Scraps. "When you arrive at the Emerald City I will see you again," continued the Scarecrow. "Just now I am going to call upon an old friend--an ordinary young lady named Jinjur--who has promised to repaint my left ear for me. You may have noticed that the paint on my left ear has peeled off and faded, which affects my hearing on that side. Jinjur always fixes me up when I get weather-worn." "When do you expect to return to the Emerald City?" asked the Shaggy Man. "I'll be there this evening, for I'm anxious to have a long talk with Miss Scraps. How is it, Sawhorse; are you equal to a swift run?" "Anything that suits you suits me," returned the wooden horse. So the Scarecrow mounted to the jeweled saddle and waved his hat, when the Sawhorse darted away so swiftly that they were out of sight in an instant. [Illustration] [Illustration] OJO BREAKS THE LAW CHAP. 14 [Illustration] "What a queer man," remarked the Munchkin boy, when the party had resumed its journey. "And so nice and polite," added Scraps, bobbing her head. "I think he is the handsomest man I've seen since I came to life." "Handsome is as handsome does," quoted the Shaggy Man; "but we must admit that no living scarecrow is handsomer. The chief merit of my friend is that he is a great thinker, and in Oz it is considered good policy to follow his advice." "I didn't notice any brains in his head," observed the Glass Cat. "You can't see 'em work, but they're there, all right," declared the Shaggy Man. "I hadn't much confidence in his brains myself, when first I came to Oz, for a humbug Wizard gave them to him; but I was soon convinced that the Scarecrow is really wise; and, unless his brains make him so, such wisdom is unaccountable." "Is the Wizard of Oz a humbug?" asked Ojo. "Not now. He was once, but he has reformed and now assists Glinda the Good, who is the Royal Sorceress of Oz and the only one licensed to practice magic or sorcery. Glinda has taught our old Wizard a good many clever things, so he is no longer a humbug." They walked a little while in silence and then Ojo said: "If Ozma forbids the Crooked Magician to restore Unc Nunkie to life, what shall I do?" The Shaggy Man shook his head. "In that case you can't do anything," he said. "But don't be discouraged yet. We will go to Princess Dorothy and tell her your troubles, and then we will let her talk to Ozma. Dorothy has the kindest little heart in the world, and she has been through so many troubles herself that she is sure to sympathize with you." "Is Dorothy the little girl who came here from Kansas?" asked the boy. "Yes. In Kansas she was Dorothy Gale. I used to know her there, and she brought me to the Land of Oz. But now Ozma has made her a Princess, and Dorothy's Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are here, too." Here the Shaggy Man uttered a long sigh, and then he continued: "It's a queer country, this Land of Oz; but I like it, nevertheless." "What is queer about it?" asked Scraps. "You, for instance," said he. "Did you see no girls as beautiful as I am in your own country?" she inquired. "None with the same gorgeous, variegated beauty," he confessed. "In America a girl stuffed with cotton wouldn't be alive, nor would anyone think of making a girl out of a patchwork quilt." "What a queer country America must be!" she exclaimed in great surprise. "The Scarecrow, whom you say is wise, told me I am the most beautiful creature he has ever seen." "I know; and perhaps you are--from a scarecrow point of view," replied the Shaggy Man; but why he smiled as he said it Scraps could not imagine. As they drew nearer to the Emerald City the travelers were filled with admiration for the splendid scenery they beheld. Handsome houses stood on both sides of the road and each had a green lawn before it as well as a pretty flower garden. "In another hour," said the Shaggy Man, "we shall come in sight of the walls of the Royal City." He was walking ahead, with Scraps, and behind them came the Woozy and the Glass Cat. Ojo had lagged behind, for in spite of the warnings he had received the boy's eyes were fastened on the clover that bordered the road of yellow bricks and he was eager to discover if such a thing as a six-leaved clover really existed. Suddenly he stopped short and bent over to examine the ground more closely. Yes; here at last was a clover with six spreading leaves. He counted them carefully, to make sure. In an instant his heart leaped with joy, for this was one of the important things he had come for--one of the things that would restore dear Unc Nunkie to life. [Illustration] He glanced ahead and saw that none of his companions was looking back. Neither were any other people about, for it was midway between two houses. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. "I might search for weeks and weeks, and never find another six-leaved clover," he told himself, and quickly plucking the stem from the plant he placed the prized clover in his basket, covering it with the other things he carried there. Then, trying to look as if nothing had happened, he hurried forward and overtook his comrades. [Illustration] The Emerald City, which is the most splendid as well as the most beautiful city in any fairyland, is surrounded by a high, thick wall of green marble, polished smooth and set with glistening emeralds. There are four gates, one facing the Munchkin Country, one facing the Country of the Winkies, one facing the Country of the Quadlings and one facing the Country of the Gillikins. The Emerald City lies directly in the center of these four important countries of Oz. The gates had bars of pure gold, and on either side of each gateway were built high towers, from which floated gay banners. Other towers were set at distances along the walls, which were broad enough for four people to walk abreast upon. This enclosure, all green and gold and glittering with precious gems, was indeed a wonderful sight to greet our travelers, who first observed it from the top of a little hill; but beyond the wall was the vast city it surrounded, and hundreds of jeweled spires, domes and minarets, flaunting flags and banners, reared their crests far above the towers of the gateways. In the center of the city our friends could see the tops of many magnificent trees, some nearly as tall as the spires of the buildings, and the Shaggy Man told them that these trees were in the royal gardens of Princess Ozma. They stood a long time on the hilltop, feasting their eyes on the splendor of the Emerald City. "Whee!" exclaimed Scraps, clasping her padded hands in ecstacy, "that'll do for me to live in, all right. No more of the Munchkin Country for these patches--and no more of the Crooked Magician!" "Why, you belong to Dr. Pipt," replied Ojo, looking at her in amazement. "You were made for a servant, Scraps, so you are personal property and not your own mistress." "Bother Dr. Pipt! If he wants me, let him come here and get me. I'll not go back to his den of my own accord; that's certain. Only one place in the Land of Oz is fit to live in, and that's the Emerald City. It's lovely! It's almost as beautiful as I am, Ojo." "In this country," remarked the Shaggy Man, "people live wherever our Ruler tells them to. It wouldn't do to have everyone live in the Emerald City, you know, for some must plow the land and raise grains and fruits and vegetables, while others chop wood in the forests, or fish in the rivers, or herd the sheep and the cattle." "Poor things!" said Scraps. "I'm not sure they are not happier than the city people," replied the Shaggy Man. "There's a freedom and independence in country life that not even the Emerald City can give one. I know that lots of the city people would like to get back to the land. The Scarecrow lives in the country, and so do the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead; yet all three would be welcome to live in Ozma's palace if they cared to. Too much splendor becomes tiresome, you know. But, if we're to reach the Emerald City before sundown, we must hurry, for it is yet a long way off." The entrancing sight of the city had put new energy into them all and they hurried forward with lighter steps than before. There was much to interest them along the roadway, for the houses were now set more closely together and they met a good many people who were coming or going from one place or another. All these seemed happy-faced, pleasant people, who nodded graciously to the strangers as they passed, and exchanged words of greeting. At last they reached the great gateway, just as the sun was setting and adding its red glow to the glitter of the emeralds on the green walls and spires. Somewhere inside the city a band could be heard playing sweet music; a soft, subdued hum, as of many voices, reached their ears; from the neighboring yards came the low mooing of cows waiting to be milked. They were almost at the gate when the golden bars slid back and a tall soldier stepped out and faced them. Ojo thought he had never seen so tall a man before. The soldier wore a handsome green and gold uniform, with a tall hat in which was a waving plume, and he had a belt thickly encrusted with jewels. But the most peculiar thing about him was his long green beard, which fell far below his waist and perhaps made him seem taller than he really was. "Halt!" said the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, not in a stern voice but rather in a friendly tone. They halted before he spoke and stood looking at him. "Good evening, Colonel," said the Shaggy Man. "What's the news since I left? Anything important?" "Billina has hatched out thirteen new chickens," replied the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, "and they're the cutest little fluffy yellow balls you ever saw. The Yellow Hen is mighty proud of those children, I can tell you." "She has a right to be," agreed the Shaggy Man. "Let me see; that's about seven thousand chicks she has hatched out; isn't it, General?" "That, at least," was the reply. "You will have to visit Billina and congratulate her." "It will give me pleasure to do that," said the Shaggy Man. "But you will observe that I have brought some strangers home with me. I am going to take them to see Dorothy." "One moment, please," said the soldier, barring their way as they started to enter the gate. "I am on duty, and I have orders to execute. Is anyone in your party named Ojo the Unlucky?" "Why, that's me!" cried Ojo, astonished at hearing his name on the lips of a stranger. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers nodded. "I thought so," said he, "and I am sorry to announce that it is my painful duty to arrest you." "Arrest me!" exclaimed the boy. "What for?" "I haven't looked to see," answered the soldier. Then he drew a paper from his breast pocket and glanced at it. "Oh, yes; you are to be arrested for wilfully breaking one of the Laws of Oz." "Breaking a law!" said Scraps. "Nonsense, Soldier; you're joking." "Not this time," returned the soldier, with a sigh. "My dear child--what are you, a rummage sale or a guess-me-quick?--in me you behold the Body-Guard of our gracious Ruler, Princess Ozma, as well as the Royal Army of Oz and the Police Force of the Emerald City." "And only one man!" exclaimed the Patchwork Girl. [Illustration] "Only one, and plenty enough. In my official positions I've had nothing to do for a good many years--so long that I began to fear I was absolutely useless--until to-day. An hour ago I was called to the presence of her Highness, Ozma of Oz, and told to arrest a boy named Ojo the Unlucky, who was journeying from the Munchkin Country to the Emerald City and would arrive in a short time. This command so astonished me that I nearly fainted, for it is the first time anyone has merited arrest since I can remember. You are rightly named Ojo the Unlucky, my poor boy, since you have broken a Law of Oz." "But you are wrong," said Scraps. "Ozma is wrong--you are all wrong--for Ojo has broken no Law." [Illustration] "Then he will soon be free again," replied the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. "Anyone accused of crime is given a fair trial by our Ruler and has every chance to prove his innocence. But just now Ozma's orders must be obeyed." With this he took from his pocket a pair of handcuffs made of gold and set with rubies and diamonds, and these he snapped over Ojo's wrists. [Illustration] OZMA'S PRISONER CHAP. 15 [Illustration] The boy was so bewildered by this calamity that he made no resistance at all. He knew very well he was guilty, but it surprised him that Ozma also knew it. He wondered how she had found out so soon that he had picked the six-leaved clover. He handed his basket to Scraps and said: "Keep that, until I get out of prison. If I never get out, take it to the Crooked Magician, to whom it belongs." The Shaggy Man had been gazing earnestly in the boy's face, uncertain whether to defend him or not; but something he read in Ojo's expression made him draw back and refuse to interfere to save him. The Shaggy Man was greatly surprised and grieved, but he knew that Ozma never made mistakes and so Ojo must really have broken the Law of Oz. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers now led them all through the gate and into a little room built in the wall. Here sat a jolly little man, richly dressed in green and having around his neck a heavy gold chain to which a number of great golden keys were attached. This was the Guardian of the Gate and at the moment they entered his room he was playing a tune upon a mouth-organ. "Listen!" he said, holding up his hand for silence. "I've just composed a tune called 'The Speckled Alligator.' It's in patch-time, which is much superior to rag-time, and I've composed it in honor of the Patchwork Girl, who has just arrived." "How did you know I had arrived?" asked Scraps, much interested. "It's my business to know who's coming, for I'm the Guardian of the Gate. Keep quiet while I play you 'The Speckled Alligator.'" It wasn't a very bad tune, nor a very good one, but all listened respectfully while he shut his eyes and swayed his head from side to side and blew the notes from the little instrument. When it was all over the Soldier with the Green Whiskers said: "Guardian, I have here a prisoner." "Good gracious! A prisoner?" cried the little man, jumping up from his chair. "Which one? Not the Shaggy Man?" "No; this boy." "Ah; I hope his fault is as small as himself," said the Guardian of the Gate. "But what can he have done, and what made him do it?" "Can't say," replied the soldier. "All I know is that he has broken the Law." "But no one ever does that!" "Then he must be innocent, and soon will be released. I hope you are right, Guardian. Just now I am ordered to take him to prison. Get me a prisoner's robe from your Official Wardrobe." [Illustration] The Guardian unlocked a closet and took from it a white robe, which the soldier threw over Ojo. It covered him from head to foot, but had two holes just in front of his eyes, so he could see where to go. In this attire the boy presented a very quaint appearance. As the Guardian unlocked a gate leading from his room into the streets of the Emerald City, the Shaggy Man said to Scraps: "I think I shall take you directly to Dorothy, as the Scarecrow advised, and the Glass Cat and the Woozy may come with us. Ojo must go to prison with the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, but he will be well treated and you need not worry about him." "What will they do with him?" asked Scraps. "That I cannot tell. Since I came to the Land of Oz no one has ever been arrested or imprisoned--until Ojo broke the Law." "Seems to me that girl Ruler of yours is making a big fuss over nothing," remarked Scraps, tossing her yarn hair out of her eyes with a jerk of her patched head. "I don't know what Ojo has done, but it couldn't be anything very bad, for you and I were with him all the time." The Shaggy Man made no reply to this speech and presently the Patchwork Girl forgot all about Ojo in her admiration of the wonderful city she had entered. They soon separated from the Munchkin boy, who was led by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers down a side street toward the prison. Ojo felt very miserable and greatly ashamed of himself, but he was beginning to grow angry because he was treated in such a disgraceful manner. Instead of entering the splendid Emerald City as a respectable traveler who was entitled to a welcome and to hospitality, he was being brought in as a criminal, handcuffed and in a robe that told all he met of his deep disgrace. Ojo was by nature gentle and affectionate and if he had disobeyed the Law of Oz it was to restore his dear Unc Nunkie to life. His fault was more thoughtless than wicked, but that did not alter the fact that he had committed a fault. At first he had felt sorrow and remorse, but the more he thought about the unjust treatment he had received--unjust merely because he considered it so--the more he resented his arrest, blaming Ozma for making foolish laws and then punishing folks who broke them. Only a six-leaved clover! A tiny green plant growing neglected and trampled under foot. What harm could there be in picking it? Ojo began to think Ozma must be a very bad and oppressive Ruler for such a lovely fairyland as Oz. The Shaggy Man said the people loved her; but how could they? The little Munchkin boy was so busy thinking these things--which many guilty prisoners have thought before him--that he scarcely noticed all the splendor of the city streets through which they passed. Whenever they met any of the happy, smiling people, the boy turned his head away in shame, although none knew who was beneath the robe. By and by they reached a house built just beside the great city wall, but in a quiet, retired place. It was a pretty house, neatly painted and with many windows. Before it was a garden filled with blooming flowers. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers led Ojo up the gravel path to the front door, on which he knocked. A woman opened the door and, seeing Ojo in his white robe, exclaimed: "Goodness me! A prisoner at last. But what a small one, Soldier." "The size doesn't matter, Tollydiggle, my dear. The fact remains that he is a prisoner," said the soldier. "And, this being the prison, and you the jailer, it is my duty to place the prisoner in your charge." "True. Come in, then, and I'll give you a receipt for him." They entered the house and passed through a hall to a large circular room, where the woman pulled the robe off from Ojo and looked at him with kindly interest. The boy, on his part, was gazing around him in amazement, for never had he dreamed of such a magnificent apartment as this in which he stood. The roof of the dome was of colored glass, worked into beautiful designs. The walls were paneled with plates of gold decorated with gems of great size and many colors, and upon the tiled floor were soft rugs delightful to walk upon. The furniture was framed in gold and upholstered in satin brocade and it consisted of easy chairs, divans and stools in great variety. Also there were several tables with mirror tops and cabinets filled with rare and curious things. In one place a case filled with books stood against the wall, and elsewhere Ojo saw a cupboard containing all sorts of games. "May I stay here a little while before I go to prison?" asked the boy, pleadingly. "Why, this is your prison," replied Tollydiggle, "and in me behold your jailor. Take off those handcuffs, Soldier, for it is impossible for anyone to escape from this house." "I know that very well," replied the soldier and at once unlocked the handcuffs and released the prisoner. The woman touched a button on the wall and lighted a big chandelier that hung suspended from the ceiling, for it was growing dark outside. Then she seated herself at a desk and asked: "What name?" "Ojo the Unlucky," answered the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. "Unlucky? Ah, that accounts for it," said she. "What crime?" "Breaking a Law of Oz." "All right. There's your receipt, Soldier; and now I'm responsible for the prisoner. I'm glad of it, for this is the first time I've ever had anything to do, in my official capacity," remarked the jailer, in a pleased tone. "It's the same with me, Tollydiggle," laughed the soldier. "But my task is finished and I must go and report to Ozma that I've done my duty like a faithful Police Force, a loyal Army and an honest Body-Guard--as I hope I am." Saying this, he nodded farewell to Tollydiggle and Ojo and went away. "Now, then," said the woman briskly, "I must get you some supper, for you are doubtless hungry. What would you prefer: planked whitefish, omelet with jelly or mutton-chops with gravy?" Ojo thought about it. Then he said: "I'll take the chops, if you please." "Very well; amuse yourself while I'm gone; I won't be long," and then she went out by a door and left the prisoner alone. Ojo was much astonished, for not only was this unlike any prison he had ever heard of, but he was being treated more as a guest than a criminal. There were many windows and they had no locks. There were three doors to the room and none were bolted. He cautiously opened one of the doors and found it led into a hallway. But he had no intention of trying to escape. If his jailor was willing to trust him in this way he would not betray her trust, and moreover a hot supper was being prepared for him and his prison was very pleasant and comfortable. So he took a book from the case and sat down in a big chair to look at the pictures. This amused him until the woman came in with a large tray and spread a cloth on one of the tables. Then she arranged his supper, which proved the most varied and delicious meal Ojo had ever eaten in his life. Tollydiggle sat near him while he ate, sewing on some fancy work she held in her lap. When he had finished she cleared the table and then read to him a story from one of the books. [Illustration] "Is this really a prison?" he asked, when she had finished reading. "Indeed it is," she replied. "It is the only prison in the Land of Oz." "And am I a prisoner?" "Bless the child! Of course." "Then why is the prison so fine, and why are you so kind to me?" he earnestly asked. Tollydiggle seemed surprised by the question, but she presently answered: "We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways--because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners." Ojo thought this over very carefully. "I had an idea," said he, "that prisoners were always treated harshly, to punish them." "That would be dreadful!" cried Tollydiggle. "Isn't one punished enough in knowing he has done wrong? Don't you wish, Ojo, with all your heart, that you had not been disobedient and broken a Law of Oz?" "I--I hate to be different from other people," he admitted. "Yes; one likes to be respected as highly as his neighbors are," said the woman. "When you are tried and found guilty, you will be obliged to make amends, in some way. I don't know just what Ozma will do to you, because this is the first time one of us has broken a Law; but you may be sure she will be just and merciful. Here in the Emerald City people are too happy and contented ever to do wrong; but perhaps you came from some faraway corner of our land, and having no love for Ozma carelessly broke one of her Laws." "Yes," said Ojo, "I've lived all my life in the heart of a lonely forest, where I saw no one but dear Unc Nunkie." "I thought so," said Tollydiggle. "But now we have talked enough, so let us play a game until bedtime." [Illustration] [Illustration] PRINCESS DOROTHY CHAP. 16 [Illustration] Dorothy Gale was sitting in one of her rooms in the royal palace, while curled up at her feet was a little black dog with a shaggy coat and very bright eyes. She wore a plain white frock, without any jewels or other ornaments except an emerald-green hair-ribbon, for Dorothy was a simple little girl and had not been in the least spoiled by the magnificence surrounding her. Once the child had lived on the Kansas prairies, but she seemed marked for adventure, for she had made several trips to the Land of Oz before she came to live there for good. Her very best friend was the beautiful Ozma of Oz, who loved Dorothy so well that she kept her in her own palace, so as to be near her. The girl's Uncle Henry and Aunt Em--the only relatives she had in the world--had also been brought here by Ozma and given a pleasant home. Dorothy knew almost everybody in Oz, and it was she who had discovered the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, as well as Tik-tok the Clockwork Man. Her life was very pleasant now, and although she had been made a Princess of Oz by her friend Ozma she did not care much to be a Princess and remained as sweet as when she had been plain Dorothy Gale of Kansas. Dorothy was reading in a book this evening when Jellia Jamb, the favorite servant-maid of the palace, came to say that the Shaggy Man wanted to see her. "All right," said Dorothy; "tell him to come right up." "But he has some queer creatures with him--some of the queerest I've ever laid eyes on," reported Jellia. "Never mind; let 'em all come up," replied Dorothy. But when the door opened to admit not only the Shaggy Man, but Scraps, the Woozy and the Glass Cat, Dorothy jumped up and looked at her strange visitors in amazement. The Patchwork Girl was the most curious of all and Dorothy was uncertain at first whether Scraps was really alive or only a dream or a nightmare. Toto, her dog, slowly uncurled himself and going to the Patchwork Girl sniffed at her inquiringly; but soon he lay down again, as if to say he had no interest in such an irregular creation. "You're a new one to me," Dorothy said reflectively, addressing the Patchwork Girl. "I can't imagine where you've come from." "Who, me?" asked Scraps, looking around the pretty room instead of at the girl. "Oh, I came from a bed-quilt, I guess. That's what they say, anyhow. Some call it a crazy-quilt and some a patchwork quilt. But my name is Scraps--and now you know all about me." [Illustration] "Not quite all," returned Dorothy with a smile. "I wish you'd tell me how you came to be alive." "That's an easy job," said Scraps, sitting upon a big upholstered chair and making the springs bounce her up and down. "Margolotte wanted a slave, so she made me out of an old bed-quilt she didn't use. Cotton stuffing, suspender-button eyes, red velvet tongue, pearl beads for teeth. The Crooked Magician made a Powder of Life, sprinkled me with it and--here I am. Perhaps you've noticed my different colors. A very refined and educated gentleman named the Scarecrow, whom I met, told me I am the most beautiful creature in all Oz, and I believe it." "Oh! Have you met our Scarecrow, then?" asked Dorothy, a little puzzled to understand the brief history related. "Yes; isn't he jolly?" "The Scarecrow has many good qualities," replied Dorothy. "But I'm sorry to hear all this 'bout the Crooked Magician. Ozma'll be mad as hops when she hears he's been doing magic again. She told him not to." "He only practices magic for the benefit of his own family," explained Bungle, who was keeping at a respectful distance from the little black dog. "Dear me," said Dorothy; "I hadn't noticed you before. Are you glass, or what?" "I'm glass, and transparent, too, which is more than can be said of some folks," answered the cat. "Also I have some lovely pink brains; you can see 'em work." "Oh; is that so? Come over here and let me see." The Glass Cat hesitated, eyeing the dog. "Send that beast away and I will," she said. "Beast! Why, that's my dog Toto, an' he's the kindest dog in all the world. Toto knows a good many things, too; 'most as much as I do, I guess." "Why doesn't he say anything?" asked Bungle. "He can't talk, not being a fairy dog," explained Dorothy. "He's just a common United States dog; but that's a good deal; and I understand him, and he understands me, just as well as if he could talk." Toto, at this, got up and rubbed his head softly against Dorothy's hand, which she held out to him, and he looked up into her face as if he had understood every word she had said. "This cat, Toto," she said to him, "is made of glass, so you mustn't bother it, or chase it, any more than you do my Pink Kitten. It's prob'ly brittle and might break if it bumped against anything." "Woof!" said Toto, and that meant he understood. The Glass Cat was so proud of her pink brains that she ventured to come close to Dorothy, in order that the girl might "see 'em work." This was really interesting, but when Dorothy patted the cat she found the glass cold and hard and unresponsive, so she decided at once that Bungle would never do for a pet. "What do you know about the Crooked Magician who lives on the mountain?" asked Dorothy. "He made me," replied the cat; "so I know all about him. The Patchwork Girl is new--three or four days old--but I've lived with Dr. Pipt for years; and, though I don't much care for him, I will say that he has always refused to work magic for any of the people who come to his house. He thinks there's no harm in doing magic things for his own family, and he made me out of glass because the meat cats drink too much milk. He also made Scraps come to life so she could do the housework for his wife Margolotte." "Then why did you both leave him?" asked Dorothy. "I think you'd better let me explain that," interrupted the Shaggy Man, and then he told Dorothy all of Ojo's story, and how Unc Nunkie and Margolotte had accidentally been turned to marble by the Liquid of Petrifaction. Then he related how the boy had started out in search of the things needed to make the magic charm, which would restore the unfortunates to life, and how he had found the Woozy and taken him along because he could not pull the three hairs out of its tail. Dorothy listened to all this with much interest, and thought that so far Ojo had acted very well. But when the Shaggy Man told her of the Munchkin boy's arrest by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, because he was accused of wilfully breaking a Law of Oz, the little girl was greatly shocked. "What do you s'pose he's done?" she asked. "I fear he has picked a six-leaved clover," answered the Shaggy Man, sadly. "I did not see him do it, and I warned him that to do so was against the Law; but perhaps that is what he did, nevertheless." "I'm sorry 'bout that," said Dorothy gravely, "for now there will be no one to help his poor uncle and Margolotte--'cept this Patchwork Girl, the Woozy and the Glass Cat." "Don't mention it," said Scraps. "That's no affair of mine. Margolotte and Unc Nunkie are perfect strangers to me, for the moment I came to life they came to marble." "I see," remarked Dorothy with a sigh of regret; "the woman forgot to give you a heart." "I'm glad she did," retorted the Patchwork Girl. "A heart must be a great annoyance to one. It makes a person feel sad or sorry or devoted or sympathetic--all of which sensations interfere with one's happiness." "I have a heart," murmured the Glass Cat. "It's made of a ruby; but I don't imagine I shall let it bother me about helping Unc Nunkie and Margolotte." "That's a pretty hard heart of yours," said Dorothy. "And the Woozy, of course--" "Why, as for me," observed the Woozy, who was reclining on the floor with his legs doubled under him, so that he looked much like a square box, "I have never seen those unfortunate people you are speaking of, and yet I am sorry for them, having at times been unfortunate myself. When I was shut up in that forest I longed for some one to help me, and by and by Ojo came and did help me. So I'm willing to help his uncle. I'm only a stupid beast, Dorothy, but I can't help that, and if you'll tell me what to do to help Ojo and his uncle, I'll gladly do it." Dorothy walked over and patted the Woozy on his square head. "You're not pretty," she said, "but I like you. What are you able to do; anything 'special?" "I can make my eyes flash fire--real fire--when I'm angry. When anyone says: 'Krizzle-Kroo' to me I get angry, and then my eyes flash fire." "I don't see as fireworks could help Ojo's uncle," remarked Dorothy. "Can you do anything else?" "I--I thought I had a very terrifying growl," said the Woozy, with hesitation; "but perhaps I was mistaken." "Yes," said the Shaggy Man, "you were certainly wrong about that." Then he turned to Dorothy and added: "What will become of the Munchkin boy?" "I don't know," she said, shaking her head thoughtfully. "Ozma will see him 'bout it, of course, and then she'll punish him. But how, I don't know, 'cause no one ever has been punished in Oz since I knew anything about the place. Too bad, Shaggy Man, isn't it?" While they were talking Scraps had been roaming around the room and looking at all the pretty things it contained. She had carried Ojo's basket in her hand, until now, when she decided to see what was inside it. She found the bread and cheese, which she had no use for, and the bundle of charms, which were curious but quite a mystery to her. Then, turning these over, she came upon the six-leaved clover which the boy had plucked. [Illustration] Scraps was quick-witted, and although she had no heart she recognized the fact that Ojo was her first friend. She knew at once that because the boy had taken the clover he had been imprisoned, and she understood that Ojo had given her the basket so they would not find the clover in his possession and have proof of his crime. So, turning her head to see that no one noticed her, she took the clover from the basket and dropped it into a golden vase that stood on Dorothy's table. Then she came forward and said to Dorothy: "I wouldn't care to help Ojo's uncle, but I will help Ojo. He did not break the Law--no one can prove he did--and that green-whiskered soldier had no right to arrest him." "Ozma ordered the boy's arrest," said Dorothy, "and of course she knew what she was doing. But if you can prove Ojo is innocent they will set him free at once." "They'll have to prove him guilty, won't they?" asked Scraps. "I s'pose so." "Well, they can't do that," declared the Patchwork Girl. As it was nearly time for Dorothy to dine with Ozma, which she did every evening, she rang for a servant and ordered the Woozy taken to a nice room and given plenty of such food as he liked best. "That's honey-bees," said the Woozy. "You can't eat honey-bees, but you'll be given something just as nice," Dorothy told him. Then she had the Glass Cat taken to another room for the night and the Patchwork Girl she kept in one of her own rooms, for she was much interested in the strange creature and wanted to talk with her again and try to understand her better. [Illustration] [Illustration] OZMA AND HER FRIENDS CHAP. 17 [Illustration] The Shaggy Man had a room of his own in the royal palace, so there he went to change his shaggy suit of clothes for another just as shaggy but not so dusty from travel. He selected a costume of pea-green and pink satin and velvet, with embroidered shags on all the edges and iridescent pearls for ornaments. Then he bathed in an alabaster pool and brushed his shaggy hair and whiskers the wrong way to make them still more shaggy. This accomplished, and arrayed in his splendid shaggy garments, he went to Ozma's banquet hall and found the Scarecrow, the Wizard and Dorothy already assembled there. The Scarecrow had made a quick trip and returned to the Emerald City with his left ear freshly painted. A moment later, while they all stood in waiting, a servant threw open a door, the orchestra struck up a tune and Ozma of Oz entered. Much has been told and written concerning the beauty of person and character of this sweet girl Ruler of the Land of Oz--the richest, the happiest and most delightful fairyland of which we have any knowledge. Yet with all her queenly qualities Ozma was a real girl and enjoyed the things in life that other real girls enjoy. When she sat on her splendid emerald throne in the great Throne Room of her palace and made laws and settled disputes and tried to keep all her subjects happy and contented, she was as dignified and demure as any queen might be; but when she had thrown aside her jeweled robe of state and her sceptre, and had retired to her private apartments, the girl--joyous, light-hearted and free--replaced the sedate Ruler. In the banquet hall to-night were gathered only old and trusted friends, so here Ozma was herself--a mere girl. She greeted Dorothy with a kiss, the Shaggy Man with a smile, the little old Wizard with a friendly handshake and then she pressed the Scarecrow's stuffed arm and cried merrily: "What a lovely left ear! Why, it's a hundred times better than the old one." "I'm glad you like it," replied the Scarecrow, well pleased. "Jinjur did a neat job, didn't she? And my hearing is now perfect. Isn't it wonderful what a little paint will do, if it's properly applied?" "It really _is_ wonderful," she agreed, as they all took their seats; "but the Sawhorse must have made his legs twinkle to have carried you so far in one day. I didn't expect you back before to-morrow, at the earliest." "Well," said the Scarecrow, "I met a charming girl on the road and wanted to see more of her, so I hurried back." Ozma laughed. "I know," she returned; "it's the Patchwork Girl. She is certainly bewildering, if not strictly beautiful." "Have you seen her, then?" the straw man eagerly asked. "Only in my Magic Picture, which shows me all scenes of interest in the Land of Oz." "I fear the picture didn't do her justice," said the Scarecrow. "It seemed to me that nothing could be more gorgeous," declared Ozma. "Whoever made that patchwork quilt, from which Scraps was formed, must have selected the gayest and brightest bits of cloth that ever were woven." "I am glad you like her," said the Scarecrow in a satisfied tone. Although the straw man did not eat, not being made so he could, he often dined with Ozma and her companions, merely for the pleasure of talking with them. He sat at the table and had a napkin and plate, but the servants knew better than to offer him food. After a little while he asked: "Where is the Patchwork Girl now?" "In my room," replied Dorothy. "I've taken a fancy to her; she's so queer and--and--uncommon." "She's half crazy, I think," added the Shaggy Man. "But she is so beautiful!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, as if that fact disarmed all criticism. They all laughed at his enthusiasm, but the Scarecrow was quite serious. Seeing that he was interested in Scraps they forbore to say anything against her. The little band of friends Ozma had gathered around her was so quaintly assorted that much care must be exercised to avoid hurting their feelings or making any one of them unhappy. It was this considerate kindness that held them close friends and enabled them to enjoy one another's society. [Illustration] Another thing they avoided was conversing on unpleasant subjects, and for that reason Ojo and his troubles were not mentioned during the dinner. The Shaggy Man, however, related his adventures with the monstrous plants which had seized and enfolded the travelers, and told how he had robbed Chiss, the giant porcupine, of the quills which it was accustomed to throw at people. Both Dorothy and Ozma were pleased with this exploit and thought it served Chiss right. Then they talked of the Woozy, which was the most remarkable animal any of them had ever before seen--except, perhaps, the live Sawhorse. Ozma had never known that her dominions contained such a thing as a Woozy, there being but one in existence and this being confined in his forest for many years. Dorothy said she believed the Woozy was a good beast, honest and faithful; but she added that she did not care much for the Glass Cat. "Still," said the Shaggy Man, "the Glass Cat is very pretty and if she were not so conceited over her pink brains no one would object to her as a companion." The Wizard had been eating silently until now, when he looked up and remarked: "That Powder of Life which is made by the Crooked Magician is really a wonderful thing. But Dr. Pipt does not know its true value and he uses it in the most foolish ways." "I must see about that," said Ozma, gravely. Then she smiled again and continued in a lighter tone: "It was Dr. Pipt's famous Powder of Life that enabled me to become the Ruler of Oz." "I've never heard that story," said the Shaggy Man, looking at Ozma questioningly. "Well, when I was a baby girl I was stolen by an old Witch named Mombi and transformed into a boy," began the girl Ruler. "I did not know who I was and when I grew big enough to work, the Witch made me wait upon her and carry wood for the fire and hoe in the garden. One day she came back from a journey bringing some of the Powder of Life, which Dr. Pipt had given her. I had made a pumpkin-headed man and set it up in her path to frighten her, for I was fond of fun and hated the Witch. But she knew what the figure was and to test her Powder of Life she sprinkled some of it on the man I had made. It came to life and is now our dear friend Jack Pumpkinhead. That night I ran away with Jack to escape punishment, and I took old Mombi's Powder of Life with me. During our journey we came upon a wooden Sawhorse standing by the road and I used the magic powder to bring it to life. The Sawhorse has been with me ever since. When I got to the Emerald City the good Sorceress, Glinda, knew who I was and restored me to my proper person, when I became the rightful Ruler of this land. So you see had not old Mombi brought home the Powder of Life I might never have run away from her and become Ozma of Oz, nor would we have had Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse to comfort and amuse us." That story interested the Shaggy Man very much, as well as the others, who had often heard it before. The dinner being now concluded, they all went to Ozma's drawing-room, where they passed a pleasant evening before it came time to retire. [Illustration: GLINDA] [Illustration] OJO IS FORGIVEN CHAP. 18 [Illustration] The next morning the Soldier with the Green Whiskers went to the prison and took Ojo away to the royal palace, where he was summoned to appear before the girl Ruler for judgment. Again the soldier put upon the boy the jeweled handcuffs and white prisoner's robe with the peaked top and holes for the eyes. Ojo was so ashamed, both of his disgrace and the fault he had committed, that he was glad to be covered up in this way, so that people could not see him or know who he was. He followed the Soldier with the Green Whiskers very willingly, anxious that his fate might be decided as soon as possible. The inhabitants of the Emerald City were polite people and never jeered at the unfortunate; but it was so long since they had seen a prisoner that they cast many curious looks toward the boy and many of them hurried away to the royal palace to be present during the trial. When Ojo was escorted into the great Throne Room of the palace he found hundreds of people assembled there. In the magnificent emerald throne, which sparkled with countless jewels, sat Ozma of Oz in her Robe of State, which was embroidered with emeralds and pearls. On her right, but a little lower, was Dorothy, and on her left the Scarecrow. Still lower, but nearly in front of Ozma, sat the wonderful Wizard of Oz and on a small table beside him was the golden vase from Dorothy's room, into which Scraps had dropped the stolen clover. At Ozma's feet crouched two enormous beasts, each the largest and most powerful of its kind. Although these beasts were quite free, no one present was alarmed by them; for the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger were well known and respected in the Emerald City and they always guarded the Ruler when she held high court in the Throne Room. There was still another beast present, but this one Dorothy held in her arms, for it was her constant companion, the little dog Toto. Toto knew the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger and often played and romped with them, for they were good friends. Seated on ivory chairs before Ozma, with a clear space between them and the throne, were many of the nobility of the Emerald City, lords and ladies in beautiful costumes, and officials of the kingdom in the royal uniforms of Oz. Behind these courtiers were others of less importance, filling the great hall to the very doors. At the same moment that the Soldier with the Green Whiskers arrived with Ojo, the Shaggy Man entered from a side door, escorting the Patchwork Girl, the Woozy and the Glass Cat. All these came to the vacant space before the throne and stood facing the Ruler. "Hullo, Ojo," said Scraps; "how are you?" "All right," he replied; but the scene awed the boy and his voice trembled a little with fear. Nothing could awe the Patchwork Girl, and although the Woozy was somewhat uneasy in these splendid surroundings the Glass Cat was delighted with the sumptuousness of the court and the impressiveness of the occasion--pretty big words but quite expressive. At a sign from Ozma the soldier removed Ojo's white robe and the boy stood face to face with the girl who was to decide his punishment. He saw at a glance how lovely and sweet she was, and his heart gave a bound of joy, for he hoped she would be merciful. Ozma sat looking at the prisoner a long time. Then she said gently: "One of the Laws of Oz forbids anyone to pick a six-leaved clover. You are accused of having broken this Law, even after you had been warned not to do so." [Illustration: "_I demand that you set this poor Munchkin Boy free_"] Ojo hung his head and while he hesitated how to reply the Patchwork Girl stepped forward and spoke for him. "All this fuss is about nothing at all," she said, facing Ozma unabashed. "You can't prove he picked the six-leaved clover, so you've no right to accuse him of it. Search him, if you like, but you won't find the clover; look in his basket and you'll find it's not there. He hasn't got it, so I demand that you set this poor Munchkin boy free." The people of Oz listened to this defiance in amazement and wondered at the queer Patchwork Girl who dared talk so boldly to their Ruler. But Ozma sat silent and motionless and it was the little Wizard who answered Scraps. "So the clover hasn't been picked, eh?" he said. "I think it has. I think the boy hid it in his basket, and then gave the basket to you. I also think you dropped the clover into this vase, which stood in Princess Dorothy's room, hoping to get rid of it so it would not prove the boy guilty. You're a stranger here, Miss Patches, and so you don't know that nothing can be hidden from our powerful Ruler's Magic Picture--nor from the watchful eyes of the humble Wizard of Oz. Look, all of you!" With these words he waved his hands toward the vase on the table, which Scraps now noticed for the first time. From the mouth of the vase a plant sprouted, slowly growing before their eyes until it became a beautiful bush, and on the topmost branch appeared the six-leaved clover which Ojo had unfortunately picked. The Patchwork Girl looked at the clover and said: "Oh, so you've found it. Very well; prove he picked it, if you can." Ozma turned to Ojo. "Did you pick the six-leaved clover?" she asked. "Yes," he replied. "I knew it was against the Law, but I wanted to save Unc Nunkie and I was afraid if I asked your consent to pick it you would refuse me." "What caused you to think that?" asked the Ruler. "Why, it seemed to me a foolish law, unjust and unreasonable. Even now I can see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover. And I--I had not seen the Emerald City, then, nor you, and I thought a girl who would make such a silly Law would not be likely to help anyone in trouble." Ozma regarded him musingly, her chin resting upon her hand; but she was not angry. On the contrary she smiled a little at her thoughts and then grew sober again. "I suppose a good many laws seem foolish to those people who do not understand them," she said; "but no law is ever made without some purpose, and that purpose is usually to protect all the people and guard their welfare. As you are a stranger, I will explain this Law which to you seems so foolish. Years ago there were many Witches and Magicians in the Land of Oz, and one of the things they often used in making their magic charms and transformations was a six-leaved clover. These Witches and Magicians caused so much trouble among my people, often using their powers for evil rather than good, that I decided to forbid anyone to practice magic or sorcery except Glinda the Good and her assistant, the Wizard of Oz, both of whom I can trust to use their arts only to benefit my people and to make them happier. Since I issued that Law the Land of Oz has been far more peaceful and quiet; but I learned that some of the Witches and Magicians were still practicing magic on the sly and using the six-leaved clovers to make their potions and charms. Therefore I made another Law forbidding anyone from plucking a six-leaved clover or from gathering other plants and herbs which the Witches boil in their kettles to work magic with. That has almost put an end to wicked sorcery in our land, so you see the Law was not a foolish one, but wise and just; and, in any event, it is wrong to disobey a Law." Ojo knew she was right and felt greatly mortified to realize he had acted and spoken so ridiculously. But he raised his head and looked Ozma in the face, saying: "I am sorry I have acted wrongly and broken your Law. I did it to save Unc Nunkie, and thought I would not be found out. But I am guilty of this act and whatever punishment you think I deserve I will suffer willingly." Ozma smiled more brightly, then, and nodded graciously. "You are forgiven," she said. "For, although you have committed a serious fault, you are now penitent and I think you have been punished enough. Soldier, release Ojo the Lucky and--" "I beg your pardon; I'm Ojo the _Un_lucky," said the boy. "At this moment you are lucky," said she. "Release him, Soldier, and let him go free." The people were glad to hear Ozma's decree and murmured their approval. As the royal audience was now over, they began to leave the Throne Room and soon there were none remaining except Ojo and his friends and Ozma and her favorites. The girl Ruler now asked Ojo to sit down and tell her all his story, which he did, beginning at the time he had left his home in the forest and ending with his arrival at the Emerald City and his arrest. Ozma listened attentively and was thoughtful for some moments after the boy had finished speaking. Then she said: "The Crooked Magician was wrong to make the Glass Cat and the Patchwork Girl, for it was against the Law. And if he had not unlawfully kept the bottle of Liquid of Petrifaction standing on his shelf, the accident to his wife Margolotte and to Unc Nunkie could not have occurred. I can understand, however, that Ojo, who loves his uncle, will be unhappy unless he can save him. Also I feel it is wrong to leave those two victims standing as marble statues, when they ought to be alive. So I propose we allow Dr. Pipt to make the magic charm which will save them, and that we assist Ojo to find the things he is seeking. What do you think, Wizard?" "That is perhaps the best thing to do," replied the Wizard. "But after the Crooked Magician has restored those poor people to life you must take away his magic powers." "I will," promised Ozma. "Now tell me, please, what magic things must you find?" continued the Wizard, addressing Ojo. "The three hairs from the Woozy's tail I have," said the boy. "That is, I have the Woozy, and the hairs are in his tail. The six-leaved clover I--I--" "You may take it and keep it," said Ozma. "That will not be breaking the Law, for it is already picked, and the crime of picking it is forgiven." "Thank you!" cried Ojo gratefully. Then he continued: "The next thing I must find is a gill of water from a dark well." The Wizard shook his head. "That," said he, "will be a hard task, but if you travel far enough you may discover it." "I am willing to travel for years, if it will save Unc Nunkie," declared Ojo, earnestly. "Then you'd better begin your journey at once," advised the Wizard. Dorothy had been listening with interest to this conversation. Now she turned to Ozma and asked: "May I go with Ojo, to help him?" "Would you like to?" returned Ozma. "Yes. I know Oz pretty well, but Ojo doesn't know it at all. I'm sorry for his uncle and poor Margolotte and I'd like to help save them. May I go?" "If you wish to," replied Ozma. "If Dorothy goes, then I must go to take care of her," said the Scarecrow, decidedly. "A dark well can only be discovered in some out-of-the-way place, and there may be dangers there." "You have my permission to accompany Dorothy," said Ozma. "And while you are gone I will take care of the Patchwork Girl." "I'll take care of myself," announced Scraps, "for I'm going with the Scarecrow and Dorothy. I promised Ojo to help him find the things he wants and I'll stick to my promise." "Very well," replied Ozma. "But I see no need for Ojo to take the Glass Cat and the Woozy." "I prefer to remain here," said the cat. "I've nearly been nicked half a dozen times, already, and if they're going into dangers it's best for me to keep away from them." "Let Jellia Jamb keep her till Ojo returns," suggested Dorothy. "We won't need to take the Woozy, either, but he ought to be saved because of the three hairs in his tail." "Better take me along," said the Woozy. "My eyes can flash fire, you know, and I can growl--a little." "I'm sure you'll be safer here," Ozma decided, and the Woozy made no further objection to the plan. After consulting together they decided that Ojo and his party should leave the very next day to search for the gill of water from a dark well, so they now separated to make preparations for the journey. Ozma gave the Munchkin boy a room in the palace for that night and the afternoon he passed with Dorothy--getting acquainted, as she said--and receiving advice from the Shaggy Man as to where they must go. The Shaggy Man had wandered in many parts of Oz, and so had Dorothy, for that matter, yet neither of them knew where a dark well was to be found. "If such a thing is anywhere in the settled parts of Oz," said Dorothy, "we'd prob'ly have heard of it long ago. If it's in the wild parts of the country, no one there would need a dark well. P'raps there isn't such a thing." "Oh, there must be!" returned Ojo, positively; "or else the recipe of Dr. Pipt wouldn't call for it." "That's true," agreed Dorothy; "and, if it's anywhere in the Land of Oz, we're bound to find it." "Well, we're bound to _search_ for it, anyhow," said the Scarecrow. "As for finding it, we must trust to luck." "Don't do that," begged Ojo, earnestly. "I'm called Ojo the Unlucky, you know." [Illustration] TROUBLE WITH THE TOTTENHOTS CHAP. 19 [Illustration] A day's journey from the Emerald City brought the little band of adventurers to the home of Jack Pumpkinhead, which was a house formed from the shell of an immense pumpkin. Jack had made it himself and was very proud of it. There was a door, and several windows, and through the top was stuck a stovepipe that led from a small stove inside. The door was reached by a flight of three steps and there was a good floor on which was arranged some furniture that was quite comfortable. It is certain that Jack Pumpkinhead might have had a much finer house to live in had he wanted it, for Ozma loved the stupid fellow, who had been her earliest companion; but Jack preferred his pumpkin house, as it matched himself very well, and in this he was not so stupid, after all. The body of this remarkable person was made of wood, branches of trees of various sizes having been used for the purpose. This wooden framework was covered by a red shirt--with white spots in it--blue trousers, a yellow vest, a jacket of green-and-gold and stout leather shoes. The neck was a sharpened stick on which the pumpkin head was set, and the eyes, ears, nose and mouth were carved on the skin of the pumpkin, very like a child's jack-o'-lantern. [Illustration] The house of this interesting creation stood in the center of a vast pumpkin-field, where the vines grew in profusion and bore pumpkins of extraordinary size as well as those which were smaller. Some of the pumpkins now ripening on the vines were almost as large as Jack's house, and he told Dorothy he intended to add another pumpkin to his mansion. The travelers were cordially welcomed to this quaint domicile and invited to pass the night there, which they had planned to do. The Patchwork Girl was greatly interested in Jack and examined him admiringly. "You are quite handsome," she said; "but not as really beautiful as the Scarecrow." Jack turned, at this, to examine the Scarecrow critically, and his old friend slyly winked one painted eye at him. [Illustration] "There is no accounting for tastes," remarked the Pumpkinhead, with a sigh. "An old crow once told me I was very fascinating, but of course the bird might have been mistaken. Yet I have noticed that the crows usually avoid the Scarecrow, who is a very honest fellow, in his way, but stuffed. I am not stuffed, you will observe; my body is good solid hickory." "I adore stuffing," said the Patchwork Girl. "Well, as for that, my head is stuffed with pumpkin-seeds," declared Jack. "I use them for brains, and when they are fresh I am intellectual. Just now, I regret to say, my seeds are rattling a bit, so I must soon get another head." "Oh; do you change your head?" asked Ojo. "To be sure. Pumpkins are not permanent, more's the pity, and in time they spoil. That is why I grow such a great field of pumpkins--that I may select a new head whenever necessary." "Who carves the faces on them?" inquired the boy. "I do that myself. I lift off my old head, place it on a table before me, and use the face for a pattern to go by. Sometimes the faces I carve are better than others--more expressive and cheerful, you know--but I think they average very well." Before she had started on the journey Dorothy had packed a knapsack with the things she might need, and this knapsack the Scarecrow carried strapped to his back. The little girl wore a plain gingham dress and a checked sunbonnet, as she knew they were best fitted for travel. Ojo also had brought along his basket, to which Ozma had added a bottle of "Square Meal Tablets" and some fruit. But Jack Pumpkinhead grew a lot of things in his garden besides pumpkins, so he cooked for them a fine vegetable soup and gave Dorothy, Ojo and Toto, the only ones who found it necessary to eat, a pumpkin pie and some green cheese. For beds they must use the sweet dried grasses which Jack had strewn along one side of the room, but that satisfied Dorothy and Ojo very well. Toto, of course, slept beside his little mistress. The Scarecrow, Scraps and the Pumpkinhead were tireless and had no need to sleep, so they sat up and talked together all night; but they stayed outside the house, under the bright stars, and talked in low tones so as not to disturb the sleepers. During the conversation the Scarecrow explained their quest for a dark well, and asked Jack's advice where to find it. The Pumpkinhead considered the matter gravely. "That is going to be a difficult task," said he, "and if I were you I'd take any ordinary well and enclose it, so as to make it dark." "I fear that wouldn't do," replied the Scarecrow. "The well must be naturally dark, and the water must never have seen the light of day, for otherwise the magic charm might not work at all." "How much of the water do you need?" asked Jack. "A gill." "How much is a gill?" "Why--a gill is a gill, of course," answered the Scarecrow, who did not wish to display his ignorance. "I know!" cried Scraps. "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch--" "No, no; that's wrong," interrupted the Scarecrow. "There are two kinds of gills, I think; one is a girl, and the other is--" "A gillyflower," said Jack. "No; a measure." "How big a measure?" "Well, I'll ask Dorothy." So next morning they asked Dorothy, and she said: "I don't just know how much a gill is, but I've brought along a gold flask that holds a pint. That's more than a gill, I'm sure, and the Crooked Magician may measure it to suit himself. But the thing that's bothering us most, Jack, is to find the well." Jack gazed around the landscape, for he was standing in the doorway of his house. "This is a flat country, so you won't find any dark wells here," said he. "You must go into the mountains, where rocks and caverns are." "And where is that?" asked Ojo. "In the Quadling Country, which lies south of here," replied the Scarecrow. "I've known all along that we must go to the mountains." "So have I," said Dorothy. "But--goodness me!--the Quadling Country is full of dangers," declared Jack. "I've never been there myself, but--" "I have," said the Scarecrow. "I've faced the dreadful Hammerheads, which have no arms and butt you like a goat; and I've faced the Fighting Trees, which bend down their branches to pound and whip you, and had many other adventures there." "It's a wild country," remarked Dorothy, soberly, "and if we go there we're sure to have troubles of our own. But I guess we'll have to go, if we want that gill of water from the dark well." So they said good-bye to the Pumpkinhead and resumed their travels, heading now directly toward the South Country, where mountains and rocks and caverns and forests of great trees abounded. This part of the Land of Oz, while it belonged to Ozma and owed her allegiance, was so wild and secluded that many queer peoples hid in its jungles and lived in their own way, without even a knowledge that they had a Ruler in the Emerald City. If they were left alone, these creatures never troubled the inhabitants of the rest of Oz, but those who invaded their domains encountered many dangers from them. It was a two days' journey from Jack Pumpkinhead's house to the edge of the Quadling Country, for neither Dorothy nor Ojo could walk very fast and they often stopped by the wayside to rest. The first night they slept on the broad fields, among the buttercups and daisies, and the Scarecrow covered the children with a gauze blanket taken from his knapsack, so they would not be chilled by the night air. Toward evening of the second day they reached a sandy plain where walking was difficult; but some distance before them they saw a group of palm trees, with many curious black dots under them; so they trudged bravely on to reach that place by dark and spend the night under the shelter of the trees. [Illustration] The black dots grew larger as they advanced and although the light was dim Dorothy thought they looked like big kettles turned upside down. Just beyond this place a jumble of huge, jagged rocks lay scattered, rising to the mountains behind them. Our travelers preferred to attempt to climb these rocks by daylight, and they realized that for a time this would be their last night on the plains. [Illustration] Twilight had fallen by the time they came to the trees, beneath which were the black, circular objects they had marked from a distance. Dozens of them were scattered around and Dorothy bent near to one, which was about as tall as she was, to examine it more closely. As she did so the top flew open and out popped a small creature, rising its length into the air and then plumping down upon the ground just beside the little girl. Another and another popped out of the circular, pot-like dwelling, while from all the other black objects came popping more creatures--very like jumping-jacks when their boxes are unhooked--until fully a hundred stood gathered around our little group of travelers. By this time Dorothy had discovered they were people, tiny and curiously formed, but still people. Their hair stood straight up, like wires, and was brilliant scarlet in color. Their bodies were bare except for skins fastened around their waists and they wore bracelets on their ankles and wrists, and necklaces, and great pendant earrings. Toto crouched beside his mistress and wailed as if he did not like these strange creatures a bit. Scraps began to mutter something about "hoppity, poppity, jumpity, dump!" but no one paid any attention to her. Ojo kept close to the Scarecrow and the Scarecrow kept close to Dorothy; but the little girl turned to the queer creatures and asked: "Who are you?" They answered this question all together, in a sort of chanting chorus, the words being as follows: "We're the jolly Tottenhots; We do not like the day, But in the night 'tis our delight To gambol, skip and play. "We hate the sun and from it run, The moon is cool and clear, So on this spot each Tottenhot Waits for it to appear. "We're ev'ry one chock full of fun, And full of mischief, too; But if you're gay and with us play We'll do no harm to you." "Glad to meet you, Tottenhots," said the Scarecrow solemnly. "But you mustn't expect us to play with you all night, for we've traveled all day and some of us are tired." "And we never gamble," added the Patchwork Girl. "It's against the Law." These remarks were greeted with shouts of laughter by the impish creatures and one seized the Scarecrow's arm and was astonished to find the straw man whirl around so easily. So the Tottenhot raised the Scarecrow high in the air and tossed him over the heads of the crowd. Some one caught him and tossed him back, and so with shouts of glee they continued throwing the Scarecrow here and there, as if he had been a basket-ball. Presently another imp seized Scraps and began to throw her about, in the same way. They found her a little heavier than the Scarecrow but still light enough to be tossed like a sofa-cushion, and they were enjoying the sport immensely when Dorothy, angry and indignant at the treatment her friends were receiving, rushed among the Tottenhots and began slapping and pushing them, until she had rescued the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl and held them close on either side of her. Perhaps she would not have accomplished this victory so easily had not Toto helped her, barking and snapping at the bare legs of the imps until they were glad to flee from his attack. As for Ojo, some of the creatures had attempted to toss him, also, but finding his body too heavy they threw him to the ground and a row of the imps sat on him and held him from assisting Dorothy in her battle. The little folks were much surprised at being attacked by the girl and the dog, and one or two who had been slapped hardest began to cry. Then suddenly they gave a shout, all together, and disappeared in a flash into their various houses, the tops of which closed with a series of pops that sounded like a bunch of firecrackers being exploded. The adventurers now found themselves alone, and Dorothy asked anxiously: "Is anybody hurt?" "Not me," answered the Scarecrow. "They have given my straw a good shaking up and taken all the lumps out of it. I am now in splendid condition and am really obliged to the Tottenhots for their kind treatment." "I feel much the same way," said Scraps. "My cotton stuffing had sagged a good deal with the day's walking and they've loosened it up until I feel as plump as a sausage. But the play was a little rough and I'd had quite enough of it when you interfered." [Illustration] "Six of them sat on me," said Ojo, "but as they are so little they didn't hurt me much." Just then the roof of the house in front of them opened and a Tottenhot stuck his head out, very cautiously, and looked at the strangers. "Can't you take a joke?" he asked, reproachfully; "haven't you any fun in you at all?" "If I had such a quality," replied the Scarecrow, "your people would have knocked it out of me. But I don't bear grudges. I forgive you." "So do I," added Scraps. "That is, if you behave yourselves after this." "It was just a little rough-house, that's all," said the Tottenhot. "But the question is not if _we_ will behave, but if _you_ will behave? We can't be shut up here all night, because this is our time to play; nor do we care to come out and be chewed up by a savage beast or slapped by an angry girl. That slapping hurts like sixty; some of my folks are crying about it. So here's the proposition: you let us alone and we'll let you alone." "You began it," declared Dorothy. "Well, you ended it, so we won't argue the matter. May we come out again? Or are you still cruel and slappy?" "Tell you what we'll do," said Dorothy. "We're all tired and want to sleep until morning. If you'll let us get into your house, and stay there until daylight, you can play outside all you want to." "That's a bargain!" cried the Tottenhot eagerly, and he gave a queer whistle that brought his people popping out of their houses on all sides. When the house before them was vacant, Dorothy and Ojo leaned over the hole and looked in, but could see nothing because it was so dark. But if the Tottenhots slept there all day the children thought they could sleep there at night, so Ojo lowered himself down and found it was not very deep. "There's a soft cushion all over," said he. "Come on in." Dorothy handed Toto to the boy and then climbed in herself. After her came Scraps and the Scarecrow, who did not wish to sleep but preferred to keep out of the way of the mischievous Tottenhots. There seemed no furniture in the round den, but soft cushions were strewn about the floor and these they found made very comfortable beds. They did not close the hole in the roof but left it open to admit air. It also admitted the shouts and ceaseless laughter of the impish Tottenhots as they played outside, but Dorothy and Ojo, being weary from their journey, were soon fast asleep. [Illustration] Toto kept an eye open, however, and uttered low, threatening growls whenever the racket made by the creatures outside became too boisterous; and the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl sat leaning against the wall and talked in whispers all night long. No one disturbed the travelers until daylight, when in popped the Tottenhot who owned the place and invited them to vacate his premises. [Illustration] [Illustration: LOOK OUT FOR YOOP] THE CAPTIVE YOOP CHAP. 20 [Illustration] As they were preparing to leave, Dorothy asked: "Can you tell us where there is a dark well?" "Never heard of such a thing," said the Tottenhot. "We live our lives in the dark, mostly, and sleep in the daytime; but we've never seen a dark well, or anything like one." "Does anyone live on those mountains beyond here?" asked the Scarecrow. "Lots of people. But you'd better not visit them. We never go there." was the reply. "What are the people like?" Dorothy inquired. "Can't say. We've been told to keep away from the mountain paths, and so we obey. This sandy desert is good enough for us, and we're not disturbed here," declared the Tottenhot. So they left the man snuggling down to sleep in his dusky dwelling, and went out into the sunshine, taking the path that led toward the rocky places. They soon found it hard climbing, for the rocks were uneven and full of sharp points and edges, and now there was no path at all. Clambering here and there among the boulders they kept steadily on, gradually rising higher and higher until finally they came to a great rift in a part of the mountain, where the rock seemed to have split in two and left high walls on either side. "S'pose we go this way," suggested Dorothy; "it's much easier walking than to climb over the hills." "How about that sign?" asked Ojo. "What sign?" she inquired. The Munchkin boy pointed to some words painted on the wall of rock beside them, which Dorothy had not noticed. The words read: "LOOK OUT FOR YOOP." The girl eyed this sign a moment and then turned to the Scarecrow, asking: "Who is Yoop; or what is Yoop?" The straw man shook his head. Then she looked at Toto and the dog said "Woof!" "Only way to find out is to go on," said Scraps. This being quite true, they went on. As they proceeded, the walls of rock on either side grew higher and higher. Presently they came upon another sign which read: "BEWARE THE CAPTIVE YOOP." "Why, as for that," remarked Dorothy, "if Yoop is a captive there's no need to beware of him. Whatever Yoop happens to be, I'd much rather have him a captive than running around loose." "So had I," agreed the Scarecrow, with a nod of his painted head. "Still," said Scraps, reflectively: "Yoop-te-hoop-te-loop-te-goop! Who put noodles in the soup? We may beware but we don't care, And dare go where we scare the Yoop." "Dear me! Aren't you feeling a little queer, just now?" Dorothy asked the Patchwork Girl. "Not queer, but crazy," said Ojo. "When she says those things I'm sure her brains get mixed somehow and work the wrong way." "I don't see why we are told to beware the Yoop unless he is dangerous," observed the Scarecrow in a puzzled tone. "Never mind; we'll find out all about him when we get to where he is," replied the little girl. The narrow canyon turned and twisted this way and that, and the rift was so small that they were able to touch both walls at the same time by stretching out their arms. Toto had run on ahead, frisking playfully, when suddenly he uttered a sharp bark of fear and came running back to them with his tail between his legs, as dogs do when they are frightened. "Ah," said the Scarecrow, who was leading the way, "we must be near Yoop." Just then, as he rounded a sharp turn, the straw man stopped so suddenly that all the others bumped against him. "What is it?" asked Dorothy, standing on tip-toes to look over his shoulder. But then she saw what it was and cried "Oh!" in a tone of astonishment. In one of the rock walls--that at their left--was hollowed a great cavern, in front of which was a row of thick iron bars, the tops and bottoms being firmly fixed in the solid rock. Over this cavern was a big sign, which Dorothy read with much curiosity, speaking the words aloud that all might know what they said: "MISTER YOOP--HIS CAVE The Largest Untamed Giant in Captivity. _Height, 21 Feet._--(And yet he has but 2 feet.) _Weight, 1640 Pounds._--(But he waits all the time.) _Age, 400 Years 'and Up'_ (as they say in the Department Store advertisements). _Temper, Fierce and Ferocious._--(Except when asleep.) _Appetite, Ravenous._--(Prefers Meat People and Orange Marmalade.) STRANGERS APPROACHING THIS CAVE DO SO AT THEIR OWN PERIL! _P. S.--Don't feed the Giant yourself._" [Illustration] "Very well," said Ojo, with a sigh; "let's go back." "It's a long way back," declared Dorothy. "So it is," remarked the Scarecrow, "and it means a tedious climb over those sharp rocks if we can't use this passage. I think it will be best to run by the Giant's cave as fast as we can go. Mister Yoop seems to be asleep just now." But the Giant wasn't asleep. He suddenly appeared at the front of his cavern, seized the iron bars in his great hairy hands and shook them until they rattled in their sockets. Yoop was so tall that our friends had to tip their heads way back to look into his face, and they noticed he was dressed all in pink velvet, with silver buttons and braid. The Giant's boots were of pink leather and had tassels on them and his hat was decorated with an enormous pink ostrich feather, carefully curled. "Yo-ho!" he said in a deep bass voice; "I smell dinner." "I think you are mistaken," replied the Scarecrow. "There is no orange marmalade around here." "Ah, but I eat other things," asserted Mister Yoop. "That is, I eat them when I can get them. But this is a lonely place, and no good meat has passed by my cave for many years; so I'm hungry." "Haven't you eaten anything in many years?" asked Dorothy. "Nothing except six ants and a monkey. I thought the monkey would taste like meat people, but the flavor was different. I hope you will taste better, for you seem plump and tender." "Oh, I'm not going to be eaten," said Dorothy. "Why not?" "I shall keep out of your way," she answered. "How heartless!" wailed the Giant, shaking the bars again. "Consider how many years it is since I've eaten a single plump little girl! They tell me meat is going up, but if I can manage to catch you I'm sure it will soon be going down. And I'll catch you if I can." With this the Giant pushed his big arms, which looked like tree-trunks (except that tree-trunks don't wear pink velvet) between the iron bars, and the arms were so long that they touched the opposite wall of the rock passage. Then he extended them as far as he could reach toward our travelers and found he could almost touch the Scarecrow--but not quite. "Come a little nearer, please," begged the Giant. "I'm a Scarecrow." "A Scarecrow? Ugh! I don't care a straw for a scarecrow. Who is that bright-colored delicacy behind you?" "Me?" asked Scraps. "I'm a Patchwork Girl, and I'm stuffed with cotton." "Dear me," sighed the Giant in a disappointed tone; "that reduces my dinner from four to two--and the dog. I'll save the dog for dessert." Toto growled, keeping a good distance away. "Back up," said the Scarecrow to those behind him. "Let us go back a little way and talk this over." So they turned and went around the bend in the passage, where they were out of sight of the cave and Mister Yoop could not hear them. "My idea," began the Scarecrow, when they had halted, "is to make a dash past the cave, going on a run." "He'd grab us," said Dorothy. "Well, he can't grab but one at a time, and I'll go first. As soon as he grabs me the rest of you can slip past him, out of his reach, and he will soon let me go because I am not fit to eat." They decided to try this plan and Dorothy took Toto in her arms, so as to protect him. She followed just after the Scarecrow. Then came Ojo, with Scraps the last of the four. Their hearts beat a little faster than usual as they again approached the Giant's cave, this time moving swiftly forward. It turned out about the way the Scarecrow had planned. Mister Yoop was quite astonished to see them come flying toward him, and thrusting his arms between the bars he seized the Scarecrow in a firm grip. In the next instant he realized, from the way the straw crunched between his fingers, that he had captured the non-eatable man, but during that instant of delay Dorothy and Ojo had slipped by the Giant and were out of reach. Uttering a howl of rage the monster threw the Scarecrow after them with one hand and grabbed Scraps with the other. The poor Scarecrow went whirling through the air and so cleverly was he aimed that he struck Ojo's back and sent the boy tumbling head over heels, and he tripped Dorothy and sent her, also, sprawling upon the ground. Toto flew out of the little girl's arms and landed some distance ahead, and all were so dazed that it was a moment before they could scramble to their feet again. When they did so they turned to look toward the Giant's cave, and at that moment the ferocious Mister Yoop threw the Patchwork Girl at them. Down went all three again, in a heap, with Scraps on top. The Giant roared so terribly that for a time they were afraid he had broken loose; but he hadn't. So they sat in the road and looked at one another in a rather bewildered way, and then began to feel glad. "We did it!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, with satisfaction. "And now we are free to go on our way." "Mister Yoop is very impolite," declared Scraps. "He jarred me terribly. It's lucky my stitches are so fine and strong, for otherwise such harsh treatment might rip me up the back." "Allow me to apologize for the Giant," said the Scarecrow, raising the Patchwork Girl to her feet and dusting her skirt with his stuffed hands. "Mister Yoop is a perfect stranger to me, but I fear, from the rude manner in which he has acted, that he is no gentleman." Dorothy and Ojo laughed at this statement and Toto barked as if he understood the joke, after which they all felt better and resumed the journey in high spirits. "Of course," said the little girl, when they had walked a way along the passage, "it was lucky for us the Giant was caged; for, if he had happened to be loose, he--he--" "Perhaps, in that case, he wouldn't be hungry any more," said Ojo gravely. [Illustration] [Illustration] HIP HOPPER THE CHAMPION CHAP. 21 [Illustration] They must have had good courage to climb all those rocks, for after getting out of the canyon they encountered more rock hills to be surmounted. Toto could jump from one rock to another quite easily, but the others had to creep and climb with care, so that after a whole day of such work Dorothy and Ojo found themselves very tired. As they gazed upward at the great mass of tumbled rocks that covered the steep incline, Dorothy gave a little groan and said: "That's going to be a ter'ble hard climb, Scarecrow. I wish we could find the dark well without so much trouble." "Suppose," said Ojo, "you wait here and let me do the climbing, for it's on my account we're searching for the dark well. Then, if I don't find anything, I'll come back and join you." "No," replied the little girl, shaking her head positively, "we'll all go together, for that way we can help each other. If you went alone, something might happen to you, Ojo." So they began the climb and found it indeed difficult, for a way. But presently, in creeping over the big crags, they found a path at their feet which wound in and out among the masses of rock and was quite smooth and easy to walk upon. As the path gradually ascended the mountain, although in a roundabout way, they decided to follow it. "This must be the road to the Country of the Hoppers," said the Scarecrow. "Who are the Hoppers?" asked Dorothy. "Some people Jack Pumpkinhead told me about," he replied. "I didn't hear him," replied the girl. "No; you were asleep," explained the Scarecrow. "But he told Scraps and me that the Hoppers and the Horners live on this mountain." "He said _in_ the mountain," declared Scraps; "but of course he meant _on_ it." "Didn't he say what the Hoppers and Horners were like?" inquired Dorothy. "No; he only said they were two separate nations, and that the Horners were the most important." "Well, if we go to their country we'll find out all about 'em," said the girl. "But I've never heard Ozma mention those people, so they can't be _very_ important." "Is this mountain in the Land of Oz?" asked Scraps. "Course it is," answered Dorothy. "It's in the South Country of the Quadlings. When one comes to the edge of Oz, in any direction, there is nothing more to be seen at all. Once you could see sandy desert all around Oz; but now it's diff'rent, and no other people can see us, any more than we can see them." "If the mountain is under Ozma's rule, why doesn't she know about the Hoppers and the Horners?" Ojo asked. "Why, it's a fairyland," explained Dorothy, "and lots of queer people live in places so tucked away that those in the Emerald City never even hear of 'em. In the middle of the country it's diff'rent, but when you get around the edges you're sure to run into strange little corners that surprise you. I know, for I've traveled in Oz a good deal, and so has the Scarecrow." "Yes," admitted the straw man, "I've been considerable of a traveler, in my time, and I like to explore strange places. I find I learn much more by traveling than by staying at home." During this conversation they had been walking up the steep pathway and now found themselves well up on the mountain. They could see nothing around them, for the rocks beside their path were higher than their heads. Nor could they see far in front of them, because the path was so crooked. But suddenly they stopped, because the path ended and there was no place to go. Ahead was a big rock lying against the side of the mountain, and this blocked the way completely. "There wouldn't be a path, though, if it didn't go somewhere," said the Scarecrow, wrinkling his forehead in deep thought. "This is somewhere, isn't it?" asked the Patchwork Girl, laughing at the bewildered looks of the others. "The path is locked, the way is blocked, Yet here we've innocently flocked; And now we're here it's rather queer There's no front door that can be knocked." "Please don't, Scraps," said Ojo. "You make me nervous." "Well," said Dorothy, "I'm glad of a little rest, for that's a drea'ful steep path." As she spoke she leaned against the edge of the big rock that stood in their way. To her surprise it slowly swung backward and showed behind it a dark hole that looked like the mouth of a tunnel. "Why, here's where the path goes to!" she exclaimed. "So it is," answered the Scarecrow. "But the question is, do we want to go where the path does?" "It's underground; right inside the mountain," said Ojo, peering into the dark hole. "Perhaps there's a well there; and, if there is, it's sure to be a dark one." "Why, that's true enough!" cried Dorothy with eagerness. "Let's go in, Scarecrow; 'cause, if others have gone, we're pretty safe to go, too." Toto looked in and barked, but he did not venture to enter until the Scarecrow had bravely gone first. Scraps followed closely after the straw man and then Ojo and Dorothy timidly stepped inside the tunnel. As soon as all of them had passed the big rock, it slowly turned and filled up the opening again; but now they were no longer in the dark, for a soft, rosy light enabled them to see around them quite distinctly. It was only a passage, wide enough for two of them to walk abreast--with Toto in between them--and it had a high, arched roof. They could not see where the light which flooded the place so pleasantly came from, for there were no lamps anywhere visible. The passage ran straight for a little way and then made a bend to the right and another sharp turn to the left, after which it went straight again. But there were no side passages, so they could not lose their way. After proceeding some distance, Toto, who had gone on ahead, began to bark loudly. They ran around a bend to see what was the matter and found a man sitting on the floor of the passage and leaning his back against the wall. He had probably been asleep before Toto's barks aroused him, for he was now rubbing his eyes and staring at the little dog with all his might. There was something about this man that Toto objected to, and when he slowly rose to his foot they saw what it was. He had but one leg, set just below the middle of his round, fat body; but it was a stout leg and had a broad, flat foot at the bottom of it, on which the man seemed to stand very well. He had never had but this one leg, which looked something like a pedestal, and when Toto ran up and made a grab at the man's ankle he hopped first one way and then another in a very active manner, looking so frightened that Scraps laughed aloud. Toto was usually a well behaved dog, but this time he was angry and snapped at the man's leg again and again. This filled the poor fellow with fear, and in hopping out of Toto's reach he suddenly lost his balance and tumbled heel over head upon the floor. When he sat up he kicked Toto on the nose and made the dog howl angrily, but Dorothy now ran forward and caught Toto's collar, holding him back. "Do you surrender?" she asked the man. "Who? Me?" asked the Hopper. "Yes; you," said the little girl. "Am I captured?" he inquired. "Of course. My dog has captured you," she said. "Well," replied the man, "if I'm captured I must surrender, for it's the proper thing to do. I like to do everything proper, for it saves one a lot of trouble." "It does, indeed," said Dorothy. "Please tell us who you are." "I'm Hip Hopper--Hip Hopper, the Champion." "Champion what?" she asked in surprise. "Champion wrestler. I'm a very strong man, and that ferocious animal which you are so kindly holding is the first living thing that has ever conquered me." "And you are a Hopper?" she continued. "Yes. My people live in a great city not far from here. Would you like to visit it?" "I'm not sure," she said with hesitation. "Have you any dark wells in your city?" "I think not. We have wells, you know, but they're all well lighted, and a well lighted well cannot well be a dark well. But there may be such a thing as a very dark well in the Horner Country, which is a black spot on the face of the earth." "Where is the Horner Country?" Ojo inquired. "The other side of the mountain. There's a fence between the Hopper Country and the Horner Country, and a gate in the fence; but you can't pass through just now, because we are at war with the Horners." "That's too bad," said the Scarecrow. "What seems to be the trouble?" "Why, one of them made a very insulting remark about my people. He said we were lacking in understanding, because we had only one leg to a person. I can't see that legs have anything to do with understanding things. The Horners each have two legs, just as you have. That's one leg too many, it seems to me." "No," declared Dorothy, "it's just the right number." "You don't need them," argued the Hopper, obstinately. "You've only one head, and one body, and one nose and mouth. Two legs are quite unnecessary, and they spoil one's shape." "But how can you walk, with only one leg?" asked Ojo. "Walk! Who wants to walk?" exclaimed the man. "Walking is a terribly awkward way to travel. I hop, and so do all my people. It's so much more graceful and agreeable than walking." "I don't agree with you," said the Scarecrow. "But tell me, is there any way to get to the Horner Country without going through the city of the Hoppers?" "Yes; there is another path from the rocky lowlands, outside the mountain, that leads straight to the entrance of the Horner Country. But it's a long way around, so you'd better come with me. Perhaps they will allow you to go through the gate; but we expect to conquer them this afternoon, if we get time, and then you may go and come as you please." They thought it best to take the Hopper's advice, and asked him to lead the way. This he did in a series of hops, and he moved so swiftly in this strange manner that those with two legs had to run to keep up with him. THE JOKING HORNERS CHAP. 22 [Illustration] It was not long before they left the passage and came to a great cave, so high that it must have reached nearly to the top of the mountain within which it lay. It was a magnificent cave, illumined by the soft, invisible light, so that everything in it could be plainly seen. The walls were of polished marble, white with veins of delicate colors running through it, and the roof was arched and carved in designs both fantastic and beautiful. Built beneath this vast dome was a pretty village--not very large, for there seemed not more than fifty houses altogether--and the dwellings were of marble and artistically designed. No grass nor flowers nor trees grew in this cave, so the yards surrounding the houses were smooth and bare and had low walls around them to mark their boundaries. In the streets and the yards of the houses were many people, all having one leg growing below their bodies and all hopping here and there whenever they moved. Even the children stood firmly upon their single legs and never lost their balance. "All hail, Champion!" cried a man in the first group of Hoppers they met; "whom have you captured?" "No one," replied the Champion in a gloomy voice; "these strangers have captured me." "Then," said another, "we will rescue you, and capture them, for we are greater in number." "No," answered the Champion, "I can't allow it. I've surrendered, and it isn't polite to capture those you've surrendered to." "Never mind that," said Dorothy. "We will give you your liberty and set you free." "Really?" asked the Champion in joyous tones. "Yes," said the little girl; "your people may need you to help conquer the Horners." At this all the Hoppers looked downcast and sad. Several more had joined the group by this time and quite a crowd of curious men, women and children surrounded the strangers. "This war with our neighbors is a terrible thing," remarked one of the women. "Some one is almost sure to get hurt." "Why do you say that, madam?" inquired the Scarecrow. "Because the horns of our enemies are sharp, and in battle they will try to stick those horns into our warriors," she replied. "How many horns do the Horners have?" asked Dorothy. "Each has one horn in the center of his forehead," was the answer. "Oh, then they're unicorns," declared the Scarecrow. "No; they're Horners. We never go to war with them if we can help it, on account of their dangerous horns; but this insult was so great and so unprovoked that our brave men decided to fight, in order to be revenged," said the woman. "What weapons do you fight with?" the Scarecrow asked. "We have no weapons," explained the Champion. "Whenever we fight the Horners, our plan is to push them back, for our arms are longer than theirs." "Then you are better armed," said Scraps. "Yes; but they have those terrible horns, and unless we are careful they prick us with the points," returned the Champion with a shudder. "That makes a war with them dangerous, and a dangerous war cannot be a pleasant one." "I see very clearly," remarked the Scarecrow, "that you are going to have trouble in conquering those Horners--unless we help you." "Oh!" cried the Hoppers in a chorus; "can you help us? Please do! We will be greatly obliged! It would please us very much!" and by these exclamations the Scarecrow knew that his speech had met with favor. "How far is it to the Horner Country?" he asked. "Why, it's just the other side of the fence," they answered, and the Champion added: "Come with me, please, and I'll show you the Horners." So they followed the Champion and several others through the streets and just beyond the village came to a very high picket fence, built all of marble, which seemed to divide the great cave into two equal parts. But the part inhabited by the Horners was in no way as grand in appearance as that of the Hoppers. Instead of being marble, the walls and roof were of dull gray rock and the square houses were plainly made of the same material. But in extent the city was much larger than that of the Hoppers and the streets were thronged with numerous people who busied themselves in various ways. Looking through the open pickets of the fence our friends watched the Horners, who did not know they were being watched by strangers, and found them very unusual in appearance. They were little folks in size and had bodies round as balls and short legs and arms. Their heads were round, too, and they had long, pointed ears and a horn set in the center of the forehead. The horns did not seem very terrible, for they were not more than six inches long; but they were ivory white and sharp pointed, and no wonder the Hoppers feared them. The skins of the Horners were light brown, but they wore snow-white robes and were bare-footed. Dorothy thought the most striking thing about them was their hair, which grew in three distinct colors on each and every head--red, yellow and green. The red was at the bottom and sometimes hung over their eyes; then came a broad circle of yellow and the green was at the top and formed a brush-shaped top-knot. None of the Horners was yet aware of the presence of strangers, who watched the little brown people for a time and then went to the big gate in the center of the dividing fence. It was locked on both sides and over the latch was a sign reading: "WAR IS DECLARED" "Can't we go through?" asked Dorothy. "Not now," answered the Champion. "I think," said the Scarecrow, "that if I could talk with those Horners they would apologize to you, and then there would be no need to fight." "Can't you talk from this side," asked the Champion. "Not so well," replied the Scarecrow. "Do you suppose you could throw me over that fence? It is high, but I am very light." "We can try it," said the Hopper. "I am perhaps the strongest man in my country, so I'll undertake to do the throwing. But I won't promise you will land on your feet." "No matter about that," returned the Scarecrow. "Just toss me over and I'll be satisfied." So the Champion picked up the Scarecrow and balanced him a moment, to see how much he weighed, and then with all his strength tossed him high into the air. Perhaps if the Scarecrow had been a trifle heavier he would have been easier to throw and would have gone a greater distance; but, as it was, instead of going over the fence he landed just on top of it, and one of the sharp pickets caught him in the middle of his back and held him fast prisoner. Had he been face downward the Scarecrow might have managed to free himself, but lying on his back on the picket his hands waved in the air of the Horner Country while his feet kicked the air of the Hopper Country; so there he was. "Are you hurt?" called the Patchwork Girl anxiously. "Course not," said Dorothy. "But if he wiggles that way he may tear his clothes. How can we get him down, Mr. Champion?" The Champion shook his head. "I don't know," he confessed. "If he could scare Horners as well as he does crows, it might be a good idea to leave him there." "This is terrible," said Ojo, almost ready to cry. "I s'pose it's because I am Ojo the Unlucky that everyone who tries to help me gets into trouble." "You are lucky to have anyone to help you," declared Dorothy. "But don't worry. We'll rescue the Scarecrow, somehow." "I know how," announced Scraps. "Here, Mr. Champion; just throw me up to the Scarecrow. I'm nearly as light as he is, and when I'm on top the fence I'll pull our friend off the picket and toss him down to you." [Illustration] "All right," said the Champion, and he picked up the Patchwork Girl and threw her in the same manner he had the Scarecrow. He must have used more strength this time, however, for Scraps sailed far over the top of the fence and, without being able to grab the Scarecrow at all, tumbled to the ground in the Horner Country, where her stuffed body knocked over two men and a woman and made a crowd that had collected there run like rabbits to get away from her. [Illustration] Seeing the next moment that she was harmless, the people slowly returned and gathered around the Patchwork Girl, regarding her with astonishment. One of them wore a jeweled star in his hair, just above his horn, and this seemed a person of importance. He spoke for the rest of his people, who treated him with great respect. "Who are you, Unknown Being?" he asked. "Scraps," she said, rising to her feet and patting her cotton wadding smooth where it had bunched up. "And where did you come from?" he continued. "Over the fence. Don't be silly. There's no other place I _could_ have come from," she replied. He looked at her thoughtfully. "You are not a Hopper," said he, "for you have two legs. They're not very well shaped, but they are two in number. And that strange creature on top the fence--why doesn't he stop kicking?--must be your brother, or father, or son, for he also has two legs." "You must have been to visit the Wise Donkey," said Scraps, laughing so merrily that the crowd smiled with her, in sympathy. "But that reminds me, Captain--or King--" "I am Chief of the Horners, and my name is Jak." "Of course; Little Jack Horner; I might have known it. But the reason I volplaned over the fence was so I could have a talk with you about the Hoppers." "What about the Hoppers?" asked the Chief, frowning. "You've insulted them, and you'd better beg their pardon," said Scraps. "If you don't, they'll probably hop over here and conquer you." "We're not afraid--as long as the gate is locked," declared the Chief. "And we didn't insult them at all. One of us made a joke that the stupid Hoppers couldn't see." The Chief smiled as he said this and the smile made his face look quite jolly. "What was the joke?" asked Scraps. "A Horner said they have less understanding than we, because they've only one leg. Ha, ha! You see the point, don't you? If you stand on your legs, and your legs are under you, then--ha, ha, ha!--then your legs are your under-standing. Hee, hee, hee! Ho, ho! My, but that's a fine joke. And the stupid Hoppers couldn't see it! They couldn't see that with only one leg they must have less under-standing than we who have two legs. Ha, ha, ha! Hee, hee! Ho, ho!" The Chief wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes with the bottom hem of his white robe, and all the other Horners wiped their eyes on their robes, for they had laughed just as heartily as their Chief at the absurd joke. "Then," said Scraps, "their understanding of the understanding you meant led to the misunderstanding." "Exactly; and so there's no need for us to apologize," returned the Chief. "No need for an apology, perhaps, but much need for an explanation," said Scraps decidedly. "You don't want war, do you?" "Not if we can help it," admitted Jak Horner. "The question is, who's going to explain the joke to the Horners? You know it spoils any joke to be obliged to explain it, and this is the best joke I ever heard." "Who made the joke?" asked Scraps. "Diksey Horner. He is working in the mines, just now, but he'll be home before long. Suppose we wait and talk with him about it? Maybe he'll be willing to explain his joke to the Hoppers." "All right," said Scraps. "I'll wait, if Diksey isn't too long." "No, he's short; he's shorter than I am. Ha, ha, ha! Say! that's a better joke than Diksey's. He won't be too long, because he's short. Hee, hee, ho!" The other Horners who were standing by roared with laughter and seemed to like their Chief's joke as much as he did. Scraps thought it was odd that they could be so easily amused, but decided there could be little harm in people who laughed so merrily. PEACE IS DECLARED CHAP. 23 [Illustration] "Come with me to my dwelling and I'll introduce you to my daughters," said the Chief. "We're bringing them up according to a book of rules that was written by one of our leading old bachelors, and everyone says they're a remarkable lot of girls." So Scraps accompanied him along the street to a house that seemed on the outside exceptionally grimy and dingy. The streets of this city were not paved nor had any attempt been made to beautify the houses or their surroundings, and having noticed this condition Scraps was astonished when the Chief ushered her into his home. Here was nothing grimy or faded, indeed. On the contrary, the room was of dazzling brilliance and beauty, for it was lined throughout with an exquisite metal that resembled translucent frosted silver. The surface of this metal was highly ornamented in raised designs representing men, animals, flowers and trees, and from the metal itself was radiated the soft light which flooded the room. All the furniture was made of the same glorious metal, and Scraps asked what it was. "That's radium," answered the Chief. "We Horners spend all our time digging radium from the mines under this mountain, and we use it to decorate our homes and make them pretty and cosy. It is a medicine, too, and no one can ever be sick who lives near radium." "Have you plenty of it?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "More than we can use. All the houses in this city are decorated with it, just the same as mine is." "Why don't you use it on your streets, then, and the outside of your houses, to make them as pretty as they are within?" she inquired. "Outside? Who cares for the outside of anything?" asked the Chief. "We Horners don't live on the outside of our homes; we live inside. Many people are like those stupid Hoppers, who love to make an outside show. I suppose you strangers thought their city more beautiful than ours, because you judged from appearances and they have handsome marble houses and marble streets; but if you entered one of their stiff dwellings you would find it bare and uncomfortable, as all their show is on the outside. They have an idea that what is not seen by others is not important, but with us the rooms we live in are our chief delight and care, and we pay no attention to outside show." "Seems to me," said Scraps, musingly, "it would be better to make it all pretty--inside and out." "Seems? Why, you're all seams, my girl!" said the Chief; and then he laughed heartily at his latest joke and a chorus of small voices echoed the chorus with "tee-hee-hee! ha, ha!" Scraps turned around and found a row of girls seated in radium chairs ranged along one wall of the room. There were nineteen of them, by actual count, and they were of all sizes from a tiny child to one almost a grown woman. All were neatly dressed in spotless white robes and had brown skins, horns on their foreheads and three-colored hair. "These," said the Chief, "are my sweet daughters. My dears, I introduce to you Miss Scraps Patchwork, a lady who is traveling in foreign parts to increase her store of wisdom." The nineteen Horner girls all arose and made a polite courtesy, after which they resumed their seats and rearranged their robes properly. "Why do they sit so still, and all in a row?" asked Scraps. "Because it is ladylike and proper," replied the Chief. "But some are just children, poor things! Don't they ever run around and play and laugh, and have a good time?" "No, indeed," said the Chief. "That would be improper in young ladies, as well as in those who will sometime become young ladies. My daughters are being brought up according to the rules and regulations laid down by a leading bachelor who has given the subject much study and is himself a man of taste and culture. Politeness is his great hobby, and he claims that if a child is allowed to do an impolite thing one cannot expect the grown person to do anything better." "Is it impolite to romp and shout and be jolly?" asked Scraps. "Well, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't," replied the Horner, after considering the question. "By curbing such inclinations in my daughters we keep on the safe side. Once in a while I make a good joke, as you have heard, and then I permit my daughters to laugh decorously; but they are never allowed to make a joke themselves." "That old bachelor who made the rules ought to be skinned alive!" declared Scraps, and would have said more on the subject had not the door opened to admit a little Horner man whom the Chief introduced as Diksey. "What's up, Chief?" asked Diksey, winking nineteen times at the nineteen girls, who demurely cast down their eyes because their father was looking. The Chief told the man that his joke had not been understood by the dull Hoppers, who had become so angry that they had declared war. So the only way to avoid a terrible battle was to explain the joke so they could understand it. "All right," replied Diksey, who seemed a good-natured man; "I'll go at once to the fence and explain. I don't want any war with the Hoppers, for wars between nations always cause hard feelings." So the Chief and Diksey and Scraps left the house and went back to the marble picket fence. The Scarecrow was still stuck on the top of his picket but had now ceased to struggle. On the other side of the fence were Dorothy and Ojo, looking between the pickets; and there, also, were the Champion and many other Hoppers. Diksey went close to the fence and said: "My good Hoppers, I wish to explain that what I said about you was a joke. You have but one leg each, and we have two legs each. Our legs are under us, whether one or two, and we stand on them. So, when I said you had less understanding than we, I did not mean that you had less understanding, you understand, but that you had less standundering, so to speak. Do you understand that?" The Hoppers thought it over carefully. Then one said: "That is clear enough; but where does the joke come in?" Dorothy laughed, for she couldn't help it, although all the others were solemn enough. "I'll tell you where the joke comes in," she said, and took the Hoppers away to a distance, where the Horners could not hear them. "You know," she then explained, "those neighbors of yours are not very bright, poor things, and what they think is a joke isn't a joke at all--it's true, don't you see?" "True that we have less understanding?" asked the Champion. "Yes; it's true because you don't understand such a poor joke; if you did, you'd be no wiser than they are." "Ah, yes; of course," they answered, looking very wise. "So I'll tell you what to do," continued Dorothy. "Laugh at their poor joke and tell 'em it's pretty good for a Horner. Then they won't dare say you have less understanding, because you understand as much as they do." The Hoppers looked at one another questioningly and blinked their eyes and tried to think what it all meant; but they couldn't figure it out. "What do you think, Champion?" asked one of them. "I think it is dangerous to think of this thing any more than we can help," he replied. "Let us do as this girl says and laugh with the Horners, so as to make them believe we see the joke. Then there will be peace again and no need to fight." They readily agreed to this and returned to the fence laughing as loud and as hard as they could, although they didn't feel like laughing a bit. The Horners were much surprised. "That's a fine joke--for a Horner--and we are much pleased with it," said the Champion, speaking between the pickets. "But please don't do it again." "I won't," promised Diksey. "If I think of another such joke I'll try to forget it." "Good!" cried the Chief Horner. "The war is over and peace is declared." There was much joyful shouting on both sides the fence and the gate was unlocked and thrown wide open, so that Scraps was able to rejoin her friends. "What about the Scarecrow?" she asked Dorothy. "We must get him down, somehow or other," was the reply. "Perhaps the Horners can find a way," suggested Ojo. So they all went through the gate and Dorothy asked the Chief Horner how they could get the Scarecrow off the fence. The Chief didn't know how, but Diksey said: "A ladder's the thing." "Have you one?" asked Dorothy. "To be sure. We use ladders in our mines," said he. Then he ran away to get the ladder, and while he was gone the Horners gathered around and welcomed the strangers to their country, for through them a great war had been avoided. In a little while Diksey came back with a tall ladder which he placed against the fence. Ojo at once climbed to the top of the ladder and Dorothy went about halfway up and Scraps stood at the foot of it. Toto ran around it and barked. Then Ojo pulled the Scarecrow away from the picket and passed him down to Dorothy, who in turn lowered him to the Patchwork Girl. As soon as he was on his feet and standing on solid ground the Scarecrow said: "Much obliged. I feel much better. I'm not stuck on that picket any more." The Horners began to laugh, thinking this was a joke, but the Scarecrow shook himself and patted his straw a little and said to Dorothy: "Is there much of a hole in my back?" The little girl examined him carefully. "There's quite a hole," she said. "But I've got a needle and thread in the knapsack and I'll sew you up again." "Do so," he begged earnestly, and again the Horners laughed, to the Scarecrow's great annoyance. While Dorothy was sewing up the hole in the straw man's back Scraps examined the other parts of him. "One of his legs is ripped, too!" she exclaimed. "Oho!" cried little Diksey; "that's bad. Give him the needle and thread and let him mend his ways." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Chief, and the other Horners at once roared with laughter. "What's funny?" inquired the Scarecrow sternly. "Don't you see?" asked Diksey, who had laughed even harder than the others. "That's a joke. It's by odds the best joke I ever made. You walk with your legs, and so that's the way you walk, and your legs are the ways. See? So, when you mend your legs, you mend your ways. Ho, ho, ho! hee, hee! I'd no idea I could make such a fine joke!" "Just wonderful!" echoed the Chief. "How do you manage to do it, Diksey?" [Illustration] "I don't know," said Diksey modestly. "Perhaps it's the radium, but I rather think it's my splendid intellect." "If you don't quit it," the Scarecrow told him, "there'll be a worse war than the one you've escaped from." Ojo had been deep in thought, and now he asked the Chief: "Is there a dark well in any part of your country?" "A dark well? None that ever I heard of," was the answer. "Oh, yes," said Diksey, who overheard the boy's question. "There's a very dark well down in my radium mine." "Is there any water in it?" Ojo eagerly asked. "Can't say; I've never looked to see. But we can find out." So, as soon as the Scarecrow was mended, they decided to go with Diksey to the mine. When Dorothy had patted the straw man into shape again he declared he felt as good as new and equal to further adventures. "Still," said he, "I prefer not to do picket duty again. High life doesn't seem to agree with my constitution." And then they hurried away to escape the laughter of the Horners, who thought this was another joke. [Illustration] [Illustration] OJO FINDS THE DARK WELL CHAP. 24 [Illustration] They now followed Diksey to the farther end of the great cave, beyond the Horner city, where there were several round, dark holes leading into the ground in a slanting direction. Diksey went to one of these holes and said: "Here is the mine in which lies the dark well you are seeking. Follow me and step carefully and I'll lead you to the place." He went in first and after him came Ojo, and then Dorothy, with the Scarecrow behind her. The Patchwork Girl entered last of all, for Toto kept close beside his little mistress. A few steps beyond the mouth of the opening it was pitch dark. "You won't lose your way, though," said the Horner, "for there's only one way to go. The mine's mine and I know every step of the way. How's that for a joke, eh? The mine's mine." Then he chuckled gleefully as they followed him silently down the steep slant. The hole was just big enough to permit them to walk upright, although the Scarecrow, being much the taller of the party, often had to bend his head to keep from hitting the top. The floor of the tunnel was difficult to walk upon because it had been worn smooth as glass, and pretty soon Scraps, who was some distance behind the others, slipped and fell head foremost. At once she began to slide downward, so swiftly that when she came to the Scarecrow she knocked him off his feet and sent him tumbling against Dorothy, who tripped up Ojo. The boy fell against the Horner, so that all went tumbling down the slide in a regular mix-up, unable to see where they were going because of the darkness. Fortunately, when they reached the bottom the Scarecrow and Scraps were in front, and the others bumped against them, so that no one was hurt. They found themselves in a vast cave which was dimly lighted by the tiny grains of radium that lay scattered among the loose rocks. "Now," said Diksey, when they had all regained their feet, "I will show you where the dark well is. This is a big place, but if we hold fast to each other we won't get lost." They took hold of hands and the Horner led them into a dark corner, where he halted. "Be careful," said he warningly. "The well is at your feet." "All right," replied Ojo, and kneeling down he felt in the well with his hand and found that it contained a quantity of water. "Where's the gold flask, Dorothy?" he asked, and the little girl handed him the flask, which she had brought with her. Ojo knelt again and by feeling carefully in the dark managed to fill the flask with the unseen water that was in the well. Then he screwed the top of the flask firmly in place and put the precious water in his pocket. "All right!" he said again, in a glad voice; "now we can go back." They returned to the mouth of the tunnel and began to creep cautiously up the incline. This time they made Scraps stay behind, for fear she would slip again; but they all managed to get up in safety and the Munchkin boy was very happy when he stood in the Horner city and realized that the water from the dark well, which he and his friends had traveled so far to secure, was safe in his jacket pocket. [Illustration] THEY BRIBE THE LAZY QUADLING CHAP. 25 [Illustration: Every time I see a river I have chills] "Now," said Dorothy, as they stood on the mountain path, having left behind them the cave in which dwelt the Hoppers and the Horners, "I think we must find a road into the Country of the Winkies, for there is where Ojo wants to go next." "Is there such a road?" asked the Scarecrow. "I don't know," she replied. "I s'pose we can go back the way we came, to Jack Pumpkinhead's house, and then turn into the Winkie Country; but that seems like running 'round a haystack, doesn't it?" "Yes," said the Scarecrow. "What is the next thing Ojo must get?" "A yellow butterfly," answered the boy. "That means the Winkie Country, all right, for it's the yellow country of Oz," remarked Dorothy. "I think, Scarecrow, we ought to take him to the Tin Woodman, for he's the Emp'ror of the Winkies and will help us to find what Ojo wants." "Of course," replied the Scarecrow, brightening at the suggestion. "The Tin Woodman will do anything we ask him, for he's one of my dearest friends. I believe we can take a crosscut into his country and so get to his castle a day sooner than if we travel back the way we came." "I think so, too," said the girl; "and that means we must keep to the left." They were obliged to go down the mountain before they found any path that led in the direction they wanted to go, but among the tumbled rocks at the foot of the mountain was a faint trail which they decided to follow. Two or three hours' walk along this trail brought them to a clear, level country, where there were a few farms and some scattered houses. But they knew they were still in the Country of the Quadlings, because everything had a bright red color. Not that the trees and grasses were red, but the fences and houses were painted that color and all the wild-flowers that bloomed by the wayside had red blossoms. This part of the Quadling Country seemed peaceful and prosperous, if rather lonely, and the road was now more distinct and easier to follow. But just as they were congratulating themselves upon the progress they had made they came upon a broad river which swept along between high banks, and here the road ended and there was no bridge of any sort to allow them to cross. "This is queer," mused Dorothy, looking at the water reflectively. "Why should there be any road, if the river stops everyone walking along it?" "Wow!" said Toto, gazing earnestly into her face. "That's the best answer you'll get," declared the Scarecrow, with his comical smile, "for no one knows any more than Toto about this road." Said Scraps: "Ev'ry time I see a river, I have chills that make me shiver, For I never can forget All the water's very wet. If my patches get a soak It will be a sorry joke; So to swim I'll never try Till I find the water dry." "Try to control yourself, Scraps," said Ojo; "you're getting crazy again. No one intends to swim that river." "No," decided Dorothy, "we couldn't swim it if we tried. It's too big a river, and the water moves awful fast." "There ought to be a ferryman with a boat," said the Scarecrow; "but I don't see any." "Couldn't we make a raft?" suggested Ojo. "There's nothing to make one of," answered Dorothy. "Wow!" said Toto again, and Dorothy saw he was looking along the bank of the river. "Why, he sees a house over there!" cried the little girl. "I wonder we didn't notice it ourselves. Let's go and ask the people how to get 'cross the river." A quarter of a mile along the bank stood a small, round house, painted bright red, and as it was on their side of the river they hurried toward it. A chubby little man, dressed all in red, came out to greet them, and with him were two children, also in red costumes. The man's eyes were big and staring as he examined the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl, and the children shyly hid behind him and peeked timidly at Toto. "Do you live here, my good man?" asked the Scarecrow. "I think I do, Most Mighty Magician," replied the Quadling, bowing low; "but whether I'm awake or dreaming I can't be positive, so I'm not sure where I live. If you'll kindly pinch me I'll find out all about it." "You're awake," said Dorothy, "and this is no magician, but just the Scarecrow." "But he's alive," protested the man, "and he oughtn't to be, you know. And that other dreadful person--the girl who is all patches--seems to be alive, too." "Very much so," declared Scraps, making a face at him. "But that isn't your affair, you know." "I've a right to be surprised, haven't I?" asked the man meekly. "I'm not sure; but anyhow you've no right to say I'm dreadful. The Scarecrow, who is a gentleman of great wisdom, thinks I'm beautiful," retorted Scraps. "Never mind all that," said Dorothy. "Tell us, good Quadling, how we can get across the river." "I don't know," replied the Quadling. "Don't you ever cross it?" asked the girl. "Never." "Don't travelers cross it?" "Not to my knowledge," said he. They were much surprised to hear this, and the man added: "It's a pretty big river, and the current is strong. I know a man who lives on the opposite bank, for I've seen him there a good many years; but we've never spoken because neither of us has ever crossed over." "That's queer," said the Scarecrow. "Don't you own a boat?" The man shook his head. "Nor a raft?" "No." "Where does this river go to?" asked Dorothy. "That way," answered the man, pointing with one hand, "it goes into the Country of the Winkies, which is ruled by the Tin Emperor, who must be a mighty magician because he's all made of tin, and yet he's alive. And that way," pointing with the other hand, "the river runs between two mountains where dangerous people dwell." The Scarecrow looked at the water before them. "The current flows toward the Winkie Country," said he; "and so, if we had a boat, or a raft, the river would float us there more quickly and more easily than we could walk." "That is true," agreed Dorothy; and then they all looked thoughtful and wondered what could be done. "Why can't the man make us a raft?" asked Ojo. "Will you?" inquired Dorothy, turning to the Quadling. The chubby man shook his head. "I'm too lazy," he said. "My wife says I'm the laziest man in all Oz, and she is a truthful woman. I hate work of any kind, and making a raft is hard work." "I'll give you my em'rald ring," promised the girl. "No; I don't care for emeralds. If it were a ruby, which is the color I like best, I might work a little while." "I've got some Square Meal Tablets," said the Scarecrow. "Each one is the same as a dish of soup, a fried fish, a mutton pot-pie, lobster salad, charlotte russe and lemon jelly--all made into one little tablet that you can swallow without trouble." "Without trouble!" exclaimed the Quadling, much interested; "then those tablets would be fine for a lazy man. It's such hard work to chew when you eat." "I'll give you six of those tablets if you'll help us make a raft," promised the Scarecrow. "They're a combination of food which people who eat are very fond of. I never eat, you know, being straw; but some of my friends eat regularly. What do you say to my offer, Quadling?" "I'll do it," decided the man. "I'll help, and you can do most of the work. But my wife has gone fishing for red eels to-day, so some of you will have to mind the children." Scraps promised to do that, and the children were not so shy when the Patchwork Girl sat down to play with them. They grew to like Toto, too, and the little dog allowed them to pat him on his head, which gave the little ones much joy. There were a number of fallen trees near the house and the Quadling got his axe and chopped them into logs of equal length. He took his wife's clothesline to bind these logs together, so that they would form a raft, and Ojo found some strips of wood and nailed them along the tops of the logs, to render them more firm. The Scarecrow and Dorothy helped roll the logs together and carry the strips of wood, but it took so long to make the raft that evening came just as it was finished, and with evening the Quadling's wife returned from her fishing. The woman proved to be cross and bad-tempered, perhaps because she had only caught one red eel during all the day. When she found that her husband had used her clothesline, and the logs she had wanted for firewood, and the boards she had intended to mend the shed with, and a lot of gold nails, she became very angry. Scraps wanted to shake the woman, to make her behave, but Dorothy talked to her in a gentle tone and told the Quadling's wife she was a Princess of Oz and a friend of Ozma and that when she got back to the Emerald City she would send them a lot of things to repay them for the raft, including a new clothesline. This promise pleased the woman and she soon became more pleasant, saying they could stay the night at her house and begin their voyage on the river next morning. This they did, spending a pleasant evening with the Quadling family and being entertained with such hospitality as the poor people were able to offer them. The man groaned a good deal and said he had overworked himself by chopping the logs, but the Scarecrow gave him two more tablets than he had promised, which seemed to comfort the lazy fellow. THE TRICK RIVER CHAP. 26 [Illustration] Next morning they pushed the raft into the water and all got aboard. The Quadling man had to hold the log craft fast while they took their places, and the flow of the river was so powerful that it nearly tore the raft from his hands. As soon as they were all seated upon the logs he let go and away it floated and the adventurers had begun their voyage toward the Winkie Country. The little house of the Quadlings was out of sight almost before they had cried their good-byes, and the Scarecrow said in a pleased voice: "It won't take us long to get to the Winkie Country, at this rate." They had floated several miles down the stream and were enjoying the ride when suddenly the raft slowed up, stopped short, and then began to float back the way it had come. "Why, what's wrong?" asked Dorothy, in astonishment; but they were all just as bewildered as she was and at first no one could answer the question. Soon, however, they realized the truth: that the current of the river had reversed and the water was now flowing in the opposite direction--toward the mountains. They began to recognize the scenes they had passed, and by and by they came in sight of the little house of the Quadlings again. The man was standing on the river bank and he called to them: "How do you do? Glad to see you again. I forgot to tell you that the river changes its direction every little while. Sometimes it flows one way, and sometimes the other." They had no time to answer him, for the raft was swept past the house and a long distance on the other side of it. "We're going just the way we don't want to go," said Dorothy, "and I guess the best thing we can do is to get to land before we're carried any farther." But they could not get to land. They had no oars, nor even a pole to guide the raft with. The logs which bore them floated in the middle of the stream and were held fast in that position by the strong current. So they sat still and waited and, even while they were wondering what could be done, the raft slowed down, stopped, and began drifting the other way--in the direction it had first followed. After a time they repassed the Quadling house and the man was still standing on the bank. He cried out to them: "Good day! Glad to see you again. I expect I shall see you a good many times, as you go by, unless you happen to swim ashore." By that time they had left him behind and were headed once more straight toward the Winkie Country. "This is pretty hard luck," said Ojo in a discouraged voice. "The Trick River keeps changing, it seems, and here we must float back and forward forever, unless we manage in some way to get ashore." "Can you swim?" asked Dorothy. "No; I'm Ojo the Unlucky." "Neither can I. Toto can swim a little, but that won't help us to get to shore." "I don't know whether I could swim, or not," remarked Scraps; "but if I tried it I'd surely ruin my lovely patches." "My straw would get soggy in the water and I would sink," said the Scarecrow. So there seemed no way out of their dilemma and being helpless they simply sat still. Ojo, who was on the front of the raft, looked over into the water and thought he saw some large fishes swimming about. He found a loose end of the clothesline which fastened the logs together, and taking a gold nail from his pocket he bent it nearly double, to form a hook, and tied it to the end of the line. Having baited the hook with some bread which he broke from his loaf, he dropped the line into the water and almost instantly it was seized by a great fish. They knew it was a great fish, because it pulled so hard on the line that it dragged the raft forward even faster than the current of the river had carried it. The fish was frightened, and it was a strong swimmer. As the other end of the clothesline was bound around the logs he could not get it away, and as he had greedily swallowed the gold hook at the first bite he could not get rid of that, either. When they reached the place where the current had before changed, the fish was still swimming ahead in its wild attempt to escape. The raft slowed down, yet it did not stop, because the fish would not let it. It continued to move in the same direction it had been going. As the current reversed and rushed backward on its course it failed to drag the raft with it. Slowly, inch by inch, they floated on, and the fish tugged and tugged and kept them going. "I hope he won't give up," said Ojo anxiously. "If the fish can hold out until the current changes again, we'll be all right." The fish did not give up, but held the raft bravely on its course, till at last the water in the river shifted again and floated them the way they wanted to go. But now the captive fish found its strength failing. Seeking a refuge, it began to drag the raft toward the shore. As they did not wish to land in this place the boy cut the rope with his pocket-knife and set the fish free, just in time to prevent the raft from grounding. [Illustration] The next time the river backed up the Scarecrow managed to seize the branch of a tree that overhung the water and they all assisted him to hold fast and prevent the raft from being carried backward. While they waited here, Ojo spied a long broken branch lying upon the bank, so he leaped ashore and got it. When he had stripped off the side shoots he believed he could use the branch as a pole, to guide the raft in case of emergency. They clung to the tree until they found the water flowing the right way, when they let go and permitted the raft to resume its voyage. In spite of these pauses they were really making good progress toward the Winkie Country and having found a way to conquer the adverse current their spirits rose considerably. They could see little of the country through which they were passing, because of the high banks, and they met with no boats or other craft upon the surface of the river. Once more the trick river reversed its current, but this time the Scarecrow was on guard and used the pole to push the raft toward a big rock which lay in the water. He believed the rock would prevent their floating backward with the current, and so it did. They clung to this anchorage until the water resumed its proper direction, when they allowed the raft to drift on. Floating around a bend they saw ahead a high bank of water, extending across the entire river, and toward this they were being irresistibly carried. There being no way to arrest the progress of the raft they clung fast to the logs and let the river sweep them on. Swiftly the raft climbed the bank of water and slid down on the other side, plunging its edge deep into the water and drenching them all with spray. As again the raft righted and drifted on, Dorothy and Ojo laughed at the ducking they had received; but Scraps was much dismayed and the Scarecrow took out his handkerchief and wiped the water off the Patchwork Girl's patches as well as he was able to. The sun soon dried her and the colors of her patches proved good, for they did not run together nor did they fade. After passing the wall of water the current did not change or flow backward any more but continued to sweep them steadily forward. The banks of the river grew lower, too, permitting them to see more of the country, and presently they discovered yellow buttercups and dandelions growing amongst the grass, from which evidence they knew they had reached the Winkie Country. "Don't you think we ought to land?" Dorothy asked the Scarecrow. "Pretty soon," he replied. "The Tin Woodman's castle is in the southern part of the Winkie Country, and so it can't be a great way from here." [Illustration] Fearing they might drift too far, Dorothy and Ojo now stood up and raised the Scarecrow in their arms, as high as they could, thus allowing him a good view of the country. For a time he saw nothing he recognized, but finally he cried: "There it is! There it is!" "What?" asked Dorothy. "The Tin Woodman's tin castle. I can see its turrets glittering in the sun. It's quite a way off, but we'd better land as quickly as we can." They let him down and began to urge the raft toward the shore by means of the pole. It obeyed very well, for the current was more sluggish now, and soon they had reached the bank and landed safely. The Winkie Country was really beautiful, and across the fields they could see afar the silvery sheen of the tin castle. With light hearts they hurried toward it, being fully rested by their long ride on the river. By and by they began to cross an immense field of splendid yellow lilies, the delicate fragrance of which was very delightful. "How beautiful they are!" cried Dorothy, stopping to admire the perfection of these exquisite flowers. "Yes," said the Scarecrow, reflectively, "but we must be careful not to crush or injure any of these lilies." "Why not?" asked Ojo. "The Tin Woodman is very kind-hearted," was the reply, "and he hates to see any living thing hurt in any way." "Are flowers alive?" asked Scraps. "Yes, of course. And these flowers belong to the Tin Woodman. So, in order not to offend him, we must not tread on a single blossom." "Once," said Dorothy, "the Tin Woodman stepped on a beetle and killed the little creature. That made him very unhappy and he cried until his tears rusted his joints, so he couldn't move 'em." "What did he do then?" asked Ojo. "Put oil on them, until the joints worked smooth again." "Oh!" exclaimed the boy, as if a great discovery had flashed across his mind. But he did not tell anybody what the discovery was and kept the idea to himself. It was a long walk, but a pleasant one, and they did not mind it a bit. Late in the afternoon they drew near to the wonderful tin castle of the Emperor of the Winkies, and Ojo and Scraps, who had never seen it before, were filled with amazement. Tin abounded in the Winkie Country and the Winkies were said to be the most skillful tinsmiths in all the world. So the Tin Woodman had employed them in building his magnificent castle, which was all of tin, from the ground to the tallest turret, and so brightly polished that it glittered in the sun's rays more gorgeously than silver. Around the grounds of the castle ran a tin wall, with tin gates; but the gates stood wide open because the Emperor had no enemies to disturb him. When they entered the spacious grounds our travelers found more to admire. Tin fountains sent sprays of clear water far into the air and there were many beds of tin flowers, all as perfectly formed as any natural flowers might be. There were tin trees, too, and here and there shady bowers of tin, with tin benches and chairs to sit upon. Also, on the sides of the pathway leading up to the front door of the castle, were rows of tin statuary, very cleverly executed. Among these Ojo recognized statues of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Wizard, the Shaggy Man, Jack Pumpkinhead and Ozma, all standing upon neat pedestals of tin. Toto was well acquainted with the residence of the Tin Woodman and, being assured a joyful welcome, he ran ahead and barked so loudly at the front door that the Tin Woodman heard him and came out in person to see if it were really his old friend Toto. Next moment the tin man had clasped the Scarecrow in a warm embrace and then turned to hug Dorothy. But now his eye was arrested by the strange sight of the Patchwork Girl, and he gazed upon her in mingled wonder and admiration. THE TIN WOODMAN OBJECTS CHAP. 27 [Illustration] The Tin Woodman was one of the most important personages in all Oz. Though Emperor of the Winkies, he owed allegiance to Ozma, who ruled all the land, and the girl and the tin man were warm personal friends. He was something of a dandy and kept his tin body brilliantly polished and his tin joints well oiled. Also he was very courteous in manner and so kind and gentle that everyone loved him. The Emperor greeted Ojo and Scraps with cordial hospitality and ushered the entire party into his handsome tin parlor, where all the furniture and pictures were made of tin. The walls were paneled with tin and from the tin ceiling hung tin chandeliers. The Tin Woodman wanted to know, first of all, where Dorothy had found the Patchwork Girl, so between them the visitors told the story of how Scraps was made, as well as the accident to Margolotte and Unc Nunkie and how Ojo had set out upon a journey to procure the things needed for the Crooked Magician's magic charm. Then Dorothy told of their adventures in the Quadling Country and how at last they succeeded in getting the water from a dark well. While the little girl was relating these adventures the Tin Woodman sat in an easy chair listening with intense interest, while the others sat grouped around him. Ojo, however, had kept his eyes fixed upon the body of the tin Emperor, and now he noticed that under the joint of his left knee a tiny drop of oil was forming. He watched this drop of oil with a fast-beating heart, and feeling in his pocket brought out a tiny vial of crystal, which he held secreted in his hand. Presently the Tin Woodman changed his position, and at once Ojo, to the astonishment of all, dropped to the floor and held his crystal vial under the Emperor's knee joint. Just then the drop of oil fell, and the boy caught it in his bottle and immediately corked it tight. Then, with a red face and embarrassed manner, he rose to confront the others. "What in the world were you doing?" asked the Tin Woodman. "I caught a drop of oil that fell from your knee-joint," confessed Ojo. "A drop of oil!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman. "Dear me, how careless my valet must have been in oiling me this morning. I'm afraid I shall have to scold the fellow, for I can't be dropping oil wherever I go." "Never mind," said Dorothy. "Ojo seems glad to have the oil, for some reason." "Yes," declared the Munchkin boy, "I am glad. For one of the things the Crooked Magician sent me to get was a drop of oil from a live man's body. I had no idea, at first, that there was such a thing; but it's now safe in the little crystal vial." [Illustration] "You are very welcome to it, indeed," said the Tin Woodman. "Have you now secured all the things you were in search of?" "Not quite all," answered Ojo. "There were five things I had to get, and I have found four of them. I have the three hairs in the tip of a Woozy's tail, a six-leaved clover, a gill of water from a dark well and a drop of oil from a live man's body. The last thing is the easiest of all to get, and I'm sure that my dear Unc Nunkie--and good Margolotte, as well--will soon be restored to life." The Munchkin boy said this with much pride and pleasure. "Good!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman; "I congratulate you. But what is the fifth and last thing you need, in order to complete the magic charm?" "The left wing of a yellow butterfly," said Ojo. "In this yellow country, and with your kind assistance, that ought to be very easy to find." The Tin Woodman stared at him in amazement. "Surely you are joking!" he said. "No," replied Ojo, much surprised; "I am in earnest." "But do you think for a moment that I would permit you, or anyone else, to pull the left wing from a yellow butterfly?" demanded the Tin Woodman sternly. "Why not, sir?" "Why not? You ask me why not? It would be cruel--one of the most cruel and heartless deeds I ever heard of," asserted the Tin Woodman. "The butterflies are among the prettiest of all created things, and they are very sensitive to pain. To tear a wing from one would cause it exquisite torture and it would soon die in great agony. I would not permit such a wicked deed under any circumstances!" Ojo was astounded at hearing this. Dorothy, too, looked grave and disconcerted, but she knew in her heart that the Tin Woodman was right. The Scarecrow nodded his head in approval of his friend's speech, so it was evident that he agreed with the Emperor's decision. Scraps looked from one to another in perplexity. "Who cares for a butterfly?" she asked. "Don't you?" inquired the Tin Woodman. "Not the snap of a finger, for I have no heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "But I want to help Ojo, who is my friend, to rescue the uncle whom he loves, and I'd kill a dozen useless butterflies to enable him to do that." The Tin Woodman sighed regretfully. "You have kind instincts," he said, "and with a heart you would indeed be a fine creature. I cannot blame you for your heartless remark, as you cannot understand the feelings of those who possess hearts. I, for instance, have a very neat and responsive heart which the wonderful Wizard of Oz once gave me, and so I shall never--never--_never_ permit a poor yellow butterfly to be tortured by anyone." "The yellow country of the Winkies," said Ojo sadly, "is the only place in Oz where a yellow butterfly can be found." "I'm glad of that," said the Tin Woodman. "As I rule the Winkie Country, I can protect my butterflies." "Unless I get the wing--just one left wing--" said Ojo miserably, "I can't save Unc Nunkie." "Then he must remain a marble statue forever," declared the Tin Emperor, firmly. Ojo wiped his eyes, for he could not hold back the tears. "I'll tell you what to do," said Scraps. "We'll take a whole yellow butterfly, alive and well, to the Crooked Magician, and let him pull the left wing off." "No you won't," said the Tin Woodman. "You can't have one of my dear little butterflies to treat in that way." "Then what in the world shall we do?" asked Dorothy. They all became silent and thoughtful. No one spoke for a long time. Then the Tin Woodman suddenly roused himself and said: "We must all go back to the Emerald City and ask Ozma's advice. She's a wise little girl, our Ruler, and she may find a way to help Ojo save his Unc Nunkie." So the following morning the party started on the journey to the Emerald City, which they reached in due time without any important adventure. It was a sad journey for Ojo, for without the wing of the yellow butterfly he saw no way to save Unc Nunkie--unless he waited six years for the Crooked Magician to make a new lot of the Powder of Life. The boy was utterly discouraged, and as he walked along he groaned aloud. "Is anything hurting you?" inquired the Tin Woodman in a kindly tone, for the Emperor was with the party. "I'm Ojo the Unlucky," replied the boy. "I might have known I would fail in anything I tried to do." "Why are you Ojo the Unlucky?" asked the tin man. "Because I was born on a Friday." "Friday is not unlucky," declared the Emperor. "It's just one of seven days. Do you suppose all the world becomes unlucky one-seventh of the time?" "It was the thirteenth day of the month," said Ojo. "Thirteen! Ah, that is indeed a lucky number," replied the Tin Woodman. "All my good luck seems to happen on the thirteenth. I suppose most people never notice the good luck that comes to them with the number 13, and yet if the least bit of bad luck falls on that day, they blame it to the number, and not to the proper cause." "Thirteen's my lucky number, too," remarked the Scarecrow. "And mine," said Scraps. "I've just thirteen patches on my head." "But," continued Ojo, "I'm left-handed." "Many of our greatest men are that way," asserted the Emperor. "To be left-handed is usually to be two-handed; the right-handed people are usually one-handed." "And I've a wart under my right arm," said Ojo. "How lucky!" cried the Tin Woodman. "If it were on the end of your nose it might be unlucky, but under your arm it is luckily out of the way." "For all those reasons," said the Munchkin boy, "I have been called Ojo the Unlucky." "Then we must turn over a new leaf and call you henceforth Ojo the Lucky," declared the tin man. "Every reason you have given is absurd. But I have noticed that those who continually dread ill luck and fear it will overtake them, have no time to take advantage of any good fortune that comes their way. Make up your mind to be Ojo the Lucky." "How can I?" asked the boy, "when all my attempts to save my dear uncle have failed?" "Never give up, Ojo," advised Dorothy. "No one ever knows what's going to happen next." Ojo did not reply, but he was so dejected that even their arrival at the Emerald City failed to interest him. The people joyfully cheered the appearance of the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and Dorothy, who were all three general favorites, and on entering the royal palace word came to them from Ozma that she would at once grant them an audience. Dorothy told the girl Ruler how successful they had been in their quest until they came to the item of the yellow butterfly, which the Tin Woodman positively refused to sacrifice to the magic potion. [Illustration] "He is quite right," said Ozma, who did not seem a bit surprised. "Had Ojo told me that one of the things he sought was the wing of a yellow butterfly I would have informed him, before he started out, that he could never secure it. Then you would have been saved the troubles and annoyances of your long journey." "I didn't mind the journey at all," said Dorothy; "it was fun." "As it has turned out," remarked Ojo, "I can never get the things the Crooked Magician sent me for; and so, unless I wait the six years for him to make the Powder of Life, Unc Nunkie cannot be saved." Ozma smiled. "Dr. Pipt will make no more Powder of Life, I promise you," said she. "I have sent for him and had him brought to this palace, where he now is, and his four kettles have been destroyed and his book of recipes burned up. I have also had brought here the marble statues of your uncle and of Margolotte, which are standing in the next room." They were all greatly astonished at this announcement. "Oh, let me see Unc Nunkie! Let me see him at once, please!" cried Ojo eagerly. "Wait a moment," replied Ozma, "for I have something more to say. Nothing that happens in the Land of Oz escapes the notice of our wise Sorceress, Glinda the Good. She knew all about the magic-making of Dr. Pipt, and how he had brought the Glass Cat and the Patchwork Girl to life, and the accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, and of Ojo's quest and his journey with Dorothy. Glinda also knew that Ojo would fail to find all the things he sought, so she sent for our Wizard and instructed him what to do. Something is going to happen in this palace, presently, and that 'something' will, I am sure, please you all. And now," continued the girl Ruler, rising from her chair, "you may follow me into the next room." [Illustration] [Illustration] THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ CHAP. 28 [Illustration] When Ojo entered the room he ran quickly to the statue of Unc Nunkie and kissed the marble face affectionately. "I did my best, Unc," he said, with a sob, "but it was no use!" Then he drew back and looked around the room, and the sight of the assembled company quite amazed him. Aside from the marble statues of Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, the Glass Cat was there, curled up on a rug; and the Woozy was there, sitting on its square hind legs and looking on the scene with solemn interest; and there was the Shaggy Man, in a suit of shaggy pea-green satin, and at a table sat the little Wizard, looking quite important and as if he knew much more than he cared to tell. Last of all, Dr. Pipt was there, and the Crooked Magician sat humped up in a chair, seeming very dejected but keeping his eyes fixed on the lifeless form of his wife Margolotte, whom he fondly loved but whom he now feared was lost to him forever. Ozma took a chair which Jellia Jamb wheeled forward for the Ruler, and back of her stood the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and Dorothy, as well as the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. The Wizard now arose and made a low bow to Ozma and another less deferent bow to the assembled company. "Ladies and gentlemen and beasts," he said, "I beg to announce that our Gracious Ruler has permitted me to obey the commands of the great Sorceress, Glinda the Good, whose humble Assistant I am proud to be. We have discovered that the Crooked Magician has been indulging in his magical arts contrary to Law, and therefore, by Royal Edict, I hereby deprive him of all power to work magic in the future. He is no longer a crooked magician, but a simple Munchkin; he is no longer even crooked, but a man like other men." As he pronounced these words the Wizard waved his hand toward Dr. Pipt and instantly every crooked limb straightened out and became perfect. The former magician, with a cry of joy, sprang to his feet, looked at himself in wonder, and then fell back in his chair and watched the Wizard with fascinated interest. [Illustration] "The Glass Cat, which Dr. Pipt lawlessly made," continued the Wizard, "is a pretty cat, but its pink brains made it so conceited that it was a disagreeable companion to everyone. So the other day I took away the pink brains and replaced them with transparent ones, and now the Glass Cat is so modest and well behaved that Ozma has decided to keep her in the palace as a pet." "I thank you," said the cat, in a soft voice. "The Woozy has proved himself a good Woozy and a faithful friend," the Wizard went on, "so we will send him to the Royal Menagerie, where he will have good care and plenty to eat all his life." "Much obliged," said the Woozy. "That beats being fenced up in a lonely forest and starved." "As for the Patchwork Girl," resumed the Wizard, "she is so remarkable in appearance, and so clever and good tempered, that our Gracious Ruler intends to preserve her carefully, as one of the curiosities of the curious Land of Oz. Scraps may live in the palace, or wherever she pleases, and be nobody's servant but her own." "That's all right," said Scraps. "We have all been interested in Ojo," the little Wizard continued, "because his love for his unfortunate uncle has led him bravely to face all sorts of dangers, in order that he might rescue him. The Munchkin boy has a loyal and generous heart and has done his best to restore Unc Nunkie to life. He has failed, but there are others more powerful than the Crooked Magician, and there are more ways than Dr. Pipt knew of to destroy the charm of the Liquid of Petrifaction. Glinda the Good has told me of one way, and you shall now learn how great is the knowledge and power of our peerless Sorceress." [Illustration] As he said this the Wizard advanced to the statue of Margolotte and made a magic pass, at the same time muttering a magic word that none could hear distinctly. At once the woman moved, turned her head wonderingly this way and that, to note all who stood before her, and seeing Dr. Pipt, ran forward and threw herself into her husband's outstretched arms. Then the Wizard made the magic pass and spoke the magic word before the statue of Unc Nunkie. The old Munchkin immediately came to life and with a low bow to the Wizard said: "Thanks." But now Ojo rushed up and threw his arms joyfully about his uncle, and the old man hugged his little nephew tenderly and stroked his hair and wiped away the boy's tears with a handkerchief, for Ojo was crying from pure happiness. Ozma came forward to congratulate them. "I have given to you, my dear Ojo and Unc Nunkie, a nice house just outside the walls of the Emerald City," she said, "and there you shall make your future home and be under my protection." "Didn't I say you were Ojo the Lucky?" asked the Tin Woodman, as everyone crowded around to shake Ojo's hand. "Yes; and it is true!" replied Ojo, gratefully. [Illustration] THE END The Land of Oz The title page of this book says that it is "an account of the further adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and also the experiences of the Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Animated Saw-Horse and the Gump." Also in this book Mr. Baum first presents Princess Ozma of Oz, Mombi, the witch; General Jinjur, and Dr. Nikidik, inventor of the famous wishing pills. In the country of the Gillikins lives a boy named Tip, who has been bewitched by old Mombi. Tip makes Jack Pumpkinhead from a pumpkin, a frame of sticks and some old clothes; Jack is brought to life through one of the witch's mysterious possessions, and then Tip and Jack run away. Soon they meet the Animated Saw-Horse, on whom they ride, and then the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. Thereafter one adventure follows fast upon another until the travelers, by the aid of the wonderful Gump, reach the palace of Glinda the Good, who lifts from Tip the spell of the old witch--with a most astonishing result. "The Land of Oz" was the first of Mr. Baum's books to be illustrated by John R. Neill, now a noted artist. Mr. Neill's wonderful success in picturing the peculiar creations of the author led to a permanent alliance between these two favorites of the children, and all of Mr. Baum's later books have been adorned with Mr. Neill's pictures. In the Land of Oz are about one hundred and fifty black-and-white illustrations and sixteen charming full-page pictures in colors. Ozma of Oz As one little girl said, this is a "_real Ozzy_" book. It tells "more about Little Dorothy," and introduces the Yellow Hen, Tiktok, the Hungry Tiger, the Nome King, and many other remarkable personages. Our old friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, play prominent parts. There is a frightful storm at sea, during which Dorothy and Billina, the Yellow Hen, are cast ashore. Here, after escaping the Wheelers, they come across the mechanical man, Tiktok, and the three proceed through the Land of Ev to the palace of a wicked princess, where they are all imprisoned. They are rescued by Ozma, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. All then proceed to the realm of the Nome King to effect the release of the Royal Family of Ev, who have been enchanted by that cross old monarch. This done, after many trials and difficulties, the adventurers return to the Emerald City, where at a great feast the Hungry Tiger loses his appetite! Billina is one of Mr. Baum's most delightful characters. All readers will enjoy her wit and humor, which is backed up with much sound sense. The Hungry Tiger is a worthy companion to our old friend, the Cowardly Lion. For Ozma of Oz, Mr. Neill made forty-one full page colored pictures, twenty-two half pages in color, and more than fifty text illustrations, besides special end-sheets and other decorations. It is one of the most gorgeous of children's books. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz First thing--bang! And an earthquake drops Dorothy and Zeb, her boy companion, through the earth's crust plumb into the Glass City. Here they soon meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who also has fallen into this remarkable town. In company with Jim, the Cab Horse, Eureka, the Discontented Kitten, and the Nine Tiny Piglets, Dorothy and her friends are condemned to die, but escape into a tunnel through which they pass into the Valley of Voices. In their efforts to reach either the surface of the earth or the Land of Oz, where they would be helped by the powerful Princess Ozma, they meet many dangers and have numerous startling encounters with strange beings. Finally they are rescued by Ozma and are safe in the Emerald City. Here there is a great reunion, attended by the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger and many other of our old friends of Oz. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is embellished with sixteen full-page inserts after paintings by John R. Neill. These pictures are reproduced in full color by the most improved methods and are highly artistic and beautiful. In addition, there are many black-and-white illustrations, chapter headings, tail-pieces and decorations. The cover has an inlay printed in four colors and gold. The Road to Oz This is a novelty in bookmaking for children. As the scene shifts from one part to another of Mr. Baum's unique fairyland the tints of the paper used for printing change from color to color in accordance with the hue of the Country described. This color scheme, in connection with Mr. Neill's delightful and characteristic illustrations--over one hundred--make a truly wonderful book. Among the new characters introduced are Button-Bright, the Shaggy Man, King Dox and Johnny Doit. The Road to Oz is a marvelous road, along which Dorothy and her companions find many curious and strange inhabitants. They finally reach Oz and visit the Castle of Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, now become Emperor of the Winkies, by whom they are escorted to the farm of Jack Pumpkinhead and to the Emerald City. Here Princess Ozma gives a banquet, at which the guests are beyond doubt the most amazing collection ever assembled under one roof, including Santa Claus, the Queen of Merryland, Para Bruin, the rubber bear; the King of the Quadlings, the Candy Man, the Queen of Ev, Jellia Jamb, General Jinjur, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers; Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter, the Incubator Baby and John Dough. Transcriber's Note: The alternative spelling for Tik-tok as "Tiktok" used in the advertisements at the end of the book; and the spelling of "UNK" in the first chapter heading illustration have been retained as they appear in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows: Page 68 Hyphen added to "bed-quilt" in "bed-quilt and intended to be". Page 145 "advise" to "advice" in "Shaggy Man's advice" Page 245 "solemly" to "solemnly" in "said the Scarecrow solemnly" Page 260 Closing quotation mark added to "let's go back." Page 279 Fullstop to comma in "Can't you talk from this side," Page 294 "Hoppers" to "Horners" in "and again the Horners laughed" Page 309 Closing quotation mark added to "... I could swim, or not," 
44774	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 44774-h.htm or 44774-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44774/44774-h/44774-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44774/44774-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/mamieswatchword00math Little Sunbeams. V. MAMIE'S WATCHWORD. * * * * * * By the Author of this Volume. I. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS, Author of the "Bessie Books." I. BELLE POWERS' LOCKET. 16mo $1.00 II. DORA'S MOTTO. 16mo 1.00 III. LILY NORRIS' ENEMY 1.00 IV. JESSIE'S PARROT 1.00 V. MAMIE'S WATCHWORD 1.00 VI. NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING 1.00 _The Set in a neat box_, $6.00 II. THE FLOWERETS. A series of Stories on the Commandments. 6 vols. In a box $3.60 "It is not easy to say too good a word for this admirable series. Interesting, graphic, impressive, they teach with great distinctness the cardinal lessons which they would have the youthful reader learn."--_S. S. Times._ III. THE BESSIE BOOKS. 6 vols. In a box $7.50 "Bessie is a very charming specimen of little girlhood. It is a lovely story of home and nursery life among a family of bright, merry little children."--_Presbyterian._ ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, _New York_. * * * * * * MAMIE'S WATCHWORD. "Thou God Seest Me." by JOANNA H. MATHEWS, Author of the "Bessie Books" and the "Flowerets" [Illustration] New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 530 Broadway. 1882. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Robert Carter and Brothers In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. CONTENTS. PAGE I. THE DOLL 9 II. HOW BELLE DID IT 27 III. THE BREAKWATER 47 IV. FORBIDDEN PLEASURES 69 V. THE DUCKLING 88 VI. POOR LITTLE WAGTAIL 110 VII. THE FIRST STEP 133 VIII. DISOBEDIENCE 151 IX. ADRIFT 172 X. RESCUE 190 XI. REPENTANCE 212 [Illustration] MAMIE'S WATCHWORD. I. _THE DOLL._ "MAMMA! can I have it? Can I, mamma? Buy it for me, buy it; will you, mamma?" "May be so, dear. I will see about it." "No, not may be; not see about it, mamma! I must have it, and I know you can afford it!" The speakers were Mrs. Stone and her little daughter Mamie; the scene, Miss Ashton's broad, shady piazza, where, at this time, a little fair was taking place. And what was the object on which Mamie's heart was so set; for which she was begging so persistently, you will ask. Why, just this. A beautiful doll; a famous, much-talked-of doll, dressed as an infant by Miss Annie Stanton, for the fair; a doll eagerly desired by all the children present, as any little girl will readily believe when she hears that seldom has a doll had such an outfit. Mamie's eyes were fixed eagerly upon her as she pleaded and entreated with her mother, holding fast to her hand, and almost dancing in her extreme anxiety to secure the much-coveted prize. "Perhaps I can, dear," said Mrs. Stone's rather languid voice, as she looked smilingly down at her little daughter; "perhaps I can afford it; but you know, Mamie, that the doll is to be sold to whoever shall offer the highest price for her." "Well, _you_ offer the highest price for her, mamma; do, oh, do! Offer a great deal more than any one else, so I shall be sure to have her. I want her so!" "But it is not to be known what each one offers till the fair is over, Mamie," said her mother; "then, whoever has said they will give the most, is to take the doll." "Ask Miss Stanton to tell you," pleaded Mamie. Mrs. Stone shook her head. "That would not be fair, Mamie; and Miss Stanton would refuse to tell if I asked her. I will make an offer for the doll, but you will have to take your chance with the rest, my darling." Mamie was so little used to any opposition or contradiction from her over-indulgent mother that she did not know how to meet it; and, though it was made thus plain to her that it might not be within her mother's power to give her the doll, she felt as though the possibility of disappointment were more than she could bear, and as if it would be altogether mamma's fault if the longed-for toy did not fall to her share. The eager face clouded over, a frown gathered between her eyes, and an ugly pout upon her lips. Oh, if little children who like to appear well only knew how such pouts and frowns disfigure the faces which God has made to be so pleasant and so fair, they would surely beware how they let Discontent set his hateful mark upon them! "But I want it so; and I must have it," Mamie muttered fretfully. "Yes, dear; we shall see," was Mrs. Stone's answer, as she went forward to the table where the baby doll lay in her glory. "Tell me what you are going to give," said Mamie, as her mother bent forward with a smile, and whispered her offer to Miss Stanton. "Ah! but that is a secret, Mamie," said the young lady, drawing forth the paper on which she wrote the names of would-be purchasers with the sum each one proposed to give; and putting down Mrs. Stone's, and the amount she had offered for the doll. "No one is to be told till this evening." "Did you offer the _most_, mamma?" repeated Mamie, upon whose mind it seemed impossible to impress the fact that no one would know this till the appointed time. "I doubt if any one will give more than I will," said Mrs. Stone, who thought that she had really offered more than the value of the doll, as indeed perhaps she had done, so anxious was she to gratify her little daughter. Mamie's face cleared a little. "I do want it so," she said less fretfully, but still with much energy in her tone. "Yes, I believe the children all do," laughed Miss Annie Stanton; "at least, I can answer for several, Maggie and Bessie among them." "I don't believe anybody wants it so much as I do," persisted Mamie. "I've been thinking about it and thinking about it till I feel as if I could not bear to give it up. Oh, I must have that doll, I must!" Somebody who was passing paused at her side as she spoke, and turning her eyes from the doll, they met those of Miss Ashton fixed rather anxiously upon her. Mamie's color deepened, and she looked a little ashamed, for she hardly knew herself how much she valued the good opinion of her teacher, and now it seemed to her that her last speech had been rather obstinate and selfish. "I mean if I could have it quite fairly, Miss Ashton," she said, as if in answer to the lady's look, for she had spoken no word. "Of course," said Miss Ashton, smiling; "we would not believe you wished to do what was unfair, even to gain the doll, Mamie." "No," answered Mamie half reluctantly; "but you can't think how much I want it, Miss Ashton. I'm sure none of the others care as much as I do about it." "I do not know about that," said Miss Ashton. "Look at Belle, Mamie. How do you think she feels?" Mamie turned and looked at Belle. Her little schoolmate stood beside the doll, quite absorbed in regarding its beauties,--not that they were new to her, for she had watched the progress of its magnificent wardrobe from the very commencement,--her eyes wandering from one pretty trifle to another with longing, almost loving, interest; her fingers touching them now and then, but so daintily and so carefully that there was no fear they would come to harm through her handling. Miss Stanton had found it necessary to warn off more than one little pair of hands that day, lest they should mar the splendor of that wardrobe, or its mistress; but there was no need of this with Belle, so gently and delicately did she smooth and touch them. Her face was very wistful as Mamie looked at her, showing plainly that her desire for the beautiful doll was quite as great as Mamie's own, and that her disappointment would be quite as severe if it did not fall to her lot. Mamie watched her for a moment, and then, leaving her mother's side, walked slowly over to the corner of the table where Belle stood. "Isn't she lovely?" she said, meaning the doll. "Yes," answered Belle. "I should think she is! Oh, I want her so! Don't you, Mamie?" "Indeed, I do," said Mamie with quite as much emphasis as Belle had used. "Indeed, I do." "But I don't s'pose you want her as much as I do," said Belle; "least I don't s'pose you need her so much." "Why not?" asked Mamie, half resenting such a supposition. "'Cause you have your little sister to play with," said Belle, "and I have no sister, nor any mamma to play with me," she added with a half-smothered sigh. That appeal seldom failed to touch the hearts of Belle's playmates and companions; the child's longing for her lost mother was so great, her sense of loneliness, at times, so pitiful; and the years which had passed since her mother's death seemed to have little or no power to weaken these in her loyal little heart. Mamie stood silent. The doll was not yet hers to give up; but she now had a feeling as if she ought to wish that Belle, rather than herself, should be the fortunate possessor. "I b'lieve if I had a little sister I should not care so much about dolls," continued Belle, with an air of deep consideration; "but this doll does seem so very _real_ and live; doesn't she, Mamie?" Mamie assented, with a half impatient, though unspoken wish that Belle did not care so very much about the doll. "Belle," she said, "if I do have her, I will let you play with her a great deal; and sometimes I'll let you take her to your own house, if you'll be careful of her." Belle shook her head. "That wouldn't be like having her for my very own, Mamie; I'd like to make believe that she was my sister if I had her, she's such a very real doll." "S'pose none of us have her; but somebody who is a stranger to the school," said Lily Norris, who had just drawn near, and who easily guessed what the other children were talking about. "Wouldn't that be a shocking occurrence?" "Yes," said Belle, giving a long sigh at the possibility of such a catastrophe. "Shocking! But we'll have to bear it, perhaps." "Belle!" called Bessie Bradford from the other end of the piazza where she stood behind the flower-table; "Belle, how long you've been away from our table!" and recalled thus to a sense of her duties as saleswoman, Belle ran back to her post, which she had been tempted to quit for a closer view of the coveted doll, so often seen, but of whose perfections she never tired. "I hope Mr. Powers will be the one to give the most for the doll, so Belle can have it," said Lily to Mamie, when Belle had left them. "Don't you want it yourself?" asked Mamie. "Yes," answered Lily; "but I think I'd 'most rather Belle would have it than any one. She seems to feel as if it would be a kind of company for her; and she's very lonesome sometimes. She don't have such large families as we do, you know; nothing but herself and her papa. Yes, I think I would rather Belle should have it than to have it myself." Mamie felt that she could not make up her mind to be as generous as Lily, were the opportunity offered to her; and still she wished that she could be so. Lily was not "one bit selfish," she saw; neither was Belle, spite of her intense desire to possess the doll, at all inclined to be jealous or ill-tempered about it, as Mamie felt she might be herself if another child carried off the prize. "Belle used to fret and cry like every thing if she didn't have what she wanted," she said to herself; "but she doesn't now. I wonder why;" and again there came a disagreeable consciousness to Mamie that she had not improved in this respect as much as her little schoolmate. The excitement and anxiety respecting the doll increased rather than lessened as the day wore on and the fair drew near its close. Every papa and mamma, grandmamma, uncle, or aunt, who came in, was introduced to the young lady, and besought to "offer a whole lot for her." But none were as eager as Belle and Mamie, though the former did not show the impatience Mamie had displayed. Her papa was seized upon the moment he entered the fair, it is true; and begged to offer so much for the doll that he should be sure to gain it for his little daughter; but she did not insist that she _would_ have it, as Mamie had done, or worry and fret her father. And somehow, she scarcely knew why, this seemed to keep Mamie a little in check. It really appeared as if Belle, lonely little Belle, needed the doll more than she did. True, Belle had "lots of toys," but so had she; and then she had a baby sister at home, and Belle had none, and "no mother;" and Mamie really caught herself wondering if she could resolve to wish that Belle, rather than herself, might have the doll, and if she ever could be so generous as to give it up to her if it were in her power to do so. The day passed on, evening came, the fair was drawing to its close, having proved a most triumphant success, and the time for announcing the name of the doll's purchaser had arrived. This was proclaimed by Mr. Stanton's voice from his sister's table at the end of the piazza, and instantly every little saleswoman had deserted her stand, and they all flocked to the place of interest. "I hope it is you, papa; oh, I hope it's you! I could almost pray it might be you," said Belle, holding fast to her father's hand, and squeezing it tight in breathless expectation, as all waited to hear the name of the happy owner. Mr. Powers smiled down at her rather sadly. He could not help a feeling of amusement, and still he did not like to see her so eager, so excited over that which might prove a disappointment. Mamie, who stood near, watched her, too; curious, despite her own interest in the grand affair of the day, to see what Belle would say and do if another than her papa should prove to be the munificent purchaser. Mr. Stanton took the list from his sister's hand, and casting his eye over it, proclaimed aloud that Mrs. Benjamin Howard had offered the largest sum for the doll, and hence it was hers. This was not Gracie Howard's mamma, but her grandmamma; but still each young hearer felt sure that the prize would be bestowed upon Gracie or one of her little sisters. For whom else could Grandmamma Howard want it? When Mrs. Howard's name was announced, Belle's face wore, for a moment, a look of blank and utter disappointment, and Mamie's was not more pleased. But still the latter kept her eye on Belle, and it seemed as if it only needed a display of temper from her to produce the same from Mamie. But that did not follow. Choking back her sobs, and dashing some bright drops from her eyes, Mamie saw her raise her face towards her father, and say some words which did not reach her own ear; saw Mr. Powers smile tenderly down on his little daughter as he answered her, and presently Belle was smiling and bright again. Mrs. Stone was agreeably surprised that her own little spoiled child made no loud outcry over her disappointment. It is true that Mamie could not or did not refrain from a pout and a fretful "I declare, it's just too bad! I wanted it so, and--and--so did Belle." And she was half inclined to feel resentful towards kind old Mrs. Howard, and to think she had no right to have purchased the doll; and later, when Maggie and Bessie came to her and said,-- "Mamie, we feel that it would be only taking a polite interest in Mrs. Howard for us all to go and congratulate her on having the doll," she refused to join her companions in doing so. But when she saw them all, even Belle, going up with cheerful and pleased faces to where the dear old lady sat, she felt ashamed to be left out, and fell into the ranks, standing by while Lily Norris delivered herself of the following speech, composed on the spur of the occasion by Maggie, who was too shy to speak it herself, and so begged Lily to be spokeswoman. "Dear ma'am: while we have to mourn for ourselves, we have also to rejoice for you, and to congratulate you because you have the doll; and we do it with all our hearts, 'cause you have been so kind and good to us about the fair." This little oration was pronounced by Lily without the slightest embarrassment or faltering; for, although not conceited, she was a self-possessed little monkey, and now she felt that the credit of the performance was due to Maggie, and not to herself. And lest there should be any mistake on this head, she added, almost in the same breath with the concluding words of the speech, "The praise of making that up is Maggie's, not mine;" and retired within the ranks of her schoolmates. Their congratulations were received by Mrs. Howard with much pleasure, and by all such as heard them with some amusement; after which a farewell look was taken of the famous doll, who was now carried away by her owner. Mamie was petted and made much of by her not over-wise mother, because she bore her disappointment so well, for it was something so new to see her conduct herself in such a peaceable and sensible manner when she was crossed in any way, that Mrs. Stone was surprised as well as pleased. Mr. Stone, too, and even her brother Walter, had each his word of praise for Mamie as they drove home; and she really felt herself quite a heroine, because she had not cried and fretted like any baby. But in spite of this consciousness of superior virtue, which was all the more pleasing because it was somewhat of a novelty, Mamie felt that Belle had been, to use her own words, "even better" than she had. Belle had not shown even a shadow of sulkiness or ill temper; and yet her heart had seemed to be set upon the doll even more than Mamie's own. "Belle is always so good now," she said to herself, "and yet she used to be so spoiled, and to be provoked if she did not have every thing she wanted, and cry about it just--just like me. I wish I could grow as good as she is now. Everybody says she has improved so. I wonder how she does it. Some time I'll ask her." Such were Mamie's thoughts and resolutions as she lay in her bed that night, and she dropped off to sleep on this last. The opportunity for putting it in practice came sooner than she had supposed probable; for it was vacation, and she did not expect to see Belle at school every day, as was usual. [Illustration] II. _HOW BELLE DID IT._ "WHY, Belle! Is that you?" "Why, yes, Mamie! Is that you?" These very unnecessary questions were put by the two little schoolmates as they stood facing one another within the saloon of the drawing-room car attached to the train which was on its way to Boston. There certainly could be no doubt in the mind of either that the one was Belle and the other Mamie; and the above exclamations were only due to the surprise felt by each one at the sight of the other. "Yes, it is I," was Mamie's answer. "Where are you going, Belle?" she questioned in the next breath. "To Netasquet," replied Belle; "and Lily Norris is there now." "Why, I am going there too!" exclaimed Mamie, in a delighted voice; "all of us are,--papa and mamma, and all the boys, and Lulu and me. How very fortunate, Belle, that so many of us are going there together! Won't we have nice times?" "Um--m, well, maybe so. Maggie and Bessie are not going there," said Belle in a tone which told that she thought all pleasure questionable in which her last-named two little friends did not share. "They've gone to Newport, haven't they?" said Mamie. "Yes, their papa has bought a house there, and now they'll go there every summer. Papa and I are going to make them a good long visit by and by; but first we have to go to Netasquet." Belle said this with a sigh, as if even the prospect of the "good long visit" could scarcely console her for the present separation from Maggie and Bessie. "Who are you with?" was Mamie's next question. "Papa and Daphne and Uncle and Aunt Walton," answered Belle. "Oh! and Ma--bel?" said Mamie, following the direction of Belle's eye, and seeing the head of her little cousin, Mabel Walton, peeping out from the door of a compartment at the end of the car. "Yes. You don't seem very rejoiced about Mabel," said Belle, who had noticed the tone in which Mamie uttered the last words,--a tone expressive of any thing but pleasure. "An' no wonder," muttered old Daphne, Belle's nurse, who stood behind her young mistress; but Mamie, thinking it as well to change the subject of conversation, only said,-- "Don't you want to see my little sister Lulu, Belle?" "Yes," answered Belle with alacrity, and would have followed Mamie at once to that part of the saloon where her friends were seated, if Daphne had not interfered, saying,-- "You just come back to your pa, honey. De hosses done pullin' us now, and dey're gwine for put to de injine, and dere'll be a screechin' an' a shakin' an' a jerkin' fit to knock de bref out of yer. 'Sides, I've foun' out it's best to stick close to yer pa when we're trabellin' roun'. Come to lose sight of him, 'taint easy sayin' what'll become of us." And with a fearful recollection of having been "gone off with" by the cars on one occasion, when she had been separated from her papa, Belle rushed back to the compartment of her own party, and, in dread of such a catastrophe occurring again, clung to him till the train was speeding on its way. Then she felt safe; neither she nor papa could leave the cars while they were rushing on at this rate. But after some time, just as she was beginning to tire of looking out of the window, and watching the rapidly changing scene without, Mamie's face showed itself at the open door of the compartment; and having nodded in her own free and easy way to the party in general, she said to Belle's papa,-- "Mr. Powers, couldn't Belle come with me to see our Lulu?" Mr. Powers consented, finding that his little daughter wished to go, and Belle, slipping from his knee, took Mamie's outstretched hand, looking back, however, at her Cousin Mabel. "Mabel can come too if she likes," said Mamie; but Mabel, feeling that there was a want of cordiality in the invitation, plumply and poutingly refused it; upon which Mamie looked rather relieved. Mabel and Mamie were never the best of friends; each one called the other "a horrid child," "selfish," "hateful," and other such uncomplimentary names; not always in one another's hearing, it is true; but Mamie knew pretty well what Mabel thought of her; and Mabel, on her side, felt that Mamie regarded her with no friendly eye. Some little readers may know the reason why; others may wish to ask it. It was this:-- _Both_ were spoiled, selfish children, allowed to do pretty much as they pleased, and each one so accustomed to having her own way that they were almost sure to clash and quarrel when they were thrown together. Out of school, that is; in school Miss Ashton's authority and the peace-making efforts of their little classmates kept matters pretty smooth; but in their play-time, or when they met one another elsewhere, there was apt to be some falling out which each always declared to be entirely the fault of the other. Mabel, a quiet child, to whom words did not come easily, would generally relieve her feelings by "making faces" at Mamie, in which ugly practice she had become quite an adept; but Mamie had a sharp little tongue of her own, and put no check upon it if she chose to say biting or taunting things to Mabel. So now you will understand the reason of Mamie's dissatisfied "oh! and Ma--bel?" when she heard of whom Belle's party was composed. Probably Mabel was not much more pleased when her cousin told her whom she had met without in the saloon. But Belle, who was at peace with Mamie, and who was extremely fond of babies and very little children, was only too glad to accept the latter's invitation, and go with her to play with her little sister. Lulu, a bright, cunning child nearly three years old, soon made friends with Belle, and graciously received all the petting and coaxing that were lavished upon her. But, pet and darling though she was, and though Mamie seemed both proud and fond of her, Belle could not but perceive that Mamie domineered over the little one, and sometimes needlessly contradicted or crossed her. Sometimes Lulu would take such things quietly; at others she would resist or fret, thereby making a disturbance, and annoying those about her. Belle noticed all this, though she made no remark; but Mamie did not fail to perceive that she looked at her once or twice with wondering disapproval, when some petty act of tyranny or selfishness showed itself towards the little sister. And once, although Belle meant no reproof, Mamie felt reproached and ashamed. For Mrs. Stone had given to each of the three children a cake. Mamie's and Belle's were alike, being the only two of the kind that the stock on hand afforded. Lulu's was quite as good if she could have thought so; but it did not strike her in that light, and she clamored for "a tate lite Mamie's." "There are no more, my darling. Change with her; will you not, Mamie?" said her mother. But no; Mamie, too, fancied her own cake the best, and she flatly refused to exchange with her sister, who sat upon papa's knee, holding the despised cake at arm's length, and regarding it with a comical expression of displeasure. Lulu put up a grieved lip at this, and would probably have burst into a loud cry, for there is no denying that she, too, was somewhat over-petted and spoiled; but Belle stepped forward and put her own cake in the baby's hand, taking the rejected dainty in exchange. "That is a kind, unselfish little girl," said Mr. Stone; "but are you sure you like that cake quite as well, my dear?" "I can eat this one quite as well, sir," answered Belle, too truthful to say that she did really like the one as well as the other, and then added, "Lulu is so little, sir, I s'pose it makes more difference to her than to me." She did not look at Mamie, nor did her manner seem to throw any blame on her; but the latter did feel thoroughly ashamed to think that a stranger should yield that which she had refused to give up for the sister over whom, at times, she made so much ado; and she ate her cake with very little real enjoyment. At first, too, she felt rather provoked with Belle for being more unselfish than herself; but presently that feeling passed away, and she looked at her with admiration, as she thought, "She is better than I, a great deal better." For spoiled though she was, and at times extremely perverse, fretful, and selfish, there was much that was good in Mamie Stone; and one of her best qualities was that she was always quick to see and acknowledge what was worthy of praise in others, and she was also honest with herself, and ready to confess her faults. But then the trouble was that she was too often satisfied with allowing that she had been wrong, and took little or no pains to correct herself, and to strive against such naughtiness for the future. Of late, however, Mamie had felt the wish to be a better and more amiable child; and she would often please herself with imagining how she would grow less selfish and exacting, more willing to give up her own will to that of others, more obedient and respectful to her parents and elders. But when the time arrived for these good resolutions to be put in practice they always seemed to fail her; temptation came in her way, some small trifle crossed her, and she saw herself, her own wilful, pettish, perhaps disobedient little self, not one whit improved by all those good resolutions and delightful dreams of the wonderfully good child she had intended to become. Still she did honestly wish to do better; but she did not seem to know the right way to set about this; perhaps she had not a good motive; perhaps it was from the desire to have people say what a good girl she had become; how much she had improved; to receive such praise as she often heard bestowed upon some of her young companions,--Belle for instance. "A kind, unselfish little girl," her father had called Belle; and Mamie would have been very much pleased to hear papa say that to her; but he never did,--and why? Because she never deserved it. Mamie felt that, although it did vex her that it was so. And she would really like to deserve it, she thought. "But I never can remember in time," she said to herself. "I wonder how Belle does it. People used to say she was spoiled when she first came to this country, and knew Maggie and Bessie and all of us, and went to Miss Ashton's school; and now every one says she is so good and sweet; and so she is too. And she has a right not to be so good as me, too, I s'pose, 'cause she has no mother, and her father and old Daphne do spoil her dreadfully, every one knows that." If "spoiling" meant indulgence, Belle certainly had her share of that; but, only child and motherless though she was, it was not the weak and foolish yielding to every whim and temper which had nearly been the ruin of poor Mamie's mind and character, and which were fast doing their own ill work even with little Lulu's sweeter and more docile disposition. "I'm going to ask Belle how she does it," Mamie said again to herself; and saying this recalled to her mind that she had made the same resolve on the day of the fair; but until now she had never had the opportunity to carry it out. Now, ever since that time, Mamie had not ceased to plume herself on her good behavior on the occasion, and her mamma had bestowed upon her praise enough to turn half a dozen little heads. So, her mind full of this, Mamie began the conversation in this manner. "Weren't we good that day, Belle?" "What day?" asked Belle, surprised, as she had reason to be, at this sudden reference to a matter she had well-nigh forgotten. "Why, _that_ day; the fair day," answered Mamie; "were we not good?" "Oh, yes," said Belle, still rather surprised; "every one was very good; and we made such a lot of money for Jessie and her grandfather. It was all very nice." "But _us_, _we_, you and I, I mean," persisted Mamie. "Were we not good about the doll?" "Well, yes, I s'pose so," said Belle, her great black eyes fixed wonderingly on Mamie. "But I don't know if we were any better than all the rest, and I think maybe I was not so good; for I was real provoked, at first, that I could not have it, and it was very hard work for me not to cry. But, do you know, Mamie, I think now I am glad Mrs. Howard had it, and gave it to Nellie Ransom, 'cause Nellie does not have so many toys and pretty things as most of us children in the school, and she was so very pleased to have it." "Um--well, I don't know about that," said Mamie, reflectively. "Mamma says I behaved beautifully about that doll, and the next morning she took me to Bruner's, and let me choose the prettiest one that was there; but it wasn't so lovely as _that_ one; but I don't think I'm such a mountain of goodness as to be so very glad Nellie had it instead of me. I'd 'most as lief _you_ had had it as to have it myself, Belle." "Oh, thank you, dear!" said Belle, flushing with pleasure, and kissing her playmate with as much gratitude as if she had really bestowed the doll upon her. "I would," repeated Mamie, feeling more and more virtuous; "and I do think that you were real good. Tell me how you do it, Belle;" and she lowered her voice and drew closer to Belle, so that no one might overhear her. "Do what?" asked Belle, more and more mystified by Mamie's obscure manner of expressing herself. "How is it that you try not to be--well--not to be spoiled--or--or--selfish--or to stop yourself when you feel like being naughty. For you do try, Belle, I know; and I would like to, too, and to have people say I try to cure myself and am good; but every time I make up my mind, I will go and forget, and am naughty again, and then it is too late." "But I'm _not_ always good," said Belle; "sometimes I am quite naughty, though I do know better than I used to. But you see, Mamie, papa is always sorry then, and that helps me to remember about being obstinate or selfish or naughty. I don't like to grieve papa, so I have to try to be good, so as to keep him as glad as I can." "Is that the reason?" said Mamie. "Well, I like to please my papa and mamma too; but then it is such a bother, and I cannot remember always." "Well," said Belle, solemnly, and with the air of one giving advice in a grave matter, as indeed she was; "there's another thing that might help you more than that if you could think about it, Mamie. Bessie put me in mind of it. She said it always helped her when she felt provoked, and felt like being in a passion with any one; and it does help me to be good. It is remembering that our Father in heaven sees us all the time, and knows all the naughty things we do, whether they are much naughty, or only a little naughty; and what He thinks about it." "Oh, yes," said Mamie, slowly, as if the thought had struck her for the first time. Presently she added: "Belle, do you suppose God noticed just now when I wouldn't give Lulu the cake?" "Yes, of course He did," answered the little Mentor. "And do you believe He thought I was dreadful?" asked Mamie. "Well, yes," said Belle. "I'm afraid He did. Pretty dreadful. You see Lulu is so little, and I s'pose He thinks such a big girl as you ought to know better and give up more." "Yes," said Mamie; "but, Belle, I don't know if I like to think God sees _every_ thing I do. It's a little uncomfortable." "When you're not good it is," answered Belle; "but that's the help, you see. And we can't help His seeing us whether we like it or not. And then you know if He sees when we're naughty, He knows right away when we're sorry too." Mamie sat as if thinking for one moment; then speaking in a still lower whisper than she had done before, she said,-- "Belle, don't tell anybody; but I believe I quite enjoy being naughty sometimes." "I'm not surprised," said her young teacher. "I do, too, sometimes, and so I thought there was not much hope of me; and I told Maggie Bradford about it, and she said she enjoyed it very much sometimes, but afterwards she felt so horridly about it that it did not make up for that. And that was just like me, so it encouraged me a good deal." "Yes," said Mamie, after another pause for reflection; "every one thinks Maggie is such a nice child that that is rather encouraging. It seems as if I couldn't help being obstinate or cross sometimes, or liking to fret mamma when she don't want to do what I want her to. She 'most generally does though, 'cause I fuss till she lets me." Mamie said these last words in a tone of some triumph, very different from the rather subdued way in which she had spoken before, and Belle was much shocked. "O Mamie!" she said; "s'pose your mamma was to go away from you to heaven." Mamie turned and looked at her mother, who was leaning back in her chair with a languid, weary air; and, smitten with a sudden fit of remorse for many past offences in the way of fretting and "fussing,"--one no longer ago than this very morning,--she rushed at her and half smothered her with penitent kisses; then, without giving her any explanation of this unexpected burst of affection, she returned to her conversation with Belle. "I don't see how I'm to remember always about God noticing what I do," she said. "That is bad habits," answered Belle. "You've never been accustomed to it, and so it seems hard at first. But you know that text, 'Thou God seest me.' Take that to remember by." "I don't want to," said Mamie, with a disdainful shrug of her shoulders; "that's too old-fashioned. I've known that ever since I was born. (I'd rather have something new.") "There's a Bible verse I had the other Sunday," said Belle, "that means the same, I believe. Maybe you'd like that." "Let's hear it," said Mamie, with an appearance of real interest. "'The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good,'" said Belle. "I s'pose you understand it." "Yes," said Mamie. "It means He sees us whether we are good or whether we are naughty. It's nice to think He sees us when we're good. Yes, I like that, and I think I'll have it to remember myself by. Tell it to me again, Belle." Belle did as she was asked, repeating the text till Mamie knew it quite well. "I'd be rather surprised at myself if I did turn good," she said, when this was accomplished; "but we will see. Now let's stop being sober, and play." [Illustration] [Illustration] III. _THE BREAKWATER._ NOW perhaps you may think that Mamie was irreverent and careless, and did not really wish to improve herself; but, heedless as she seemed, she had really in her heart a desire to be a better girl, less troublesome and wilful and disobedient. It was a wish that came and went; sometimes she felt as if she did not care at all about curing herself of her fretful, unruly ways; at others, she felt as if she "would give any thing to be as good as Maggie, Bessie, and Belle," who all were so much happier and brighter than she was, because--Mamie knew this--they were so much more contented and amiable. So, when Belle had left her and gone back to her own friends, she sat for a while quietly in her corner, thinking over what her little friend had said to her, and the verse she had given her for--a--a--what was it? Mamie had the idea in her mind, but she could not think of the word she wanted. It would be, as she had said to Belle, rather pleasant to know that the Father in heaven was watching her attempts to be a better girl, and she really thought it would be a help to have such a--what was that word? "Papa," she said at last, "when people take a text or any thing to remember by, what do they call it?" "To remember what by, daughter?" asked Mr. Stone. "Well, to remember--to remember how to behave themselves by; to keep good by. Don't you know what I mean?" "A motto, do you mean?" asked her papa. "No, not a motto. I s'pose it's the same as a motto, but it has another name. Dora Johnson had a motto; so I want something else." Now it is not very surprising that Mr. Stone did not immediately hit upon the word which Mamie wanted; but after he had suggested one or two which would not answer, she grew pettish and irritable, as she was too apt to do, leaning back in her seat with raised shoulders and pouting lips, and giving snappish, disrespectful replies to her father's efforts to help her. "Oh, don't! you bother me so I can't think myself." "You're real mean not to help me;" and such dutiful little speeches found their way from her lips. "Well," said Mr. Stone, after he had shown more patience with the spoiled child than most fathers would or should have done, "perhaps the word you want is 'watchword.'" "Yes, that is it," said Mamie, her face clearing, and her lips and shoulders settling themselves into their proper places; "watchword! I am going to have a watchword, and behave myself by it." "And what is your watchword?" asked Mr. Stone. "Now stop! you shan't laugh, or I won't tell you," pouted Mamie. "It is 'the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.' So when I am good, He sees me, and is pleased." "Yes," said her father, becoming grave; "but how is it when a little girl wears a scowling brow and puckered lips at her papa? For 'the eyes of the Lord are in _every_ place.'" Mamie sat silent, quite confounded for the moment. This _was_ bringing it closely home to her. That All-seeing Eye had then marked the cross, fretful face she had put on to her father; that All-hearing Ear--for it flashed across her mind that the ear of the Lord was as quick to hear as His eye to see--had heard her disrespectful words to him when he was so kindly trying to help her out of her difficulty. Here, within a few moments, she had been selfish and unkind to Lulu, undutiful to her father; just, too, when she had been saying she wanted to be a good girl; and "the eyes of the Lord" had been watching her all the time. It was not a pleasant thought. Mamie turned her face away from her father, and, planting both elbows upon the window-frame, gazed out, but without seeing or heeding much of the rapidly changing landscape. She was thinking, half ashamed of herself, half vexed at she scarcely knew what. But she began to doubt if, after all, she would have "a watchword." It seemed likely to prove troublesome, perhaps more of a reproach than a help to her; and she half resolved that she would keep it in mind no longer. She "wished Belle had not told it to her." However, her reflections, unpleasant though they were, kept her quiet and thoughtful for so long, that her father, not wishing to see her make herself unhappy, spoke to her, saying,-- "There, never mind then, daughter. Papa did not mean to make you fret. We will think no more about it." But Mamie's thoughts had done her this much good. Turning to her father, she said, in a half shamefaced manner, so unused was she to making apologies when she had been in the wrong: "I'm sorry I was cross, papa, and spoke so to you." Mr. Stone was pleased, and showed that he was so, which restored Mamie's good-humor with herself; and she was much more amiable and tractable than usual during the remainder of the journey, which did not come to an end till quite late in the evening. They reached the station where they were to quit the cars some time before sunset, it is true; but then there was a ride of several miles in a great, jolting stage-coach,--rather a severe trial to the young travellers, tired with a long day's journey. Perhaps older and stronger people than Mamie, Belle, and Lulu were inclined to be fretful at the prospect, and to feel as if a very small trifle were too great to be borne after the heat and fatigue of the day. A large number of passengers had left the train at this point, all bound for the same watering-place as our friends, and had to be accommodated with places in the stage-coaches which were waiting their arrival. There was a choice of seats in the lumbering vehicles, those upon the top being generally preferred, as being cooler now that the day was drawing to its close, and also as affording a better view of the country than those inside. "I speak for a seat up on top! I speak for a seat up on top!" cried Mamie, as she saw several people climbing to the coveted places. "Papa, I want a seat up there." "Please, papa, go on top of the stage-coach, and take me," pleaded Belle; and Mr. Powers, who had his eye already on that airy position, and who had no one but Belle and old Daphne to care for, speedily swung his little daughter to her high seat, and, following himself, established her in comfort on his knee. "I want to go too; I will go too!" said Mabel Walton, who had been unusually fretful and aggravating during the last hour of the journey; but her mother interfered, saying that Mabel had not been very well, and she did not wish her to ride outside in the night air. Mamie's brothers, four in number, had clambered up, some on the top of one stage, some on another; but Mr. Stone, who had his wife, baby, and nurse to render comfortable, was too late to secure one of these seats. Every one was filled, and Mamie and her papa were obliged to ride inside. Mr. and Mrs. Stone both dreaded an outcry from their little girl, or at least some wayward behavior; and indeed there were signs of a coming storm on Mamie's lips and brow, as her father lifted her within the stage-coach. But it was perhaps held in check by the terrific howl which burst from Mabel when she found she could not have her own way, and ride where she chose; for while she had been arguing and fretting with her mother on the subject, every place without was filled, and when Mrs. Walton gave way it was too late to indulge the whim of the ungoverned child. Mamie saw the frowns, shrugs, and looks of annoyance with which the other occupants of the coach regarded the screaming, struggling Mabel, and at once resolved to form a pleasing contrast to her; and it was with a delightful consciousness of superior virtue that she nestled into her own corner. Her mother's praises added not a little to this, and altogether Mamie felt well satisfied with herself and her own behavior throughout the day. And in this state of feeling she resolved to keep to her "watchword" after all, for it was rather pleasant to believe that "the eyes of the Lord" had beheld more good than evil in her. Now, I cannot say that the state of Mamie's mind was altogether right, or that she was not a little self-righteous; but she certainly enjoyed it, and it had, at least, one good result, that it was productive of great comfort to those about her. For Mabel, even after she had screamed herself hoarse, did not cease to whine and fret till they had nearly reached their destination, and there could be no doubt that all the other passengers were ready to declare her a nuisance. To do her justice, it was some time since Mabel had shown herself so wilful and fractious, for her fits of perverseness were becoming less frequent than they once were. At last, however, her interest in the new scenes to which she was approaching took her thoughts from her own woes, and she ceased to grumble and complain. When they reached the shore it was almost too dark for the children to see more than the long line of hotels, the greater part painted white with green blinds, standing each in its plot of ground, surrounded by its white-washed picket fence, their piazzas thronged with people, their windows gleaming with lights. On the other hand was the sea,--the grand, glorious old ocean, calm and quiet to-night, as its gentle waves rippled and glanced in the beams of a young moon, and beat out their ceaseless song in a measured murmur on the shore. And now they parted company, Belle and her papa, Mabel and her parents, being left at one hotel, while Mr. Stone's family passed on to another. However, the houses were quite near enough for the little girls to feel sure they could have each other's society whenever they were so inclined. Belle was enchanted to be met by Lily Norris at the very door of the hotel; for Lily had heard that her little friend was coming, and was on the watch to welcome her. To Mabel, the pleasure of the meeting was more doubtful, for Lily sometimes took rather a high hand with some of her shortcomings, and teased her now and then when she was cross, so that they were not always the best of friends. But on the present occasion, Lily was gracious and rather patronizing, as was thought to become one who had been already on the ground for three days, and who was therefore entitled to do the honors of the place. There never was such a charming spot as Netasquet, according to Lily's showing; but just at present, supper and bed were the first things to be thought of for our tired, hungry little travellers, and all other pleasures must be postponed till to-morrow morning. Directly after breakfast, Mamie sauntered out upon the piazza, and stood gazing at the sea, not knowing exactly what to do with herself. Her brothers had started off on their own discoveries, the other children in the house were strangers to her, and she was just wishing for Belle and Lily, when she saw all three of her little playmates coming towards her, bright, good-natured, and gay. "Ask your mamma to let you come with us," said Lily; "we're going to have some fun, and I expect she'll be very glad to have you out of the way while the unpacking is being done; and mamma says my nurse can go with us to take care of us all." Mamie was only too glad to go, and at once signified her readiness to accept the invitation, not even thinking it necessary to ask the permission Lily had suggested, but contenting herself with simply telling her mother that she _was going_. The other children were too much used to such independence on her part, however, to pay much heed to it; and they all four went off pleasantly together. "Now, what shall we do?" said Lily. "You shall choose, 'cause you're the newest come. There's the beach, and there's the rocks and the river and the spring and the ditch and the breakwater,--lots of places to go, and lots of things to do." "What is the breakwater?" asked Mamie, for whom the name had a great attraction. "There it is, over there," answered Lily, pointing to where a long, narrow pier jutted out into the sea, the central part broken and ruined, the heavy stones of which it had been built lying in a confused mass, some on one side, some on the other. Useless as a pier, the only purpose it now served was that which its name denoted, to break the force of the waves as they rolled in on the bathing beach, save that it was also a fine, though not always a very safe spot from which to watch the breakers. "Mamma never allows me to go there alone," added Lily; "and she will not let me go even with some one to take care of me, if the waves are very high; but they are not high to-day, so Nora will take us." "Let's go there, then," said Mamie; and the others assented. But just then Mrs. Stone's voice was heard calling to Mamie from the piazza they had left. "Mamie," she said, "I do not wish you to go near that breakwater, my darling." Mamie ran back a few steps and then stood still, where all she said reached both her mother and the children. "Now," she said, in her most obstinate tones, "that's too bad, and I'm just going. We're all going, and Lily's nurse is going to take care of us." "No," said her mamma, far more decidedly than she was accustomed to speak to Mamie, "I cannot allow it. I am afraid for you to go there." Lily came forward as Mamie stood fuming and pouting. "Mrs. Stone," she said respectfully, "mamma thinks it is safe when the waves are so low as they are to-day, and she lets me go quite often with Tom or Nora, and sometimes she takes me herself. Nora will take good care of us all." "No, dear," said Mrs. Stone, who was rather a nervous, anxious mother; "I should not know one moment's peace till Mamie came back. I really cannot let her go. I think it a very unsafe place for children to play. Why cannot you amuse yourselves on the beach?" Now, having made up their minds to go to the breakwater, this proposal did not suit any of the children; but probably Belle and Lily would have submitted to the change of plan without murmuring, if Mamie had done so. But Mamie was the last to think of this; her mother's words and her mother's wishes had little weight with the spoiled child when they interfered with her own pleasure; and she shocked both Lily and Belle by declaring passionately that she _would_ go to the breakwater, and she was "not going to stay away for such old nonsense as that." "Children!" exclaimed Mrs. Stone, who knew too well the uselessness of contention with Mamie when she was in a contrary mood; "children! my dear little girls! Lily! I do beg of you not to tempt Mamie down on that dreadful breakwater! my dears, do give it up!" "Don't you be afraid, ma'am," answered Lily, magnificently, but quite oblivious in her indignation of her parts of speech; "don't you be afraid; neither us nor my nurse will help her to disobey you; and Nora never takes children when she knows their mothers don't want them to go. She won't let Mamie go on the breakwater." Mamie turned upon her angrily, with the words, "What business is it of yours?" upon her lips; but as she did so, she caught Belle's eye fixed reproachfully and anxiously upon her. She hesitated for one second, then tried to go on, and to put from her the thought which came to her mind; but somehow she could not, she _dared_ not; for Belle's reproachful eye had recalled the recollection of that other All-seeing Eye which even now was watching her. She was not yet penitent, not yet even thoroughly ashamed and subdued; but she was afraid; afraid to brave that Eye in the face of her forgotten resolution. She stood silent, still looking vexed and unamiable, but making no reply, when her mother said to Lily,-- "Be sure then to make Nora understand she is not to venture upon the breakwater." "Come on," whispered Lily, putting her arm through Belle's; "come on, Belle, and leave her to be sulky by herself. A child who speaks that way to her mother ought to be treated with lofty scorn;" and Lily threw her head back, and looked very stern in an attempt to manifest the feeling she spoke of. Belle suffered herself to be drawn on a few steps, Mabel following; but presently turning her head, and seeing Mamie still standing with downcast looks, she stopped, and said,-- "Don't let's be offended with her for that, Lily; I think she's sorry now, and she'll be good if we coax her. Come on, Mamie," in a louder tone. "Yes, come on," said Lily, forgetting her "lofty scorn," and already reproaching herself for having been so severe with her young playmate; "come on, there's lots of fun in other places. Shall we go to the beach?" With a mixed feeling of shame, repentance, and vexation, Mamie hung back for a moment, half resolving that she would not go; but reflecting that it would be "very stupid at home with nobody to play with," she thought better of it, and followed the others. Her thoughts, and those of her companions, were presently diverted from her misdoings by Lily saying,-- "Oh, there now! You have no spades and pails, and the beach is not a bit of fun without. You can buy them at the store. There's all your fathers standing by the gate. Why don't you go and ask for money to buy them?" No sooner said than done. Mr. Powers, Mr. Stone, and Mr. Walton, who were standing talking together, were immediately besieged by three eager little voices, begging for money to buy the articles which Lily had pronounced necessary for proper enjoyment of the beach. Their demands were readily gratified; and Lily having called Nora, the whole troop sallied down to the store, where Lily caused great amusement by asking the salesman for "pades and spails." This mistake served as a good joke for some time, and restored good humor and merriment to the young party. The beach proved quite as attractive as Lily had pictured it, and the time was happily whiled away there till the hour for bathing arrived, and people began to flock down for that purpose. Among them came the older friends of our little girls; and now there was a new delight for Lily and Belle, Mamie considering the pleasure of a surf bath, at the best, doubtful; and Mabel positively refusing to try it. Mabel chose to accept her mother's offer of driving home in the great, red "beach wagon" which was waiting on the sands for those who wished to use it; but the other children preferred to walk; and as little Belle, as usual, went clinging to her father's hand, it came to pass that Mamie and Lily were left to walk together, and they fell rather behind the rest of the party. "See here, Mamie," said Lily; "I didn't know you were really trying to improve yourself. You know it didn't look much like it this morning when you spoke so to your mother; but are you, really now?" "Yes, I am," answered Mamie; "and I've taken a watchword to help me, out of the Bible." "That is a good plan," said Lily approvingly. "What is it?" "The eyes of the Lord are in every place," repeated Mamie; "and this morning when I was mad because mamma wouldn't let me go to the breakwater, I just thought the eye of the Lord saw me then, and that stopped me. But I think mamma might have let me go, don't you?" "Well, yes, I think she might as well have let you go," said Lily, trying to mingle a mild disapprobation of Mrs. Stone's objections with the teaching of a due submission on Mamie's part, and a modest consciousness of her own better fortune; "and my mamma always lets me go with some one to take care of me. But then, Mamie, mammas are different, you know, and their children can't expect to alter them." "No," said Mamie, feeling, as perhaps Lily meant she should, that her little companion was more blessed in an accommodating mamma than she was, at least, in the matter of the breakwater; "no, but it is so stupid in mamma to be afraid of nothing. She ought to know that 'the eyes of the Lord' see me there, and He will take care of me." Lily looked at her doubtfully. She had a feeling that it was not quite proper for Mamie to speak of her Maker in this careless way, and still she did not wish to take her to task about it; nor, if she had, would she have exactly known how to express the feeling in words. But she felt herself called upon, at least, to show her disapproval of the manner in which Mamie spoke of her mother, and she said gravely,-- "I wouldn't call my mamma 'stupid,' anyway, whatever she wouldn't let me do." [Illustration] [Illustration] IV. _FORBIDDEN PLEASURES._ THEY were nearing the breakwater as Lily spoke these last words, and the rest of the party paused when they came opposite to it, and Mr. Norris held out his hand to his little daughter, saying,-- "We are going on the breakwater for a few moments, Lily, and Mr. Powers is going to take Belle. Do you want to come?" Lily assented, and seized upon her papa's hand, all the more eagerly because she saw her brother Tom and the Stone boys upon the pier, and Lily always liked to go where Tom was. Mamie rushed up to her father. "You come too, papa; you come too, and take me; will you?" she exclaimed. "Mamma does not wish you to go upon the breakwater, Mamie," answered Mr. Stone. "I promised her this morning that I would not take you there, nor allow you to go under any circumstances." "It's not fair," whined Mamie, her good resolutions and her watchword once more forgotten; "it's not fair! The other children are going, and why can't I, with you to take care of me?" "Because I _promised_ mamma, dear," said Mr. Stone. "I am sorry she has this fear of your going upon the breakwater; but since it is so, we must give way to it, for we do not wish to trouble her, and you know she seldom crosses any of your wishes." Ah! but Mamie had no thought for that now. She was crossed just at the present moment, and she forgot all her mother's indulgence; and it only seemed to her that she was very ill used, and her mamma very unkind and provoking. She begged and fretted, but all in vain; her father was usually firmer with her than her mother was, and now having, as he said, given a promise that he would not allow Mamie to go, he would not yield to her desire. In this mood she was led home, where she increased her own discontent and longing for a forbidden pleasure by refusing to employ or amuse herself in any other way; and standing sullenly at one end of the long piazza, idly leaning against a pillar, and watching the distant breakwater where she could see several figures, among whom she distinguished Belle and Lily, sitting or clambering around. "It was too bad," "too mean," "real hateful," she said to herself; she "knew the breakwater was just the very pleasantest spot in the whole place; it must be so grand to see the waves come up there;" and, resolutely putting from her all better thoughts and feelings, she nursed her ill-humor till she was thoroughly miserable. And from that time the desire to go upon the breakwater took complete possession of Mamie's mind. Not that she knew of any very special attraction there; there were half a dozen play-grounds quite as pleasant, some far more so than the forbidden spot; but I am sorry to say that it was for that very reason, because it _was_ forbidden, that she longed to go, and was determined to do so if she could possibly find the way. To _worry_ her mother into withdrawing her refusal was her first idea; but she soon found this was useless; all her teasing, oft-repeated though it was, could not move Mrs. Stone. She believed the place to be dangerous, was nervous and uneasy even when her great boys were there, and nothing could persuade her to give Mamie the desired permission. Still it must not be supposed that Mamie exactly planned an act of deliberate disobedience, and carried such a purpose about with her in her heart. But she was rebellious and discontented; thought her mother was "mean" and "foolish;" and nursed other undutiful feelings, and so paved the way for sin when temptation and opportunity came. She was not openly naughty and disobedient, as yet; and she forgot that the Eye which saw all her actions, good and bad, marked quite as plainly every thought of her heart. She was playing with Lulu that afternoon, when Lily came rushing over to her in a state of great excitement. "Come over to our house, and see the very cunningest and queerest thing you ever saw in your life," she said. "What is it?" asked Mamie. "Come and see," repeated Lily. "Can she come, Mrs. Stone?" to Mamie's mamma, who sat upon the piazza near by. Mrs. Stone gave the permission which Lily judged necessary, but which Mamie probably would not have thought of asking; and the latter dropped the tongue of the wagon which she was drawing, in the character of Lulu's horse. "Lulu do too," said the little one, who had no mind to be shut out from the promised entertainment. "O you pet! Could she come too, Mrs. Stone?" asked Lily. "We'd be very careful of her, and it's a very safe place, just behind the house, that we are going to." Permission was given for this also; Mamie, who was very fond of her little sister, and generally very good to her, also begging for it; and the delighted baby was led away by her two proud young protectors. Lily guided her guests to the back of "our house," as she called the hotel where she boarded; and there were gathered not only Belle and Mabel, but most of the other children who were staying there, even her brother Tom and some boys quite as large among them, much interested in a mixed brood of newly hatched chickens and ducklings which were running about a coop. Within was the mother hen, ruffling up her feathers till she was twice her natural size, clucking and scolding at what she plainly considered this unwarrantable intrusion upon her premises, and thrusting her head through the bars of her coop in wild but vain efforts to follow her nestlings. "There!" said Lily, "did you ever see any thing so cunning? The little ducks are rather ugly, but then they are funny; and it is so queer for a hen to have ducks for her children. I never heard of any thing so romantic. Now, you need not laugh, Tom. Does it not seem very strange?" "Not so strange when you know that they gave the old hen duck's eggs, as well as her own, to set on," said Tom. "But the little ducks' heads don't fit; they are too big for them. Is that because a hen set on them?" asked Belle, which question sent all the large boys into a fit of laughter, whereupon poor Belle looked as if she had half a mind to run away. But Tom Norris kindly drew her to him, and told her that young ducklings were always such awkward, top-heavy looking little things. "They're not one bit pretty, only funny," said Lily; "but the chickens are real cunning and pretty; dear little downy things. I'd like to have one in my hands; can I, Tom?" "No," answered Tom, "you must not touch them. Mrs. Clark would not like it, for you might hurt it; and it would distress the old hen." "She couldn't make much more fuss than she is making now, the cross old thing!" said Lily, shaking her fist at the hen, "and we're not doing a thing to her or her chickens." "She's afraid we will, you see," said Tom. "Hi! and there's Lulu after one now;" and dropping Belle's hand which had been confidingly nestling in his, he darted upon the little one just as she had succeeded in grasping a tiny chicken. For Lily and Mamie, in their own excitement over the birds, had left their hold of the child's hands, and being seized with the same desire which Lily had expressed, she had improved her opportunities, and made off after a chicken. She had barely secured her prize when Tom's hand was upon her, not rudely or roughly, but with a firm, though gentle hold; and Tom's voice was telling her that she "must let the poor little chickie go." "No, no. Lulu want it so. Lulu love it," lisped the little one in coaxing tones, holding up the peeping, struggling thing against Tom's cheek as if to persuade him by its downy charms to let her keep it. "But Lulu hurts it, and it is God's little chickie, and He don't want it to be hurt," said Tom, gently unclasping the fat, dimpled fingers, and releasing the poor, terrified bird before it had received much farther injury than a good fright. "Lulu dest only 'queeze it a little; dest only," said the child, with whom these last words, meaning "just only," were a favorite expression; and the distressed tone of voice and grieved lip told that she was taking the release of the chicken much to heart. "But it hurts it to squeeze it," said Tom, taking her up in his arms; "and Mrs. Clark will be angry if you hurt it or kill it." "Tlart don't see," said Lulu, looking around her to make sure of the truth of her argument. "But God sees," said Tom, "and He wants Lulu to be good and not catch the little chickens or ducklings." "Does He say Lulu naughty dirl if she tuts 'em?" asked Lulu, raising her eyes to the sky where she had been told God lived, as if she expected to see Him. "He says Lulu is naughty if she hurts the birdies, or don't mind what she is told," said Tom. "Den Lulu won't," said the little one; "but Lulu want de chittee so-o-o," she added, with a long-drawn sigh which told that the sacrifice was almost too much for her. "That's a good girl. Don't you want me to give you some pretty shells?" said Tom approvingly. This attempt to divert her attention proved quite successful, and Tom carried her away with all her smiles restored. "What a dear, good little thing!" said one and another of the childish group, all of whom had heard what passed. "Yes, so she is," said Mabel; "but Tom might have let her have the chicken a few moments. It was no such great harm, and it was real mean and silly of him." Lily turned upon her with threatening voice and manner. "Don't you dare to talk that way of my Tom," she said. "He's _not_ mean and silly, but he's wise as any thing, and knows a whole lot about what is right; and he is un-meaner than any one you know!" "I shall touch the chickens and ducks if I want to, and Tom shan't say any thing about it," said Mabel, defiantly. "It's none of my affairs if you do," returned Lily; "but you're not going to talk horridly about my Tom." That she would take very decided measures to prevent this, or, at least, to punish any repetition of the offence, Lily plainly showed by the very emphatic little nod of her head, with which she treated Mabel. The latter turned pettishly away, knowing that Lily generally had the best of it in any war of words, but she muttered as she did so,-- "I'll touch them when Tom's not here." "She forgets 'the eyes of the Lord' are everywhere," said Mamie, rather jauntily, for Lulu being her sister, she felt very proud of her good behavior on this occasion, and as if it reflected some credit on herself; "and she's not half as good as Lulu." Lily turned her eyes upon her with a look in which Mamie read some disapproval and questioning. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Nothing much. I was only thinking," said Lily, not feeling quite sure that she would be justified in calling Mamie to account for what she felt to be a careless way of speaking. Moreover, one quarrel was as much as she cared to manage at once; and, considering Mabel as the greater offender of the two, she allowed Mamie to go unreproved for the time. But, having spoken her mind on the subject of Mabel's criticism of Tom's conduct, her feelings were relieved, and she was ready to be friends again, which she showed by saying,-- "Let's all go to the Rocks now if our mothers will let us. Come, Mabel, make up, and come with us." Mabel certainly meant to go with the others, but she was resentful, and had no intention of "making up" so soon; and for some time she held aloof from Lily, regarding her with frowning and angry looks, and refusing to walk near her. "The Rocks make the most splendid place to play in that you ever went to," said Lily, with the confidence of one who was familiar with the spot in question, and therefore fully entitled to express an opinion; "and I'm going to take down some little boats Tom made me, and we'll sail them in a lovely pool that I know of. But then everybody must be pleasant and nice if they expect me to lend them to them," she added, by way of a persuasive admonition to the still sullen Mabel. But even this inducement did not move Mabel, and her good humor was not restored till they reached the Rocks, and the charms of the wonderful place made her forget all cause of offence. Lily had not, indeed she could not, say too much in praise of these magnificent rocks. They lay in a vast stretch along the coast, now low and shelving to the water's brink, now abrupt and precipitous, rising in huge masses piled one upon the other, or here and there standing out boldly in some single, grand bluff. All over them were curious natural steps worn in the solid stone. You might go some distance, and imagine you had come to a place whence there was no outlet for farther progress, and lo! turning to the right hand or the left, you would seldom fail to find these stepping-places to help you onwards. A light and active foot was an advantage, it is true; and now and then a good jump was necessary, unless one was contented to turn ignominiously back, and search for some easier way. But a rich reward for any amount of hard scrambling awaited you when you had reached some choice spot, and resting in a natural seat, carved by nature out of the stone, looked out over the great expanse of blue ocean before you, or cast your eye down the long line of coast where the white, curling waves were breaking in masses of snowy foam. Here in one spot, below where the great boulders lay massed in wild confusion, the waters came rolling in, in one grand, massive sweep; there, in another, they were boiling and churning as in some great caldron; farther on still, where some huge rock rose frowning and stern, thrusting itself into the sea far beyond its fellows, they were broken into countless showers of spray which, now and then, caught the sun's rays, and sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow. But perhaps the whole beauty and grandeur of the place could scarcely be felt by our little friends; and for them, the chief attractions were the cosey nooks these rocks afforded for playing baby-house; the famous hiding-places; and, most of all, the numerous pools either left by the tide, or collecting on higher ground, after some recent rain. These were extremely convenient for sailing vessels of various sizes and shapes, building docks and piers, bathing any dolls which might be made of such materials as would stand a bath, or which were past injury; in short, there were various ways in which they might be, and were made useful by the young frequenters of the spot. And many of the salt-water pools were miniature gardens, filled with tiny sea-plants of all lovely shades of green, purple, and brown, and here and there of a bright red like coral; and among them lived curious little fish and water animals, anemones, starfish, with others whose names are too hard for you to remember. None knew their advantages better than Lily, who jumped and sprang and clambered like a goat,--I beg her pardon, a gazelle would have been more complimentary. Nora and the other nurses who accompanied the young party held their breath as they saw her almost fly from point to point, graceful and fearless, seeming as if her tiny feet scarcely touched the ground; but the children themselves looked on admiringly, and were fired, by her example, with the desire to do likewise, rebelling against the restraining hands which were laid upon them when they tried to follow too rapidly. Ah! those famous rocks made a capital play-ground with an endless variety of entertainment. "Miss Lily'll be satisfied now, I suppose, for here's where she always likes to come and play," said Nora with a sigh of relief, as the roguish sprite paused upon a high, bold rock, and snatching off her hat turned towards the others and waved it triumphantly, calling out, "Come on! Here's a _splendid_ place, with a great, big puddle and lots of stones about." "'Pears like a temptin' ob Probidence," wheezed old Daphne, Belle's nurse, as puffing and blowing, with one eye fixed anxiously on her little charge, who fearlessly followed Lily's guidance, she awkwardly slid and rolled from ledge to ledge. "It's de uncanniest place eber _I_ see. We don't hab none sech down Souf to home. De shore am smoof and de water quiet and well-behaved most times down dere. None ob yer splutterin' and fussin' like dis, nor sech awful hard walkin';" and Daphne's injured groan and sniff but added force to her uncomplimentary comparison; but it was with a hopelessly resigned expression of countenance which much amused the other nurse-maids, that she, at last, settled herself into a shady nook, declaring that "dese are de hardest stones I _eber did_ see." [Illustration] [Illustration] V. _THE DUCKLING._ THE spot chosen by Lily for the afternoon's amusement was indeed universally pronounced to be "splendid." On the very top of a broad, flat rock lay a pool of water (fresh water this; the waves seldom washed so high even in the most furious of storms), it collected here from the rains and dew and fogs, and but rarely dried up. Just now it was unusually full, and the most unaccommodating of nurses could scarcely have refused permission to make the most of such a delightful sheet of water. All four of our young friends and two other little girls, named Alice and Julia Gordon, who had been invited to join them, were soon busily at work. Lily produced, from the depths of her pocket, some tiny dolls "made to be drowned and upset and such misfortunes," and the boats being launched, these unfortunate passengers were speedily consigned to the probable fate which awaited them. Ah, such a fate! Spite of the smiling, sunny face of that miniature sea, what "horrible accidents" and "shocking disasters" took place thereon! what storms arose, caused by the violent stirring up of its waters with whirling of sticks and splashing of stones! how those gallant vessels ran into one another, turned bottom upwards, lost masts and rudders! how they spilled their passengers, who were saved only to be sent forth on another perilous voyage! By and by it was decided to build a pier,--a breakwater where the distressed vessels might run for shelter now and then; and all proceeded to hunt up small stones and pebbles for the structure. Away went Lily, springing up here and down there, across rifts and chasms, swinging herself lightly from ridge to ridge, peering into holes and clefts, and, whenever she found a stone suitable for her purpose, passing it on to her less venturesome companions. Coming round a corner of the rock, she found Belle standing alone, and gazing thoughtfully over the blue waters of the sea. "Why, Belle!" she exclaimed, "what are you thinking of so solemnly? Why don't you pick up stones?" "I was thinking about Mamie," answered Belle. "Lily, I believe she wants to be good, but she don't quite know how to set about it." "Oh, ho! and I s'pose you want to take pattern by Maggie and Bessie, and help her, do you?" said Lily, going down on her hands and knees, and thrusting her arm into a cleft where she spied a suitable stone. "I'd like to, but I don't know how very well," said Belle; "and it was not that I was thinking about so much. I was just wishing Maggie was here to give me a proverb to make a proverb-picture out of. Lily, do you know of one about a breakwater?" "No," answered Lily, giving a violent tug to the stone which refused to be dislodged from its position,--"oh! you obstinate old thing, come out,--no, I don't, Belle. But why do you want one about a breakwater?" "'Cause I think Mamie feels very naughty to her mamma about it," answered Belle. "She keeps saying how mean it is in her not to say she can go, and calls her foolish and stupid; and she says she will coax her papa to take her. And you know she ought not to talk so about her mother, even if she is--Lily, do you think Mrs. Stone is a very wise mamma to Mamie?" "Wise!" repeated Lily. "I should think not! There! why did you not come before, when you had to come?"--this to the stone, which she had at length succeeded in bringing up; then again to Belle,--"Belle, I think she's just about the foolishest mother I ever did see. Augh! if my mamma was so foolish as that, I should be too ashamed of her for any thing;" and Lily sprung to her feet, and flourished her stone in the air as if to give emphasis to her opinion. "But I'll tell you, Belle; I have a very good idea. I think we could manage to give Mamie a lesson without offending her, and just pretending it's all play. As soon as our breakwater is finished, we'll have a game about a disobedient child,--no, ever so many children, so Mamie won't think we mean her,--ever so many disobedient children who went on it when their mothers did not want them to, and were very severely punished by terrible things which happened to them. Don't you think that would do?" "Well, yes," answered Belle, rather doubtfully, for Lily's attempts at moral teaching were apt to be more personal than agreeable, and to give offence where she did not intend it; "but you'll have to be very sure Mamie don't think we mean it for a hint to her, Lily; else she'll be mad." "Oh, yes! we'll be careful," said Lily; and, secure of the success of her plan, she ran back to the pool, followed by Belle. Meanwhile Mamie and Mabel had been busily at work raising the breakwater which was now nearly finished, and enough stones having been gathered, Lily also lent a hand to its completion; while Belle, feeling rather tired, sat quietly by, looking on. "I wish I had my magnet swans and fishes up here," said Alice Gordon; "would not this be a nice place to swim them!" "Yes," said Belle; "and wouldn't it be fun if we had some of the new little _ducklies_ here to teach them to swim!" "Duck-ly-_ings_, they are called," said Lily, jamming down a refractory stone which, as she said, would not "stay _put_" and thereby spattering the water over herself and her playmates. But no one minded such a trifle as that. Builders of breakwaters cannot always expect to keep quite dry. "I thought Tom called them _ducklies_," said little Belle. "_Ings_--lyings--duck--ly--ings," repeated Lily with emphasis. "Yes, indeed, it would be too cunning and funny to have them here, and teach them to swim. This would make just about a big enough pond for them." "Let's bring one to-morrow," said Mabel. "Mrs. Clark wouldn't let us," said Lily. "She's an awfully cross old patch." "Let's take one without asking her then," said Mabel. "We can put it back all safe, and she'll never know it." "That would be very naughty, though," said Belle. "And God would see, if Mrs. Clark didn't," said Mamie. "Mabel, you forget 'the eyes of the Lord are in every place.'" "See here," said Lily, who had just put the last stone upon the miniature pier, and then plumped herself down upon the rock beside Belle,--"see here, Mamie; it seems to me you're getting rather intimate with the Lord." "I'm not," said Mamie resentfully; for she had felt rather grand when she made her speech to Mabel, and did not like to have her weapons turned upon herself. "We ought to remember God sees us all the time." "Course we ought," returned Lily; "but then I don't b'lieve it's proper to talk about it in that familiar kind of a way--so--so--well, I don't know exactly how to tell it, but as if the Lord was not any thing so very great, you know," and Lily's voice took a graver tone. "He hears us all the time, too, and we ought to be a little careful how we speak about Him in our play." "He sees us and hears us now, just this very minute; don't He?" said Belle thoughtfully. A moment's silence fell upon the little group as to one and all came the solemn recollection of the Almighty presence here among them; a silence broken, of course, by Lily, who, turning again to Mamie, said, "It's very nice of you, Mamie, certainly, to try to remember that text of yours all the time; but then I mean we ought to think a little more soberly, and speak a little more piously about it; or it's not likely to do us much good. Now let's play." The proposed play was successfully carried out, both Lily and Belle being careful to avoid looking at Mamie during its performance lest she should guess that it was intended expressly for her benefit, take offence, and so fail to profit by it. Nevertheless, Mamie had her own doubts on the subject; and, as the play progressed, withdrew from any active share in it, sitting down and watching the others with a solemn countenance. The truth was that her conscience was not at rest; not that she planned any deliberate disobedience, but she knew that she was cherishing rebellious and undutiful feelings in her heart, because she would not make up her mind to give up, without farther murmuring and teasing, the pleasure her mother had forbidden. The oft-shipwrecked and oft-rescued rag dolls, now in a most distressed and bedraggled condition, as became their various misfortunes, were supposed to be a family of children seized with an uncontrollable desire to go upon the breakwater in spite of the commands of their parents that they should keep away from it. One after another yielded to the temptation, and all met with the most disastrous fates. Two were swept away by an uncommonly high wave sent for the purpose, and, as they were carried into the depths of the sea, raised pitiful voices to their comrades, crying, "Be warned by us! depart from disobedience, and be warned by us!" A part of the pier gave way with others, precipitating them into the briny deep; another child fell through a hole, and became wedged in between the stones, "where she had to stay all the rest of her life, and grew up there, but never got out, and had a horrid time." In short, some terrible but well-deserved catastrophe overtook each one, till the whole family were destroyed. "That's not a bit real," said Mamie, in a tone of great dissatisfaction, when the last survivor had been disposed of. "I know children _don't_ usually be drowned and squeezed up in stones just because they go on breakwaters." "No," said Belle, "not _usually_; but then they might be, you know. Accidents _sometimes_ happen, 'specially if people don't mind." "Children don't _usually_ be ate up by bears," said Lily; "but the Elisha children were; and I don't s'pose they expected the bears at all. So that shows punishments may come to us that we never thought about, besides the punishment of a very bad conscience." Lily had said "we" and "us" lest Mamie should feel that she intended a particular thrust at her; but as she spoke the last words, she could not refrain from giving a sidelong glance to see if her moral lesson were taking a proper effect, and Mamie caught it, and it increased her suspicion that she was to receive a reproof and warning under this friendly disguise. "I just believe Lily does mean that play for me," she said to herself, "and she has no right to. I wish she'd mind her own business." Then, rising and moving away with a very superb air, she said aloud, "That's a very foolish, tiresome play, and I shan't stay to see any more of it." "Oh! it's done," said Lily; "the disobedient children are all used up. We'll fish them out now, and lay them in the sun to dry. I do wish we could have some of the ducklings here; it would be such fun." Other people were now beginning to flock down to the rocks, for this was the favorite resort in the afternoons; and numerous groups were to be seen, scattered here and there, in such convenient resting-places as they might find, watching the breaking of the waves, and all the mingled beauties of sea and sky. Among them came Mr. Powers, Mr. and Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Stone and the little Gordons' mother; and Mr. Norris asked if there were not a cluster of "Sunbeams" who would like to shed the light of their rays upon "Indian Rock." Yes, indeed! Lily had painted the glories of "Indian Rock" in such glowing terms, that they were only too eager to accept the invitation; and with the help of many a lift, pull, and push from the strong arms of the gentlemen, the whole party, great and small, were soon landed on that enchanting spot. For there each one of the children had been forbidden to venture, unless in company with some older and experienced person; and their nurses had been told not to lead them there. For "Indian Rock" was a dangerous spot, unless one trod it with care, or had the guidance and support of a strong, firm hand. "Papa," said Mamie, as her father helped her up to the top of a slippery ledge, "I'm sure I do not think the breakwater could be more dangerous than this, and I don't see why you could not let me go there just as well as here. Lily's mamma lets her go there with only Nora or Tom, and I'm sure I don't see why I can't." Much to Mamie's surprise, and somewhat to her alarm, her father now spoke quite sternly to her, bidding her put all thought of the breakwater out of her head, since, dangerous or not, her mother was afraid to have her go there, and his word had been passed that she should not be allowed to do so. After this, she dared say no more; but still she silently fretted and murmured, and thought herself hardly used, thereby losing half her pleasure in the beautiful scene before her. It was two or three days before any of the children came down to play in their pool again. Other pleasures took up their time and attention; but, at last, one bright, sunny afternoon, it was proposed to go. When the hour arrived, however, Lily and Belle were invited to go for a drive and a visit to the light-house; and the juvenile party was reduced to four. Lily kindly lent her ships and boats, and a new supply of unhappy passengers had been provided; but these did not satisfy Mabel, who, since the day on which she had first seen the ducklings, had never ceased to wish that she could see them swim. "You've been here the longest; would you mind asking Mrs. Clark to lend us one of the ducklings to take down to the Rocks this afternoon?" she said to Lily, as the latter, ready dressed for the drive, stood upon the piazza, waiting for the carriage. "I should think I _would_ mind!" exclaimed Lily. "I would not do it for any thing. Why, Mabel, she's the crossest old thing that ever lived. This morning when I came up from the bath, I asked her for a ginger-cake, and she told me I was always stuffing! Stuffing! Such a horrid word to say! And besides, it's not true. I'm not eating all the time, and mamma gave me leave to ask for the cake." "Didn't she give it to you?" asked Mabel. "Oh, yes, she gave me a whole plateful; at least, she was going to; but you don't think I was going to take them after that! No, indeedy!" "But I don't want her to _give_ us a duckling, only to lend us one to swim it down in our pool," said Mabel. "Wouldn't you dare to ask her?" "I'd dare enough," answered Lily, who seldom confessed to dread of living thing, unless it were a horse; "but I know it would be of no use; and I never ask people for things when I'm sure they don't want to give them to me. Here's the carriage." This was not Mabel's doctrine. Like Mamie Stone, she had a great deal of faith in fretting or worrying for that which other people did not wish to grant, knowing from experience that she often, by this means, gained her point. Having seen Belle and Lily off, she sauntered out to the back lot where the chickens and ducks were kept, and stood looking at the ducklings with a growing desire to have one to play with. Should she go and ask Mrs. Clark? Before she had fully made up her mind to do so, the woman herself came around the corner of the house, and the next moment her loud, sharp voice struck disagreeably on Mabel's ear, and put all thoughts of asking a favor from her quite out of the little girl's mind. "Now look here! What are you about there? You let them chickens alone, and go round to your own side of the house. I don't want the boarders' children meddling round here." Such was the greeting which Mabel received; not very encouraging certainly, and she moved away with a scowl at Mrs. Clark which did not make her look much more amiable than the loud-voiced scold herself. "I wasn't touching your old chickens," she called out as soon as she thought herself at a safe distance. But, instead of going back to the house, she walked on to the end of the lot where it was divided from the next field by a row of currant bushes and a stone wall. Walking along by the bushes, without any particular purpose, and thinking it was time for her to go and see if the other children were ready for the walk to the Rocks, she heard a curious little noise among the bushes. Stooping down and peering in at the spot whence it seemed to come, she saw one of the ducklings lying on the ground, and making the faint sound which had attracted her attention. "I wonder how it came here, so far from its hen-mother and the other ducklings," she said to herself. "I could take it up now if I liked, and carry it to the Rocks, and neither the hen nor Mrs. Clark could see me." The temptation was strong. Mrs. Clark had vanished into the house; and the next moment Mabel had the duckling in her hand, hand and bird both hidden beneath the little overskirt of her dress, and she was running rapidly out of the gate which opened on a cross road by the side of the house. Then she heard Alice and Julia Gordon calling her. "Mabel! Where are you, Mabel? We are ready to go;" and Nanette's voice, "Ou êtes-vous donc, Mademoiselle?" and although she had no intention of keeping her prize a secret, it was with a half-guilty feeling that she went forward and joined them, still keeping her hand hidden beneath her overskirt. She would let the other children see what she had there when they reached the rocks, but not now. But she was not allowed to keep her secret so long; for as they were walking along the path which lay above the cliffs, Julia Gordon said,-- "What do you keep your hand under your skirt for, Mabel?" Mabel looked around before she answered. She had tried to persuade herself that she had done nothing wrong in "borrowing" the duckling for an afternoon's play, since no one had told her she was not to have it; but, nevertheless, she felt rather doubtful of what the nurses would say when they knew what she had there. The three women in charge of the little party had fallen somewhat behind; and Mamie, having taken it into her head to draw the wagon in which Lulu was seated, was also with them, and out of hearing for the moment, if she lowered her voice. "Don't tell if I tell you something," said Mabel, in answer to Julia's question, and speaking to both her and Alice. "No, what is it?" "You and Alice come close, one on each side of me," said Mabel. "I don't want any one else to know it till we are at the pool." Then, as her companions obeyed, full of eager curiosity, "It's a duckling; one of the new little ducklings that have the hen for a mother; and we'll swim it in the pool." "Oh, what fun!" said Julia. "Did Mrs. Clark lend it to you?" asked Alice. "No, I didn't ask her, she's so cross," answered Mabel; "but it wasn't any harm, for the duckling had come away from its mother, anyhow. I found it under the currant bushes, and I expect it will do it a great deal of good to teach it to swim. Mrs. Clark ought to be very much obliged to us." "Perhaps the poor little thing had run away to see if it could find any water," said Julia. "Ducks always want to swim, I believe, and this one had no mother duck to teach it." "Yes; so you see it's quite a kindness," said Mabel. "Let's see it," said Alice. "Presently, when we are at the rock where the pool is," said Mabel. "I don't want to take him out now for fear he begins to wiggle again before I get him in the water, and he knows what we are going to do with him. Won't he be glad?" "Yes," said Julia. "Does he wiggle much?" "Not now," said Mabel. "At first he wiggled dreadfully, but I held him tighter, so he couldn't; and he made a little noise, too, but I shut up his bill close, so he couldn't. He's very quiet and good now." "Aren't you going to let Mamie see him?" asked Alice. "Oh, yes, when we are ready to put him into the water; but I dare say she'll go and say something hateful about him when she sees him. Mamie's real ugly to me, and I can't bear her." [Illustration] [Illustration] VI. _POOR LITTLE WAGTAIL._ ARRIVED at the Rocks, the children speedily made their way to the pool which they considered their own special property, but, to their great disgust, found that their rights there had not been properly appreciated; for not only had some intruders been making free with their breakwater, but it was, as Mamie said, actually "unbuilt," and the stones lying scattered about in all directions. But this was soon lost sight of in the new interest of the duckling; and Mamie was speedily taken into the secret. She was pleased with this addition to the afternoon's entertainment, and therefore did not express the disapprobation which Mabel had rather looked for, saying "nothing hateful," but becoming as eager as the other children to give the poor little bird his first "lesson in swimming." In fact, I am afraid that all four intensely enjoyed this bit of mischief,--the outwitting of Mrs. Clark being considered a great triumph, and quite a feat on Mabel's part. And now they felt secure from interference. Lulu could not be brought here upon the rocks, and her nurse must keep her above on the bank; and the maids who attended Mabel and the little Gordons, having made their charges promise not to leave the broad, flat rock where they were quite safe, had preferred to join her, and keep an eye upon the children from a little distance. No one else was near, save some strangers seated upon a ledge above them; and now, closing around the pool, they were ready for "such fun." Stooping down to the tiny sheet of water, Mabel at last hastily withdrew her hand from beneath her skirt, and gently dropped the duckling into it. [Illustration: Mamie. p. 112.] But instead of seeming to enjoy his introduction to the new element, and beginning to swim fearlessly about, as some of the children knew young ducks usually do, he rolled over on his side with drooping head and wings, and lay floating helplessly on the water, the only motion he made being a feeble opening and shutting of his bill, as though gasping for air. "What a stupid little duck!" said Mamie. "He ought to swim right away. Once I saw a whole litter of ducklings go right in the water, and swim as well as the big ducks. Here, sir! get up and swim." And she lifted the duckling's head with her finger, and tried to put him in an upright position; but the instant she let him go he fell over again. "You naughty, lazy thing!" said Mabel. "Now you've _got_ to swim, sir, so you may as well do it. Here, let's poke him with this stick." "I think there's something the matter with him," said Julia. "He looks kind of flabby and sick; don't you think he does?" "Oh, yes! look at his eyes; they're growing all white," said Mamie. "Take him out of the water," said Alice. "You, Mabel; he's yours." But if the duckling were sick or ailing, Mabel had no desire to claim him. She was frightened now, and the words of the other children added to her alarm. "What have you done to him, Mabel?" asked Julia. "I didn't do any thing," she answered snappishly; "and you shan't say I did." "Was he this way when you found him?" asked Alice, lifting the duck out of the water. "I don't know," pouted Mabel. "No, he wasn't; 'cause he wiggled and squirmed so I could hardly hold him at first." "I expect you've hurt him then," said Mamie. "You ought to be ashamed to touch him." Alas, poor little Wagtail! As Alice laid him upon the rock he fluttered his wings feebly, stretched out his feet, gasped once more, and lay quite motionless. No wonder that he had, at last, lain "quiet and good" in the thoughtless little hand which had grasped him so tightly to still his "wiggling." "O Mabel! you _have_ hurt him. He's dead, I believe," said Julia in a tone of horrified distress. Thoroughly ashamed and sorry now that she believed herself to have done such fearful mischief, Mabel raised a doleful cry which speedily brought her own nurse and the maid of the little Gordons to inquire into the cause of the trouble. The story was told by Julia, for Mabel could not make herself understood; but, to the surprise of all the children, it was looked upon as a good joke by both the women, who laughed immoderately when they heard it. Nannette, knowing that she would be called to account if Mabel appeared with red eyes and swollen cheeks, hastened to soothe and comfort her little mistress, telling her she need not be troubled, since her mamma would make good the loss of the duckling to Mrs. Clark, and would not let the latter scold her. But Mabel was hard to be comforted. She felt as if she had been cruel as well as naughty, and it made her very uncomfortable to think that the poor little bird had come to its death in her hands. Though wilful and rather selfish, she was a tender-hearted child where pain or suffering was concerned, and now it was with a kind of sick horror that she shuddered and cried over her work. So great was her distress that even Mamie, forgetting the smothered ill-will between them, tried to console her, but all in vain; and she made such an ado that it attracted the attention of the party on the rock beyond them, and one of the ladies rose and came towards them. "What is the trouble? Can I be of any help here?" she asked in a kind voice. Then seeing the dead bird, she added, "Ah! I see, your duckling is dead. How did it come, my dear?" laying her hand on Mabel's head. Mabel had ceased her cries at sound of the strange voice, but she did not speak; and Mamie answered for her. "She killed it herself, ma'am. She didn't mean to, but then she had no business to touch it." At this indisputable but unpleasant truth, Mabel broke out again, having first relieved her feelings by making her "very ugliest face" at Mamie for "telling tales of her." Then turning to the lady, she said with a heavy sob, "Indeed, I didn't mean to hurt it, ma'am; indeed, I didn't." "I am sure you did not," said the lady soothingly, sitting down on the rock beside Mabel. "But where did the duckling come from? Was it yours?" No; there was an added trouble. Mabel did not speak, but hung her head; while Julia, after a moment's hesitation, answered,-- "No, ma'am, it was not hers; it was not any of ours. It was Mrs. Clark's, a very cross woman who keeps the house where we board; and I s'pose Mabel is afraid of her too. I know I would be." "There's no need of saying any thing about it to Mrs. Clark, I'm thinking," said the nurse of the little Gordons. "Put it under the bank where you found it, Miss Mabel, and she'll never know." The lady looked with grave eyes at Mabel, as if watching her to see if she would listen to such wrong advice. Neither Mabel nor the other children noticed this; but she was pleased to see the former shake her head decidedly, as she answered, sobbing,-- "No, no, I wouldn't do that. I'll have to tell. Once I hid something, and didn't tell I did it,--Belle and Lily knew about it, and Mamie too,--and it made me such a lot of trouble; and I'm never going to not tell again. But I don't care for that old Mrs. Clark. Papa won't let her scold me. But, oh, dear! I wish I hadn't squeezed the poor little duck; I wish I hadn't! I never thought he'd go and kill himself just for that. I squeezed him pretty softly too. Oh, dear! and I meant to put him back safely, too, when we had done swimming him." And looking confidingly up in the lady's sweet, sympathizing face, Mabel told the whole story of the finding of the duckling beneath the currant bush, and how she had brought him away. "I am glad, dear," said the lady, when Mabel had finished, "that you have made up your mind to confess what you have done, and not to attempt to hide it. I believe you acted without thought, and perhaps did not intend to do any thing very naughty; but you would make a little wrong a great wrong by trying to hide it." "Yes," said Mamie to herself, "and God would know it anyway, for 'the eyes of the Lord are in every place,' and He sees whatever we do; so He saw Mabel take that little duck." Mamie had been somewhat mindful of Lily's reproof since the last day they were here, and was more careful how she took the words of the Bible heedlessly upon her lips; but I am sorry to say she was rather more anxious to test the conduct of others by her watchword than she was her own, unless indeed she imagined herself particularly well-behaved and virtuous; when she would feel as if she was laying up a very good account for herself in the eyes of her Maker. She almost started; for it seemed as if the stranger lady must have read her thoughts when the latter said to Mabel,-- "And even if you had hidden this from us all, dear, you know there is one Eye from which you could not hide it; an Eye which sees even the very wish to do wrong, and you could not have been comfortable or happy knowing that, could you?" "No, ma'am," said Mabel, recalling the misery of the time she had spoken of; the time when she had taken a locket belonging to her Cousin Belle, not with the intention of keeping it, it is true; but when she knew Belle did not wish her even to touch it, and the locket had mysteriously disappeared, and so she had been brought into great trouble and disgrace for a time. "Yes, ma'am, and I'm always going to tell, always." There is no saying how far the consciousness that her father and mother would shield her from blame, and make good the loss to Mrs. Clark, went to support Mabel's resolution to confess all; but as she was by no means a deceitful or dishonest child, we will hope that she would have made this amends, even with the prospect of a severe scolding as the consequence. So perhaps the lady's words made less impression on her than they did upon Mamie, on whose conscience they smote unpleasantly, as she could not help feeling that, in her heart, there was the wish, and even the half-formed intention, to do wrong if opportunity should offer. "And now what will you do with the poor little duckling?" said the lady, taking the dead bird in her hand, and smoothing its downy back. "Shall we let one of the women toss it away in the waves?" "Oh, no, ma'am!" said Mabel; "don't you think I ought to give it back to Mrs. Clark, even if it is dead? She might want to have it stuffed and put under a glass shade like a canary of mine that died, and papa had him stuffed for me." The lady could hardly keep back a smile at the idea of the ugly little duck preserved beneath a glass shade, like some rare and valued pet; but she only said, approvingly,-- "Very well; perhaps you are right to wish to give it back to the owner." "And if Mrs. Clark don't want him any more we might have a grand funeral for him, and bury him to-morrow," said Julia Gordon. "Oh, I hope she won't want him," said Mabel, rather cheered by the prospect of funeral honors to her victim. "Would you like," said the lady, "that I should tell you a thing which happened to me when I was a little girl?" "Yes'm," said Mabel, brightening afresh at the suggestion; and in the eager faces which were turned towards her the kind stranger saw that her offer met with general approval. Our little friends, like most children, were always ready for a story. "When I was a child," she began, "I was not the best-behaved one in the world. I do not think I meant to be very naughty, but I was thoughtless and wilful, perhaps a little obstinate when I had once made up my mind to do or have a thing; and although I had a good, wise, and tender mother, I was impatient of contradiction even from her. As to my brothers and sisters, all older than I was, I would not listen to the least advice or interference from them. "I was about ten years old, and we were spending the summer, as usual, at my grandfather's country-seat up in the mountains. On the side of the hill, at a short distance from grandpapa's, were the farm-house, dairy, orchard, and kitchen-garden; and all these I thought much more amusing places than the house, lawn, and flower-garden where I properly belonged, and where my mother generally preferred to have me play. For there were more ways and places for me to get into mischief down at the farm than there were at the house; and I am afraid mother knew very well that my heedlessness and self-will led me often to do the thing I wished rather than the thing that was _right_. Still I was not forbidden to go to the farm; and, so long as my brothers or sisters were with me, she never objected. "The thing of all others which attracted me most at the farm was a half-grown black kitten. Mother could not bear cats, so we never had one at home, or at grandpapa's; but up at the farm-house, I could amuse myself by the hour with this playful little creature, which grew very fond of me. "One morning we had some young visitors; and of course we must show them all the beauties and curiosities of the place. Among them was the orchard, although the apples there were as yet hardly larger than nuts. "As we were passing through it one of my brothers spied a nest in a tree. "'Hallo, Annie!' he said, 'there's a nest. I'll bring it down for you if you want it.' "I did want it; but one of my sisters begged Will to make sure that it was empty. "'Oh, it must be empty; it's too late for birds to be in it,' said Will, who like myself was rather headstrong and heedless; and raising a whip he carried, he whisked the lash over and around the nest. "Ah! the nest was not empty, though it really was late in the season for the young ones; and, the next moment, a beautiful bird fell fluttering at our feet, its wing broken by the blow from Will's whip, while its mate flew from the nest, terrified almost out of her life. "A more crestfallen, distressed being than Will it would have been hard to find; for he was very tender-hearted, and would not hurt a living thing purposely. We were all much disturbed, and at once set about doing all we could for the poor little sufferer. My eldest brother bound up its wing as well as he was able, and we brought some hay with which Will climbed the tree, and made a bed in a forked branch near the nest. He said there were four half-fledged birds in the nest, and was more disturbed than ever at the mischief he had done. But he promised himself and us that he would care for parent-birds as well as nestlings, as long as either should need it; knowing that the poor little mother would have too much to do to feed both husband and children. "Brother Ned handed up the wounded bird, and Will put it carefully in the bed he had made for it; after which, the rest of us went on, and left him digging a supply of worms which he intended to put in a convenient place, as a store from which the mother-bird might help herself without the trouble of looking for them. He was still quite quiet and out of spirits when he joined us at the dairy some half-hour later, though he told us the mother-bird had returned, and her poor mate had eaten a caterpillar placed handy for him. "That afternoon my sister Rosa and I went up to the orchard with Will to see about his birds, and carry them food and water. "As we passed the door of the farm-house, Blackie, the kitten, came running out to see us, and I took her up in my arms to take her with me. "'Don't bring that cat,' said Will. 'She might get at the birds.' "'No, she won't. I shan't let her,' I answered. "'But she might,' said Rosa; 'she's so quick and active, she'd be up the tree before you knew it.' "'No, she shan't,' I repeated positively; 'I'll keep her in my arms all the time, and I'm going to take her.' "And though Will begged me, and was even angry about it, I persisted in taking the cat with me. "And I did keep her fast in my arms, although she struggled to be free, and even scratched me severely when she saw, as she immediately did, what Will was at. "He found the little creature somewhat better than when he had left it in the morning, and it was quite tame, fluttering but little when he climbed the tree, and almost taking the worm he offered from his hand. He supplied it with all it needed, and came down as soon as possible, as the mother-bird had again flown from the nest when he came near. "How kitty's eyes gleamed and sparkled, and how fiercely she struggled in my arms! It was all I could do to keep my hold; and I was so afraid that she would escape in spite of me, that I was sorry that I had not listened to my sister and brother and left her behind. "But at last we were ready to go; and when I put puss down at the farm-house door, I relieved my feelings and visited my own obstinacy on her by giving her two or three good cuffs. It never came into the mind of any one of us as she scampered away and hid beneath the stoop, that she might find her way back to the nest by herself, or of all the mischief she would work there. "You may be very sure that the first thing to be thought of in the morning was the helpless birds up in the orchard; and directly after breakfast Will and I went over to the farm. As we passed the house-door, kitty came frisking out to me, as usual; but mindful of the trouble I had had with her the day before, I bade her stay at home. "All in vain, however; puss was determined to follow. Whether she guessed where we were going or no, I cannot tell; but it really seemed as if she did, and, feeling guilty, wanted to be on the spot when we discovered her cruelty. Come she would, although Will threw stones at her, and I beat her with a stick, and chased her back many times; we would take only a few steps onwards, and there she was after us again. At last Will turned an empty barrel over her, put a stone on top of it, and there we left her mewing piteously. "But we might have let her come on; the mischief was done. When we reached the tree, what destruction was there! The lame bird was gone from his bed of hay, and a few bright feathers scattered about told what his fate had been; the nest hung, torn and ragged, empty of its young inhabitants; while the mother-bird was flying wildly to and fro, wheeling round and round her ruined home, and uttering piteous, mournful notes. "Will looked at me, and I at him; but for the moment, neither of us could find words for the thought that was in both our minds; but if the painful truth had needed to be made plainer, it was done so at that instant by puss, who sprang suddenly forward, and pounced on something among the long grass beneath the tree. Will was upon her like a flash, and with some difficulty succeeded in taking her prey from her. It was one of the nestlings, but quite dead and stiff. Perhaps he had been killed by a fall from the tree when the cat attacked his home, or perhaps her cruel claws had crushed the life out of him when she had gorged herself upon his father and brothers, and could eat no more. "Will, great boy though he was, could not keep back his tears, and vowed all manner of vengeance on puss for the destruction of his adopted family. As for me, I was heart-broken, for I could not but feel that it was all my fault; and while poor pussy had only followed her own natural instincts in destroying the birds, I had been obstinate and wilful, and so brought about such a sad thing; for if I had not carried the cat there, she would probably not have discovered the nest. "And I am forced to believe that Will made good his word in the most severe manner; for from that day I never saw kitty again, although I went to the farm as often as before; but I never had the courage to ask any questions, feeling quite sure that puss and birds had all come to a violent death through my obstinacy." "Is that all, ma'am?" asked Mabel, when the lady had ceased speaking. "That is all," she answered; "and, judging from your grave little faces, I should think it was enough." "Oh, we like it very much, and we are sorry it is finished," Julia hastened to say. "Yes," said Mabel with a long sigh; "and I think that story is rather a comfort." "How so?" asked the lady. "'Cause it's nice to know you could be naughty once when you are so good now." "How do you know I am good now, or that I have improved any since I was a child?" said the lady smilingly. "I should think you must be good when you are so kind to us," answered Mabel, slipping her hand confidingly into that of her new friend. "Well, perhaps I may have improved in the way of believing others could be as wise as myself, and in giving up my own will now and then," said the lady; "for that was a severe lesson to me." "But how did the pussy get out from the barrel?" asked Mamie. "Oh! I forgot that. Some one of the family had heard her mewing, and let her out, not knowing of any particular reason why she should be kept a prisoner." Then she bade the children good-by, and leaving them to their play went back to her own friends. [Illustration] [Illustration] VII. _THE "FIRST STEP."_ BUT the spirit had gone from their play for that afternoon; the pool, beside which the dead duckling still lay, had lost its attraction for them all; and after spending some little time scrambling about over the rocks and watching the waves, they concluded to go back to the hotel. Mabel gave the dead duckling into Nannette's hands to be carried home; but arrived there, she took it at once to her father, and made an honest confession of the whole affair. Mr. Walton was a good deal amused at the tragic account she gave of the duckling's death and her own despair; but he did not let her see that, and, praising her for her readiness to make what amends she could, he offered to go with her to see the formidable Mrs. Clark. Passing through the hall on the way to Mrs. Clark's quarters, they met Mr. Clark, a man as good-natured and easy-going as his wife was sharp and bustling, and inquired of him where that good woman was to be found. "Wal, she's up to her elbows in a lot of varieties she's fixin' up for tea jest now," answered Mr. Clark, raising his hat with one hand, and scratching his head with the other, as his custom was whenever he made a remark or gave an answer; "an' I donno as she cares to be disturbed. Things is rayther in a chaos round kitchen ways, Mr. Walton. Is there any thing I could do for you, sir?" "Here is a little girl," said Mr. Walton, "who feels that she has not done right, and wants to confess what she has done. Speak to Mr. Clark, my dear." But poor Mabel, whatever she might wish or be willing to do, could find no words beyond "I--I--you--I"--and here she hung her head, and with gathering tears brought forward the hand which held the dead duckling, which until now she had kept hidden. "Shall I tell Mr. Clark?" asked her father. Mabel nodded assent. "It seems she picked up this duckling and carried it down to the Rocks this afternoon," said Mr. Walton, "intending to give it a swim in some pool, and then bring it back; but she has handled it too roughly, I suppose; for when she reached there it was dying. She is very sorry now, and feels that she did wrong to take it without permission; but I will make it all right with you, Mr. Clark, and Mabel will promise not to meddle again with what is not her own." "Whew!" said Mr. Clark, staring at the duckling as if he had not heard the latter part of Mr. Walton's speech; "there's two of 'em. Won't my wife be in a takin' though? I found another on 'em lyin' sick under the currant bushes this arternoon, an' it's dead or dyin' by this time. I see it warn't no use coddlin' it up; 'twas too fur gone, so I let it be." "I found this one under the currant bushes," said Mabel, regaining her voice. "It was just lying there, so that was the way I came to take it." "Did you, though?" said Mr. Clark; "well, sure enough, it's the very same fellow I left there. Don't you fret then, child; you've only put it out of its misery a little sooner, for it wouldn't ha' come round no way. 'Tain't no odds about it, Mr. Walton; jes' let it go, and I'll fix it with my old woman so she won't blame the little girl." Very much relieved, and thankful that she had made up her mind to confess, Mabel ran away to her mother, receiving permission from Mr. Clark to keep the duckling for the proposed funeral honors. The roar of laughter with which he heard her intentions did not sound very pleasant in her ears, but she was too grateful to escape a scolding to find fault with the good-natured man. Mabel had imagined that Belle and Lily would be very much shocked when they came home and heard of the fate of the duckling; but they were not half as much so as she feared; for she did not fail to tell them that Mr. Clark had said the little bird could not possibly have lived and thriven; and besides, its burial afforded the prospect of a pleasant entertainment for the next day. "And Maggie and Bessie are coming over to spend the day to-morrow," said Belle. "Papa had a letter from Mrs. Bradford saying so. We'll wait till they come, shan't we?" "Yes," said Mabel, "we will; and maybe Maggie would make up some poetry for us about him." The promised visit of Maggie and Bessie Bradford made quite a jubilee; and the next morning, when they landed with their papa from the boat which had brought them from Newport, they were met on the dock by a host of eager little friends. They were soon told the story of the duckling, but as they had only a few hours to spend in the place, and there was much to be seen and to do, Maggie declined to spend any portion of her time in composition, save so much as would answer for the purpose of a short epitaph. Mabel had sacrificed "the sweetest sugarplum box with the loveliest lady on the cover," to the service of the duckling, and he was tenderly laid therein. The procession was a large one, comprising not only most of the children in the house, but several others from the neighboring hotels; and Wagtail was buried with military honors; that is, to the beating of a drum and tooting of two tin trumpets, after which the assembly sang "Shoo Fly" about the grave. These imposing ceremonies afforded so much consolation to Mabel that she privately informed Belle and Lily that she would like to have a duck funeral every day, only she would not like to be the one to kill it. Maggie also composed a most touching epitaph for him, of mixed poetry and prose, which ran as follows:-- "Oh, pause, and drop a virtuous tear, Whatever footsteps wander here; For here's the body of Wagtail Duck, Whom cruel Death so soon did pluck! To the memory of Wagtail Duck, Esq., who Died in the fifth day of his age, after A short life in Which he was never known to do wrong and Painful illness. Reader, go and do likewise." This gem of composition, having been greatly approved by the mourners, was carried to Tom Norris in order that he might print it upon the board which, by Lily's request, he had prepared for a headstone. He read it without a smile, gravely shaking his head, and saying,-- "Yes, that is the usual fate of ducks; they are only made to be plucked." That the inscription excited general admiration after it was printed and put in its place, might be judged from the visits which were paid to it in the course of the day by nearly all the grown people in the house. But this admiration did not appear to be of a melancholy character, as they usually returned from the grave with the broadest of smiles on their faces. This was not observed by Maggie, however, who soon forgot both epitaph and duckling in the various pleasures provided for her entertainment. Tom Norris had been presented by his grandfather, just before leaving home, with a very handsome row-boat. This boat had, of course, been brought to the sea-shore; for Tom was a great boy now, and so wise and prudent that he was to be trusted to take care of himself and those who might be with him. It is true that his mother always gave a sigh of relief when she saw him come safely home from rowing; and while he was out, she would send many an anxious glance over the surface of the sea; but she never objected or interfered with him, and Tom was careful of her feelings, and did not venture when the sea was rough, lest she should be worried or alarmed for his safety. Mamma never would suffer Lily to go in the boat when Tom went in the deep water; not that she doubted her brother's care for her, but because Lily was such a heedless little thing, so quick and impulsive in all her movements, that she feared some sudden jerk or motion might send her into the water. Lily longed for the forbidden pleasure; but she was so accustomed to a ready obedience that she never thought of fretting about it, or worrying her mother to let her go. She did not even speak of it to Mamie when the latter complained of her mother's unkindness in not allowing her to go upon the breakwater. Mamma had said that it was not to be, and Lily had no more to say, but strove to content herself with the numerous pleasures left to her. But on this afternoon, as it was an extra occasion on account of the visit of Maggie and Bessie, dear, kind Tom proposed, and obtained his mother's permission, to take his boat up a little river which came down from the back country and crossed the beach, and to give the children a row there. They were all enchanted at the prospect, and Mamie had leave to go with the rest, Tom refusing to take her unless she asked her mamma first. Tom kept his boat tied to a stake on the inner side of the ruined breakwater, which shielded it and several others from the force of the waves when the sea was high, and made a kind of little harbor where they might ride in safety. Soon after dinner Tom gathered his passengers together, the company consisting of all our old young acquaintances, Maggie and Bessie, Belle, Lily, Mabel, and Mamie. Walter and Ned Stone were to go with them, and help Tom row. Down the road they went, a merry, happy flock, till they reached the breakwater, at the lower end of which stood Mr. Powers and Mr. Bradford, awaiting them. Tom hauled up his boat where the stones had fallen so as to make quite a convenient landing-place, while the other boys ran to bring the oars which were left in the care of the storekeeper hard by. The boat rocked up and down on the gentle swell within the shelter of the pier with a regular, undulating motion, which looked very pleasant in the eyes of the children, with one exception. "Tom, my boy," said Mr. Bradford, "I think I'll step in and take an oar with you as far as the river, if you'll have me." "Certainly, sir; most happy," answered Tom; and the gentleman stepped into the boat, which was kept from floating out by the rope which Tom had noosed about one of the heavy stones of the pier. "O papa!" said Bessie, "how I do wish I could come in the boat now, and be rocked up and down that way. I do like it so." "Come, then," said her father, and, guided by Mr. Powers' hand, the little girl made her way over the rugged ruins of the pier, and was lifted by her father into the boat. "Anybody else want a little tossing about?" asked Tom. "Maggie?" fixing his laughing eyes on her face, quite sure what her answer would be. "No--I--thank--you," said Maggie, with long-drawn emphasis on each word. "Tom, it's very plain that you don't know what sea-sickness is. Oo--o--o!" "Poor Maggie! she shuddered at the very thought," said Tom. "Papa, I'd like to go; could I?" asked Belle; and her father put her beside Bessie. "Lily?" said Mr. Powers, holding out his hand towards her as he saw how wistful she looked. But Lily shook her head. "Mamma has forbidden me to go in the boat when it is on the sea, sir," she said. "I think your mamma would not object here, dear, and with Mr. Bradford in the boat," said Mr. Powers. "But she might, sir, and I think I'd better not," said obedient Lily. "She told me so very spressly not to go; and she only gave me leave to row this afternoon because Tom was going on the river." "You are a dear, good child," said Mr Powers. "Mamie, are you for the boat?" Mamie had, until this minute, been standing farther back than the other children, not actually _on_ the breakwater, but as near to the forbidden ground as she could possibly be. She had never been so near to it before; and I am afraid that if her playmates had not known of her mother's command, she would have disregarded it altogether. She had no further thought for it when she heard Mr. Powers invitation, but started forward. "Mamie," said Tom, "did not your mother forbid you to come upon the breakwater?" "I can't go in the boat if I don't," pouted Mamie, stopping short where she was. "Go back!" said Tom decidedly; "you cannot come in till you go down to the river. Stay with Lily and Maggie." Mamie began to cry, but did not go back. "Hi, there, you Mamie! come off the breakwater!" said Walter the next moment, dashing past her with a pair of oars; and Ned, following with another, said, "O you disobedient thing! if you're not headstrong. See if I don't tell mamma of you." Mamie drew back, but feeling more than ever discontented and rebellious. "It's too bad!" she said passionately, as she saw Mabel placed beside Belle and Bessie in the boat. "Everybody else can do every thing they want to, and I never can, and just for such stupid nonsense. There! I have been on the breakwater, and never had a bit of harm happen to me." "Then you should be thankful for your mercies, and that your sins were not visited upon you," said Maggie solemnly. "Yes," said Lily; "and the way you talk about your mother is just too much, Mamie." "My dear children," said Mr. Powers, "do not spoil your afternoon's pleasure by fretfulness and quarrelling. If Mamie has, for a moment, forgotten her mother's orders, we will hope that she will be more careful another time. Come, we must walk on, or the boat will be at the river before we are." But no; Mamie had not forgotten her mother's orders; she had only hoped that others had done so, and had herself wilfully disregarded them; and she was to find the truth of the old proverb, that "it is only the first step that counts." Her "watchword," as she called it, was quite forgotten or put aside now; it was no longer a check upon her; and she had made up her mind that she would disobey her mother and go again upon the breakwater at the first opportunity. The disappointment about the boat was more than her wilful little heart could or would bear; and she was indignant to think that the other children should have any pleasure of which she was deprived. She forgot that Lily had been obliged to give up the same; but that she had done so in a cheerful, docile spirit, which would not even run the chance of doing that which her mother would not approve. So now Lily was gay, light-hearted, and full of spirits, chattering away merrily with Maggie and Mr. Powers as they crossed the beach on their way to the river where they were to meet the boat; while she, Mamie, came moodily and discontentedly behind, finding the sand heavy, the sun hot, the way "so long," and contriving to pick up half a dozen troubles in the course of the walk. Things were no better after she was in the boat. It was "no fun on that stupid river;" the boat was "too crowded," although Mr. Bradford had left it now; one "pushed" her, and another "shoved" her; although if you had asked the other children, they would probably have said that it was she herself who did the pushing and shoving; and, in short, she made herself so disagreeable that Maggie afterwards privately confided to Bessie that she found Mamie "very much re-dis-improved, and like the Mamie of old days." Her brothers were very much vexed with her, and even threatened to set her upon the river-bank, and leave her there by herself till they were ready to land; a threat which was, at last, carried out after she had become quite unbearable, and destroyed the pleasure of the whole party. However, it was not much more agreeable to have her shrieking upon the river-bank than it was to have her grumbling in the boat; and she was taken in again on promise of better behavior. This promise she fulfilled by sitting sullenly in her own corner of the boat without opening her lips; but the sounds which had come from them before were not so sweet as to make her companions regret her silence. And for such a trifle Mamie was making herself and all about her uncomfortable; for the sake of this one forbidden pleasure set against so many comforts and enjoyments, she had forgotten, or wilfully put out of sight, all her good resolutions, and the remembrance of that Eye which watched every thought and feeling of her heart. And yet, perhaps it was the consciousness of this, the guilty, uneasy conscience, which helped to make her so fretful and irritable, so hard to please, and captious to all about her. She was more ready, as we have seen, to test the conduct of others by her "watchword" than she was her own, now that the first novelty of it had worn off; but she could not quite put away the reproachful echo in her own heart. [Illustration] [Illustration] VIII. _DISOBEDIENCE._ LILY lay upon her back on the grass, her hands beneath her head, her eyes looking up into the sky. She had been lying thus some time, perfectly quiet, though Belle and Mamie sat beside her, playing with Lulu. "Lily," said Belle at last, "what are you doing?" "Thinking," answered Lily. "Oh!" said Belle, surprised, perhaps, at this unusual process; for Lily generally had too many other things on hand to devote much time to thought; "you look as if you were thinking sober too." "Well, yes," said Lily, without bringing her eyes down from the sky; "it was rather pious thinking I was doing." "Would you mind telling us about it?" asked Belle, interested in the novelty. "Oh, no, not at all," answered Lily. "I was thinking about conscience, and what a dreadful bother it is; but how it improves us, and how awful we'd be without it. It's a great mercy it was given to us,--to me, at least; or I should be all the time doing bad things. I think we might call conscience a bother blessing, because, though it is best for us to have it, it is a great inconvenience." "Is it an inconvenience to you now?" asked Belle. "No, not particular," said Lily, rolling over on her side, and plucking a head of thistle-down which grew close at hand. "Here, Lulu, blow this;" and she held it up that the little one might blow off the feathery seed-vessels; "not particular just now; but it was a great inconvenience before dinner. You see, Belle,--once more, Lulu; there they go!--you see I wanted to do a thing very much, but I did not feel sure mamma would let me, and she had gone to make a call, so I could not ask her; and I made up my mind I'd just do it; and do you know, I really believe I felt quite glad mamma was not there, so she couldn't forbid me; but then my conscience,--I suppose it was my conscience,--puff away, Lulu,--began to feel badly about it, and so I put it off till mamma came, and sure enough, she did forbid it. So, you see, there's a sign that conscience is a bother and a blessing too." "Yes," said Belle approvingly. "And then," proceeded Lily, thinking she might as well continue to give her companions the benefit of her moral reflections, "and then I was wondering what conscience was. We're so queer inside of us; our thoughts and our consciences and our remorses, and all that, you know." "Yes," said Belle again. "Lily, I suppose conscience is a kind of 'Thou God seest me' feeling; don't you?" "Why, yes," answered Lily, looking admiringly at Belle. "I never thought about it that way, but I believe it is; and that was a very clever idea of yours, Belle. Mamie, what do you think about it? You seem to have thought a good deal lately about God seeing you all the time." "I don'no," muttered Mamie. The conversation was not pleasant to her, and she did not choose to take any part in it. "I s'pose heathen can't have consciences as long as they don't know about God," said Belle thoughtfully. "No, I'm quite sure they do not," said Lily confidently. "Hafed, Mr. Stanton's servant boy, used to be a heathen," said Belle. "Yes, but he's turned now, and a Christian," said Lily. "Belle, I know three turned heathen," with an air of great satisfaction in the extensiveness of her acquaintance with converted idolaters. "There's Hafed, and there's that Chinese pedler that mamma buys matches of, and there's that old black man on your papa's plantation who used to be a king in his own country. Belle, when that old black man gets to heaven, won't he make a queer, awfully ugly old angel?" "He won't be black then," said Belle; "at least, I b'lieve he won't. But he's very good if he is so ugly; papa says so." "How will he get white, I wonder?" queried Lily; "he's so awfully black; and such a mouth!" Mamie was glad that the solving of this knotty question diverted the thoughts of her two little playmates from the subject of conscience and the all-seeing Eye of God. It really seemed that people had a great deal to say about it, and were always bringing it up before her mind at a time when she would have chosen to forget it. She was almost vexed with dear little Belle because she had, at her own request, given her the text which, not long since, she had chosen as her watchword, but which she now strove to put away from her thoughts, and by which she would not rule her conduct. "Come, Lulu, we're going home now," she said, fearing that the other children might go back to the unwelcome subject of conversation. "No, no; Lulu will tay here. Lulu tay wis Belle and Lily," said the little one. "Mamie tay too." "No, I'm going," persisted Mamie; "you come, and Mamie will take you on a nice, pretty walk." Lulu obediently scrambled to her feet and put her hand in her sister's, tempted by the prospect of the promised walk. Belle and Lily did not urge their stay, partly because Mamie was not in a pleasant mood that afternoon; secondly, because they both knew that they would shortly be called to be made ready for a drive with their parents. And there came Daphne now to bring her little mistress, and to tell Lily to go to her nurse. So good-by was said to Mamie and Lulu, and the four children parted and went their different ways. Mamie was generally kind and good to Lulu, so the pet child always liked to be with her; and their mother was not afraid to trust them together within the safe shelter of the enclosures which ran about their hotel, and the next one where Belle and Lily stayed. Gates opened in each of the rows of picket fences which divided the grounds, so that one might pass in and out, and from one house to another without going upon the high road or plank-walk which bordered it. And it was only within these enclosures that Mamie had intended to take her little sister; but the plank-walk had charms for Lulu far beyond those of the grass-plots and gravel-path about the houses. Lulu liked to see the world, and thought she could do so to better advantage on the road. "We do on de plant-walt, an' see de hosseys an' bow-wows," she said coaxingly. Mamie hesitated. Mamma had never told her she must not take Lulu on the plank-walk; but she was pretty sure she would not allow her to do so if she were asked. She could not ask her, that was certain; for mamma was lying down with a bad headache, and she knew she would not be suffered to go near her. Certainly she found conscience "a bother" now, as Lily had done that morning; but she would not listen to its calls, as her young friend had done, and put temptation from her. Papa was away, gone to town; of course he was out of the question; but there was her nurse. She could ask leave from her, but with the certainty of being refused, Mamie was sure of that. The nurse was rather careless and indifferent, disposed, so long as she believed the children were safe, to take her ease and enjoy her own gossip with her fellow-servants, as she was doing now; but Mamie knew very well that she would promptly refuse permission to go outside of the gates. Mamie was herself anxious to take her pretty, cunning little sister out upon the plank-walk, and parade her up and down, and show her off to the passers-by; any other little girl would have liked to do the same; the temptation was strong, and in her present rebellious, undutiful mood, she did not even try to resist it. Lulu pleaded again. "Pease, Mamie, do out dere on de plant-walt;" and what did Mamie do? She salved her still uneasy conscience by running back to where her nurse sat sewing and talking with some other maids, and asked,-- "Maria, could Lulu and I walk about a little?" "To be sure, child; just as if you didn't always walk about as much as you pleased," answered the nurse, not dreaming that Mamie meant to take her little sister, or to go herself, beyond the safe permitted enclosure about the house, if, indeed, she gave it any thought at all. "Come, then, Lulu; Maria says we may go," said Mamie; and, taking good care to pass out of Maria's sight as she did so, she led the little one out upon the plank-walk. Once there, all uneasy thoughts were flung to the winds; and although she had intended "only to walk up and down a very little way," she was tempted farther and farther on, and away from the house. Lulu prattled and chattered away, delighted with all that she saw; and to Mamie the novelty of having her baby-sister in charge upon the public walk, and the pleasure with which she saw one and another turn to notice her, was quite enough to still the last lingering reproaches of conscience. Perhaps some of those passers-by wondered to see those two young children wandering alone by a much-travelled highroad; indeed, an old gentleman stopped, and said, "Where now, alone by yourselves, my little ones?" to which Mamie hastily made answer, "Oh, just taking a walk, sir; Maria said we might;" and, believing all was right, the gentleman passed on, only saying, "Don't go too far then; Maria had best have come with you." Mamie did not think so, and made no reply. She was opposite the breakwater now, the object of so many desires, so many rebellious and undutiful murmurings; she was alone, at least with only her little sister for company, and Lulu could not interfere with her. The long-wished-for opportunity had come. To do her justice, she had not started from home with any thought of the breakwater, or intention of going upon it, and had only turned that way in order to be out of the range of Maria's eyes; but now was her chance except for Lulu. How was she to take the child over those ruined, uneven stones? She looked about her up and down the road. There was no one near; the friendly old gentleman was quite a distance down the plank-walk; neither carriages nor foot passengers coming by now, not even a soul to be seen on the piazzas of the neighboring hotels. There was no time to be lost; she did not want any one to find her upon the breakwater, and she would stay there but a moment. "Come, Lulu," she said; and the two children had crossed the road, and were at the lower end of the pier. "Now, Lulu," she said, "you sit down here a moment on this stone. Mamie is just going up there one minute, and it is too hard for Lulu. If you are good and sit still, Mamie will give you some pretty shells when we go home." The little one wagged her head, and sat down contentedly on the stone at which Mamie pointed. "Mamie will only go a very little way," said her sister, and away she went, scrambling over the stones and rubbish till she reached the extreme end of the pier. Her heart beat fast, but it was less with the feeling of guilt, for she did not take time to listen to that, than with haste and excitement. "Only one minute," she had said; but as she grasped the wooden pile by which she stood, and peered over the edge of the breakwater, she forgot how moments were passing. No wonder Lily and the other children liked to come there. It was so curious and so beautiful to see the waves come rolling in right beneath her eyes, and break against the mass of masonry, solid and resisting still, ruined though it was; so pretty, when the wave rolled back, to watch the water running out in a hundred little jets and waterfalls from between the crevices of the stones; so wonderful to seem to look down into the very heart of those transparent green rollers with their crests of snowy foam! And with what a booming sound they came against the obstacle which barred their farther progress, and would not suffer them to finish their rightful march upon the beach beyond! Oh, it was grand, glorious! Mamie was perfectly fascinated. Every thing was forgotten but the sight and the sounds before her. Her own disobedience, her mother, her little sister, had for the time quite passed from her thoughts, as she hung over the edge and looked down upon the sea. A gentle summer sea it was that day, or it may be that the breaking of some furious wave would have startled her from her hold, and given her a thorough shower-bath, if no worse; for Mamie's position was by no means a safe one, though she did not think of that. And meanwhile what was Lulu doing? The little creature sat still for a moment or two as her sister had bidden her, singing softly to herself and looking up and down the road. But presently she tired of this; Mamie stayed too long, and there was no amusement at hand, nothing to do. She called to Mamie several times, but she did not hear; the sound of the booming waters below her drowned all other voices. Then Lulu fretted a little, then looked about her again, and there came a great, big dog trotting along the road. Now, although Lulu had begged to be allowed to go and see the "bow-wows," she preferred to view them at a safe distance, or at least under the shelter of some protecting hand. And she was not acquainted with this particular "bow-wow," and to her infant eyes he wore a ferocious and unfriendly aspect. So she must move out of the way before he came near; and, since Mamie would not come to her, she must go to Mamie. Lulu was a great climber for a child of her age, and the roughness of the path she had to cross had no terrors for her. Rising from her seat with the fear of that "bow-wow" before her eyes, the baby-feet soon carried her over jagged stones and crumbling masonry, till she thought herself at a safe distance from the dog, at whom she peeped from behind a sheltering pile as he passed by, and then turned once more to go to Mamie. Oh, if the poor, timid mother lying suffering upon her bed had but seen her children then! Mamie on the forbidden spot, leaning over the leaping waters, with only the clasp of her own small arm about the wooden pile to keep her from falling headlong into their depths; her baby-girl clambering with faltering, unsteady steps over that rough and rugged way. But now a new object took Lulu's attention, and diverted her thoughts from Mamie. Tom Norris had gone over to Newport for the day, and had lent his boat to Walter and Ned Stone; they were careless boys, especially the latter, and it was with many a charge to be sure and take good care of the boat that he had granted the favor. They had been out rowing that morning, and had come back with a quantity of spoils in the shape of shells and sea-weeds which they had gathered. They had returned just before the hour for dinner, and, meaning to go out again as soon as that meal was over, had not made the boat properly fast to the stake, but had contented themselves with carrying off the oars, and knotting a rope over one of the stones of the pier. But after dinner some new and greater attraction, _what_ is of no consequence, had taken their time and thoughts; and, forgetting all about the neglected boat, they had gone off, leaving it so carelessly fastened, and liable to slip its hold at any moment when the waves might become a little stronger; rubbing its pretty painted sides too, now and then, against the rough stones when the wash of the waves carried it too near. But still worse mischief than this was to come from the thoughtlessness of those heedless boys, joined as it was to Mamie's deliberate disobedience. Making her way as she best could to her sister, the eye of the little child was caught by the pretty boat bobbing up and down upon the waves; and farther, oh, priceless treasure! by the sight of a few gay shells which the boys in their hurry had dropped in the bottom of the boat. "Dere's Mamie's pitty sells," said the darling to herself; "me will det 'em." And the little feet slipped and slid themselves over the stones, till she stood at the very water's edge. You will remember that this was on the sheltered side of the breakwater, where the waves had little or no force, but only rippled and washed with a gentle murmur at Lulu's feet. The boat was still beyond her reach, but the dear little tot generally managed to gain what she wanted, if her own small hands or own small brains could bring it about. "Dere's de wope dat pulls it," she said to herself, and in a moment she had laid hold of the rope, and drawn the boat in so that she could step within it. How she ever did so without falling into the water was matter of wonder to all who afterwards heard of it, but a kind Hand guarded the baby steps, and she gained the boat without harm. Here she found enough to amuse her and keep her quiet for a few moments longer, till Mamie, suddenly rousing to the recollection that Lulu was waiting for her, drew back from her dangerous position and turned around. Where was her little sister? "Lulu, Lulu!" she called in terrified tones, not seeing her where she had left her as she started forward. "Here me are," answered the little voice from the other side of the breakwater; and, making her way in haste, there she found Lulu deeply interested in something at the bottom of the boat, over which she was bending. "O you naughty little thing! How did you go there, and how am I going to take you out?" said Mamie. "Here's a funny ittle lanimal wants to sate hans wiz me," said Lulu, quite unmoved by her sister's reproaches. "Tome see him, Mamie. Tome in de boat." "What will mamma say? How can I take you out?" repeated Mamie again. "Lulu not tome out; dere's de wope, Mamie, pull it, and tome see dis funny fellow," urged Lulu; and Mamie, seeing her coolness, and that she could herself easily manage to step into the boat by drawing it towards her as Lulu must have done, lost her fears, and grew anxious to see what it was that interested the child so much. Besides, she would have to get in the boat herself to take Lulu out. In another moment, it was done; the boat drawn close to the landing-place, and she had stepped within it as safely as Lulu had done. "Only for one moment, Lulu," she said. "You were very naughty to come in here, and I must take you out. Oh! oh dear! how it rocks!" as the boat, shaken by her weight, rocked back and forth. Was it Mamie herself, or innocent little Lulu, on whom the blame justly rested? There was another thing which she had forgotten, or rather which she had not considered, namely, how the boat was to be drawn in again; nor had she observed that the rope, carelessly fastened in the beginning, was slipping farther and farther from its hold upon the stone, as the boat rocked to and fro. The "funny ittle lanimal" proved to be a very small crab, which was feeling about him with his claws, in an uncomfortable manner; and in inquiring into his habits, and "poking him" about the bottom of the boat, several moments passed away. And as the movements of the children gave a little added motion, that treacherous rope slid gradually from its stay, and--the boat was loose, and at the mercy of the out-going tide! [Illustration] [Illustration] IX. _ADRIFT._ DRIFTING! drifting! slowly, but steadily, the boat floated out from the shelter of the pier. Quite absorbed by the droll movements of the tiny crab, Mamie did not notice their danger, till, passing out from the shadow which the breakwater had thrown upon it, the boat glided into the broad sunlight which flooded the waves beyond. Then, startled by the burst of sunshine which fell upon her, she raised her head, and saw the dreadful truth. Out on the waters, alone, alone! she and Lulu, two little helpless children, with no eye to watch, no hand to help! For a moment or two she sat perfectly stunned, motionless where she was, crouched at the bottom of the boat, her eyes fixed upon the now fast-receding shore, her lips seeming glued together with horror and affright, a sick, faint feeling coming over her. Out on the sea! out on the sea! alone! alone! And so the precious moments were lost. Little Lulu prattled away, all unconscious of fear or danger, and still interested in her captive, and his efforts to escape. But presently she too looked up. "Where we doin', Mamie?" she asked, turning great eyes of wonder upon her sister. Then Mamie found voice and breath, and, clasping the little one in her arms, shrieked aloud for help. But none heard, although Lulu, terrified by her sister's cries, now joined her own, seeing something was wrong, though she could not yet understand their peril. For the wind, blowing as it did from the shore, carried away the sound of their voices, and floated the piteous tones far out over the sea. [Illustration: Mamie. p. 174.] Farther, still farther, and faster now, as the blue waves, crisping and sparkling in the sunlight, toyed with the frail boat, and its precious, helpless freight, and tossed it from one to another, but ever carrying it farther from home! Was there no one to see? no one to hear? Why was it that no one looked out at that time over the dancing waters, and discovered what terrible plaything they had seized upon? Far off, so far off it seemed to poor Mamie's straining eyes, and growing each moment more distant, figures were moving upon the shore; some up and down the road; others, she could distinguish them well at first, playing croquet upon the lawns; little children, like themselves, running up and down the long piazzas of the hotels: but no one, no one, turned an eye towards their peril, or lent an ear to the frantic cries which rang from their lips. Oh, how cruel, how cruel, it seemed! The boat drifted onward till it was a long distance from the shore, almost in a straight line, keeping directly in the flood of sunshine which fell across the waters; and it may be that if any eye did turn seaward, it was dazzled by the blaze of light, and, even if it saw the boat, could notice nothing amiss. Kind hearts were there that would almost have stood still at the thought of the fearful peril about those little ones; feet which would have flown, hands which would have strained every nerve to rescue them. But ah! to poor Mamie the whole world seemed so heartless, so cruel! On, on, till she could no longer distinguish any thing more than the long line of hotels on the shore; the beach glistening on the one hand, the bare, stern rocks upon the other. What was to become of them, herself and Lulu? Would they toss gently about in this way till they died of hunger, or would great fishes come and eat them up? Or would some terrible storm arise, and the waves, now so gentle and playful, grow high and fierce, as she had seen them the other day, and swallow up their frail boat? And the night, the night! What should they do when the darkness came, and the last faint, lingering hope that some one would yet see them should be gone? The sun was sinking towards the west even now; by and by it would be quite dark. What would mamma do when she missed her little girls, and knew not where to look? Would she ever know what had become of them? Would they be found all dead and drowned? She had ceased to cry aloud now, and sat crouched, in a kind of dumb, helpless despair, at the bottom of the boat, with both arms clasped fast about Lulu, who had also hushed her screams, and sat with questioning, wistful eyes, wandering from Mamie's face over the waves, up to the sky, and back again to her sister. She did not understand: how could she? She only knew that Mamie had been frightened, and cried; and so she had cried too. It was well that they both sat quite still in the bottom of the boat, or they might have fallen into the water; but Mamie, in the midst of all her terror, had sense enough left to know that they were safer so, and she would not suffer Lulu to stir from her encircling arms. So on, still on, farther and farther out upon the lonely waters, away from home and friends, drifted the little helpless ones. What though all was now bustle and alarm in that home,--indeed, throughout all the various houses on the shore; that Maria, missing her charges, so shamefully neglected, had hunted for them in vain, first about their own hotel, then in every other one, hoping that they might have gone visiting, or been taken away by some friend; that, hearing nothing of them, she had first alarmed the other servants of the house, then the ladies, next roused the sick mother, who grew frantic and desperate as moment after moment went by, and brought no news of her darlings? Who dreamed of all the truth? The alarm was general now; the news went forth like wildfire: two little children lost! and so many dangerous places where they might have come to harm! Stony shore and sandy beach were searched in vain to their farthest extent; one party explored the little river; others started for the green, cultivated country lying back of the shore, thinking that the stray lambs might have been tempted by its beauty to wander too far; others again hurried down upon the rocks, hoping to find them, perhaps, hidden in some of their many nooks or niches; the old pier, the dock, the very bathing-houses, were all searched; but who thought of looking out to sea, where the cockle-shell of a boat floated, floated far away? It was not even missed, the little boat; for Mamie's brothers and Tom Norris were all away, and probably they would not have guessed at the truth, had they known of its loss. And so hope grew fainter and fainter as one after another returned from the fruitless search only to set forth again; and the dreadful fear grew stronger and stronger that in some way the missing children had fallen into the water, and would never be seen again; while the poor mother went from one fainting fit into another, and those about her scarcely cared to call her back to her misery. And so the sun sank low in the west, and the twilight gathered, and the night came down upon land and sea, and still no word came to those anxious, aching hearts of the little lost ones for whom they watched and waited. How was it meanwhile with those poor little waifs? With that dull, hopeless feeling that nothing could save them now seeming to benumb her, Mamie sat silent a long time,--silent, that is, but for the heavy, gasping sobs that struggled up from her poor little bosom, her eyes fixed on the distant stretch of shore, now fast receding into one gray, undistinguishable line; Lulu, awed by this strange, new grief of her sister's into stillness likewise. But the baby tired at last. She wanted home and mamma, or, at least, her nurse. The boat and the water had been all very wonderful at first, and had perhaps lent their charm to keep her quiet; but she was wearied of them now. She fretted a little; then, finding this failed to draw Mamie's attention, she spoke. "Lulu want mamma. Lulu want no more water," she said plaintively. "O darling! what shall I do? What will become of us?" answered Mamie, roused by her words from the sort of stupor into which she had fallen. "Tate Lulu home. Lulu want to do home. Lulu want mamma tate tare of her," said the little child, whose vague feeling of trouble was beginning to settle itself into a longing for her mother's care and comforting. "O Lulu, Lulu!" broke forth Mamie, "there's no one to take care of us, there's no one to see us, there's no one to hear us. We're all alone, all alone, all alone!" her voice dying away to a low murmur of despair. Was there no Eye to see? Was there no Ear to hear? Was there no Hand to save? Whose Hand guided the fragile boat over the deep waters, and held their waves in check that they might not deal too roughly with the slight thing which was the sole refuge of those little ones? Whose was the Ear which bent to hear those piteous tones? Whose the Eye which watched them on their perilous way? A few light clouds were sailing overhead on the deep blue sky; and, as the sun sank in the west, they were tinged with purple, pink, and gold, changing every instant from one hue to another. All around, on sea, earth, and sky, poured a flood of golden glory, the little curling waves breaking into a thousand diamond sparkles as they caught it on their crests. Lulu gazed wonderingly into Mamie's face as she spoke so piteously, then put up a grieved lip; but, before breaking out into a cry again, she looked about her as if questioning the truth of her words. The beauty of the sky above caught her eye; a golden-edged cloud fixed her attention for a moment, and her baby thoughts took a new turn. Lulu had heard that God lived in the sky; she had been told, too, that God loved her, and would take care of her; and the little creature startled her sister with the words,-- "Mamie, where are Dod?" And across Mamie's mind flashed her watchword. "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." "In every place!" Here, now, watching her and Lulu! For a moment it seemed to bring new terror to her, speaking, as it did, to her guilty conscience; but the next there came comfort in the thought. Not all alone, if His eye watched them there. "Where are Dod?" repeated Lulu. "God is in the sky, but He sees us here," she said more calmly than she had spoken before. "Den He not tate tare of Mamie and Lulu?" questioned the little child. "Yes, I think He will; I do believe He will," sobbed Mamie. "I b'lieve He'll take care of you any way, Lulu darling, 'cause this wasn't your fault, but only mine. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" "Tell him tate tare of us, tate de boat home to mamma," lisped the baby lips. "Tell Him loud up in de sty, Mamie; and tell Him we so 'faid." Innocent darling! she did not know why or of what she was afraid; only that she and Mamie were in some great trouble, that she wanted mamma, that mamma was not here, and that somehow the beauty of the sunset sky had brought to her mind the thought of God and of His care, of which she had been told. "So afraid!" Poor Mamie was indeed afraid, stricken with such awful dread as, happily, seldom finds its way into childish heart; but Lulu's words brought another verse into her mind. It almost seemed to her as if a voice came over the water, and sounded it into her ear, so suddenly and so strongly did it come to her. "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." Bessie Bradford had told it to her one day in the early part of the summer. Mamie had a great terror of a thunder-storm; so had Bessie; but once, when they had happened to be together when one was passing, the former had shrieked and cried at every flash and peal, while the latter, though pale and shrinking, had remained perfectly quiet. Afterwards Mamie had said to her,-- "Bessie, how can you keep from crying when you are frightened in a thunder-storm?" And Bessie had answered,-- "When I am very much frightened, I try to think of a verse mamma taught me to comfort me: 'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.'" At the moment it had not made much impression on Mamie; but she had not forgotten the words; and now, in her time of need, they came to her so clearly, as I have said, that it almost seemed as if they were spoken to her:-- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." What a sense of hope and comfort, almost of relief, crept over the poor, miserable little child with the recollection! And "the eyes of the Lord are in every place." How she clung to the thought now,--the thought that she had been so ready to put from her for many a day past, which she had tried to forget because it was a reproach to her conscience, a check upon the purpose of disobedience which had led to such a terrible result! "O God!" she said with quivering lips, "I am afraid, so afraid! please let me trust in Thee; and take a great deal of care of my Lulu and me on this dreadful water; and if there could be any way for us to go home to mamma, let us; and help me not to be naughty and disobedient again; and don't let mamma be very much frightened about us. Amen." "Is mamma tomin' pitty soon now?" asked Lulu. "I asked God, darling, to let us go back to her," moaned Mamie, "and He can help people a great deal; but I don't know but this is 'most too much even for Him." Lulu understood, or noticed, only the first part of her speech, and it satisfied her, at least for the time; and, nodding her pretty head contentedly, she said,-- "Den Lulu will love Dod, an' be dood dirl." Still the boat drifted onward, farther and farther from home and safety, out from the friendly waters of the bay, and more and more towards the open sea, where, on the distant horizon, hung a misty veil, soft purplish gray beneath, brightening above into tints of pink and amber which melted away again into the clear blue of the heaven above. Not a sound was to be heard but the plashing of the water against the sides and keel of their boat; not a living thing was to be seen save their own two little selves. God's curtain of night was falling; and still they were alone out on the sea! The sun was gone now; even the glorious colors which he left painted on the clouds after he had himself sunk from sight, had faded out; the evening breeze, cool and refreshing on the land, came chilly and damp over the water; and Lulu shivered as it struck through the thin muslin covering upon her tiny shoulders. She had sat uncomplainingly after Mamie had told her she had asked God to take care of them, waiting in her own docile way to go to mamma; but now her baby patience was exhausted, as it well might be; for she was cold, hungry, and tired. She broke into a pitiful cry. "Lulu so told; Lulu want hupper; Lulu want mamma," she said appealingly to her sister, with oh! such a grieved, piteous face and voice, that Mamie's heart was quite broken; and now all thought of self was forgotten; and she prayed, poor little soul, that darling Lulu, at least, might be saved, and taken back to mamma, even if she might not. Then she tried to speak words of comfort to her baby-sister. Ah, how hard it was, and what a mockery they seemed! and, taking off her own little jacket, she wrapped it about Lulu's shoulders, and, resting the weary little head against her own bosom, petted and soothed, until the long eyelashes drooped upon the dimpled cheek, and Lulu was asleep in her arms. And then it was so lonely, oh, so lonely! far more so than when Lulu was awake, with her sweet voice prattling broken words now and then; but so great was Mamie's sense of the wrong she had done to her innocent sister, that she would not wake her, even for the comfort of her voice and look. She had no thought or wish for sleep herself; the child's senses were all strained to the utmost, listening and watching for she knew not what. How still it was, how very still! and deeper and yet deeper grew the dusky shadows, shrouding the distant white sails which all the afternoon had specked the far horizon, shutting them out from sight, and with them the last faint hope of help, which Mamie had somehow connected with them, leaving her no ray of comfort to cling to but those words:-- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." And night was upon the sea where drifted the lost baby voyagers; but "the eyes of the Lord are in every place." [Illustration] X. _RESCUED_ A SHOUT, a loud halloo, broke the stillness; a hail so sharp and sudden, so near at hand, that it startled Mamie into new terror for one moment; then, as it was repeated, brought a fluttering of hope to her sinking young heart. A glimmer over the water; then, as she turned her head, and glanced half fearfully over her shoulder, a light shining brightly through the surrounding darkness, and coming nearer. Another hail, to which she still made no answer; perhaps she did not understand that she would be expected to do so; then a boat coming near,--a boat from which shone the welcome light, a torch held high above the head of the boy who carried it. Then the stranger boat was close to her own, with two people in it, an old man and a boy; and the light of the torch was falling over the little figures crouched close together; over the white face and straining eyes of the elder, over the peaceful, sleeping form of the younger. Exclamations of wonder were exchanged between the man and boy, and questions poured upon her; this Mamie knew from the tone of voice in which they were uttered, but not one word could she understand; and their language seemed so harsh and rough to her that it almost made her afraid of them. The end of a rope was thrown towards her, but she did not know that she was expected to catch it; and the directions the man and boy shouted out only confused and frightened her the more. Poor child! she did not know whether to look upon these rough creatures as friends or foes. Several times they threw the rope, but each time it fell with a dull splash into the water; and at last a boat-hook was thrown out, and grappled her own boat. All the while, she heard the man and boy talking eagerly together in their own uncouth tongue, and she wondered what they were going to do with her and her little sister. All manner of wild fancies flitted through her over-excited brain, and made her poor little frame quiver at one moment with dread, at another with hope. Who were these people, and where were they taking her? To some far-off foreign land, where every one spoke that strange, rough language, and no one would understand a word she might say when she told who she was, and begged to be taken back to her friends; or could it really be that they were taking her home? No, that could not be, for they did not know where she belonged, and she had no way of telling them, or so she believed. They had now made her boat fast to their own, and were drawing it after them; the man was rowing, the boy steering; the light from their torch falling over both figures, and casting a red glare upon the waves around. It was a curious scene, and one so new to Mamie that she watched it with a feeling of there being something unreal about it all. "It's 'most like a fairy tale, or a book story," she said to herself. "I wonder what they are going to do with us;" and she drew her arms close about Lulu, who still slept quietly on her breast. She wished that the daylight would come, and show her more plainly the faces of those who now had her in their keeping; for she believed that it must be nearly morning, so long did the time seem since the light had died out of the far west; whereas it was scarcely an hour since dark, and it was still comparatively early in the evening. Except for the measured dash of the oars, and the ripple of the waters as the two boats cut through the waves, it was almost as still now as it had been before her new companions had appeared; for man and boy had ceased talking, and rowed steadily forward without exchanging a word. Oh, if she only could know whether these were kind and good people, who would be ready to take her home, or if they were bad and cruel, and would do something dreadful to her and Lulu! She thought of every terrible thing which she had ever heard of as happening to children, and tormented herself with imagining her little sister and herself in like situations. Then she tried to turn her thoughts another way, picturing to herself the going home, back to her mamma, and how glad mamma would be to see her and Lulu, and how she would forgive all her naughtiness for very joy at seeing them. And then she thought how distressed mamma must be now, and again a heavy sob shook her breast, and two or three scalding tears ran down upon Lulu's head. Oh! if she could but be with mamma once more, she would try so hard never to vex and worry her again; and she was so sure that she would always be attentive and obedient to her wishes. But should she ever have the chance? She looked up to the sky, now thickly studded with stars,--more stars than she had ever seen before; and how bright and beautiful they were, seeming as if they looked down upon her right out of heaven,--the heaven where God was! and again there came to her the thought,-- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee;" and once more she asked that no further harm might befall her and Lulu, but that these people into whose hands they had fallen might be kind to them, and find some way to take them home. By and by another light shone out of the darkness, burning unsteadily, but more and more brightly as the boat moved on; and Mamie knew that they were nearing it. Then a long, low line, growing each instant more distinct; and presently she saw that the light came from a fire that was built upon--yes, it was the shore! The land once more! the land where mamma was! far off it might be, perhaps in another country even; for it seemed to the poor little voyager that she had come from such a distance; but still it was the _land_, and she felt as if she must be nearer home than upon the water. She could see two figures moving about the fire which cast its fitful light upon shore and sea, now dying down, now flashing up brightly, but serving always as a point to guide them landwards. Not very far off, and burning with a clear, steady flame, was another light which seemed high up, and looked to Mamie like that of the light-house which she could see every evening from the piazza of the hotel. Was it possible it was the same? It would seem almost like a friend if it were so. Now the man rowed slower and slower, and presently the foremost boat made a harsh, grating sound upon the beach. The boy jumped out, and then Mamie's boat was hauled up, and she and Lulu lifted out, while a woman and a girl pressed eagerly forward with wondering faces to see what strange cargo the men had brought to shore. But alas! the hope that Mamie had felt that these females might understand her was soon put to flight. They talked fast enough, pouring out question after question; but she could not comprehend one word; and when the man had put her down upon her feet on the beach, and she turned to the woman, and begged, oh, so earnestly! to be taken home to mamma, the latter shook her head, and only gazed helplessly and wonderingly into her pitiful face. Then Lulu, roused from her sleep by the change, and frightened by the strange scene and faces about her, broke into a loud, distressed cry, in which Mamie herself could not help joining, as she stretched out her arms for her little sister, whom the man had now given into the woman's care. The woman did not give her up, but spoke a few words to Mamie in a coaxing voice, and then set off with long, rapid strides, while the girl seized upon Mamie's hand and followed, leaving the man and boy to attend to the boats and their fish; for they were fishermen, as Mamie afterwards found out. A few steps brought them to a small, a very small house, a mere hut; and, pushing open the door, the woman entered with Lulu in her arms, Mamie and the girl coming as closely after as the tired, cramped limbs of the poor little child could carry her. The place was neat and clean, though poor; and to Mamie, after the dark and chill of the sea, it seemed a very haven of refuge. Summer night though it was, she was not sorry to see a fire of logs burning upon the open hearth, over which the kettle was singing, while the table was set for supper. She had not known she was hungry before; but now the brown loaf upon the table looked very inviting to her, though, at another time, she would probably have scorned it. But just now she could attend to nothing but Lulu, who had not ceased her frantic cries for mamma and "hupper" from the moment she had been awakened in lifting her from the boat. Whether the woman understood, or whether she only imagined that the poor children must be hungry, she sat down beside the fire with Lulu upon her knee, and, hastily pouring some milk into a cup, held it to the little one's lips. Lulu seized upon it, and while Mamie stood close beside her, looking on with satisfaction, took a long drink, put it from her to take breath, and ejaculated, "Dood!" then drank again; looked up into the kind, good-natured face smiling above her, and said, "Mamie some too." Meanwhile the girl had done a like good office for Mamie, bringing her also a cup of milk; but she would not touch it till she saw Lulu satisfied. Their care for one another evidently gratified the woman and the girl, who both looked on admiringly; and then, Lulu making it quite plain without the use of words that she wished her sister to share the privileges of the broad, comfortable lap where she was resting, the kindly Dutch woman lifted Mamie to her knee, and, in soothing but still unintelligible tones, tried to find out something of her story, while the girl bustled about, and soon had ready some more substantial food in the shape of great bowls of bread and milk, which she brought to the children. But it was all in vain that Mamie, encouraged by so much kindness, endeavored to make the women understand her. She tried them with all the appropriate words she could think of, speaking to them in a very loud voice, as if they could comprehend the better for that. "Sea" and "boat" and "pier" and "lost," shrieked as loud as they might be, made no impression upon the minds of her hearers. Then she tried them with such French words as she knew, believing that one foreign language was as good as another, and Frenchifying the English words she was obliged to mix with them to make her story at all clear. "Nous came-ez over l'eau dans le boat-ez," she said with emphasis, "et pauvre mamma will être très frighten-ez." These and many other such sentences she composed and delivered with great care, but _French_ proved of no greater use than English; and Mamie began to feel very despairing and desperately homesick again. Lulu, too, was incessantly pleading, "Tome home, Mamie; Mamie tate Lulu to mamma;" and fretted piteously. By and by the man and boy came in, and then there was more talk in Dutch between the family; and at last the boy turned to Mamie, and, pointing with his finger, said,-- "Netasquet coom?" One word, at least, was familiar; Mamie understood him to ask her if they had come from the right direction, and she nodded her head assentingly. The boy nodded back as if to say, "That is all right;" and, believing she had now found a satisfactory method of communication, she kept on nodding her head, and repeating the word "Netasquet" in answer to all farther questions that were poured upon her. Presently the man put on his hat again, and, taking Mamie in his arms with many encouraging nods and jerks of his thumb over his shoulder, carried her out of the house, closely followed by the woman, still carrying Lulu, who, wide awake, and in utter amazement at all the new and wonderful things which were befalling her at this hour, when she was accustomed to be fast asleep in her little bed, gazed solemnly about her with grave, intent eyes, but, strange to say, was perfectly quiet, and neither cried nor fretted. Perhaps the little one guessed that these kind, good-natured people were their friends, and meant them no harm; though she found it necessary to inform the good woman, over and over again, that she was "mamma's baby," and therefore must "do home," and could not be expected to stay with her. Out under the starry night again; and now their bearers walked rapidly on towards that steady, bright light Mamie had noticed from the boat, while she looked wistfully through the darkness for some sign or landmark which might tell her that they were on their way home. For she could not help hoping that this was the purpose of these good people, and yet her poor little heart was full of uncertainty and dread. They went steadily onwards, the man and woman now and then exchanging a few words, but for the most part in silence, coming nearer and nearer to the light; and now Mamie saw that it was really in a light-house, which gradually loomed tall and white out of the dark night. But even as she saw this she drew a heavy sigh; the light-house she saw each night was very far away from home, over the water too, and she shrank from going upon the sea again to-night. Oh! she never, never would be disobedient, or fret at mamma's orders again. How severely she had been punished! Up a flight of steps and through a small door opening into a neat, comfortable room, where a woman was busy mixing bread. She turned around as the new-comers entered, and, as if struck dumb with surprise, stood looking at them with her arms still in the dough she was kneading. To her the man spoke as if inquiring for some one by name; and she answered him by an upward jerk of her head, as if she, too, could only converse with him by signs. "Oh!" said Mamie piteously, "can you talk a language? These people can't, and no one seems to know what I say, so I can ask them to take me home." "Well, do tell now," said the woman, stripping the dough from her fingers, and gazing with interest and curiosity from Mamie to Lulu; "and where did you come from, and where did Muller and his wife pick _you_ up? Talk! yes, I can talk, I reckon, if you don't try me on the Dutch. My old man, he makes out Muller's gibberish, but I ain't no hand at it." Thankful beyond words to hear the familiar tongue, or "a language," as she called it again, Mamie burst into tears of relief as she poured out her story. "He picked us up on the sea in a boat that we went into," she sobbed. "Lulu wasn't naughty, 'cause she did not know any better; but I was just awful, 'cause mamma forbid me to go on the breakwater, and I did; and I thought we'd never get back, 'cause these kind people don't know how to talk. Couldn't you show us the way home?" "To be sure," answered the woman soothingly, while Muller and his wife stood silent, satisfied to let Mamie make her tale clear by herself; "at least, we'll see you get there. You'll be coming from the pier, I reckon?" "Yes," moaned Mamie. "Then I'm thinkin' there may be some folks from down your way upstairs now. They are just gone up to see the light, and will be down in a jiffy, and we'll see if they can take you home. If they haven't a mind to,--shame on 'em if they don't!--my man'll just harness up, and take you home. It might be better to put you to bed for the night, for 'tisn't no time for a baby like that to be out; but I reckon your mother must be nigh about crazed if she don't know nothin' about you; so we'll get you down to the pier to-night. Don't you take on no more, you poor lamb; but just wait till John brings the folks down. Here, sit ye down, Mrs. Muller, and you, too, Muller;" shrieking out these last words at the top of her voice, and giving each chair a slap with her hand, as she plumped it energetically down before the good Dutchman and his wife. Certainly Mamie could not doubt that the light-house keeper's wife could "talk a language" as she poured forth question after question, and made her own remarks on the answers Mamie gave, while the child sat trembling with impatience to see who "the folks" upstairs might be, and to know if they would really take her home. The woman would have taken Lulu from Mrs. Muller; but the poor baby, who began to think that she was handed from one to another stranger rather freely to-night, clung to her first friend, and could not be parted from her, which much pleased that good woman, who soothed her with gentlest tones and caresses. The little thing sadly needed petting, for she was quite worn out, and whimpered pitifully again for "mamma," and to be allowed to "do to heep in ittle bed," not understanding why she should be so long deprived of these privileges. Presently voices were heard coming down the long flight of stairs,--voices to which Mamie listened eagerly; more and more eagerly as they came nearer and nearer; for they seemed to her familiar and well known. Could it be?--yes, it really was--there they came around the turn of the staircase--Mr. and Mrs. Norris with Lily, Mr. Powers and Belle, Mrs. Walton and Mabel. "O papa!" she heard Lily saying, "just a few moments longer." "Not a moment, my daughter. Why! do you know what time it is? after ten now, and the long drive home still to be taken. A nice hour, truly, for such young damsels to be running over light-houses and"-- He was interrupted by a shriek of joy from Mamie, who, springing forward, threw herself wildly upon Mrs. Norris, clinging fast to her skirts, crying and laughing at the same time, raising to the lady's astonished gaze a pitiful, tear-stained, pale little face; while broken words of gladness and pleading came from her lips. How they all crowded about her and Lulu, who, seeing the familiar face of Mrs. Norris, also stretched out her arms to her with a glad cry, and was speedily nestling upon her neck! and how astonished every one was! and how they all questioned and pitied!--no one had the heart to blame now, may easily be imagined. The gentlemen, who were all good German scholars, and could speak with Muller, soon heard from him how and where he had found the little castaways,--how, coming home from deep-sea fishing, his boat had, in the darkness, nearly run down that in which Mamie and her sister were drifting; how he had made it fast to his own, and brought it in, taking the children first to his own house, and then bringing them up here, because, although he had rightly guessed from what quarter they had come, he had no horse or other means of taking them speedily home, and so had come to see if his good friend, the light-house keeper, would not take further steps to restore them to their friends. There was no need for this now; here were some of their friends on the spot, and they were ready enough to take all further charge of them, and carry them home as fast as possible. With sympathizing thoughts for the agonized mother, searching vainly for her babies, Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Walton hurried the party away; and presently they were all in the great wagon which had brought Mamie's friends to the light-house, and driving home as fast as the darkness of the evening would allow. Lulu nestled in Mrs. Norris' arms, and, covered with her shawl, was soon fast asleep; while Mamie sat with one hand clasped in Lily's, the other in that of Belle, who, sitting one on each side of her, could not do enough to show their pity and sympathy. Even Mabel, who sat behind her, quite forgot the chronic feud between them, and was constantly leaning forward to put her arm about Mamie's neck, and kiss her cold cheek, or to ask tenderly, "How do you feel now, Mamie?" And the rejoicing there was over them when at last they reached home, and the little wanderers were restored to their frantic mother! How fast the glad news spread from house to house, bringing joy and relief even to the hearts of those who had never known or seen them, can be imagined only by those who knew what the suspense and anxiety had been. [Illustration] [Illustration] XI. _REPENTANCE._ THERE might have been some danger that Mamie would feel herself too much of a heroine, and forget that all this had been brought about by her own sad disobedience and naughtiness, but for the trouble which followed. Strange to say, neither of the children suffered much from the exposure and excitement of the evening; and, beyond a little paleness and languor, seemed as well as usual the next day. But it was far different with their mother. Not very strong at any time, the agony and suspense about her little ones had proved too much for her, and she was very ill; so ill that Mr. Stone was telegraphed for, and for some hours it was believed she could not live. She was quite wild, too; and, though she called and pleaded incessantly for her children, she did not know them when they were brought to her, but thrust them away from her in a way that frightened little Lulu, and quite broke poor repentant Mamie's heart. Oh! was her tender, indulgent mother going to leave her? Would she never know her, never speak to her again, never tell her she forgave all her disobedient, naughty ways, all her disrespect and pettishness? She sat all day, just outside of her mamma's room, listening to every sound from within, crying bitterly, but silently, and utterly refusing to be comforted or coaxed away. But at night there was a little change for the better; Mrs. Stone fell into a quiet sleep, and the doctor said he had hope for her now. So Mamie, utterly worn out, suffered herself to be led away by some of the pitying ladies, and to be put to bed, where she forgot her troubles until the morning. She had dreaded facing her father when he should come and hear all the sad story; but she was awakened by his kiss; and, though he looked very sober when she poured forth her confession, and offered to submit patiently to any punishment he might think proper, he told her he thought she had brought punishment enough upon herself, and that he hoped this would be a lasting lesson to her. Mamie thought that it would indeed; she should never forget that terrible night upon the sea, alone with Lulu, who was rather a silent reproach than a comfort to her. She could not believe, poor child! that the night had not been half gone when she was brought home, or that it was hardly an hour after dark when the fisherman had found her, and brought her to land. She was curious to know, as perhaps you may be, how her young playmates and their parents happened to be at the light-house "in the middle of the night;" and this was soon satisfactorily explained to her. It was in this way. The whole party had driven that afternoon to the house of a friend whose beautiful place was situated some distance from the shore; and they had there taken tea, and spent the earlier part of the evening, so that they had known nothing of the alarm about the lost children. Their way home lay near the old "Point Light;" for this was not the light-house which Mamie saw each evening from the piazza of the hotel, but another, in quite a different direction, though much nearer home; and Lily and the other children, who were wild to see the light-house at night while its revolving lamp was burning, had persuaded their parents to indulge them, late as it was, with a visit there. They had been up to the very top, seen all that was to be seen, had the screeching fog-whistle blown many times for their benefit, and had come down to be astonished by the sight which met them below. All this, and much more, Belle and Lily poured into Mamie's ears on the morning of the second day, when her mother had been pronounced a little better, and she could be coaxed out of doors. But mamma was still very ill, and must be kept perfectly quiet; and Mamie, feeling that this was all her fault, and filled with self-reproach, which was perhaps the greater for her father's kindness, had no spirits for play, and sat quite subdued and mournful in the midst of her playmates, who were all ready to devote themselves to her, and to talk to her if she did not choose to play. "Mamma says," said Lily, when she had concluded her account of the way in which they came to be at the light-house,--"Mamma says that it was quite a providential _dispensary_ that we should have gone to the light-house." "What does that mean?" asked Belle. "I asked her," answered Lily; "and she said it meant that it really seemed as if God intended us to go there on purpose to find Mamie and Lulu; because she had really thought it was too late for us to be out, and was not very willing to be persuaded." "Because God knew what trouble we were in, and wanted to help us out of it, I suppose," said Mamie thoughtfully, with the words of her neglected watchword in her mind. "Yes," said Belle. "If He did not see us always, and take care of us, what would become of us? Mamie, it makes me feel like crying, even now when you're all safe, to think about your being out all alone on the sea in the dark." "Yes," assented Lily, "it did me, too, at first; but I'm getting used to it now. But I hope there's one good thing come out of it. Mamma doesn't approve at all of children sitting up late; but now, I suppose, she will see that it can have very delightful consequences." "Does she think that light-house man would not have brought us home if you had not come to his light-house?" said Mamie. "Well, no; but I suppose you wouldn't have been home quite so soon," said Lily. "Maybe he wouldn't have brought you at all till the morning." "I never knew the nights were so dreadfully long," said Mamie. "People say the nights and the days are just about as long as each other, and now I know they're not. The nights are a great deal the longest,--oh, so long!" And Mamie gave a shuddering sigh at the recollection of the long, weary time she had passed upon the waters. "Mamma said the time seemed longer to you than it really was," said Lily, "because you were alone and frightened; and the days are really the longest now, 'cause it's summer. In the winter the nights are the longest. It must be so, you know, 'cause our jography says so, and our 'Elements of 'Stronomy' too." "Then they never were up all night, and don't know," said Mamie emphatically, quite resenting the idea that any one could be better informed in the matter than she who had had such an experience. "Who were not up all night?" asked Mabel. "She means the jogra-fers and the 'stron-amers," said Lily; "not the books of course, but the people who wrote them; but they must have been grown up; so I dare say they stayed up all night if they chose." "I should think that _I_ ought to know about it," said Mamie; "and when I'm grown up, I shall write a jography that says all the others don't know; 'cause once I stayed up and up and up, and there was a piece of the night left yet to go to sleep in." Mamie was not to be convinced, and the others, with a feeling that she was to be indulged, and not contradicted under the present circumstances, left her to her belief. "What did you think about, Mamie?" asked Belle. "Did you think you were going to be drowned?" "Yes," said Mamie, her eyes filling with tears; "and, Belle, I thought a good deal about that watchword you gave me, and how, if I'd remembered it all the time, that wouldn't have happened to me; but it did make me feel a little better,--no, not better, there wasn't any better about it,--but not quite so very afraid to think God could see me, and take care of me, even out on the sea and in the dark. I did not see, either, how He was going to help me; and yet the way did come quite easy after all. And now--and now"--Mamie hesitated, and looked doubtfully from one to another of her companions. "Well," said Lily encouragingly. "I think," said Mamie, "that now I will have to remember always that God sees me all the time; and that He would think I am very ungrateful, and don't deserve to be taken care of, if I don't try to be good and never disobey mamma." "Yes, I think so too," said Lily; "and that's the very best kind of a verse to help you to 'resist the hm--hm--and he will flee from you.'" "The who?" asked Belle, amazed; and Mamie and Mabel also looked inquiringly at this mysterious utterance from Lily. "The hm--hm," repeated Lily, no ways abashed, and persisting in the ambiguous form of expression; "you know that verse, don't you?" "I know the verse, 'Resist the _devil_, and he will flee from you,'" said Belle. "Yes, that's it," said Lily; "but if everybody knows the verse, which 'most all the world does,--and ought to be ashamed of themselves, if they don't,--why, then it's just as well to say hm--hm, and not that other ugly word." "But the Bible says it," said Mabel. "Yes," answered Lily, in a tone of indulgence for the Scriptures; "the Bible can say what it pleases, because it _is_ the Bible; but mortals ought to be more careful." "You learned that from Maggie and Bessie, I suppose," said Belle. "They never say that word if they can help it." "Yes, partly," said Lily with an air of becoming modesty, but yet as one who feels that she has ground of her own to stand upon, "partly from them, but partly from my own self. You see, children, I do it to keep myself from temptation." "Temptation of what?" asked Belle. "Temptation to say things I ought not," answered Lily. "Mamma told me I was falling into the habit of talking rather strongly, of saying 'awful' and 'horrid,' and such words to things that were not at all awful or horrid, or saying I was 'most dead, when I was not 'most dead at all; and she said she wanted me to watch myself, and try not to use such strong expressions; and I thought hm--hm was rather a strong expression, so I would not say it right out when there was no need. What's that now?" as a smothered laugh was heard from behind the closed blinds of the parlor. "I just believe some one is there listening to us. Go and see, Mamie; it's your house." Mamie did as she was bid; but she found no one near the window; and Lily was satisfied that she had been mistaken, as Mamie reported only two or three young ladies in the parlor, who did not seem to be thinking of them. "You know," she continued, when Mamie had returned, "that when we feel like doing a thing, it is best to keep ourselves quite out of the way of temptation,--I learned that pretty well when I was always putting off,--and I _do_ like to talk that kind of a way; so I'm going to keep myself as much as I can without using wrong words at all. I only began this morning; but you see I've improved already." Mamie drew a long, weary sigh. "Yes, Lily," she said with a doleful shake of her head, "yes, I know now how one ought not to put one's self in the way of temptation, if they don't want to do a wrong thing. But--but--I'm afraid I meant all the time to go on the breakwater if I found a chance. And I b'lieve, oh, dear! I b'lieve all these days I have been real mad at mamma 'cause she would not let me go; and now, if she don't get well, I can never tell her how sorry I am, or try to make up for it." "But she's a little better to-day," said Belle consolingly. "I heard everybody say so." "Yes, a little," said Mamie, who was again crying bitterly; "but papa says she is very ill yet; and even if she does get well, I shall always have to remember how bad I was to her. I think I never knew before how dreadful it is to be bad to your mother; and, when I was out in that boat, I b'lieve I thought of 'most every naughty thing I ever did to her." "Then if she gets well now, it will make you very careful how you behave badly or saucily to her again," said Lily; "so that will be a good thing." "Oh, yes! I should think it might," sighed Mamie. "Mamie, we are very sorry for you," said Belle, taking her hand and holding it tenderly. "So am I," said Mabel: "and, Mamie, I believe I know a little how you feel by the duckling." "Oh, you can't!" said Mamie almost indignantly; "a duckling is nothing to your own mamma. But, Mabel, I was horrid and stuck-up to you about that duckling, and made an awful fuss 'cause you took it without leave; and then I did a great deal worse thing myself, and never remembered or didn't care that God saw me all the time. It's very good in you to be so kind to me now, and never say any thing hateful." Mamie had on her confession cap now, and was fain to make a clean breast of all her misdemeanors, past and present, feeling, poor child! as if it were somewhat of a relief to do so. "I'm never going to make faces at you again," said Mabel, moved by this new meekness. "And I shan't plague you, and try to make you mad on purpose," said Mamie. "Let's make up for all our lives." And offering her lips to Mabel, a kiss of peace was exchanged between these two little girls, who had never been very good friends, but who had always taken a naughty pleasure in aggravating one another, and in each one making the most of the other's faults. "Here comes papa. He's been down to the post-office, and brought the mail," said Lily. "Papa, is there a letter for me? Maggie promised to write to me; but perhaps she has not done it yet." "Well, I rather think she has favored Mamie this time," said Mr. Norris, dropping into Mamie's lap a letter addressed in Maggie Bradford's large, round handwriting. Brightening instantly at this unexpected consolation, Mamie caught up the letter, and eagerly opened it. "Maggie never wrote to me before," she said; "and her letters are so nice." "Yes," said Belle; "but I wonder if there is none for me. Maggie writes to me once a week, and Bessie writes once a week, and this is the day for Maggie's letter. Mr. Norris, didn't any letter come for me?" Mr. Norris answered in the most satisfactory manner by rapidly turning over the letters in his hand, and selecting one which he teasingly held a moment above her reach; then dropped it into the little eager, outstretched hands. "I'll read mine aloud," said Mamie, "'cause Maggie's letters are so very interesting. "MY DEAR MAMIE,--It is the turn for me to write to Belle to-day, but I thought she would not mind if I wrote to you instead, for we heard this afternoon of your going off in the boat, and nearly being lost, and saved by a fisherman, which was the greatest of mercies, and of your mamma being so ill. And so because we should comfort the afflicted, I thought you might like a letter, and Bessie will write to Belle. We are very sorry for you, dear; specially for your feeling so badly about your mamma, which was only to be expected if you had the feelings of human nature; and remorse is hard for mankind to bear, indeed, not to be endured. But I never heard of such a dreadful adventure as you had and dear little Lulu, too, except once when the railroad ran off with Bessie and Belle and me, and no one to take care of us, but a gentleman we did not know, who was very kind, and I believe sent to us by the hand of the Lord, and restored us to the bosom of our family. "But we are very glad you were saved and not taken away by drowning from your orphaned parents, or made a melancholy accident in the newspapers of, which would try the souls of your friends to read. Bessie and I cried a good deal when we heard about you, and I thought you would like to know about it, because it's always pleasant to know that your friends feel badly about you. We hope that your mamma will soon recover, and I am your very respected and attached friend MAGGIE STANTON BRADFORD. "P.S. I would not wish to say any thing unkind about a present my friends gave me, but a cruel young gentleman of my acquaintance presented me a dead bird he shot, and I would not have it, but cried. But I hope my conduct made a sensible impression upon him, for the next time some one asked him to go shooting he said no, which makes me think he may in time come to have a feeling heart which cannot bear to take life. "Give my love to Lily and tell her I will write to her to-morrow if unexpected circumstances do not prevent. "M. S. B." This fine letter met with all the approval which Maggie's compositions generally called forth; and then Bessie's to Belle was read aloud for the benefit of all who might choose to hear. "MY DEAR BELLE,--Maggie writes to Mamie so I write this leter to you but it is not my day but Maggie's. I wish you would come to our hose and see us cors we miss you. i can play 2 tunes Captain Jinks and Lord in the morning thou shalt hear on the piano and i like to play on the piano but Maggie does it better, our new old cook has a gra kitty and it goes to sleep in her pokit and the cook is black and Fred has a white rabit and it stiks up its nose at us and we have 2 new horses and mamma a pony for her faton so we are quite a menagery and we want you and Lily to see them all. So ask your papa to bring you to spend that day with us and give my dear love to Lily and Lulu, and a little skrap of love to Mabel and Mamie but I am sorry for Mamie and Maggie and I cried about her. No I think you may give a good deal of my love to Mamie, but not too much. from affekshin BESSIE RUSH BRADFORD." Happily Belle had spelled over this letter to herself before reading it aloud, which Bessie had probably not intended; and the wise little woman had the good sense and good feeling to omit such parts of it as might seem at all slighting to Mabel and Mamie, of whom Bessie, as you will have perceived, was not over fond. It was many days before Mamie recovered her usual spirits and liveliness, not indeed until her mother was well again; and it was almost touching to see how tenderly she hung about her when she was once more permitted to go to her; watching for the least opportunity to wait on her, or do her some small service; sitting for hours beside her bed, content only to hold her hand or kiss her pale cheek; so subdued, so gentle, so submissive and good, that it was hard to believe she was the Mamie of old. Nor did the good impression her severe lesson made upon her wear off when mamma had recovered; and Mrs. Stone felt that all she had suffered was well repaid by the new docility and obedience shown by her little daughter. She was less selfish and wilful with her playmates too, more gentle and amiable than they had ever known her. The memory of that lonely night upon the dark sea,--for it was impossible to persuade Mamie that she did not pass the greater part of the night upon the water,--and the thought of the care which had watched over her there, were not easily shaken off; and perhaps it was as well that for many succeeding weeks she was within sight and sound of the objects which kept it constantly before her mind. Certain it is that the change in her was very great and plainly to be seen, and, as Belle said to the astonished Maggie and Bessie when they remarked upon it, "more as if she tried to _live_ her watchword than to _talk so much_ about it." [Illustration] * * * * * Transcriber's note: Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. Page 10, word "a" added to text (that seldom has a) Page 35, "eat" changed to "ate" (she ate her cake) Page 156, word "on" added to the text (you on a nice) 
955	----	THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ by L. FRANK BAUM Affectionately Dedicated to my young friend Sumner Hamilton Britton of Chicago Prologue Through the kindness of Dorothy Gale of Kansas, afterward Princess Dorothy of Oz, an humble writer in the United States of America was once appointed Royal Historian of Oz, with the privilege of writing the chronicle of that wonderful fairyland. But after making six books about the adventures of those interesting but queer people who live in the Land of Oz, the Historian learned with sorrow that by an edict of the Supreme Ruler, Ozma of Oz, her country would thereafter be rendered invisible to all who lived outside its borders and that all communication with Oz would, in the future, be cut off. The children who had learned to look for the books about Oz and who loved the stories about the gay and happy people inhabiting that favored country, were as sorry as their Historian that there would be no more books of Oz stories. They wrote many letters asking if the Historian did not know of some adventures to write about that had happened before the Land of Oz was shut out from all the rest of the world. But he did not know of any. Finally one of the children inquired why we couldn't hear from Princess Dorothy by wireless telegraph, which would enable her to communicate to the Historian whatever happened in the far-off Land of Oz without his seeing her, or even knowing just where Oz is. That seemed a good idea; so the Historian rigged up a high tower in his back yard, and took lessons in wireless telegraphy until he understood it, and then began to call "Princess Dorothy of Oz" by sending messages into the air. Now, it wasn't likely that Dorothy would be looking for wireless messages or would heed the call; but one thing the Historian was sure of, and that was that the powerful Sorceress, Glinda, would know what he was doing and that he desired to communicate with Dorothy. For Glinda has a big book in which is recorded every event that takes place anywhere in the world, just the moment that it happens, and so of course the book would tell her about the wireless message. And that was the way Dorothy heard that the Historian wanted to speak with her, and there was a Shaggy Man in the Land of Oz who knew how to telegraph a wireless reply. The result was that the Historian begged so hard to be told the latest news of Oz, so that he could write it down for the children to read, that Dorothy asked permission of Ozma and Ozma graciously consented. That is why, after two long years of waiting, another Oz story is now presented to the children of America. This would not have been possible had not some clever man invented the "wireless" and an equally clever child suggested the idea of reaching the mysterious Land of Oz by its means. L. Frank Baum. "OZCOT" at Hollywood in California LIST OF CHAPTERS 1 - Ojo and Unc Nunkie 2 - The Crooked Magician 3 - The Patchwork Girl 4 - The Glass Cat 5 - A Terrible Accident 6 - The Journey 7 - The Troublesome Phonograph 8 - The Foolish Owl and the Wise Donkey 9 - They Meet the Woozy 10 - Shaggy Man to the Rescue 11 - A Good Friend 12 - The Giant Porcupine 13 - Scraps and the Scarecrow 14 - Ojo Breaks the Law 15 - Ozma's Prisoner 16 - Princess Dorothy 17 - Ozma and Her Friends 18 - Ojo is Forgiven 19 - Trouble with the Tottenhots 20 - The Captive Yoop 21 - Hip Hopper the Champion 22 - The Joking Horners 23 - Peace is Declared 24 - Ojo Finds the Dark Well 25 - They Bribe the Lazy Quadling 26 - The Trick River 27 - The Tin Woodman Objects 28 - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Patchwork Girl of Oz Chapter One Ojo and Unc Nunkie "Where's the butter, Unc Nunkie?" asked Ojo. Unc looked out of the window and stroked his long beard. Then he turned to the Munchkin boy and shook his head. "Isn't," said he. "Isn't any butter? That's too bad, Unc. Where's the jam then?" inquired Ojo, standing on a stool so he could look through all the shelves of the cupboard. But Unc Nunkie shook his head again. "Gone," he said. "No jam, either? And no cake--no jelly--no apples--nothing but bread?" "All," said Unc, again stroking his beard as he gazed from the window. The little boy brought the stool and sat beside his uncle, munching the dry bread slowly and seeming in deep thought. "Nothing grows in our yard but the bread tree," he mused, "and there are only two more loaves on that tree; and they're not ripe yet. Tell me, Unc; why are we so poor?" The old Munchkin turned and looked at Ojo. He had kindly eyes, but he hadn't smiled or laughed in so long that the boy had forgotten that Unc Nunkie could look any other way than solemn. And Unc never spoke any more words than he was obliged to, so his little nephew, who lived alone with him, had learned to understand a great deal from one word. "Why are we so poor, Unc?" repeated the boy. "Not," said the old Munchkin. "I think we are," declared Ojo. "What have we got?" "House," said Unc Nunkie. "I know; but everyone in the Land of Oz has a place to live. What else, Unc?" "Bread." "I'm eating the last loaf that's ripe. There; I've put aside your share, Unc. It's on the table, so you can eat it when you get hungry. But when that is gone, what shall we eat, Unc?" The old man shifted in his chair but merely shook his head. "Of course," said Ojo, who was obliged to talk because his uncle would not, "no one starves in the Land of Oz, either. There is plenty for everyone, you know; only, if it isn't just where you happen to be, you must go where it is." The aged Munchkin wriggled again and stared at his small nephew as if disturbed by his argument. "By to-morrow morning," the boy went on, "we must go where there is something to eat, or we shall grow very hungry and become very unhappy." "Where?" asked Unc. "Where shall we go? I don't know, I'm sure," replied Ojo. "But you must know, Unc. You must have traveled, in your time, because you're so old. I don't remember it, because ever since I could remember anything we've lived right here in this lonesome, round house, with a little garden back of it and the thick woods all around. All I've ever seen of the great Land of Oz, Unc dear, is the view of that mountain over at the south, where they say the Hammerheads live--who won't let anybody go by them--and that mountain at the north, where they say nobody lives." "One," declared Unc, correcting him. "Oh, yes; one family lives there, I've heard. That's the Crooked Magician, who is named Dr. Pipt, and his wife Margolotte. One year you told me about them; I think it took you a whole year, Unc, to say as much as I've just said about the Crooked Magician and his wife. They live high up on the mountain, and the good Munchkin Country, where the fruits and flowers grow, is just the other side. It's funny you and I should live here all alone, in the middle of the forest, isn't it?" "Yes," said Unc. "Then let's go away and visit the Munchkin Country and its jolly, good-natured people. I'd love to get a sight of something besides woods, Unc Nunkie." "Too little," said Unc. "Why, I'm not so little as I used to be," answered the boy earnestly. "I think I can walk as far and as fast through the woods as you can, Unc. And now that nothing grows in our back yard that is good to eat, we must go where there is food." Unc Nunkie made no reply for a time. Then he shut down the window and turned his chair to face the room, for the sun was sinking behind the tree-tops and it was growing cool. By and by Ojo lighted the fire and the logs blazed freely in the broad fireplace. The two sat in the firelight a long time--the old, white-bearded Munchkin and the little boy. Both were thinking. When it grew quite dark outside, Ojo said: "Eat your bread, Unc, and then we will go to bed." But Unc Nunkie did not eat the bread; neither did he go directly to bed. Long after his little nephew was sound asleep in the corner of the room the old man sat by the fire, thinking. Chapter Two The Crooked Magician Just at dawn next morning Unc Nunkie laid his hand tenderly on Ojo's head and awakened him. "Come," he said. Ojo dressed. He wore blue silk stockings, blue knee pants with gold buckles, a blue ruffled waist and a jacket of bright blue braided with gold. His shoes were of blue leather and turned up at the toes, which were pointed. His hat had a peaked crown and a flat brim, and around the brim was a row of tiny golden bells that tinkled when he moved. This was the native costume of those who inhabited the Munchkin Country of the Land of Oz, so Unc Nunkie's dress was much like that of his nephew. Instead of shoes, the old man wore boots with turnover tops and his blue coat had wide cuffs of gold braid. The boy noticed that his uncle had not eaten the bread, and supposed the old man had not been hungry. Ojo was hungry, though; so he divided the piece of bread upon the table and ate his half for breakfast, washing it down with fresh, cool water from the brook. Unc put the other piece of bread in his jacket pocket, after which he again said, as he walked out through the doorway: "Come." Ojo was well pleased. He was dreadfully tired of living all alone in the woods and wanted to travel and see people. For a long time he had wished to explore the beautiful Land of Oz in which they lived. When they were outside, Unc simply latched the door and started up the path. No one would disturb their little house, even if anyone came so far into the thick forest while they were gone. At the foot of the mountain that separated the Country of the Munchkins from the Country of the Gillikins, the path divided. One way led to the left and the other to the right--straight up the mountain. Unc Nunkie took this right-hand path and Ojo followed without asking why. He knew it would take them to the house of the Crooked Magician, whom he had never seen but who was their nearest neighbor. All the morning they trudged up the mountain path and at noon Unc and Ojo sat on a fallen tree-trunk and ate the last of the bread which the old Munchkin had placed in his pocket. Then they started on again and two hours later came in sight of the house of Dr. Pipt. It was a big house, round, as were all the Munchkin houses, and painted blue, which is the distinctive color of the Munchkin Country of Oz. There was a pretty garden around the house, where blue trees and blue flowers grew in abundance and in one place were beds of blue cabbages, blue carrots and blue lettuce, all of which were delicious to eat. In Dr. Pipt's garden grew bun-trees, cake-trees, cream-puff bushes, blue buttercups which yielded excellent blue butter and a row of chocolate-caramel plants. Paths of blue gravel divided the vegetable and flower beds and a wider path led up to the front door. The place was in a clearing on the mountain, but a little way off was the grim forest, which completely surrounded it. Unc knocked at the door of the house and a chubby, pleasant-faced woman, dressed all in blue, opened it and greeted the visitors with a smile. "Ah," said Ojo; "you must be Dame Margolotte, the good wife of Dr. Pipt." "I am, my dear, and all strangers are welcome to my home." "May we see the famous Magician, Madam?" "He is very busy just now," she said, shaking her head doubtfully. "But come in and let me give you something to eat, for you must have traveled far in order to get our lonely place." "We have," replied Ojo, as he and Unc entered the house. "We have come from a far lonelier place than this." "A lonelier place! And in the Munchkin Country?" she exclaimed. "Then it must be somewhere in the Blue Forest." "It is, good Dame Margolotte." "Dear me!" she said, looking at the man, "you must be Unc Nunkie, known as the Silent One." Then she looked at the boy. "And you must be Ojo the Unlucky," she added. "Yes," said Unc. "I never knew I was called the Unlucky," said Ojo, soberly; "but it is really a good name for me." "Well," remarked the woman, as she bustled around the room and set the table and brought food from the cupboard, "you were unlucky to live all alone in that dismal forest, which is much worse than the forest around here; but perhaps your luck will change, now you are away from it. If, during your travels, you can manage to lose that 'Un' at the beginning of your name 'Unlucky,' you will then become Ojo the Lucky, which will be a great improvement." "How can I lose that 'Un,' Dame Margolotte?" "I do not know how, but you must keep the matter in mind and perhaps the chance will come to you," she replied. Ojo had never eaten such a fine meal in all his life. There was a savory stew, smoking hot, a dish of blue peas, a bowl of sweet milk of a delicate blue tint and a blue pudding with blue plums in it. When the visitors had eaten heartily of this fare the woman said to them: "Do you wish to see Dr. Pipt on business or for pleasure?" Unc shook his head. "We are traveling," replied Ojo, "and we stopped at your house just to rest and refresh ourselves. I do not think Unc Nunkie cares very much to see the famous Crooked Magician; but for my part I am curious to look at such a great man." The woman seemed thoughtful. "I remember that Unc Nunkie and my husband used to be friends, many years ago," she said, "so perhaps they will be glad to meet again. The Magician is very busy, as I said, but if you will promise not to disturb him you may come into his workshop and watch him prepare a wonderful charm." "Thank you," replied the boy, much pleased. "I would like to do that." She led the way to a great domed hall at the back of the house, which was the Magician's workshop. There was a row of windows extending nearly around the sides of the circular room, which rendered the place very light, and there was a back door in addition to the one leading to the front part of the house. Before the row of windows a broad seat was built and there were some chairs and benches in the room besides. At one end stood a great fireplace, in which a blue log was blazing with a blue flame, and over the fire hung four kettles in a row, all bubbling and steaming at a great rate. The Magician was stirring all four of these kettles at the same time, two with his hands and two with his feet, to the latter, wooden ladles being strapped, for this man was so very crooked that his legs were as handy as his arms. Unc Nunkie came forward to greet his old friend, but not being able to shake either his hands or his feet, which were all occupied in stirring, he patted the Magician's bald head and asked: "What?" "Ah, it's the Silent One," remarked Dr. Pipt, without looking up, "and he wants to know what I'm making. Well, when it is quite finished this compound will be the wonderful Powder of Life, which no one knows how to make but myself. Whenever it is sprinkled on anything, that thing will at once come to life, no matter what it is. It takes me several years to make this magic Powder, but at this moment I am pleased to say it is nearly done. You see, I am making it for my good wife Margolotte, who wants to use some of it for a purpose of her own. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Unc Nunkie, and after I've finished my task I will talk to you." "You must know," said Margolotte, when they were all seated together on the broad window-seat, "that my husband foolishly gave away all the Powder of Life he first made to old Mombi the Witch, who used to live in the Country of the Gillikins, to the north of here. Mombi gave to Dr. Pipt a Powder of Perpetual Youth in exchange for his Powder of Life, but she cheated him wickedly, for the Powder of Youth was no good and could work no magic at all." "Perhaps the Powder of Life couldn't either," said Ojo. "Yes; it is perfection," she declared. "The first lot we tested on our Glass Cat, which not only began to live but has lived ever since. She's somewhere around the house now." "A Glass Cat!" exclaimed Ojo, astonished. "Yes; she makes a very pleasant companion, but admires herself a little more than is considered modest, and she positively refuses to catch mice," explained Margolotte. "My husband made the cat some pink brains, but they proved to be too high-bred and particular for a cat, so she thinks it is undignified in her to catch mice. Also she has a pretty blood-red heart, but it is made of stone--a ruby, I think--and so is rather hard and unfeeling. I think the next Glass Cat the Magician makes will have neither brains nor heart, for then it will not object to catching mice and may prove of some use to us." "What did old Mombi the Witch do with the Powder of Life your husband gave her?" asked the boy. "She brought Jack Pumpkinhead to life, for one thing," was the reply. "I suppose you've heard of Jack Pumpkinhead. He is now living near the Emerald City and is a great favorite with the Princess Ozma, who rules all the Land of Oz." "No; I've never heard of him," remarked Ojo. "I'm afraid I don't know much about the Land of Oz. You see, I've lived all my life with Unc Nunkie, the Silent One, and there was no one to tell me anything." "That is one reason you are Ojo the Unlucky," said the woman, in a sympathetic tone. "The more one knows, the luckier he is, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life." "But tell me, please, what you intend to do with this new lot of the Powder of Life, which Dr. Pipt is making. He said his wife wanted it for some especial purpose." "So I do," she answered. "I want it to bring my Patchwork Girl to life." "Oh! A Patchwork Girl? What is that?" Ojo asked, for this seemed even more strange and unusual than a Glass Cat. "I think I must show you my Patchwork Girl," said Margolotte, laughing at the boy's astonishment, "for she is rather difficult to explain. But first I will tell you that for many years I have longed for a servant to help me with the housework and to cook the meals and wash the dishes. No servant will come here because the place is so lonely and out-of-the-way, so my clever husband, the Crooked Magician, proposed that I make a girl out of some sort of material and he would make her live by sprinkling over her the Powder of Life. This seemed an excellent suggestion and at once Dr. Pipt set to work to make a new batch of his magic powder. He has been at it a long, long while, and so I have had plenty of time to make the girl. Yet that task was not so easy as you may suppose. At first I couldn't think what to make her of, but finally in searching through a chest I came across an old patchwork quilt, which my grandmother once made when she was young." "What is a patchwork quilt?" asked Ojo. "A bed-quilt made of patches of different kinds and colors of cloth, all neatly sewed together. The patches are of all shapes and sizes, so a patchwork quilt is a very pretty and gorgeous thing to look at. Sometimes it is called a 'crazy-quilt,' because the patches and colors are so mixed up. We never have used my grandmother's many-colored patchwork quilt, handsome as it is, for we Munchkins do not care for any color other than blue, so it has been packed away in the chest for about a hundred years. When I found it, I said to myself that it would do nicely for my servant girl, for when she was brought to life she would not be proud nor haughty, as the Glass Cat is, for such a dreadful mixture of colors would discourage her from trying to be as dignified as the blue Munchkins are." "Is blue the only respectable color, then?" inquired Ojo. "Yes, for a Munchkin. All our country is blue, you know. But in other parts of Oz the people favor different colors. At the Emerald City, where our Princess Ozma lives, green is the popular color. But all Munchkins prefer blue to anything else and when my housework girl is brought to life she will find herself to be of so many unpopular colors that she'll never dare be rebellious or impudent, as servants are sometimes liable to be when they are made the same way their mistresses are." Unc Nunkie nodded approval. "Good i-dea," he said; and that was a long speech for Unc Nunkie because it was two words. "So I cut up the quilt," continued Margolotte, "and made from it a very well-shaped girl, which I stuffed with cotton-wadding. I will show you what a good job I did," and she went to a tall cupboard and threw open the doors. Then back she came, lugging in her arms the Patchwork Girl, which she set upon the bench and propped up so that the figure would not tumble over. Chapter Three The Patchwork Girl Ojo examined this curious contrivance with wonder. The Patchwork Girl was taller than he, when she stood upright, and her body was plump and rounded because it had been so neatly stuffed with cotton. Margolotte had first made the girl's form from the patchwork quilt and then she had dressed it with a patchwork skirt and an apron with pockets in it--using the same gay material throughout. Upon the feet she had sewn a pair of red leather shoes with pointed toes. All the fingers and thumbs of the girl's hands had been carefully formed and stuffed and stitched at the edges, with gold plates at the ends to serve as finger-nails. "She will have to work, when she comes to life," said Margolotte. The head of the Patchwork Girl was the most curious part of her. While she waited for her husband to finish making his Powder of Life the woman had found ample time to complete the head as her fancy dictated, and she realized that a good servant's head must be properly constructed. The hair was of brown yarn and hung down on her neck in several neat braids. Her eyes were two silver suspender-buttons cut from a pair of the Magician's old trousers, and they were sewed on with black threads, which formed the pupils of the eyes. Margolotte had puzzled over the ears for some time, for these were important if the servant was to hear distinctly, but finally she had made them out of thin plates of gold and attached them in place by means of stitches through tiny holes bored in the metal. Gold is the most common metal in the Land of Oz and is used for many purposes because it is soft and pliable. The woman had cut a slit for the Patchwork Girl's mouth and sewn two rows of white pearls in it for teeth, using a strip of scarlet plush for a tongue. This mouth Ojo considered very artistic and lifelike, and Margolotte was pleased when the boy praised it. There were almost too many patches on the face of the girl for her to be considered strictly beautiful, for one cheek was yellow and the other red, her chin blue, her forehead purple and the center, where her nose had been formed and padded, a bright yellow. "You ought to have had her face all pink," suggested the boy. "I suppose so; but I had no pink cloth," replied the woman. "Still, I cannot see as it matters much, for I wish my Patchwork Girl to be useful rather than ornamental. If I get tired looking at her patched face I can whitewash it." "Has she any brains?" asked Ojo. "No; I forgot all about the brains!" exclaimed the woman. "I am glad you reminded me of them, for it is not too late to supply them, by any means. Until she is brought to life I can do anything I please with this girl. But I must be careful not to give her too much brains, and those she has must be such as are fitted to the station she is to occupy in life. In other words, her brains mustn't be very good." "Wrong," said Unc Nunkie. "No; I am sure I am right about that," returned the woman. "He means," explained Ojo, "that unless your servant has good brains she won't know how to obey you properly, nor do the things you ask her to do." "Well, that may be true," agreed Margolotte; "but, on the contrary, a servant with too much brains is sure to become independent and high-and-mighty and feel above her work. This is a very delicate task, as I said, and I must take care to give the girl just the right quantity of the right sort of brains. I want her to know just enough, but not too much." With this she went to another cupboard which was filled with shelves. All the shelves were lined with blue glass bottles, neatly labeled by the Magician to show what they contained. One whole shelf was marked: "Brain Furniture," and the bottles on this shelf were labeled as follows: "Obedience," "Cleverness," "Judgment," "Courage," "Ingenuity," "Amiability," "Learning," "Truth," "Poesy," "Self Reliance." "Let me see," said Margolotte; "of those qualities she must have 'Obedience' first of all," and she took down the bottle bearing that label and poured from it upon a dish several grains of the contents. "'Amiability' is also good and 'Truth.'" She poured into the dish a quantity from each of these bottles. "I think that will do," she continued, "for the other qualities are not needed in a servant." Unc Nunkie, who with Ojo stood beside her, touched the bottle marked "Cleverness." "Little," said he. "A little 'Cleverness'? Well, perhaps you are right, sir," said she, and was about to take down the bottle when the Crooked Magician suddenly called to her excitedly from the fireplace. "Quick, Margolotte! Come and help me." She ran to her husband's side at once and helped him lift the four kettles from the fire. Their contents had all boiled away, leaving in the bottom of each kettle a few grains of fine white powder. Very carefully the Magician removed this powder, placing it all together in a golden dish, where he mixed it with a golden spoon. When the mixture was complete there was scarcely a handful, all told. "That," said Dr. Pipt, in a pleased and triumphant tone, "is the wonderful Powder of Life, which I alone in the world know how to make. It has taken me nearly six years to prepare these precious grains of dust, but the little heap on that dish is worth the price of a kingdom and many a king would give all he has to possess it. When it has become cooled I will place it in a small bottle; but meantime I must watch it carefully, lest a gust of wind blow it away or scatter it." Unc Nunkie, Margolotte and the Magician all stood looking at the marvelous Powder, but Ojo was more interested just then in the Patchwork Girl's brains. Thinking it both unfair and unkind to deprive her of any good qualities that were handy, the boy took down every bottle on the shelf and poured some of the contents in Margolotte's dish. No one saw him do this, for all were looking at the Powder of Life; but soon the woman remembered what she had been doing, and came back to the cupboard. "Let's see," she remarked; "I was about to give my girl a little 'Cleverness,' which is the Doctor's substitute for 'Intelligence'--a quality he has not yet learned how to manufacture." Taking down the bottle of "Cleverness" she added some of the powder to the heap on the dish. Ojo became a bit uneasy at this, for he had already put quite a lot of the "Cleverness" powder in the dish; but he dared not interfere and so he comforted himself with the thought that one cannot have too much cleverness. Margolotte now carried the dish of brains to the bench. Ripping the seam of the patch on the girl's forehead, she placed the powder within the head and then sewed up the seam as neatly and securely as before. "My girl is all ready for your Powder of Life, my dear," she said to her husband. But the Magician replied: "This powder must not be used before to-morrow morning; but I think it is now cool enough to be bottled." He selected a small gold bottle with a pepper-box top, so that the powder might be sprinkled on any object through the small holes. Very carefully he placed the Powder of Life in the gold bottle and then locked it up in a drawer of his cabinet. "At last," said he, rubbing his hands together gleefully, "I have ample leisure for a good talk with my old friend Unc Nunkie. So let us sit down cosily and enjoy ourselves. After stirring those four kettles for six years I am glad to have a little rest." "You will have to do most of the talking," said Ojo, "for Unc is called the Silent One and uses few words." "I know; but that renders your uncle a most agreeable companion and gossip," declared Dr. Pipt. "Most people talk too much, so it is a relief to find one who talks too little." Ojo looked at the Magician with much awe and curiosity. "Don't you find it very annoying to be so crooked?" he asked. "No; I am quite proud of my person," was the reply. "I suppose I am the only Crooked Magician in all the world. Some others are accused of being crooked, but I am the only genuine." He was really very crooked and Ojo wondered how he managed to do so many things with such a twisted body. When he sat down upon a crooked chair that had been made to fit him, one knee was under his chin and the other near the small of his back; but he was a cheerful man and his face bore a pleasant and agreeable expression. "I am not allowed to perform magic, except for my own amusement," he told his visitors, as he lighted a pipe with a crooked stem and began to smoke. "Too many people were working magic in the Land of Oz, and so our lovely Princess Ozma put a stop to it. I think she was quite right. There were several wicked Witches who caused a lot of trouble; but now they are all out of business and only the great Sorceress, Glinda the Good, is permitted to practice her arts, which never harm anybody. The Wizard of Oz, who used to be a humbug and knew no magic at all, has been taking lessons of Glinda, and I'm told he is getting to be a pretty good Wizard; but he is merely the assistant of the great Sorceress. I've the right to make a servant girl for my wife, you know, or a Glass Cat to catch our mice--which she refuses to do--but I am forbidden to work magic for others, or to use it as a profession." "Magic must be a very interesting study," said Ojo. "It truly is," asserted the Magician. "In my time I've performed some magical feats that were worthy of the skill of Glinda the Good. For instance, there's the Powder of Life, and my Liquid of Petrifaction, which is contained in that bottle on the shelf yonder--over the window." "What does the Liquid of Petrifaction do?" inquired the boy. "Turns everything it touches to solid marble. It's an invention of my own, and I find it very useful. Once two of those dreadful Kalidahs, with bodies like bears and heads like tigers, came here from the forest to attack us; but I sprinkled some of that Liquid on them and instantly they turned to marble. I now use them as ornamental statuary in my garden. This table looks to you like wood, and once it really was wood; but I sprinkled a few drops of the Liquid of Petrifaction on it and now it is marble. It will never break nor wear out." "Fine!" said Unc Nunkie, wagging his head and stroking his long gray beard. "Dear me; what a chatterbox you're getting to be, Unc," remarked the Magician, who was pleased with the compliment. But just then there came a scratching at the back door and a shrill voice cried: "Let me in! Hurry up, can't you? Let me in!" Margolotte got up and went to the door. "Ask like a good cat, then," she said. "Mee-ee-ow-w-w! There; does that suit your royal highness?" asked the voice, in scornful accents. "Yes; that's proper cat talk," declared the woman, and opened the door. At once a cat entered, came to the center of the room and stopped short at the sight of strangers. Ojo and Unc Nunkie both stared at it with wide open eyes, for surely no such curious creature had ever existed before--even in the Land of Oz. Chapter Four The Glass Cat The cat was made of glass, 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, and 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 clear glass, and it had a spun-glass tail that was really beautiful. "Well, Doc Pipt, do you mean to introduce us, or not?" demanded the cat, in a tone of annoyance. "Seems to me you are forgetting your manners." "Excuse me," returned the Magician. "This is Unc Nunkie, the descendant of the former kings of the Munchkins, before this country became a part of the Land of Oz." "He needs a haircut," observed the cat, washing its face. "True," replied Unc, with a low chuckle of amusement. "But he has lived alone in the heart of the forest for many years," the Magician explained; "and, although that is a barbarous country, there are no barbers there." "Who is the dwarf?" asked the cat. "That is not a dwarf, but a boy," answered the Magician. "You have never seen a boy before. He is now small because he is young. With more years he will grow big and become as tall as Unc Nunkie." "Oh. Is that magic?" the glass animal inquired. "Yes; but it is Nature's magic, which is more wonderful than any art known to man. For instance, my magic made you, and made you live; and it was a poor job because you are useless and a bother to me; but I can't make you grow. You will always be the same size--and the same saucy, inconsiderate Glass Cat, with pink brains and a hard ruby heart." "No one can regret more than I the fact that you made me," asserted the cat, crouching upon the floor and slowly swaying its spun-glass tail from side to side. "Your world is a very uninteresting place. I've wandered through your gardens and in the forest until I'm tired of it all, and when I come into the house the conversation of your fat wife and of yourself bores me dreadfully." "That is because I gave you different brains from those we ourselves possess--and much too good for a cat," returned Dr. Pipt. "Can't you take 'em out, then, and replace 'em with pebbles, so that I won't feel above my station in life?" asked the cat, pleadingly. "Perhaps so. I'll try it, after I've brought the Patchwork Girl to life," he said. The cat walked up to the bench on which the Patchwork Girl reclined and looked at her attentively. "Are you going to make that dreadful thing live?" she asked. The Magician nodded. "It is intended to be my wife's servant maid," he said. "When she is alive she will do all our work and mind the house. But you are not to order her around, Bungle, as you do us. You must treat the Patchwork Girl respectfully." "I won't. I couldn't respect such a bundle of scraps under any circumstances." "If you don't, there will be more scraps than you will like," cried Margolotte, angrily. "Why didn't you make her pretty to look at?" asked the cat. "You made me pretty--very pretty, indeed--and I love to watch my pink brains roll around when they're working, and to see my precious red heart beat." She went to a long mirror, as she said this, and stood before it, looking at herself with an air of much pride. "But that poor patched thing will hate herself, when she's once alive," continued the cat. "If I were you I'd use her for a mop, and make another servant that is prettier." "You have a perverted taste," snapped Margolotte, much annoyed at this frank criticism. "I think the Patchwork Girl is beautiful, considering what she's made of. Even the rainbow hasn't as many colors, and you must admit that the rainbow is a pretty thing." The Glass Cat yawned and stretched herself upon the floor. "Have your own way," she said. "I'm sorry for the Patchwork Girl, that's all." Ojo and Unc Nunkie slept that night in the Magician's house, and the boy was glad to stay because he was anxious to see the Patchwork Girl brought to life. The Glass Cat was also a wonderful creature to little Ojo, who had never seen or known anything of magic before, although he had lived in the Fairyland of Oz ever since he was born. Back there in the woods nothing unusual ever happened. Unc Nunkie, who might have been King of the Munchkins, had not his people united with all the other countries of Oz in acknowledging Ozma as their sole ruler, had retired into this forgotten forest nook with his baby nephew and they had lived all alone there. Only that the neglected garden had failed to grow food for them, they would always have lived in the solitary Blue Forest; but now they had started out to mingle with other people, and the first place they came to proved so interesting that Ojo could scarcely sleep a wink all night. Margolotte was an excellent cook and gave them a fine breakfast. While they were all engaged in eating, the good woman said: "This is the last meal I shall have to cook for some time, for right after breakfast Dr. Pipt has promised to bring my new servant to life. I shall let her wash the breakfast dishes and sweep and dust the house. What a relief it will be!" "It will, indeed, relieve you of much drudgery," said the Magician. "By the way, Margolotte, I thought I saw you getting some brains from the cupboard, while I was busy with my kettles. What qualities have you given your new servant?" "Only those that an humble servant requires," she answered. "I do not wish her to feel above her station, as the Glass Cat does. That would make her discontented and unhappy, for of course she must always be a servant." Ojo was somewhat disturbed as he listened to this, and the boy began to fear he had done wrong in adding all those different qualities of brains to the lot Margolotte had prepared for the servant. But it was too late now for regret, since all the brains were securely sewn up inside the Patchwork Girl's head. He might have confessed what he had done and thus allowed Margolotte and her husband to change the brains; but he was afraid of incurring their anger. He believed that Unc had seen him add to the brains, and Unc had not said a word against it; but then, Unc never did say anything unless it was absolutely necessary. As soon as breakfast was over they all went into the Magician's big workshop, where the Glass Cat was lying before the mirror and the Patchwork Girl lay limp and lifeless upon the bench. "Now, then," said Dr. Pipt, in a brisk tone, "we shall perform one of the greatest feats of magic possible to man, even in this marvelous Land of Oz. In no other country could it be done at all. I think we ought to have a little music while the Patchwork Girl comes to life. It is pleasant to reflect that the first sounds her golden ears will hear will be delicious music." As he spoke he went to a phonograph, which screwed fast to a small table, and wound up the spring of the instrument and adjusted the big gold horn. "The music my servant will usually hear," remarked Margolotte, "will be my orders to do her work. But I see no harm in allowing her to listen to this unseen band while she wakens to her first realization of life. My orders will beat the band, afterward." The phonograph was now playing a stirring march tune and the Magician unlocked his cabinet and took out the gold bottle containing the Powder of Life. They all bent over the bench on which the Patchwork Girl reclined. Unc Nunkie and Margolotte stood behind, near the windows, Ojo at one side and the Magician in front, where he would have freedom to sprinkle the powder. The Glass Cat came near, too, curious to watch the important scene. "All ready?" asked Dr. Pipt. "All is ready," answered his wife. So the Magician leaned over and shook from the bottle some grains of the wonderful Powder, and they fell directly on the Patchwork Girl's head and arms. Chapter Five A Terrible Accident "It will take a few minutes for this powder to do its work," remarked the Magician, sprinkling the body up and down with much care. But suddenly the Patchwork Girl threw up one arm, which knocked the bottle of powder from the crooked man's hand and sent it flying across the room. Unc Nunkie and Margolotte were so startled that they both leaped backward and bumped together, and Unc's head joggled the shelf above them and upset the bottle containing the Liquid of Petrifaction. The Magician uttered such a wild cry that Ojo jumped away and the Patchwork Girl sprang after him and clasped her stuffed arms around him in terror. The Glass Cat snarled and hid under the table, and so it was that when the powerful Liquid of Petrifaction was spilled it fell only upon the wife of the Magician and the uncle of Ojo. With these two the charm worked promptly. They stood motionless and stiff as marble statues, in exactly the positions they were in when the Liquid struck them. Ojo pushed the Patchwork Girl away and ran to Unc Nunkie, filled with a terrible fear for the only friend and protector he had ever known. When he grasped Unc's hand it was cold and hard. Even the long gray beard was solid marble. The Crooked Magician was dancing around the room in a frenzy of despair, calling upon his wife to forgive him, to speak to him, to come to life again! The Patchwork Girl, quickly recovering from her fright, now came nearer and looked from one to another of the people with deep interest. Then she looked at herself and laughed. Noticing the mirror, she stood before it and examined her extraordinary features with amazement--her button eyes, pearl bead teeth and puffy nose. Then, addressing her reflection in the glass, she exclaimed: "Whee, but there's a gaudy dame! Makes a paint-box blush with shame. Razzle-dazzle, fizzle-fazzle! Howdy-do, Miss What's-your-name?" She bowed, and the reflection bowed. Then she laughed again, long and merrily, and the Glass Cat crept out from under the table and said: "I don't blame you for laughing at yourself. Aren't you horrid?" "Horrid?" she replied. "Why, I'm thoroughly delightful. I'm an Original, if you please, and therefore incomparable. Of all the comic, absurd, rare and amusing creatures the world contains, I must be the supreme freak. Who but poor Margolotte could have managed to invent such an unreasonable being as I? But I'm glad--I'm awfully glad!--that I'm just what I am, and nothing else." "Be quiet, will you?" cried the frantic Magician; "be quiet and let me think! If I don't think I shall go mad." "Think ahead," said the Patchwork Girl, seating herself in a chair. "Think all you want to. I don't mind." "Gee! but I'm tired playing that tune," called the phonograph, speaking through its horn in a brazen, scratchy voice. "If you don't mind, Pipt, old boy, I'll cut it out and take a rest." The Magician looked gloomily at the music-machine. "What dreadful luck!" he wailed, despondently. "The Powder of Life must have fallen on the phonograph." He went up to it and found that the gold bottle that contained the precious powder had dropped upon the stand and scattered its life-giving grains over the machine. The phonograph was very much alive, and began dancing a jig with the legs of the table to which it was attached, and this dance so annoyed Dr. Pipt that he kicked the thing into a corner and pushed a bench against it, to hold it quiet. "You were bad enough before," said the Magician, resentfully; "but a live phonograph is enough to drive every sane person in the Land of Oz stark crazy." "No insults, please," answered the phonograph in a surly tone. "You did it, my boy; don't blame me." "You've bungled everything, Dr. Pipt," added the Glass Cat, contemptuously. "Except me," said the Patchwork Girl, jumping up to whirl merrily around the room. "I think," said Ojo, almost ready to cry through grief over Unc Nunkie's sad fate, "it must all be my fault, in some way. I'm called Ojo the Unlucky, you know." "That's nonsense, kiddie," retorted the Patchwork Girl cheerfully. "No one can be unlucky who has the intelligence to direct his own actions. The unlucky ones are those who beg for a chance to think, like poor Dr. Pipt here. What's the row about, anyway, Mr. Magic-maker?" "The Liquid of Petrifaction has accidentally fallen upon my dear wife and Unc Nunkie and turned them into marble," he sadly replied. "Well, why don't you sprinkle some of that powder on them and bring them to life again?" asked the Patchwork Girl. The Magician gave a jump. "Why, I hadn't thought of that!" he joyfully cried, and grabbed up the golden bottle, with which he ran to Margolotte. Said the Patchwork Girl: "Higgledy, piggledy, dee-- What fools magicians be! His head's so thick He can't think quick, So he takes advice from me." Standing upon the bench, for he was so crooked he could not reach the top of his wife's head in any other way, Dr. Pipt began shaking the bottle. But not a grain of powder came out. He pulled off the cover, glanced within, and then threw the bottle from him with a wail of despair. "Gone--gone! Every bit gone," he cried. "Wasted on that miserable phonograph when it might have saved my dear wife!" Then the Magician bowed his head on his crooked arms and began to cry. Ojo was sorry for him. He went up to the sorrowful man and said softly: "You can make more Powder of Life, Dr. Pipt." "Yes; but it will take me six years--six long, weary years of stirring four kettles with both feet and both hands," was the agonized reply. "Six years! while poor Margolotte stands watching me as a marble image." "Can't anything else be done?" asked the Patchwork Girl. The Magician shook his head. Then he seemed to remember something and looked up. "There is one other compound that would destroy the magic spell of the Liquid of Petrifaction and restore my wife and Unc Nunkie to life," said he. "It may be hard to find the things I need to make this magic compound, but if they were found I could do in an instant what will otherwise take six long, weary years of stirring kettles with both hands and both feet." "All right; let's find the things, then," suggested the Patchwork Girl. "That seems a lot more sensible than those stirring times with the kettles." "That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." "Scraps?" repeated the girl. "Did you call me 'Scraps'? Is that my name?" "I--I believe my poor wife had intended to name you 'Angeline,'" said the Magician. "But I like 'Scraps' best," she replied with a laugh. "It fits me better, for my patchwork is all scraps, and nothing else. Thank you for naming me, Miss Cat. Have you any name of your own?" "I have a foolish name that Margolotte once gave me, but which is quite undignified for one of my importance," answered the cat. "She called me 'Bungle.'" "Yes," sighed the Magician; "you were a sad bungle, taken all in all. I was wrong to make you as I did, for a more useless, conceited and brittle thing never before existed." "I'm not so brittle as you think," retorted the cat. "I've been alive a good many years, for Dr. Pipt experimented on me with the first magic Powder of Life he ever made, and so far I've never broken or cracked or chipped any part of me." "You seem to have a chip on your shoulder," laughed the Patchwork Girl, and the cat went to the mirror to see. "Tell me," pleaded Ojo, speaking to the Crooked Magician, "what must we find to make the compound that will save Unc Nunkie?" "First," was the reply, "I must have a six-leaved clover. That can only be found in the green country around the Emerald City, and six-leaved clovers are very scarce, even there." "I'll find it for you," promised Ojo. "The next thing," continued the Magician, "is the left wing of a yellow butterfly. That color can only be found in the yellow country of the Winkies, West of the Emerald City." "I'll find it," declared Ojo. "Is that all?" "Oh, no; I'll get my Book of Recipes and see what comes next." Saying this, the Magician unlocked a drawer of his cabinet and drew out a small book covered with blue leather. Looking through the pages he found the recipe he wanted and said: "I must have a gill of water from a dark well." "What kind of a well is that, sir?" asked the boy. "One where the light of day never penetrates. The water must be put in a gold bottle and brought to me without any light ever reaching it." "I'll get the water from the dark well," said Ojo. "Then I must have three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, and a drop of oil from a live man's body." Ojo looked grave at this. "What is a Woozy, please?" he inquired. "Some sort of an animal. I've never seen one, so I can't describe it," replied the Magician. "If I can find a Woozy, I'll get the hairs from its tail," said Ojo. "But is there ever any oil in a man's body?" The Magician looked in the book again, to make sure. "That's what the recipe calls for," he replied, "and of course we must get everything that is called for, or the charm won't work. The book doesn't say 'blood'; it says 'oil,' and there must be oil somewhere in a live man's body or the book wouldn't ask for it." "All right," returned Ojo, trying not to feel discouraged; "I'll try to find it." The Magician looked at the little Munchkin boy in a doubtful way and said: "All this will mean a long journey for you; perhaps several long journeys; for you must search through several of the different countries of Oz in order to get the things I need." "I know it, sir; but I must do my best to save Unc Nunkie." "And also my poor wife Margolotte. If you save one you will save the other, for both stand there together and the same compound will restore them both to life. Do the best you can, Ojo, and while you are gone I shall begin the six years job of making a new batch of the Powder of Life. Then, if you should unluckily fail to secure any one of the things needed, I will have lost no time. But if you succeed you must return here as quickly as you can, and that will save me much tiresome stirring of four kettles with both feet and both hands." "I will start on my journey at once, sir," said the boy. "And I will go with you," declared the Patchwork Girl. "No, no!" exclaimed the Magician. "You have no right to leave this house. You are only a servant and have not been discharged." Scraps, who had been dancing up and down the room, stopped and looked at him. "What is a servant?" she asked. "One who serves. A--a sort of slave," he explained. "Very well," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'm going to serve you and your wife by helping Ojo find the things you need. You need a lot, you know, such as are not easily found." "It is true," sighed Dr. Pipt. "I am well aware that Ojo has undertaken a serious task." Scraps laughed, and resuming her dance she said: "Here's a job for a boy of brains: A drop of oil from a live man's veins; A six-leaved clover; three nice hairs From a Woozy's tail, the book declares Are needed for the magic spell, And water from a pitch-dark well. The yellow wing of a butterfly To find must Ojo also try, And if he gets them without harm, Doc Pipt will make the magic charm; But if he doesn't get 'em, Unc Will always stand a marble chunk." The Magician looked at her thoughtfully. "Poor Margolotte must have given you some of the quality of poesy, by mistake," he said. "And, if that is true, I didn't make a very good article when I prepared it, or else you got an overdose or an underdose. However, I believe I shall let you go with Ojo, for my poor wife will not need your services until she is restored to life. Also I think you may be able to help the boy, for your head seems to contain some thoughts I did not expect to find in it. But be very careful of yourself, for you're a souvenir of my dear Margolotte. Try not to get ripped, or your stuffing may fall out. One of your eyes seems loose, and you may have to sew it on tighter. If you talk too much you'll wear out your scarlet plush tongue, which ought to have been hemmed on the edges. And remember you belong to me and must return here as soon as your mission is accomplished." "I'm going with Scraps and Ojo," announced the Glass Cat. "You can't," said the Magician. "Why not?" "You'd get broken in no time, and you couldn't be a bit of use to the boy and the Patchwork Girl." "I beg to differ with you," returned the cat, in a haughty tone. "Three heads are better than two, and my pink brains are beautiful. You can see 'em work." "Well, go along," said the Magician, irritably. "You're only an annoyance, anyhow, and I'm glad to get rid of you." "Thank you for nothing, then," answered the cat, stiffly. Dr. Pipt took a small basket from a cupboard and packed several things in it. Then he handed it to Ojo. "Here is some food and a bundle of charms," he said. "It is all I can give you, but I am sure you will find friends on your journey who will assist you in your search. Take care of the Patchwork Girl and bring her safely back, for she ought to prove useful to my wife. As for the Glass Cat--properly named Bungle--if she bothers you I now give you my permission to break her in two, for she is not respectful and does not obey me. I made a mistake in giving her the pink brains, you see." Then Ojo went to Unc Nunkie and kissed the old man's marble face very tenderly. "I'm going to try to save you, Unc," he said, just as if the marble image could hear him; and then he shook the crooked hand of the Crooked Magician, who was already busy hanging the four kettles in the fireplace, and picking up his basket left the house. The Patchwork Girl followed him, and after them came the Glass Cat. Chapter Six The Journey Ojo had never traveled before and so he only knew that the path down the mountainside led into the open Munchkin Country, where large numbers of people dwelt. Scraps was quite new and not supposed to know anything of the Land of Oz, while the Glass Cat admitted she had never wandered very far away from the Magician's house. There was only one path before them, at the beginning, so they could not miss their way, and for a time they walked through the thick forest in silent thought, each one impressed with the importance of the adventure they had undertaken. Suddenly the Patchwork Girl laughed. It was funny to see her laugh, because her cheeks wrinkled up, her nose tipped, her silver button eyes twinkled and her mouth curled at the corners in a comical way. "Has something pleased you?" asked Ojo, who was feeling solemn and joyless through thinking upon his uncle's sad fate. "Yes," she answered. "Your world pleases me, for it's a queer world, and life in it is queerer still. Here am I, made from an old bedquilt and intended to be a slave to Margolotte, rendered free as air by an accident that none of you could foresee. I am enjoying life and seeing the world, while the woman who made me is standing helpless as a block of wood. If that isn't funny enough to laugh at, I don't know what is." "You're not seeing much of the world yet, my poor, innocent Scraps," remarked the Cat. "The world doesn't consist wholly of the trees that are on all sides of us." "But they're part of it; and aren't they pretty trees?" returned Scraps, bobbing her head until her brown yarn curls fluttered in the breeze. "Growing between them I can see lovely ferns and wild-flowers, and soft green mosses. If the rest of your world is half as beautiful I shall be glad I'm alive." "I don't know what the rest of the world is like, I'm sure," said the cat; "but I mean to find out." "I have never been out of the forest," Ojo added; "but to me the trees are gloomy and sad and the wild-flowers seem lonesome. It must be nicer where there are no trees and there is room for lots of people to live together." "I wonder if any of the people we shall meet will be as splendid as I am," said the Patchwork Girl. "All I have seen, so far, have pale, colorless skins and clothes as blue as the country they live in, while I am of many gorgeous colors--face and body and clothes. That is why I am bright and contented, Ojo, while you are blue and sad." "I think I made a mistake in giving you so many sorts of brains," observed the boy. "Perhaps, as the Magician said, you have an overdose, and they may not agree with you." "What had you to do with my brains?" asked Scraps. "A lot," replied Ojo. "Old Margolotte meant to give you only a few--just enough to keep you going--but when she wasn't looking I added a good many more, of the best kinds I could find in the Magician's cupboard." "Thanks," said the girl, dancing along the path ahead of Ojo and then dancing back to his side. "If a few brains are good, many brains must be better." "But they ought to be evenly balanced," said the boy, "and I had no time to be careful. From the way you're acting, I guess the dose was badly mixed." "Scraps hasn't enough brains to hurt her, so don't worry," remarked the cat, which was trotting along in a very dainty and graceful manner. "The only brains worth considering are mine, which are pink. You can see 'em work." After walking a long time they came to a little brook that trickled across the path, and here Ojo sat down to rest and eat something from his basket. He found that the Magician had given him part of a loaf of bread and a slice of cheese. He broke off some of the bread and was surprised to find the loaf just as large as it was before. It was the same way with the cheese: however much he broke off from the slice, it remained exactly the same size. "Ah," said he, nodding wisely; "that's magic. Dr. Pipt has enchanted the bread and the cheese, so it will last me all through my journey, however much I eat." "Why do you put those things into your mouth?" asked Scraps, gazing at him in astonishment. "Do you need more stuffing? Then why don't you use cotton, such as I am stuffed with?" "I don't need that kind," said Ojo. "But a mouth is to talk with, isn't it?" "It is also to eat with," replied the boy. "If I didn't put food into my mouth, and eat it, I would get hungry and starve. "Ah, I didn't know that," she said. "Give me some." Ojo handed her a bit of the bread and she put it in her mouth. "What next?" she asked, scarcely able to speak. "Chew it and swallow it," said the boy. Scraps tried that. Her pearl teeth were unable to chew the bread and beyond her mouth there was no opening. Being unable to swallow she threw away the bread and laughed. "I must get hungry and starve, for I can't eat," she said. "Neither can I," announced the cat; "but I'm not fool enough to try. Can't you understand that you and I are superior people and not made like these poor humans?" "Why should I understand that, or anything else?" asked the girl. "Don't bother my head by asking conundrums, I beg of you. Just let me discover myself in my own way." With this she began amusing herself by leaping across the brook and back again. "Be careful, or you'll fall in the water," warned Ojo. "Never mind." "You'd better. If you get wet you'll be soggy and can't walk. Your colors might run, too," he said. "Don't my colors run whenever I run?" she asked. "Not in the way I mean. If they get wet, the reds and greens and yellows and purples of your patches might run into each other and become just a blur--no color at all, you know." "Then," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'll be careful, for if I spoiled my splendid colors I would cease to be beautiful." "Pah!" sneered the Glass Cat, "such colors are not beautiful; they're ugly, and in bad taste. Please notice that my body has no color at all. I'm transparent, except for my exquisite red heart and my lovely pink brains--you can see 'em work." "Shoo--shoo--shoo!" cried Scraps, dancing around and laughing. "And your horrid green eyes, Miss Bungle! You can't see your eyes, but we can, and I notice you're very proud of what little color you have. Shoo, Miss Bungle, shoo--shoo--shoo! If you were all colors and many colors, as I am, you'd be too stuck up for anything." She leaped over the cat and back again, and the startled Bungle crept close to a tree to escape her. This made Scraps laugh more heartily than ever, and she said: "Whoop-te-doodle-doo! The cat has lost her shoe. Her tootsie's bare, but she don't care, So what's the odds to you?" "Dear me, Ojo," said the cat; "don't you think the creature is a little bit crazy?" "It may be," he answered, with a puzzled look. "If she continues her insults I'll scratch off her suspender-button eyes," declared the cat. "Don't quarrel, please," pleaded the boy, rising to resume the journey. "Let us be good comrades and as happy and cheerful as possible, for we are likely to meet with plenty of trouble on our way." It was nearly sundown when they came to the edge of the forest and saw spread out before them a delightful landscape. There were broad blue fields stretching for miles over the valley, which was dotted everywhere with pretty, blue domed houses, none of which, however, was very near to the place where they stood. Just at the point where the path left the forest stood a tiny house covered with leaves from the trees, and before this stood a Munchkin man with an axe in his hand. He seemed very much surprised when Ojo and Scraps and the Glass Cat came out of the woods, but as the Patchwork Girl approached nearer he sat down upon a bench and laughed so hard that he could not speak for a long time. This man was a woodchopper and lived all alone in the little house. He had bushy blue whiskers and merry blue eyes and his blue clothes were quite old and worn. "Mercy me!" exclaimed the woodchopper, when at last he could stop laughing. "Who would think such a funny harlequin lived in the Land of Oz? Where did you come from, Crazy-quilt?" "Do you mean me?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "Of course," he replied. "You misjudge my ancestry. I'm not a crazy-quilt; I'm patchwork," she said. "There's no difference," he replied, beginning to laugh again. "When my old grandmother sews such things together she calls it a crazy-quilt; but I never thought such a jumble could come to life." "It was the Magic Powder that did it," explained Ojo. "Oh, then you have come from the Crooked Magician on the mountain. I might have known it, for--Well, I declare! here's a glass cat. But the Magician will get in trouble for this; it's against the law for anyone to work magic except Glinda the Good and the royal Wizard of Oz. If you people--or things--or glass spectacles--or crazy-quilts--or whatever you are, go near the Emerald City, you'll be arrested." "We're going there, anyhow," declared Scraps, sitting upon the bench and swinging her stuffed legs. "If any of us takes a rest, We'll be arrested sure, And get no restitution 'Cause the rest we must endure." "I see," said the woodchopper, nodding; "you're as crazy as the crazy-quilt you're made of." "She really is crazy," remarked the Glass Cat. "But that isn't to be wondered at when you remember how many different things she's made of. For my part, I'm made of pure glass--except my jewel heart and my pretty pink brains. Did you notice my brains, stranger? You can see 'em work." "So I can," replied the woodchopper; "but I can't see that they accomplish much. A glass cat is a useless sort of thing, but a Patchwork Girl is really useful. She makes me laugh, and laughter is the best thing in life. There was once a woodchopper, a friend of mine, who was made all of tin, and I used to laugh every time I saw him." "A tin woodchopper?" said Ojo. "That is strange." "My friend wasn't always tin," said the man, "but he was careless with his axe, and used to chop himself very badly. Whenever he lost an arm or a leg he had it replaced with tin; so after a while he was all tin." "And could he chop wood then?" asked the boy. "He could if he didn't rust his tin joints. But one day he met Dorothy in the forest and went with her to the Emerald City, where he made his fortune. He is now one of the favorites of Princess Ozma, and she has made him the Emperor of the Winkies--the Country where all is yellow." "Who is Dorothy?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "A little maid who used to live in Kansas, but is now a Princess of Oz. She's Ozma's best friend, they say, and lives with her in the royal palace." "Is Dorothy made of tin?" inquired Ojo. "Is she patchwork, like me?" inquired Scraps. "No," said the man; "Dorothy is flesh, just as I am. I know of only one tin person, and that is Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman; and there will never be but one Patchwork Girl, for any magician that sees you will refuse to make another one like you." "I suppose we shall see the Tin Woodman, for we are going to the Country of the Winkies," said the boy. "What for?" asked the woodchopper. "To get the left wing of a yellow butterfly." "It is a long journey," declared the man, "and you will go through lonely parts of Oz and cross rivers and traverse dark forests before you get there." "Suits me all right," said Scraps. "I'll get a chance to see the country." "You're crazy, girl. Better crawl into a rag-bag and hide there; or give yourself to some little girl to play with. Those who travel are likely to meet trouble; that's why I stay at home." The woodchopper then invited them all to stay the night at his little hut, but they were anxious to get on and so left him and continued along the path, which was broader, now, and more distinct. They expected to reach some other house before it grew dark, but the twilight was brief and Ojo soon began to fear they had made a mistake in leaving the woodchopper. "I can scarcely see the path," he said at last. "Can you see it, Scraps?" "No," replied the Patchwork Girl, who was holding fast to the boy's arm so he could guide her. "I can see," declared the Glass Cat. "My eyes are better than yours, and my pink brains--" "Never mind your pink brains, please," said Ojo hastily; "just run ahead and show us the way. Wait a minute and I'll tie a string to you; for then you can lead us." He got a string from his pocket and tied it around the cat's neck, and after that the creature guided them along the path. They had proceeded in this way for about an hour when a twinkling blue light appeared ahead of them. "Good! there's a house at last," cried Ojo. "When we reach it the good people will surely welcome us and give us a night's lodging." But however far they walked the light seemed to get no nearer, so by and by the cat stopped short, saying: "I think the light is traveling, too, and we shall never be able to catch up with it. But here is a house by the roadside, so why go farther?" "Where is the house, Bungle?" "Just here beside us, Scraps." Ojo was now able to see a small house near the pathway. It was dark and silent, but the boy was tired and wanted to rest, so he went up to the door and knocked. "Who is there?" cried a voice from within. "I am Ojo the Unlucky, and with me are Miss Scraps Patchwork and the Glass Cat," he replied. "What do you want?" asked the Voice. "A place to sleep," said Ojo. "Come in, then; but don't make any noise, and you must go directly to bed," returned the Voice. Ojo unlatched the door and entered. It was very dark inside and he could see nothing at all. But the cat exclaimed: "Why, there's no one here!" "There must be," said the boy. "Some one spoke to me." "I can see everything in the room," replied the cat, "and no one is present but ourselves. But here are three beds, all made up, so we may as well go to sleep." "What is sleep?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "It's what you do when you go to bed," said Ojo. "But why do you go to bed?" persisted the Patchwork Girl. "Here, here! You are making altogether too much noise," cried the Voice they had heard before. "Keep quiet, strangers, and go to bed." The cat, which could see in the dark, looked sharply around for the owner of the Voice, but could discover no one, although the Voice had seemed close beside them. She arched her back a little and seemed afraid. Then she whispered to Ojo: "Come!" and led him to a bed. With his hands the boy felt of the bed and found it was big and soft, with feather pillows and plenty of blankets. So he took off his shoes and hat and crept into the bed. Then the cat led Scraps to another bed and the Patchwork Girl was puzzled to know what to do with it. "Lie down and keep quiet," whispered the cat, warningly. "Can't I sing?" asked Scraps. "No." "Can't I whistle?" asked Scraps. "No." "Can't I dance till morning, if I want to?" asked Scraps. "You must keep quiet," said the cat, in a soft voice. "I don't want to," replied the Patchwork Girl, speaking as loudly as usual. "What right have you to order me around? If I want to talk, or yell, or whistle--" Before she could say anything more an unseen hand seized her firmly and threw her out of the door, which closed behind her with a sharp slam. She found herself bumping and rolling in the road and when she got up and tried to open the door of the house again she found it locked. "What has happened to Scraps?" asked Ojo. "Never mind. Let's go to sleep, or something will happen to us," answered the Glass Cat. So Ojo snuggled down in his bed and fell asleep, and he was so tired that he never wakened until broad daylight. Chapter Seven The Troublesome Phonograph When the boy opened his eyes next morning he looked carefully around the room. These small Munchkin houses seldom had more than one room in them. That in which Ojo now found himself had three beds, set all in a row on one side of it. The Glass Cat lay asleep on one bed, Ojo was in the second, and the third was neatly made up and smoothed for the day. On the other side of the room was a round table on which breakfast was already placed, smoking hot. Only one chair was drawn up to the table, where a place was set for one person. No one seemed to be in the room except the boy and Bungle. Ojo got up and put on his shoes. Finding a toilet stand at the head of his bed he washed his face and hands and brushed his hair. Then he went to the table and said: "I wonder if this is my breakfast?" "Eat it!" commanded a Voice at his side, so near that Ojo jumped. But no person could he see. He was hungry, and the breakfast looked good; so he sat down and ate all he wanted. Then, rising, he took his hat and wakened the Glass Cat. "Come on, Bungle," said he; "we must go." He cast another glance about the room and, speaking to the air, he said: "Whoever lives here has been kind to me, and I'm much obliged." There was no answer, so he took his basket and went out the door, the cat following him. In the middle of the path sat the Patchwork Girl, playing with pebbles she had picked up. "Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "I thought you were never coming out. It has been daylight a long time." "What did you do all night?" asked the boy. "Sat here and watched the stars and the moon," she replied. "They're interesting. I never saw them before, you know." "Of course not," said Ojo. "You were crazy to act so badly and get thrown outdoors," remarked Bungle, as they renewed their journey. "That's all right," said Scraps. "If I hadn't been thrown out I wouldn't have seen the stars, nor the big gray wolf." "What wolf?" inquired Ojo. "The one that came to the door of the house three times during the night." "I don't see why that should be," said the boy, thoughtfully; "there was plenty to eat in that house, for I had a fine breakfast, and I slept in a nice bed." "Don't you feel tired?" asked the Patchwork Girl, noticing that the boy yawned. "Why, yes; I'm as tired as I was last night; and yet I slept very well." "And aren't you hungry?" "It's strange," replied Ojo. "I had a good breakfast, and yet I think I'll now eat some of my crackers and cheese." Scraps danced up and down the path. Then she sang: "Kizzle-kazzle-kore; The wolf is at the door, There's nothing to eat but a bone without meat, And a bill from the grocery store." "What does that mean?" asked Ojo. "Don't ask me," replied Scraps. "I say what comes into my head, but of course I know nothing of a grocery store or bones without meat or--very much else." "No," said the cat; "she's stark, staring, raving crazy, and her brains can't be pink, for they don't work properly." "Bother the brains!" cried Scraps. "Who cares for 'em, anyhow? Have you noticed how beautiful my patches are in this sunlight?" Just then they heard a sound as of footsteps pattering along the path behind them and all three turned to see what was coming. To their astonishment they beheld a small round table running as fast as its four spindle legs could carry it, and to the top was screwed fast a phonograph with a big gold horn. "Hold on!" shouted the phonograph. "Wait for me!" "Goodness me; it's that music thing which the Crooked Magician scattered the Powder of Life over," said Ojo. "So it is," returned Bungle, in a grumpy tone of voice; and then, as the phonograph overtook them, the Glass Cat added sternly: "What are you doing here, anyhow?" "I've run away," said the music thing. "After you left, old Dr. Pipt and I had a dreadful quarrel and he threatened to smash me to pieces if I didn't keep quiet. Of course I wouldn't do that, because a talking-machine is supposed to talk and make a noise--and sometimes music. So I slipped out of the house while the Magician was stirring his four kettles and I've been running after you all night. Now that I've found such pleasant company, I can talk and play tunes all I want to." Ojo was greatly annoyed by this unwelcome addition to their party. At first he did not know what to say to the newcomer, but a little thought decided him not to make friends. "We are traveling on important business," he declared, "and you'll excuse me if I say we can't be bothered." "How very impolite!" exclaimed the phonograph. "I'm sorry; but it's true," said the boy. "You'll have to go somewhere else." "This is very unkind treatment, I must say," whined the phonograph, in an injured tone. "Everyone seems to hate me, and yet I was intended to amuse people." "It isn't you we hate, especially," observed the Glass Cat; "it's your dreadful music. When I lived in the same room with you I was much annoyed by your squeaky horn. It growls and grumbles and clicks and scratches so it spoils the music, and your machinery rumbles so that the racket drowns every tune you attempt." "That isn't my fault; it's the fault of my records. I must admit that I haven't a clear record," answered the machine. "Just the same, you'll have to go away," said Ojo. "Wait a minute," cried Scraps. "This music thing interests me. I remember to have heard music when I first came to life, and I would like to hear it again. What is your name, my poor abused phonograph?" "Victor Columbia Edison," it answered. "Well, I shall call you 'Vic' for short," said the Patchwork Girl. "Go ahead and play something." "It'll drive you crazy," warned the cat. "I'm crazy now, according to your statement. Loosen up and reel out the music, Vic." "The only record I have with me," explained the phonograph, "is one the Magician attached just before we had our quarrel. It's a highly classical composition." "A what?" inquired Scraps. "It is classical music, and is considered the best and most puzzling ever manufactured. You're supposed to like it, whether you do or not, and if you don't, the proper thing is to look as if you did. Understand?" "Not in the least," said Scraps. "Then, listen!" At once the machine began to play and in a few minutes Ojo put his hands to his ears to shut out the sounds and the cat snarled and Scraps began to laugh. "Cut it out, Vic," she said. "That's enough." But the phonograph continued playing the dreary tune, so Ojo seized the crank, jerked it free and threw it into the road. However, the moment the crank struck the ground it bounded back to the machine again and began winding it up. And still the music played. "Let's run!" cried Scraps, and they all started and ran down the path as fast as they could go. But the phonograph was right behind them and could run and play at the same time. It called out, reproachfully: "What's the matter? Don't you love classical music?" "No, Vic," said Scraps, halting. "We will passical the classical and preserve what joy we have left. I haven't any nerves, thank goodness, but your music makes my cotton shrink." "Then turn over my record. There's a rag-time tune on the other side," said the machine. "What's rag-time?" "The opposite of classical." "All right," said Scraps, and turned over the record. The phonograph now began to play a jerky jumble of sounds which proved so bewildering that after a moment Scraps stuffed her patchwork apron into the gold horn and cried: "Stop--stop! That's the other extreme. It's extremely bad!" Muffled as it was, the phonograph played on. "If you don't shut off that music I'll smash your record," threatened Ojo. The music stopped, at that, and the machine turned its horn from one to another and said with great indignation: "What's the matter now? Is it possible you can't appreciate rag-time?" "Scraps ought to, being rags herself," said the cat; "but I simply can't stand it; it makes my whiskers curl." "It is, indeed, dreadful!" exclaimed Ojo, with a shudder. "It's enough to drive a crazy lady mad," murmured the Patchwork Girl. "I'll tell you what, Vic," she added as she smoothed out her apron and put it on again, "for some reason or other you've missed your guess. You're not a concert; you're a nuisance." "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," asserted the phonograph sadly. "Then we're not savages. I advise you to go home and beg the Magician's pardon." "Never! He'd smash me." "That's what we shall do, if you stay here," Ojo declared. "Run along, Vic, and bother some one else," advised Scraps. "Find some one who is real wicked, and stay with him till he repents. In that way you can do some good in the world." The music thing turned silently away and trotted down a side path, toward a distant Munchkin village. "Is that the way we go?" asked Bungle anxiously. "No," said Ojo; "I think we shall keep straight ahead, for this path is the widest and best. When we come to some house we will inquire the way to the Emerald City." Chapter Eight The Foolish Owl and the Wise Donkey On they went, and half an hour's steady walking brought them to a house somewhat better than the two they had already passed. It stood close to the roadside and over the door was a sign that read: "Miss Foolish Owl and Mr. Wise Donkey: Public Advisers." When Ojo read this sign aloud Scraps said laughingly: "Well, here is a place to get all the advice we want, maybe more than we need. Let's go in." The boy knocked at the door. "Come in!" called a deep bass voice. So they opened the door and entered the house, where a little light-brown donkey, dressed in a blue apron and a blue cap, was engaged in dusting the furniture with a blue cloth. On a shelf over the window sat a great blue owl with a blue sunbonnet on her head, blinking her big round eyes at the visitors. "Good morning," said the donkey, in his deep voice, which seemed bigger than he was. "Did you come to us for advice?" "Why, we came, anyhow," replied Scraps, "and now we are here we may as well have some advice. It's free, isn't it?" "Certainly," said the donkey. "Advice doesn't cost anything--unless you follow it. Permit me to say, by the way, that you are the queerest lot of travelers that ever came to my shop. Judging you merely by appearances, I think you'd better talk to the Foolish Owl yonder." They turned to look at the bird, which fluttered its wings and stared back at them with its big eyes. "Hoot-ti-toot-ti-toot!" cried the owl. "Fiddle-cum-foo, Howdy-do? Riddle-cum, tiddle-cum, Too-ra-la-loo!" "That beats your poetry, Scraps," said Ojo. "It's just nonsense!" declared the Glass Cat. "But it's good advice for the foolish," said the donkey, admiringly. "Listen to my partner, and you can't go wrong." Said the owl in a grumbling voice: "Patchwork Girl has come to life; No one's sweetheart, no one's wife; Lacking sense and loving fun, She'll be snubbed by everyone." "Quite a compliment! Quite a compliment, I declare," exclaimed the donkey, turning to look at Scraps. "You are certainly a wonder, my dear, and I fancy you'd make a splendid pincushion. If you belonged to me, I'd wear smoked glasses when I looked at you." "Why?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "Because you are so gay and gaudy." "It is my beauty that dazzles you," she asserted. "You Munchkin people all strut around in your stupid blue color, while I--" "You are wrong in calling me a Munchkin," interrupted the donkey, "for I was born in the Land of Mo and came to visit the Land of Oz on the day it was shut off from all the rest of the world. So here I am obliged to stay, and I confess it is a very pleasant country to live in." "Hoot-ti-toot!" cried the owl; "Ojo's searching for a charm, 'Cause Unc Nunkie's come to harm. Charms are scarce; they're hard to get; Ojo's got a job, you bet!" "Is the owl so very foolish?" asked the boy. "Extremely so," replied the donkey. "Notice what vulgar expressions she uses. But I admire the owl for the reason that she is positively foolish. Owls are supposed to be so very wise, generally, that a foolish one is unusual, and you perhaps know that anything or anyone unusual is sure to be interesting to the wise." The owl flapped its wings again, muttering these words: "It's hard to be a glassy cat-- No cat can be more hard than that; She's so transparent, every act Is clear to us, and that's a fact." "Have you noticed my pink brains?" inquired Bungle, proudly. "You can see 'em work." "Not in the daytime," said the donkey. "She can't see very well by day, poor thing. But her advice is excellent. I advise you all to follow it." "The owl hasn't given us any advice, as yet," the boy declared. "No? Then what do you call all those sweet poems?" "Just foolishness," replied Ojo. "Scraps does the same thing." "Foolishness! Of course! To be sure! The Foolish Owl must be foolish or she wouldn't be the Foolish Owl. You are very complimentary to my partner, indeed," asserted the donkey, rubbing his front hoofs together as if highly pleased. "The sign says that you are wise," remarked Scraps to the donkey. "I wish you would prove it." "With great pleasure," returned the beast. "Put me to the test, my dear Patches, and I'll prove my wisdom in the wink of an eye." "What is the best way to get to the Emerald City?" asked Ojo. "Walk," said the donkey. "I know; but what road shall I take?" was the boy's next question. "The road of yellow bricks, of course. It leads directly to the Emerald City." "And how shall we find the road of yellow bricks?" "By keeping along the path you have been following. You'll come to the yellow bricks pretty soon, and you'll know them when you see them because they're the only yellow things in the blue country." "Thank you," said the boy. "At last you have told me something." "Is that the extent of your wisdom?" asked Scraps. "No," replied the donkey; "I know many other things, but they wouldn't interest you. So I'll give you a last word of advice: move on, for the sooner you do that the sooner you'll get to the Emerald City of Oz." "Hoot-ti-toot-ti-toot-ti-too!" screeched the owl; "Off you go! fast or slow, Where you're going you don't know. Patches, Bungle, Munchkin lad, Facing fortunes good and bad, Meeting dangers grave and sad, Sometimes worried, sometimes glad-- Where you're going you don't know, Nor do I, but off you go!" "Sounds like a hint, to me," said the Patchwork Girl. "Then let's take it and go," replied Ojo. They said good-bye to the Wise Donkey and the Foolish Owl and at once resumed their journey. Chapter Nine They Meet the Woozy "There seem to be very few houses around here, after all," remarked Ojo, after they had walked for a time in silence. "Never mind," said Scraps; "we are not looking for houses, but rather the road of yellow bricks. Won't it be funny to run across something yellow in this dismal blue country?" "There are worse colors than yellow in this country," asserted the Glass Cat, in a spiteful tone. "Oh; do you mean the pink pebbles you call your brains, and your red heart and green eyes?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "No; I mean you, if you must know it," growled the cat. "You're jealous!" laughed Scraps. "You'd give your whiskers for a lovely variegated complexion like mine." "I wouldn't!" retorted the cat. "I've the clearest complexion in the world, and I don't employ a beauty-doctor, either." "I see you don't," said Scraps. "Please don't quarrel," begged Ojo. "This is an important journey, and quarreling makes me discouraged. To be brave, one must be cheerful, so I hope you will be as good-tempered as possible." They had traveled some distance when suddenly they faced a high fence which barred any further progress straight ahead. It ran directly across the road and enclosed a small forest of tall trees, set close together. When the group of adventurers peered through the bars of the fence they thought this forest looked more gloomy and forbidding than any they had ever seen before. They soon discovered that the path they had been following now made a bend and passed around the enclosure, but what made Ojo stop and look thoughtful was a sign painted on the fence which read: "BEWARE OF THE WOOZY!" "That means," he said, "that there's a Woozy inside that fence, and the Woozy must be a dangerous animal or they wouldn't tell people to beware of it." "Let's keep out, then," replied Scraps. "That path is outside the fence, and Mr. Woozy may have all his little forest to himself, for all we care." "But one of our errands is to find a Woozy," Ojo explained. "The Magician wants me to get three hairs from the end of a Woozy's tail." "Let's go on and find some other Woozy," suggested the cat. "This one is ugly and dangerous, or they wouldn't cage him up. Maybe we shall find another that is tame and gentle." "Perhaps there isn't any other, at all," answered Ojo. "The sign doesn't say: 'Beware a Woozy'; it says: 'Beware the Woozy,' which may mean there's only one in all the Land of Oz." "Then," said Scraps, "suppose we go in and find him? Very likely if we ask him politely to let us pull three hairs out of the tip of his tail he won't hurt us." "It would hurt him, I'm sure, and that would make him cross," said the cat. "You needn't worry, Bungle," remarked the Patchwork Girl; "for if there is danger you can climb a tree. Ojo and I are not afraid; are we, Ojo?" "I am, a little," the boy admitted; "but this danger must be faced, if we intend to save poor Unc Nunkie. How shall we get over the fence?" "Climb," answered Scraps, and at once she began climbing up the rows of bars. Ojo followed and found it more easy than he had expected. When they got to the top of the fence they began to get down on the other side and soon were in the forest. The Glass Cat, being small, crept between the lower bars and joined them. Here there was no path of any sort, so they entered the woods, the boy leading the way, and wandered through the trees until they were nearly in the center of the forest. They now came upon a clear space in which stood a rocky cave. So far they had met no living creature, but when Ojo saw the cave he knew it must be the den of the Woozy. It is hard to face any savage beast without a sinking of the heart, but still more terrifying is it to face an unknown beast, which you have never seen even a picture of. So there is little wonder that the pulses of the Munchkin boy beat fast as he and his companions stood facing the cave. The opening was perfectly square, and about big enough to admit a goat. "I guess the Woozy is asleep," said Scraps. "Shall I throw in a stone, to waken him?" "No; please don't," answered Ojo, his voice trembling a little. "I'm in no hurry." But he had not long to wait, for the Woozy heard the sound of voices and came trotting out of his cave. As this is the only Woozy that has ever lived, either in the Land of Oz or out of it, I must describe it to you. The creature was all squares and flat surfaces and edges. Its head was an exact square, like one of the building-blocks a child plays with; therefore it had no ears, but heard sounds through two openings in the upper corners. Its nose, being in the center of a square surface, was flat, while the mouth was formed by the opening of the lower edge of the block. The body of the Woozy was much larger than its head, but was likewise block-shaped--being twice as long as it was wide and high. The tail was square and stubby and perfectly straight, and the four legs were made in the same way, each being four-sided. The animal was covered with a thick, smooth skin and had no hair at all except at the extreme end of its tail, where there grew exactly three stiff, stubby hairs. The beast was dark blue in color and his face was not fierce nor ferocious in expression, but rather good-humored and droll. Seeing the strangers, the Woozy folded his hind legs as if they had been hinged and sat down to look his visitors over. "Well, well," he exclaimed; "what a queer lot you are! At first I thought some of those miserable Munchkin farmers had come to annoy me, but I am relieved to find you in their stead. It is plain to me that you are a remarkable group--as remarkable in your way as I am in mine--and so you are welcome to my domain. Nice place, isn't it? But lonesome--dreadfully lonesome." "Why did they shut you up here?" asked Scraps, who was regarding the queer, square creature with much curiosity. "Because I eat up all the honey-bees which the Munchkin farmers who live around here keep to make them honey." "Are you fond of eating honey-bees?" inquired the boy. "Very. They are really delicious. But the farmers did not like to lose their bees and so they tried to destroy me. Of course they couldn't do that." "Why not?" "My skin is so thick and tough that nothing can get through it to hurt me. So, finding they could not destroy me, they drove me into this forest and built a fence around me. Unkind, wasn't it?" "But what do you eat now?" asked Ojo. "Nothing at all. I've tried the leaves from the trees and the mosses and creeping vines, but they don't seem to suit my taste. So, there being no honey-bees here, I've eaten nothing for years. "You must be awfully hungry," said the boy. "I've got some bread and cheese in my basket. Would you like that kind of food?" "Give me a nibble and I will try it; then I can tell you better whether it is grateful to my appetite," returned the Woozy. So the boy opened his basket and broke a piece off the loaf of bread. He tossed it toward the Woozy, who cleverly caught it in his mouth and ate it in a twinkling. "That's rather good," declared the animal. "Any more?" "Try some cheese," said Ojo, and threw down a piece. The Woozy ate that, too, and smacked its long, thin lips. "That's mighty good!" it exclaimed. "Any more?" "Plenty," replied Ojo. So he sat down on a Stump and fed the Woozy bread and cheese for a long time; for, no matter how much the boy broke off, the loaf and the slice remained just as big. "That'll do," said the Woozy, at last; "I'm quite full. I hope the strange food won't give me indigestion." "I hope not," said Ojo. "It's what I eat." "Well, I must say I'm much obliged, and I'm glad you came," announced the beast. "Is there anything I can do in return for your kindness?" "Yes," said Ojo earnestly, "you have it in your power to do me a great favor, if you will." "What is it?" asked the Woozy. "Name the favor and I will grant it." "I--I want three hairs from the tip of your tail," said Ojo, with some hesitation. "Three hairs! Why, that's all I have--on my tail or anywhere else," exclaimed the beast. "I know; but I want them very much." "They are my sole ornaments, my prettiest feature," said the Woozy, uneasily. "If I give up those three hairs I--I'm just a blockhead." "Yet I must have them," insisted the boy, firmly, and he then told the Woozy all about the accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, and how the three hairs were to be a part of the magic charm that would restore them to life. The beast listened with attention and when Ojo had finished the recital it said, with a sigh: "I always keep my word, for I pride myself on being square. So you may have the three hairs, and welcome. I think, under such circumstances, it would be selfish in me to refuse you." "Thank you! Thank you very much," cried the boy, joyfully. "May I pull out the hairs now?" "Any time you like," answered the Woozy. So Ojo went up to the queer creature and taking hold of one of the hairs began to pull. He pulled harder. He pulled with all his might; but the hair remained fast. "What's the trouble?" asked the Woozy, which Ojo had dragged here and there all around the clearing in his endeavor to pull out the hair. "It won't come," said the boy, panting. "I was afraid of that," declared the beast. "You'll have to pull harder." "I'll help you," exclaimed Scraps, coming to the boy's side. "You pull the hair, and I'll pull you, and together we ought to get it out easily." "Wait a jiffy," called the Woozy, and then it went to a tree and hugged it with its front paws, so that its body couldn't be dragged around by the pull. "All ready, now. Go ahead!" Ojo grasped the hair with both hands and pulled with all his strength, while Scraps seized the boy around his waist and added her strength to his. But the hair wouldn't budge. Instead, it slipped out of Ojo's hands and he and Scraps both rolled upon the ground in a heap and never stopped until they bumped against the rocky cave. "Give it up," advised the Glass Cat, as the boy arose and assisted the Patchwork Girl to her feet. "A dozen strong men couldn't pull out those hairs. I believe they're clinched on the under side of the Woozy's thick skin." "Then what shall I do?" asked the boy, despairingly. "If on our return I fail to take these three hairs to the Crooked Magician, the other things I have come to seek will be of no use at all, and we cannot restore Unc Nunkie and Margolotte to life." "They're goners, I guess," said the Patchwork Girl. "Never mind," added the cat. "I can't see that old Unc and Margolotte are worth all this trouble, anyhow." But Ojo did not feel that way. He was so disheartened that he sat down upon a stump and began to cry. The Woozy looked at the boy thoughtfully. "Why don't you take me with you?" asked the beast. "Then, when at last you get to the Magician's house, he can surely find some way to pull out those three hairs." Ojo was overjoyed at this suggestion. "That's it!" he cried, wiping away the tears and springing to his feet with a smile. "If I take the three hairs to the Magician, it won't matter if they are still in your body." "It can't matter in the least," agreed the Woozy. "Come on, then," said the boy, picking up his basket; "let us start at once. I have several other things to find, you know." But the Glass Cat gave a little laugh and inquired in her scornful way: "How do you intend to get the beast out of this forest?" That puzzled them all for a time. "Let us go to the fence, and then we may find a way," suggested Scraps. So they walked through the forest to the fence, reaching it at a point exactly opposite that where they had entered the enclosure. "How did you get in?" asked the Woozy. "We climbed over," answered Ojo. "I can't do that," said the beast. "I'm a very swift runner, for I can overtake a honey-bee as it flies; and I can jump very high, which is the reason they made such a tall fence to keep me in. But I can't climb at all, and I'm too big to squeeze between the bars of the fence." Ojo tried to think what to do. "Can you dig?" he asked. "No," answered the Woozy, "for I have no claws. My feet are quite flat on the bottom of them. Nor can I gnaw away the boards, as I have no teeth." "You're not such a terrible creature, after all," remarked Scraps. "You haven't heard me growl, or you wouldn't say that," declared the Woozy. "When I growl, the sound echoes like thunder all through the valleys and woodlands, and children tremble with fear, and women cover their heads with their aprons, and big men run and hide. I suppose there is nothing in the world so terrible to listen to as the growl of a Woozy." "Please don't growl, then," begged Ojo, earnestly. "There is no danger of my growling, for I am not angry. Only when angry do I utter my fearful, ear-splitting, soul-shuddering growl. Also, when I am angry, my eyes flash fire, whether I growl or not." "Real fire?" asked Ojo. "Of course, real fire. Do you suppose they'd flash imitation fire?" inquired the Woozy, in an injured tone. "In that case, I've solved the riddle," cried Scraps, dancing with glee. "Those fence-boards are made of wood, and if the Woozy stands close to the fence and lets his eyes flash fire, they might set fire to the fence and burn it up. Then he could walk away with us easily, being free." "Ah, I have never thought of that plan, or I would have been free long ago," said the Woozy. "But I cannot flash fire from my eyes unless I am very angry." "Can't you get angry 'bout something, please?" asked Ojo. "I'll try. You just say 'Krizzle-Kroo' to me." "Will that make you angry?" inquired the boy. "Terribly angry." "What does it mean?" asked Scraps. "I don't know; that's what makes me so angry," replied the Woozy. He then stood close to the fence, with his head near one of the boards, and Scraps called out "Krizzle-Kroo!" Then Ojo said "Krizzle-Kroo!" and the Glass Cat said "Krizzle-Kroo!" The Woozy began to tremble with anger and small sparks darted from his eyes. Seeing this, they all cried "Krizzle-Kroo!" together, and that made the beast's eyes flash fire so fiercely that the fence-board caught the sparks and began to smoke. Then it burst into flame, and the Woozy stepped back and said triumphantly: "Aha! That did the business, all right. It was a happy thought for you to yell all together, for that made me as angry as I have ever been. Fine sparks, weren't they?" "Reg'lar fireworks," replied Scraps, admiringly. In a few moments the board had burned to a distance of several feet, leaving an opening big enough for them all to pass through. Ojo broke some branches from a tree and with them whipped the fire until it was extinguished. "We don't want to burn the whole fence down," said he, "for the flames would attract the attention of the Munchkin farmers, who would then come and capture the Woozy again. I guess they'll be rather surprised when they find he's escaped." "So they will," declared the Woozy, chuckling gleefully. "When they find I'm gone the farmers will be badly scared, for they'll expect me to eat up their honey-bees, as I did before." "That reminds me," said the boy, "that you must promise not to eat honey-bees while you are in our company." "None at all?" "Not a bee. You would get us all into trouble, and we can't afford to have any more trouble than is necessary. I'll feed you all the bread and cheese you want, and that must satisfy you." "All right; I'll promise," said the Woozy, cheerfully. "And when I promise anything you can depend on it, 'cause I'm square." "I don't see what difference that makes," observed the Patchwork Girl, as they found the path and continued their journey. "The shape doesn't make a thing honest, does it?" "Of course it does," returned the Woozy, very decidedly. "No one could trust that Crooked Magician, for instance, just because he is crooked; but a square Woozy couldn't do anything crooked if he wanted to." "I am neither square nor crooked," said Scraps, looking down at her plump body. "No; you're round, so you're liable to do anything," asserted the Woozy. "Do not blame me, Miss Gorgeous, if I regard you with suspicion. Many a satin ribbon has a cotton back." Scraps didn't understand this, but she had an uneasy misgiving that she had a cotton back herself. It would settle down, at times, and make her squat and dumpy, and then she had to roll herself in the road until her body stretched out again. Chapter Ten Shaggy Man to the Rescue They had not gone very far before Bungle, who had run on ahead, came bounding back to say that the road of yellow bricks was just before them. At once they hurried forward to see what this famous road looked like. It was a broad road, but not straight, for it wandered over hill and dale and picked out the easiest places to go. All its length and breadth was paved with smooth bricks of a bright yellow color, so it was smooth and level except in a few places where the bricks had crumbled or been removed, leaving holes that might cause the unwary to stumble. "I wonder," said Ojo, looking up and down the road, "which way to go." "Where are you bound for?" asked the Woozy. "The Emerald City," he replied. "Then go west," said the Woozy. "I know this road pretty well, for I've chased many a honey-bee over it." "Have you ever been to the Emerald City?" asked Scraps. "No. I am very shy by nature, as you may have noticed, so I haven't mingled much in society." "Are you afraid of men?" inquired the Patchwork Girl. "Me? With my heart-rending growl--my horrible, shudderful growl? I should say not. I am not afraid of anything," declared the Woozy. "I wish I could say the same," sighed Ojo. "I don't think we need be afraid when we get to the Emerald City, for Unc Nunkie has told me that Ozma, our girl Ruler, is very lovely and kind, and tries to help everyone who is in trouble. But they say there are many dangers lurking on the road to the great Fairy City, and so we must be very careful." "I hope nothing will break me," said the Glass Cat, in a nervous voice. "I'm a little brittle, you know, and can't stand many hard knocks." "If anything should fade the colors of my lovely patches it would break my heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "I'm not sure you have a heart," Ojo reminded her. "Then it would break my cotton," persisted Scraps. "Do you think they are all fast colors, Ojo?" she asked anxiously. "They seem fast enough when you run," he replied; and then, looking ahead of them, he exclaimed: "Oh, what lovely trees!" They were certainly pretty to look upon and the travelers hurried forward to observe them more closely. "Why, they are not trees at all," said Scraps; "they are just monstrous plants." That is what they really were: masses of great broad leaves which rose from the ground far into the air, until they towered twice as high as the top of the Patchwork Girl's head, who was a little taller than Ojo. The plants formed rows on both sides of the road and from each plant rose a dozen or more of the big broad leaves, which swayed continually from side to side, although no wind was blowing. But the most curious thing about the swaying leaves was their color. They seemed to have a general groundwork of blue, but here and there other colors glinted at times through the blue--gorgeous yellows, turning to pink, purple, orange and scarlet, mingled with more sober browns and grays--each appearing as a blotch or stripe anywhere on a leaf and then disappearing, to be replaced by some other color of a different shape. The changeful coloring of the great leaves was very beautiful, but it was bewildering, as well, and the novelty of the scene drew our travelers close to the line of plants, where they stood watching them with rapt interest. Suddenly a leaf bent lower than usual and touched the Patchwork Girl. Swiftly it enveloped her in its embrace, covering her completely in its thick folds, and then it swayed back upon its stem. "Why, she's gone!" gasped Ojo, in amazement, and listening carefully he thought he could hear the muffled screams of Scraps coming from the center of the folded leaf. But, before he could think what he ought to do to save her, another leaf bent down and captured the Glass Cat, rolling around the little creature until she was completely hidden, and then straightening up again upon its stem. "Look out," cried the Woozy. "Run! Run fast, or you are lost." Ojo turned and saw the Woozy running swiftly up the road. But the last leaf of the row of plants seized the beast even as he ran and instantly he disappeared from sight. The boy had no chance to escape. Half a dozen of the great leaves were bending toward him from different directions and as he stood hesitating one of them clutched him in its embrace. In a flash he was in the dark. Then he felt himself gently lifted until he was swaying in the air, with the folds of the leaf hugging him on all sides. At first he struggled hard to escape, crying out in anger: "Let me go! Let me go!" But neither struggles nor protests had any effect whatever. The leaf held him firmly and he was a prisoner. Then Ojo quieted himself and tried to think. Despair fell upon him when he remembered that all his little party had been captured, even as he was, and there was none to save them. "I might have expected it," he sobbed, miserably. "I'm Ojo the Unlucky, and something dreadful was sure to happen to me." He pushed against the leaf that held him and found it to be soft, but thick and firm. It was like a great bandage all around him and he found it difficult to move his body or limbs in order to change their position. The minutes passed and became hours. Ojo wondered how long one could live in such a condition and if the leaf would gradually sap his strength and even his life, in order to feed itself. The little Munchkin boy had never heard of any person dying in the Land of Oz, but he knew one could suffer a great deal of pain. His greatest fear at this time was that he would always remain imprisoned in the beautiful leaf and never see the light of day again. No sound came to him through the leaf; all around was intense silence. Ojo wondered if Scraps had stopped screaming, or if the folds of the leaf prevented his hearing her. By and by he thought he heard a whistle, as of some one whistling a tune. Yes; it really must be some one whistling, he decided, for he could follow the strains of a pretty Munchkin melody that Unc Nunkie used to sing to him. The sounds were low and sweet and, although they reached Ojo's ears very faintly, they were clear and harmonious. Could the leaf whistle, Ojo wondered? Nearer and nearer came the sounds and then they seemed to be just the other side of the leaf that was hugging him. Suddenly the whole leaf toppled and fell, carrying the boy with it, and while he sprawled at full length the folds slowly relaxed and set him free. He scrambled quickly to his feet and found that a strange man was standing before him--a man so curious in appearance that the boy stared with round eyes. He was a big man, with shaggy whiskers, shaggy eyebrows, shaggy hair--but kindly blue eyes that were gentle as those of a cow. On his head was a green velvet hat with a jeweled band, which was all shaggy around the brim. Rich but shaggy laces were at his throat; a coat with shaggy edges was decorated with diamond buttons; the velvet breeches had jeweled buckles at the knees and shags all around the bottoms. On his breast hung a medallion bearing a picture of Princess Dorothy of Oz, and in his hand, as he stood looking at Ojo, was a sharp knife shaped like a dagger. "Oh!" exclaimed Ojo, greatly astonished at the sight of this stranger; and then he added: "Who has saved me, sir?" "Can't you see?" replied the other, with a smile; "I'm the Shaggy Man." "Yes; I can see that," said the boy, nodding. "Was it you who rescued me from the leaf?" "None other, you may be sure. But take care, or I shall have to rescue you again." Ojo gave a jump, for he saw several broad leaves leaning toward him; but the Shaggy Man began to whistle again, and at the sound the leaves all straightened up on their stems and kept still. The man now took Ojo's arm and led him up the road, past the last of the great plants, and not till he was safely beyond their reach did he cease his whistling. "You see, the music charms 'em," said he. "Singing or whistling--it doesn't matter which--makes 'em behave, and nothing else will. I always whistle as I go by 'em and so they always let me alone. To-day as I went by, whistling, I saw a leaf curled and knew there must be something inside it. I cut down the leaf with my knife and--out you popped. Lucky I passed by, wasn't it?" "You were very kind," said Ojo, "and I thank you. Will you please rescue my companions, also?" "What companions?" asked the Shaggy Man. "The leaves grabbed them all," said the boy. "There's a Patchwork Girl and--" "A what?" "A girl made of patchwork, you know. She's alive and her name is Scraps. And there's a Glass Cat--" "Glass?" asked the Shaggy Man. "All glass." "And alive?" "Yes," said Ojo; "she has pink brains. And there's a Woozy--" "What's a Woozy?" inquired the Shaggy Man. "Why, I--I--can't describe it," answered the boy, greatly perplexed. "But it's a queer animal with three hairs on the tip of its tail that won't come out and--" "What won't come out?" asked the Shaggy Man; "the tail?" "The hairs won't come out. But you'll see the Woozy, if you'll please rescue it, and then you'll know just what it is." "Of course," said the Shaggy Man, nodding his shaggy head. And then he walked back among the plants, still whistling, and found the three leaves which were curled around Ojo's traveling companions. The first leaf he cut down released Scraps, and on seeing her the Shaggy Man threw back his shaggy head, opened wide his mouth and laughed so shaggily and yet so merrily that Scraps liked him at once. Then he took off his hat and made her a low bow, saying: "My dear, you're a wonder. I must introduce you to my friend the Scarecrow." When he cut down the second leaf he rescued the Glass Cat, and Bungle was so frightened that she scampered away like a streak and soon had joined Ojo, when she sat beside him panting and trembling. The last plant of all the row had captured the Woozy, and a big bunch in the center of the curled leaf showed plainly where he was. With his sharp knife the Shaggy Man sliced off the stem of the leaf and as it fell and unfolded out trotted the Woozy and escaped beyond the reach of any more of the dangerous plants. Chapter Eleven A Good Friend Soon the entire party was gathered on the road of yellow bricks, quite beyond the reach of the beautiful but treacherous plants. The Shaggy Man, staring first at one and then at the other, seemed greatly pleased and interested. "I've seen queer things since I came to the Land of Oz," said he, "but never anything queerer than this band of adventurers. Let us sit down a while, and have a talk and get acquainted." "Haven't you always lived in the Land of Oz?" asked the Munchkin boy. "No; I used to live in the big, outside world. But I came here once with Dorothy, and Ozma let me stay." "How do you like Oz?" asked Scraps. "Isn't the country and the climate grand?" "It's the finest country in all the world, even if it is a fairyland, and I'm happy every minute I live in it," said the Shaggy Man. "But tell me something about yourselves." So Ojo related the story of his visit to the house of the Crooked Magician, and how he met there the Glass Cat, and how the Patchwork Girl was brought to life and of the terrible accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte. Then he told how he had set out to find the five different things which the Magician needed to make a charm that would restore the marble figures to life, one requirement being three hairs from a Woozy's tail. "We found the Woozy," explained the boy, "and he agreed to give us the three hairs; but we couldn't pull them out. So we had to bring the Woozy along with us." "I see," returned the Shaggy Man, who had listened with interest to the story. "But perhaps I, who am big and strong, can pull those three hairs from the Woozy's tail." "Try it, if you like," said the Woozy. So the Shaggy Man tried it, but pull as hard as he could he failed to get the hairs out of the Woozy's tail. So he sat down again and wiped his shaggy face with a shaggy silk handkerchief and said: "It doesn't matter. If you can keep the Woozy until you get the rest of the things you need, you can take the beast and his three hairs to the Crooked Magician and let him find a way to extract 'em. What are the other things you are to find?" "One," said Ojo, "is a six-leaved clover." "You ought to find that in the fields around the Emerald City," said the Shaggy Man. "There is a Law against picking six-leaved clovers, but I think I can get Ozma to let you have one." "Thank you," replied Ojo. "The next thing is the left wing of a yellow butterfly." "For that you must go to the Winkie Country," the Shaggy Man declared. "I've never noticed any butterflies there, but that is the yellow country of Oz and it's ruled by a good friend of mine, the Tin Woodman." "Oh, I've heard of him!" exclaimed Ojo. "He must be a wonderful man." "So he is, and his heart is wonderfully kind. I'm sure the Tin Woodman will do all in his power to help you to save your Unc Nunkie and poor Margolotte." "The next thing I must find," said the Munchkin boy, "is a gill of water from a dark well." "Indeed! Well, that is more difficult," said the Shaggy Man, scratching his left ear in a puzzled way. "I've never heard of a dark well; have you?" "No," said Ojo. "Do you know where one may be found?" inquired the Shaggy Man. "I can't imagine," said Ojo. "Then we must ask the Scarecrow." "The Scarecrow! But surely, sir, a scarecrow can't know anything." "Most scarecrows don't, I admit," answered the Shaggy Man. "But this Scarecrow of whom I speak is very intelligent. He claims to possess the best brains in all Oz." "Better than mine?" asked Scraps. "Better than mine?" echoed the Glass Cat. "Mine are pink, and you can see 'em work." "Well, you can't see the Scarecrow's brains work, but they do a lot of clever thinking," asserted the Shaggy Man. "If anyone knows where a dark well is, it's my friend the Scarecrow." "Where does he live?" inquired Ojo. "He has a splendid castle in the Winkie Country, near to the palace of his friend the Tin Woodman, and he is often to be found in the Emerald City, where he visits Dorothy at the royal palace." "Then we will ask him about the dark well," said Ojo. "But what else does this Crooked Magician want?" asked the Shaggy Man. "A drop of oil from a live man's body." "Oh; but there isn't such a thing." "That is what I thought," replied Ojo; "but the Crooked Magician said it wouldn't be called for by the recipe if it couldn't be found, and therefore I must search until I find it." "I wish you good luck," said the Shaggy Man, shaking his head doubtfully; "but I imagine you'll have a hard job getting a drop of oil from a live man's body. There's blood in a body, but no oil." "There's cotton in mine," said Scraps, dancing a little jig. "I don't doubt it," returned the Shaggy Man admiringly. "You're a regular comforter and as sweet as patchwork can be. All you lack is dignity." "I hate dignity," cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. "Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor the other." "She's just crazy," explained the Glass Cat. The Shaggy Man laughed. "She's delightful, in her way," he said. "I'm sure Dorothy will be pleased with her, and the Scarecrow will dote on her. Did you say you were traveling toward the Emerald City?" "Yes," replied Ojo. "I thought that the best place to go, at first, because the six-leaved clover may be found there." "I'll go with you," said the Shaggy Man, "and show you the way." "Thank you," exclaimed Ojo. "I hope it won't put you out any." "No," said the other, "I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I've been a rover all my life, and although Ozma has given me a suite of beautiful rooms in her palace I still get the wandering fever once in a while and start out to roam the country over. I've been away from the Emerald City several weeks, this time, and now that I've met you and your friends I'm sure it will interest me to accompany you to the great city of Oz and introduce you to my friends." "That will be very nice," said the boy, gratefully. "I hope your friends are not dignified," observed Scraps. "Some are, and some are not," he answered; "but I never criticise my friends. If they are really true friends, they may be anything they like, for all of me." "There's some sense in that," said Scraps, nodding her queer head in approval. "Come on, and let's get to the Emerald City as soon as possible." With this she ran up the path, skipping and dancing, and then turned to await them. "It is quite a distance from here to the Emerald City," remarked the Shaggy Man, "so we shall not get there to-day, nor to-morrow. Therefore let us take the jaunt in an easy manner. I'm an old traveler and have found that I never gain anything by being in a hurry. 'Take it easy' is my motto. If you can't take it easy, take it as easy as you can." After walking some distance over the road of yellow bricks Ojo said he was hungry and would stop to eat some bread and cheese. He offered a portion of the food to the Shaggy Man, who thanked him but refused it. "When I start out on my travels," said he, "I carry along enough square meals to last me several weeks. Think I'll indulge in one now, as long as we're stopping anyway." Saying this, he took a bottle from his pocket and shook from it a tablet about the size of one of Ojo's finger-nails. "That," announced the Shaggy Man, "is a square meal, in condensed form. Invention of the great Professor Woggle-Bug, of the Royal College of Athletics. It contains soup, fish, roast meat, salad, apple-dumplings, ice cream and chocolate-drops, all boiled down to this small size, so it can be conveniently carried and swallowed when you are hungry and need a square meal." "I'm square," said the Woozy. "Give me one, please." So the Shaggy Man gave the Woozy a tablet from his bottle and the beast ate it in a twinkling. "You have now had a six course dinner," declared the Shaggy Man. "Pshaw!" said the Woozy, ungratefully, "I want to taste something. There's no fun in that sort of eating." "One should only eat to sustain life," replied the Shaggy Man, "and that tablet is equal to a peck of other food." "I don't care for it. I want something I can chew and taste," grumbled the Woozy. "You are quite wrong, my poor beast," said the Shaggy Man in a tone of pity. "Think how tired your jaws would get chewing a square meal like this, if it were not condensed to the size of a small tablet--which you can swallow in a jiffy." "Chewing isn't tiresome; it's fun," maintained the Woozy. "I always chew the honey-bees when I catch them. Give me some bread and cheese, Ojo." "No, no! You've already eaten a big dinner!" protested the Shaggy Man. "May be," answered the Woozy; "but I guess I'll fool myself by munching some bread and cheese. I may not be hungry, having eaten all those things you gave me, but I consider this eating business a matter of taste, and I like to realize what's going into me." Ojo gave the beast what he wanted, but the Shaggy Man shook his shaggy head reproachfully and said there was no animal so obstinate or hard to convince as a Woozy. At this moment a patter of footsteps was heard, and looking up they saw the live phonograph standing before them. It seemed to have passed through many adventures since Ojo and his comrades last saw the machine, for the varnish of its wooden case was all marred and dented and scratched in a way that gave it an aged and disreputable appearance. "Dear me!" exclaimed Ojo, staring hard. "What has happened to you?" "Nothing much," replied the phonograph in a sad and depressed voice. "I've had enough things thrown at me, since I left you, to stock a department store and furnish half a dozen bargain-counters." "Are you so broken up that you can't play?" asked Scraps. "No; I still am able to grind out delicious music. Just now I've a record on tap that is really superb," said the phonograph, growing more cheerful. "That is too bad," remarked Ojo. "We've no objection to you as a machine, you know; but as a music-maker we hate you." "Then why was I ever invented?" demanded the machine, in a tone of indignant protest. They looked at one another inquiringly, but no one could answer such a puzzling question. Finally the Shaggy Man said: "I'd like to hear the phonograph play." Ojo sighed. "We've been very happy since we met you, sir," he said. "I know. But a little misery, at times, makes one appreciate happiness more. Tell me, Phony, what is this record like, which you say you have on tap?" "It's a popular song, sir. In all civilized lands the common people have gone wild over it." "Makes civilized folks wild folks, eh? Then it's dangerous." "Wild with joy, I mean," explained the phonograph. "Listen. This song will prove a rare treat to you, I know. It made the author rich--for an author. It is called 'My Lulu.'" Then the phonograph began to play. A strain of odd, jerky sounds was followed by these words, sung by a man through his nose with great vigor of expression: "Ah wants mah Lulu, mah coal-black Lulu; Ah wants mah loo-loo, loo-loo, loo-loo, Lu! Ah loves mah Lulu, mah coal-black Lulu, There ain't nobody else loves loo-loo, Lu!" "Here--shut that off!" cried the Shaggy Man, springing to his feet. "What do you mean by such impertinence?" "It's the latest popular song," declared the phonograph, speaking in a sulky tone of voice. "A popular song?" "Yes. One that the feeble-minded can remember the words of and those ignorant of music can whistle or sing. That makes a popular song popular, and the time is coming when it will take the place of all other songs." "That time won't come to us, just yet," said the Shaggy Man, sternly: "I'm something of a singer myself, and I don't intend to be throttled by any Lulus like your coal-black one. I shall take you all apart, Mr. Phony, and scatter your pieces far and wide over the country, as a matter of kindness to the people you might meet if allowed to run around loose. Having performed this painful duty I shall--" But before he could say more the phonograph turned and dashed up the road as fast as its four table-legs could carry it, and soon it had entirely disappeared from their view. The Shaggy Man sat down again and seemed well pleased. "Some one else will save me the trouble of scattering that phonograph," said he; "for it is not possible that such a music-maker can last long in the Land of Oz. When you are rested, friends, let us go on our way." During the afternoon the travelers found themselves in a lonely and uninhabited part of the country. Even the fields were no longer cultivated and the country began to resemble a wilderness. The road of yellow bricks seemed to have been neglected and became uneven and more difficult to walk upon. Scrubby under-brush grew on either side of the way, while huge rocks were scattered around in abundance. But this did not deter Ojo and his friends from trudging on, and they beguiled the journey with jokes and cheerful conversation. Toward evening they reached a crystal spring which gushed from a tall rock by the roadside and near this spring stood a deserted cabin. Said the Shaggy Man, halting here: "We may as well pass the night here, where there is shelter for our heads and good water to drink. Road beyond here is pretty bad; worst we shall have to travel; so let's wait until morning before we tackle it." They agreed to this and Ojo found some brushwood in the cabin and made a fire on the hearth. The fire delighted Scraps, who danced before it until Ojo warned her she might set fire to herself and burn up. After that the Patchwork Girl kept at a respectful distance from the darting flames, but the Woozy lay down before the fire like a big dog and seemed to enjoy its warmth. For supper the Shaggy Man ate one of his tablets, but Ojo stuck to his bread and cheese as the most satisfying food. He also gave a portion to the Woozy. When darkness came on and they sat in a circle on the cabin floor, facing the firelight--there being no furniture of any sort in the place--Ojo said to the Shaggy Man: "Won't you tell us a story?" "I'm not good at stories," was the reply; "but I sing like a bird." "Raven, or crow?" asked the Glass Cat. "Like a song bird. I'll prove it. I'll sing a song I composed myself. Don't tell anyone I'm a poet; they might want me to write a book. Don't tell 'em I can sing, or they'd want me to make records for that awful phonograph. Haven't time to be a public benefactor, so I'll just sing you this little song for your own amusement." They were glad enough to be entertained, and listened with interest while the Shaggy Man chanted the following verses to a tune that was not unpleasant: "I'll sing a song of Ozland, where wondrous creatures dwell And fruits and flowers and shady bowers abound in every dell, Where magic is a science and where no one shows surprise If some amazing thing takes place before his very eyes. Our Ruler's a bewitching girl whom fairies love to please; She's always kept her magic sceptre to enforce decrees To make her people happy, for her heart is kind and true And to aid the needy and distressed is what she longs to do. And then there's Princess Dorothy, as sweet as any rose, A lass from Kansas, where they don't grow fairies, I suppose; And there's the brainy Scarecrow, with a body stuffed with straw, Who utters words of wisdom rare that fill us all with awe. I'll not forget Nick Chopper, the Woodman made of Tin, Whose tender heart thinks killing time is quite a dreadful sin, Nor old Professor Woggle-Bug, who's highly magnified And looks so big to everyone that he is filled with pride. Jack Pumpkinhead's a dear old chum who might be called a chump, But won renown by riding round upon a magic Gump; The Sawhorse is a splendid steed and though he's made of wood He does as many thrilling stunts as any meat horse could. And now I'll introduce a beast that ev'ryone adores-- The Cowardly Lion shakes with fear 'most ev'ry time he roars, And yet he does the bravest things that any lion might, Because he knows that cowardice is not considered right. There's Tik-Tok--he's a clockwork man and quite a funny sight-- He talks and walks mechanically, when he's wound up tight; And we've a Hungry Tiger who would babies love to eat But never does because we feed him other kinds of meat. It's hard to name all of the freaks this noble Land's acquired; 'Twould make my song so very long that you would soon be tired; But give attention while I mention one wise Yellow Hen And Nine fine Tiny Piglets living in a golden pen. Just search the whole world over--sail the seas from coast to coast-- No other nation in creation queerer folk can boast; And now our rare museum will include a Cat of Glass, A Woozy, and--last but not least--a crazy Patchwork Lass." Ojo was so pleased with this song that he applauded the singer by clapping his hands, and Scraps followed suit by clapping her padded fingers together, although they made no noise. The cat pounded on the floor with her glass paws--gently, so as not to break them--and the Woozy, which had been asleep, woke up to ask what the row was about. "I seldom sing in public, for fear they might want me to start an opera company," remarked the Shaggy Man, who was pleased to know his effort was appreciated. "Voice, just now, is a little out of training; rusty, perhaps." "Tell me," said the Patchwork Girl earnestly, "do all those queer people you mention really live in the Land of Oz?" "Every one of 'em. I even forgot one thing: Dorothy's Pink Kitten." "For goodness sake!" exclaimed Bungle, sitting up and looking interested. "A Pink Kitten? How absurd! Is it glass?" "No; just ordinary kitten." "Then it can't amount to much. I have pink brains, and you can see 'em work." "Dorothy's kitten is all pink--brains and all--except blue eyes. Name's Eureka. Great favorite at the royal palace," said the Shaggy Man, yawning. The Glass Cat seemed annoyed. "Do you think a pink kitten--common meat--is as pretty as I am?" she asked. "Can't say. Tastes differ, you know," replied the Shaggy Man, yawning again. "But here's a pointer that may be of service to you: make friends with Eureka and you'll be solid at the palace." "I'm solid now; solid glass." "You don't understand," rejoined the Shaggy Man, sleepily. "Anyhow, make friends with the Pink Kitten and you'll be all right. If the Pink Kitten despises you, look out for breakers." "Would anyone at the royal palace break a Glass Cat?" "Might. You never can tell. Advise you to purr soft and look humble--if you can. And now I'm going to bed." Bungle considered the Shaggy Man's advice so carefully that her pink brains were busy long after the others of the party were fast asleep. Chapter Twelve The Giant Porcupine Next morning they started out bright and early to follow the road of yellow bricks toward the Emerald City. The little Munchkin boy was beginning to feel tired from the long walk, and he had a great many things to think of and consider besides the events of the journey. At the wonderful Emerald City, which he would presently reach, were so many strange and curious people that he was half afraid of meeting them and wondered if they would prove friendly and kind. Above all else, he could not drive from his mind the important errand on which he had come, and he was determined to devote every energy to finding the things that were necessary to prepare the magic recipe. He believed that until dear Unc Nunkie was restored to life he could feel no joy in anything, and often he wished that Unc could be with him, to see all the astonishing things Ojo was seeing. But alas Unc Nunkie was now a marble statue in the house of the Crooked Magician and Ojo must not falter in his efforts to save him. The country through which they were passing was still rocky and deserted, with here and there a bush or a tree to break the dreary landscape. Ojo noticed one tree, especially, because it had such long, silky leaves and was so beautiful in shape. As he approached it he studied the tree earnestly, wondering if any fruit grew on it or if it bore pretty flowers. Suddenly he became aware that he had been looking at that tree a long time--at least for five minutes--and it had remained in the same position, although the boy had continued to walk steadily on. So he stopped short, and when he stopped, the tree and all the landscape, as well as his companions, moved on before him and left him far behind. Ojo uttered such a cry of astonishment that it aroused the Shaggy Man, who also halted. The others then stopped, too, and walked back to the boy. "What's wrong?" asked the Shaggy Man. "Why, we're not moving forward a bit, no matter how fast we walk," declared Ojo. "Now that we have stopped, we are moving backward! Can't you see? Just notice that rock." Scraps looked down at her feet and said: "The yellow bricks are not moving." "But the whole road is," answered Ojo. "True; quite true," agreed the Shaggy Man. "I know all about the tricks of this road, but I have been thinking of something else and didn't realize where we were." "It will carry us back to where we started from," predicted Ojo, beginning to be nervous. "No," replied the Shaggy Man; "it won't do that, for I know a trick to beat this tricky road. I've traveled this way before, you know. Turn around, all of you, and walk backward." "What good will that do?" asked the cat. "You'll find out, if you obey me," said the Shaggy Man. So they all turned their backs to the direction in which they wished to go and began walking backward. In an instant Ojo noticed they were gaining ground and as they proceeded in this curious way they soon passed the tree which had first attracted his attention to their difficulty. "How long must we keep this up, Shags?" asked Scraps, who was constantly tripping and tumbling down, only to get up again with a laugh at her mishap. "Just a little way farther," replied the Shaggy Man. A few minutes later he called to them to turn about quickly and step forward, and as they obeyed the order they found themselves treading solid ground. "That task is well over," observed the Shaggy Man. "It's a little tiresome to walk backward, but that is the only way to pass this part of the road, which has a trick of sliding back and carrying with it anyone who is walking upon it." With new courage and energy they now trudged forward and after a time came to a place where the road cut through a low hill, leaving high banks on either side of it. They were traveling along this cut, talking together, when the Shaggy Man seized Scraps with one arm and Ojo with another and shouted: "Stop!" "What's wrong now?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "See there!" answered the Shaggy Man, pointing with his finger. Directly in the center of the road lay a motionless object that bristled all over with sharp quills, which resembled arrows. The body was as big as a ten-bushel-basket, but the projecting quills made it appear to be four times bigger. "Well, what of it?" asked Scraps. "That is Chiss, who causes a lot of trouble along this road," was the reply. "Chiss! What is Chiss? "I think it is merely an overgrown porcupine, but here in Oz they consider Chiss an evil spirit. He's different from a reg'lar porcupine, because he can throw his quills in any direction, which an American porcupine cannot do. That's what makes old Chiss so dangerous. If we get too near, he'll fire those quills at us and hurt us badly." "Then we will be foolish to get too near," said Scraps. "I'm not afraid," declared the Woozy. "The Chiss is cowardly, I'm sure, and if it ever heard my awful, terrible, frightful growl, it would be scared stiff." "Oh; can you growl?" asked the Shaggy Man. "That is the only ferocious thing about me," asserted the Woozy with evident pride. "My growl makes an earthquake blush and the thunder ashamed of itself. If I growled at that creature you call Chiss, it would immediately think the world had cracked in two and bumped against the sun and moon, and that would cause the monster to run as far and as fast as its legs could carry it." "In that case," said the Shaggy Man, "you are now able to do us all a great favor. Please growl." "But you forget," returned the Woozy; "my tremendous growl would also frighten you, and if you happen to have heart disease you might expire." "True; but we must take that risk," decided the Shaggy Man, bravely. "Being warned of what is to occur we must try to bear the terrific noise of your growl; but Chiss won't expect it, and it will scare him away." The Woozy hesitated. "I'm fond of you all, and I hate to shock you," it said. "Never mind," said Ojo. "You may be made deaf." "If so, we will forgive you." "Very well, then," said the Woozy in a determined voice, and advanced a few steps toward the giant porcupine. Pausing to look back, it asked: "All ready?" "All ready!" they answered. "Then cover up your ears and brace yourselves firmly. Now, then--look out!" The Woozy turned toward Chiss, opened wide its mouth and said: "Quee-ee-ee-eek." "Go ahead and growl," said Scraps. "Why, I--I did growl!" retorted the Woozy, who seemed much astonished. "What, that little squeak?" she cried. "It is the most awful growl that ever was heard, on land or sea, in caverns or in the sky," protested the Woozy. "I wonder you stood the shock so well. Didn't you feel the ground tremble? I suppose Chiss is now quite dead with fright." The Shaggy Man laughed merrily. "Poor Wooz!" said he; "your growl wouldn't scare a fly." The Woozy seemed to be humiliated and surprised. It hung its head a moment, as if in shame or sorrow, but then it said with renewed confidence: "Anyhow, my eyes can flash fire; and good fire, too; good enough to set fire to a fence!" "That is true," declared Scraps; "I saw it done myself. But your ferocious growl isn't as loud as the tick of a beetle--or one of Ojo's snores when he's fast asleep." "Perhaps," said the Woozy, humbly, "I have been mistaken about my growl. It has always sounded very fearful to me, but that may have been because it was so close to my ears." "Never mind," Ojo said soothingly; "it is a great talent to be able to flash fire from your eyes. No one else can do that." As they stood hesitating what to do Chiss stirred and suddenly a shower of quills came flying toward them, almost filling the air, they were so many. Scraps realized in an instant that they had gone too near to Chiss for safety, so she sprang in front of Ojo and shielded him from the darts, which stuck their points into her own body until she resembled one of those targets they shoot arrows at in archery games. The Shaggy Man dropped flat on his face to avoid the shower, but one quill struck him in the leg and went far in. As for the Glass Cat, the quills rattled off her body without making even a scratch, and the skin of the Woozy was so thick and tough that he was not hurt at all. When the attack was over they all ran to the Shaggy Man, who was moaning and groaning, and Scraps promptly pulled the quill out of his leg. Then up he jumped and ran over to Chiss, putting his foot on the monster's neck and holding it a prisoner. The body of the great porcupine was now as smooth as leather, except for the holes where the quills had been, for it had shot every single quill in that one wicked shower. "Let me go!" it shouted angrily. "How dare you put your foot on Chiss?" "I'm going to do worse than that, old boy," replied the Shaggy Man. "You have annoyed travelers on this road long enough, and now I shall put an end to you." "You can't!" returned Chiss. "Nothing can kill me, as you know perfectly well." "Perhaps that is true," said the Shaggy Man in a tone of disappointment. "Seems to me I've been told before that you can't be killed. But if I let you go, what will you do?" "Pick up my quills again," said Chiss in a sulky voice. "And then shoot them at more travelers? No; that won't do. You must promise me to stop throwing quills at people." "I won't promise anything of the sort," declared Chiss. "Why not?" "Because it is my nature to throw quills, and every animal must do what Nature intends it to do. It isn't fair for you to blame me. If it were wrong for me to throw quills, then I wouldn't be made with quills to throw. The proper thing for you to do is to keep out of my way." "Why, there's some sense in that argument," admitted the Shaggy Man, thoughtfully; "but people who are strangers, and don't know you are here, won't be able to keep out of your way." "Tell you what," said Scraps, who was trying to pull the quills out of her own body, "let's gather up all the quills and take them away with us; then old Chiss won't have any left to throw at people." "Ah, that's a clever idea. You and Ojo must gather up the quills while I hold Chiss a prisoner; for, if I let him go, he will get some of his quills and be able to throw them again." So Scraps and Ojo picked up all the quills and tied them in a bundle so they might easily be carried. After this the Shaggy Man released Chiss and let him go, knowing that he was harmless to injure anyone. "It's the meanest trick I ever heard of," muttered the porcupine gloomily. "How would you like it, Shaggy Man, if I took all your shags away from you?" "If I threw my shags and hurt people, you would be welcome to capture them," was the reply. Then they walked on and left Chiss standing in the road sullen and disconsolate. The Shaggy Man limped as he walked, for his wound still hurt him, and Scraps was much annoyed because the quills had left a number of small holes in her patches. When they came to a flat stone by the roadside the Shaggy Man sat down to rest, and then Ojo opened his basket and took out the bundle of charms the Crooked Magician had given him. "I am Ojo the Unlucky," he said, "or we would never have met that dreadful porcupine. But I will see if I can find anything among these charms which will cure your leg." Soon he discovered that one of the charms was labelled: "For flesh wounds," and this the boy separated from the others. It was only a bit of dried root, taken from some unknown shrub, but the boy rubbed it upon the wound made by the quill and in a few moments the place was healed entirely and the Shaggy Man's leg was as good as ever. "Rub it on the holes in my patches," suggested Scraps, and Ojo tried it, but without any effect. "The charm you need is a needle and thread," said the Shaggy Man. "But do not worry, my dear; those holes do not look badly, at all." "They'll let in the air, and I don't want people to think I'm airy, or that I've been stuck up," said the Patchwork Girl. "You were certainly stuck up until we pulled out those quills," observed Ojo, with a laugh. So now they went on again and coming presently to a pond of muddy water they tied a heavy stone to the bundle of quills and sunk it to the bottom of the pond, to avoid carrying it farther. Chapter Thirteen Scraps and the Scarecrow From here on the country improved and the desert places began to give way to fertile spots; still no houses were yet to be seen near the road. There were some hills, with valleys between them, and on reaching the top of one of these hills the travelers found before them a high wall, running to the right and the left as far as their eyes could reach. Immediately in front of them, where the wall crossed the roadway, stood a gate having stout iron bars that extended from top to bottom. They found, on coming nearer, that this gate was locked with a great padlock, rusty through lack of use. "Well," said Scraps, "I guess we'll stop here." "It's a good guess," replied Ojo. "Our way is barred by this great wall and gate. It looks as if no one had passed through in many years." "Looks are deceiving," declared the Shaggy Man, laughing at their disappointed faces, "and this barrier is the most deceiving thing in all Oz." "It prevents our going any farther, anyhow," said Scraps. "There is no one to mind the gate and let people through, and we've no key to the padlock." "True," replied Ojo, going a little nearer to peep through the bars of the gate. "What shall we do, Shaggy Man? If we had wings we might fly over the wall, but we cannot climb it and unless we get to the Emerald City I won't be able to find the things to restore Unc Nunkie to life." "All very true," answered the Shaggy Man, quietly; "but I know this gate, having passed through it many times." "How?" they all eagerly inquired. "I'll show you how," said he. He stood Ojo in the middle of the road and placed Scraps just behind him, with her padded hands on his shoulders. After the Patchwork Girl came the Woozy, who held a part of her skirt in his mouth. Then, last of all, was the Glass Cat, holding fast to the Woozy's tail with her glass jaws. "Now," said the Shaggy Man, "you must all shut your eyes tight, and keep them shut until I tell you to open them." "I can't," objected Scraps. "My eyes are buttons, and they won't shut." So the Shaggy Man tied his red handkerchief over the Patchwork Girl's eyes and examined all the others to make sure they had their eyes fast shut and could see nothing. "What's the game, anyhow--blind-man's-buff?" asked Scraps. "Keep quiet!" commanded the Shaggy Man, sternly. "All ready? Then follow me." He took Ojo's hand and led him forward over the road of yellow bricks, toward the gate. Holding fast to one another they all followed in a row, expecting every minute to bump against the iron bars. The Shaggy Man also had his eyes closed, but marched straight ahead, nevertheless, and after he had taken one hundred steps, by actual count, he stopped and said: "Now you may open your eyes." They did so, and to their astonishment found the wall and the gateway far behind them, while in front the former Blue Country of the Munchkins had given way to green fields, with pretty farm-houses scattered among them. "That wall," explained the Shaggy Man, "is what is called an optical illusion. It is quite real while you have your eyes open, but if you are not looking at it the barrier doesn't exist at all. It's the same way with many other evils in life; they seem to exist, and yet it's all seeming and not true. You will notice that the wall--or what we thought was a wall--separates the Munchkin Country from the green country that surrounds the Emerald City, which lies exactly in the center of Oz. There are two roads of yellow bricks through the Munchkin Country, but the one we followed is the best of the two. Dorothy once traveled the other way, and met with more dangers than we did. But all our troubles are over for the present, as another day's journey will bring us to the great Emerald City." They were delighted to know this, and proceeded with new courage. In a couple of hours they stopped at a farmhouse, where the people were very hospitable and invited them to dinner. The farm folk regarded Scraps with much curiosity but no great astonishment, for they were accustomed to seeing extraordinary people in the Land of Oz. The woman of this house got her needle and thread and sewed up the holes made by the porcupine quills in the Patchwork Girl's body, after which Scraps was assured she looked as beautiful as ever. "You ought to have a hat to wear," remarked the woman, "for that would keep the sun from fading the colors of your face. I have some patches and scraps put away, and if you will wait two or three days I'll make you a lovely hat that will match the rest of you." "Never mind the hat," said Scraps, shaking her yarn braids; "it's a kind offer, but we can't stop. I can't see that my colors have faded a particle, as yet; can you?" "Not much," replied the woman. "You are still very gorgeous, in spite of your long journey." The children of the house wanted to keep the Glass Cat to play with, so Bungle was offered a good home if she would remain; but the cat was too much interested in Ojo's adventures and refused to stop. "Children are rough playmates," she remarked to the Shaggy Man, "and although this home is more pleasant than that of the Crooked Magician I fear I would soon be smashed to pieces by the boys and girls." After they had rested themselves they renewed their journey, finding the road now smooth and pleasant to walk upon and the country growing more beautiful the nearer they drew to the Emerald City. By and by Ojo began to walk on the green grass, looking carefully around him. "What are you trying to find?" asked Scraps. "A six-leaved clover," said he. "Don't do that!" exclaimed the Shaggy Man, earnestly. "It's against the Law to pick a six-leaved clover. You must wait until you get Ozma's consent." "She wouldn't know it," declared the boy. "Ozma knows many things," said the Shaggy Man. "In her room is a Magic Picture that shows any scene in the Land of Oz where strangers or travelers happen to be. She may be watching the picture of us even now, and noticing everything that we do." "Does she always watch the Magic Picture?" asked Ojo. "Not always, for she has many other things to do; but, as I said, she may be watching us this very minute." "I don't care," said Ojo, in an obstinate tone of voice; "Ozma's only a girl." The Shaggy Man looked at him in surprise. "You ought to care for Ozma," said he, "if you expect to save your uncle. For, if you displease our powerful Ruler, your journey will surely prove a failure; whereas, if you make a friend of Ozma, she will gladly assist you. As for her being a girl, that is another reason why you should obey her laws, if you are courteous and polite. Everyone in Oz loves Ozma and hates her enemies, for she is as just as she is powerful." Ojo sulked a while, but finally returned to the road and kept away from the green clover. The boy was moody and bad tempered for an hour or two afterward, because he could really see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover, if he found one, and in spite of what the Shaggy Man had said he considered Ozma's law to be unjust. They presently came to a beautiful grove of tall and stately trees, through which the road wound in sharp curves--first one way and then another. As they were walking through this grove they heard some one in the distance singing, and the sounds grew nearer and nearer until they could distinguish the words, although the bend in the road still hid the singer. The song was something like this: "Here's to the hale old bale of straw That's cut from the waving grain, The sweetest sight man ever saw In forest, dell or plain. It fills me with a crunkling joy A straw-stack to behold, For then I pad this lucky boy With strands of yellow gold." "Ah!" exclaimed the Shaggy Man; "here comes my friend the Scarecrow." "What, a live Scarecrow?" asked Ojo. "Yes; the one I told you of. He's a splendid fellow, and very intelligent. You'll like him, I'm sure." Just then the famous Scarecrow of Oz came around the bend in the road, riding astride a wooden Sawhorse which was so small that its rider's legs nearly touched the ground. The Scarecrow wore the blue dress of the Munchkins, in which country he was made, and on his head was set a peaked hat with a flat brim trimmed with tinkling bells. A rope was tied around his waist to hold him in shape, for he was stuffed with straw in every part of him except the top of his head, where at one time the Wizard of Oz had placed sawdust, mixed with needles and pins, to sharpen his wits. The head itself was merely a bag of cloth, fastened to the body at the neck, and on the front of this bag was painted the face--ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The Scarecrow's face was very interesting, for it bore a comical and yet winning expression, although one eye was a bit larger than the other and ears were not mates. The Munchkin farmer who had made the Scarecrow had neglected to sew him together with close stitches and therefore some of the straw with which he was stuffed was inclined to stick out between the seams. His hands consisted of padded white gloves, with the fingers long and rather limp, and on his feet he wore Munchkin boots of blue leather with broad turns at the tops of them. The Sawhorse was almost as curious as its rider. It had been rudely made, in the beginning, to saw logs upon, so that its body was a short length of a log, and its legs were stout branches fitted into four holes made in the body. The tail was formed by a small branch that had been left on the log, while the head was a gnarled bump on one end of the body. Two knots of wood formed the eyes, and the mouth was a gash chopped in the log. When the Sawhorse first came to life it had no ears at all, and so could not hear; but the boy who then owned him had whittled two ears out of bark and stuck them in the head, after which the Sawhorse heard very distinctly. This queer wooden horse was a great favorite with Princess Ozma, who had caused the bottoms of its legs to be shod with plates of gold, so the wood would not wear away. Its saddle was made of cloth-of-gold richly encrusted with precious gems. It had never worn a bridle. As the Scarecrow came in sight of the party of travelers, he reined in his wooden steed and dismounted, greeting the Shaggy Man with a smiling nod. Then he turned to stare at the Patchwork Girl in wonder, while she in turn stared at him. "Shags," he whispered, drawing the Shaggy Man aside, "pat me into shape, there's a good fellow!" While his friend punched and patted the Scarecrow's body, to smooth out the humps, Scraps turned to Ojo and whispered: "Roll me out, please; I've sagged down dreadfully from walking so much and men like to see a stately figure." She then fell upon the ground and the boy rolled her back and forth like a rolling-pin, until the cotton had filled all the spaces in her patchwork covering and the body had lengthened to its fullest extent. Scraps and the Scarecrow both finished their hasty toilets at the same time, and again they faced each other. "Allow me, Miss Patchwork," said the Shaggy Man, "to present my friend, the Right Royal Scarecrow of Oz. Scarecrow, this is Miss Scraps Patches; Scraps, this is the Scarecrow. Scarecrow--Scraps; Scraps--Scarecrow." They both bowed with much dignity. "Forgive me for staring so rudely," said the Scarecrow, "but you are the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld." "That is a high compliment from one who is himself so beautiful," murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head. "But, tell me, good sir, are you not a trifle lumpy?" "Yes, of course; that's my straw, you know. It bunches up, sometimes, in spite of all my efforts to keep it even. Doesn't your straw ever bunch?" "Oh, I'm stuffed with cotton," said Scraps. "It never bunches, but it's inclined to pack down and make me sag." "But cotton is a high-grade stuffing. I may say it is even more stylish, not to say aristocratic, than straw," said the Scarecrow politely. "Still, it is but proper that one so entrancingly lovely should have the best stuffing there is going. I--er--I'm so glad I've met you, Miss Scraps! Introduce us again, Shaggy." "Once is enough," replied the Shaggy Man, laughing at his friend's enthusiasm. "Then tell me where you found her, and--Dear me, what a queer cat! What are you made of--gelatine?" "Pure glass," answered the cat, proud to have attracted the Scarecrow's attention. "I am much more beautiful than the Patchwork Girl. I'm transparent, and Scraps isn't; I've pink brains--you can see 'em work; and I've a ruby heart, finely polished, while Scraps hasn't any heart at all." "No more have I," said the Scarecrow, shaking hands with Scraps, as if to congratulate her on the fact. "I've a friend, the Tin Woodman, who has a heart, but I find I get along pretty well without one. And so--Well, well! here's a little Munchkin boy, too. Shake hands, my little man. How are you?" Ojo placed his hand in the flabby stuffed glove that served the Scarecrow for a hand, and the Scarecrow pressed it so cordially that the straw in his glove crackled. Meantime, the Woozy had approached the Sawhorse and begun to sniff at it. The Sawhorse resented this familiarity and with a sudden kick pounded the Woozy squarely on its head with one gold-shod foot. "Take that, you monster!" it cried angrily. The Woozy never even winked. "To be sure," he said; "I'll take anything I have to. But don't make me angry, you wooden beast, or my eyes will flash fire and burn you up." The Sawhorse rolled its knot eyes wickedly and kicked again, but the Woozy trotted away and said to the Scarecrow: "What a sweet disposition that creature has! I advise you to chop it up for kindling-wood and use me to ride upon. My back is flat and you can't fall off." "I think the trouble is that you haven't been properly introduced," said the Scarecrow, regarding the Woozy with much wonder, for he had never seen such a queer animal before. "The Sawhorse is the favorite steed of Princess Ozma, the Ruler of the Land of Oz, and he lives in a stable decorated with pearls and emeralds, at the rear of the royal palace. He is swift as the wind, untiring, and is kind to his friends. All the people of Oz respect the Sawhorse highly, and when I visit Ozma she sometimes allows me to ride him--as I am doing to-day. Now you know what an important personage the Sawhorse is, and if some one--perhaps yourself--will tell me your name, your rank and station, and your history, it will give me pleasure to relate them to the Sawhorse. This will lead to mutual respect and friendship." The Woozy was somewhat abashed by this speech and did not know how to reply. But Ojo said: "This square beast is called the Woozy, and he isn't of much importance except that he has three hairs growing on the tip of his tail." The Scarecrow looked and saw that this was true. "But," said he, in a puzzled way, "what makes those three hairs important? The Shaggy Man has thousands of hairs, but no one has ever accused him of being important." So Ojo related the sad story of Unc Nunkie's transformation into a marble statue, and told how he had set out to find the things the Crooked Magician wanted, in order to make a charm that would restore his uncle to life. One of the requirements was three hairs from a Woozy's tail, but not being able to pull out the hairs they had been obliged to take the Woozy with them. The Scarecrow looked grave as he listened and he shook his head several times, as if in disapproval. "We must see Ozma about this matter," he said. "That Crooked Magician is breaking the Law by practicing magic without a license, and I'm not sure Ozma will allow him to restore your uncle to life." "Already I have warned the boy of that," declared the Shaggy Man. At this Ojo began to cry. "I want my Unc Nunkie!" he exclaimed. "I know how he can be restored to life, and I'm going to do it--Ozma or no Ozma! What right has this girl Ruler to keep my Unc Nunkie a statue forever?" "Don't worry about that just now," advised the Scarecrow. "Go on to the Emerald City, and when you reach it have the Shaggy Man take you to see Dorothy. Tell her your story and I'm sure she will help you. Dorothy is Ozma's best friend, and if you can win her to your side your uncle is pretty safe to live again." Then he turned to the Woozy and said: "I'm afraid you are not important enough to be introduced to the Sawhorse, after all." "I'm a better beast than he is," retorted the Woozy, indignantly. "My eyes can flash fire, and his can't." "Is this true?" inquired the Scarecrow, turning to the Munchkin boy. "Yes," said Ojo, and told how the Woozy had set fire to the fence. "Have you any other accomplishments?" asked the Scarecrow. "I have a most terrible growl--that is, sometimes," said the Woozy, as Scraps laughed merrily and the Shaggy Man smiled. But the Patchwork Girl's laugh made the Scarecrow forget all about the Woozy. He said to her: "What an admirable young lady you are, and what jolly good company! We must be better acquainted, for never before have I met a girl with such exquisite coloring or such natural, artless manners." "No wonder they call you the Wise Scarecrow," replied Scraps. "When you arrive at the Emerald City I will see you again," continued the Scarecrow. "Just now I am going to call upon an old friend--an ordinary young lady named Jinjur--who has promised to repaint my left ear for me. You may have noticed that the paint on my left ear has peeled off and faded, which affects my hearing on that side. Jinjur always fixes me up when I get weather-worn." "When do you expect to return to the Emerald City?" asked the Shaggy Man. "I'll be there this evening, for I'm anxious to have a long talk with Miss Scraps. How is it, Sawhorse; are you equal to a swift run?" "Anything that suits you suits me," returned the wooden horse. So the Scarecrow mounted to the jeweled saddle and waved his hat, when the Sawhorse darted away so swiftly that they were out of sight in an instant. Chapter Fourteen Ojo Breaks the Law "What a queer man," remarked the Munchkin boy, when the party had resumed its journey. "And so nice and polite," added Scraps, bobbing her head. "I think he is the handsomest man I've seen since I came to life." "Handsome is as handsome does," quoted the Shaggy Man; "but we must admit that no living scarecrow is handsomer. The chief merit of my friend is that he is a great thinker, and in Oz it is considered good policy to follow his advice." "I didn't notice any brains in his head," observed the Glass Cat. "You can't see 'em work, but they're there, all right," declared the Shaggy Man. "I hadn't much confidence in his brains myself, when first I came to Oz, for a humbug Wizard gave them to him; but I was soon convinced that the Scarecrow is really wise; and, unless his brains make him so, such wisdom is unaccountable." "Is the Wizard of Oz a humbug?" asked Ojo. "Not now. He was once, but he has reformed and now assists Glinda the Good, who is the Royal Sorceress of Oz and the only one licensed to practice magic or sorcery. Glinda has taught our old Wizard a good many clever things, so he is no longer a humbug." They walked a little while in silence and then Ojo said: "If Ozma forbids the Crooked Magician to restore Unc Nunkie to life, what shall I do?" The Shaggy Man shook his head. "In that case you can't do anything," he said. "But don't be discouraged yet. We will go to Princess Dorothy and tell her your troubles, and then we will let her talk to Ozma. Dorothy has the kindest little heart in the world, and she has been through so many troubles herself that she is sure to sympathize with you." "Is Dorothy the little girl who came here from Kansas?" asked the boy. "Yes. In Kansas she was Dorothy Gale. I used to know her there, and she brought me to the Land of Oz. But now Ozma has made her a Princess, and Dorothy's Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are here, too." Here the Shaggy Man uttered a long sigh, and then he continued: "It's a queer country, this Land of Oz; but I like it, nevertheless." "What is queer about it?" asked Scraps. "You, for instance," said he. "Did you see no girls as beautiful as I am in your own country?" she inquired. "None with the same gorgeous, variegated beauty," he confessed. "In America a girl stuffed with cotton wouldn't be alive, nor would anyone think of making a girl out of a patchwork quilt." "What a queer country America must be!" she exclaimed in great surprise. "The Scarecrow, whom you say is wise, told me I am the most beautiful creature he has ever seen." "I know; and perhaps you are--from a scarecrow point of view," replied the Shaggy Man; but why he smiled as he said it Scraps could not imagine. As they drew nearer to the Emerald City the travelers were filled with admiration for the splendid scenery they beheld. Handsome houses stood on both sides of the road and each had a green lawn before it as well as a pretty flower garden. "In another hour," said the Shaggy Man, "we shall come in sight of the walls of the Royal City." He was walking ahead, with Scraps, and behind them came the Woozy and the Glass Cat. Ojo had lagged behind, for in spite of the warnings he had received the boy's eyes were fastened on the clover that bordered the road of yellow bricks and he was eager to discover if such a thing as a six-leaved clover really existed. Suddenly he stopped short and bent over to examine the ground more closely. Yes; here at last was a clover with six spreading leaves. He counted them carefully, to make sure. In an instant his heart leaped with joy, for this was one of the important things he had come for--one of the things that would restore dear Unc Nunkie to life. He glanced ahead and saw that none of his companions was looking back. Neither were any other people about, for it was midway between two houses. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. "I might search for weeks and weeks, and never find another six-leaved clover," he told himself, and quickly plucking the stem from the plant he placed the prized clover in his basket, covering it with the other things he carried there. Then, trying to look as if nothing had happened, he hurried forward and overtook his comrades. The Emerald City, which is the most splendid as well as the most beautiful city in any fairyland, is surrounded by a high, thick wall of green marble, polished smooth and set with glistening emeralds. There are four gates, one facing the Munchkin Country, one facing the Country of the Winkies, one facing the Country of the Quadlings and one facing the Country of the Gillikins. The Emerald City lies directly in the center of these four important countries of Oz. The gates had bars of pure gold, and on either side of each gateway were built high towers, from which floated gay banners. Other towers were set at distances along the walls, which were broad enough for four people to walk abreast upon. This enclosure, all green and gold and glittering with precious gems, was indeed a wonderful sight to greet our travelers, who first observed it from the top of a little hill; but beyond the wall was the vast city it surrounded, and hundreds of jeweled spires, domes and minarets, flaunting flags and banners, reared their crests far above the towers of the gateways. In the center of the city our friends could see the tops of many magnificent trees, some nearly as tall as the spires of the buildings, and the Shaggy Man told them that these trees were in the royal gardens of Princess Ozma. They stood a long time on the hilltop, feasting their eyes on the splendor of the Emerald City. "Whee!" exclaimed Scraps, clasping her padded hands in ecstacy, "that'll do for me to live in, all right. No more of the Munchkin Country for these patches--and no more of the Crooked Magician!" "Why, you belong to Dr. Pipt," replied Ojo, looking at her in amazement. "You were made for a servant, Scraps, so you are personal property and not your own mistress." "Bother Dr. Pipt! If he wants me, let him come here and get me. I'll not go back to his den of my own accord; that's certain. Only one place in the Land of Oz is fit to live in, and that's the Emerald City. It's lovely! It's almost as beautiful as I am, Ojo." "In this country," remarked the Shaggy Man, "people live wherever our Ruler tells them to. It wouldn't do to have everyone live in the Emerald City, you know, for some must plow the land and raise grains and fruits and vegetables, while others chop wood in the forests, or fish in the rivers, or herd the sheep and the cattle." "Poor things!" said Scraps. "I'm not sure they are not happier than the city people," replied the Shaggy Man. "There's a freedom and independence in country life that not even the Emerald City can give one. I know that lots of the city people would like to get back to the land. The Scarecrow lives in the country, and so do the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead; yet all three would be welcome to live in Ozma's palace if they cared to. Too much splendor becomes tiresome, you know. But, if we're to reach the Emerald City before sundown, we must hurry, for it is yet a long way off." The entrancing sight of the city had put new energy into them all and they hurried forward with lighter steps than before. There was much to interest them along the roadway, for the houses were now set more closely together and they met a good many people who were coming or going from one place or another. All these seemed happy-faced, pleasant people, who nodded graciously to the strangers as they passed, and exchanged words of greeting. At last they reached the great gateway, just as the sun was setting and adding its red glow to the glitter of the emeralds on the green walls and spires. Somewhere inside the city a band could be heard playing sweet music; a soft, subdued hum, as of many voices, reached their ears; from the neighboring yards came the low mooing of cows waiting to be milked. They were almost at the gate when the golden bars slid back and a tall soldier stepped out and faced them. Ojo thought he had never seen so tall a man before. The soldier wore a handsome green and gold uniform, with a tall hat in which was a waving plume, and he had a belt thickly encrusted with jewels. But the most peculiar thing about him was his long green beard, which fell far below his waist and perhaps made him seem taller than he really was. "Halt!" said the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, not in a stern voice but rather in a friendly tone. They halted before he spoke and stood looking at him. "Good evening, Colonel," said the Shaggy Man. "What's the news since I left? Anything important?" "Billina has hatched out thirteen new chickens," replied the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, "and they're the cutest little fluffy yellow balls you ever saw. The Yellow Hen is mighty proud of those children, I can tell you." "She has a right to be," agreed the Shaggy Man. "Let me see; that's about seven thousand chicks she has hatched out; isn't it, General?" "That, at least," was the reply. "You will have to visit Billina and congratulate her." "It will give me pleasure to do that," said the Shaggy Man. "But you will observe that I have brought some strangers home with me. I am going to take them to see Dorothy." "One moment, please," said the soldier, barring their way as they started to enter the gate. "I am on duty, and I have orders to execute. Is anyone in your party named Ojo the Unlucky?" "Why, that's me!" cried Ojo, astonished at hearing his name on the lips of a stranger. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers nodded. "I thought so," said he, "and I am sorry to announce that it is my painful duty to arrest you." "Arrest me!" exclaimed the boy. "What for?" "I haven't looked to see," answered the soldier. Then he drew a paper from his breast pocket and glanced at it. "Oh, yes; you are to be arrested for willfully breaking one of the Laws of Oz." "Breaking a law!" said Scraps. "Nonsense, Soldier; you're joking." "Not this time," returned the soldier, with a sigh. "My dear child--what are you, a rummage sale or a guess-me-quick?--in me you behold the Body-Guard of our gracious Ruler, Princess Ozma, as well as the Royal Army of Oz and the Police Force of the Emerald City." "And only one man!" exclaimed the Patchwork Girl. "Only one, and plenty enough. In my official positions I've had nothing to do for a good many years--so long that I began to fear I was absolutely useless--until to-day. An hour ago I was called to the presence of her Highness, Ozma of Oz, and told to arrest a boy named Ojo the Unlucky, who was journeying from the Munchkin Country to the Emerald City and would arrive in a short time. This command so astonished me that I nearly fainted, for it is the first time anyone has merited arrest since I can remember. You are rightly named Ojo the Unlucky, my poor boy, since you have broken a Law of Oz. "But you are wrong," said Scraps. "Ozma is wrong--you are all wrong--for Ojo has broken no Law." "Then he will soon be free again," replied the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. "Anyone accused of crime is given a fair trial by our Ruler and has every chance to prove his innocence. But just now Ozma's orders must be obeyed." With this he took from his pocket a pair of handcuffs made of gold and set with rubies and diamonds, and these he snapped over Ojo's wrists. Chapter Fifteen Ozma's Prisoner The boy was so bewildered by this calamity that he made no resistance at all. He knew very well he was guilty, but it surprised him that Ozma also knew it. He wondered how she had found out so soon that he had picked the six-leaved clover. He handed his basket to Scraps and said: "Keep that, until I get out of prison. If I never get out, take it to the Crooked Magician, to whom it belongs." The Shaggy Man had been gazing earnestly in the boy's face, uncertain whether to defend him or not; but something he read in Ojo's expression made him draw back and refuse to interfere to save him. The Shaggy Man was greatly surprised and grieved, but he knew that Ozma never made mistakes and so Ojo must really have broken the Law of Oz. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers now led them all through the gate and into a little room built in the wall. Here sat a jolly little man, richly dressed in green and having around his neck a heavy gold chain to which a number of great golden keys were attached. This was the Guardian of the Gate and at the moment they entered his room he was playing a tune upon a mouth-organ. "Listen!" he said, holding up his hand for silence. "I've just composed a tune called 'The Speckled Alligator.' It's in patch-time, which is much superior to rag-time, and I've composed it in honor of the Patchwork Girl, who has just arrived." "How did you know I had arrived?" asked Scraps, much interested. "It's my business to know who's coming, for I'm the Guardian of the Gate. Keep quiet while I play you 'The Speckled Alligator.'" It wasn't a very bad tune, nor a very good one, but all listened respectfully while he shut his eyes and swayed his head from side to side and blew the notes from the little instrument. When it was all over the Soldier with the Green Whiskers said: "Guardian, I have here a prisoner." "Good gracious! A prisoner?" cried the little man, jumping up from his chair. "Which one? Not the Shaggy Man?" "No; this boy." "Ah; I hope his fault is as small as himself," said the Guardian of the Gate. "But what can he have done, and what made him do it?" "Can't say," replied the soldier. "All I know is that he has broken the Law." "But no one ever does that!" "Then he must be innocent, and soon will be released. I hope you are right, Guardian. Just now I am ordered to take him to prison. Get me a prisoner's robe from your Official Wardrobe." The Guardian unlocked a closet and took from it a white robe, which the soldier threw over Ojo. It covered him from head to foot, but had two holes just in front of his eyes, so he could see where to go. In this attire the boy presented a very quaint appearance. As the Guardian unlocked a gate leading from his room into the streets of the Emerald City, the Shaggy Man said to Scraps: "I think I shall take you directly to Dorothy, as the Scarecrow advised, and the Glass Cat and the Woozy may come with us. Ojo must go to prison with the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, but he will be well treated and you need not worry about him." "What will they do with him?" asked Scraps. "That I cannot tell. Since I came to the Land of Oz no one has ever been arrested or imprisoned--until Ojo broke the Law." "Seems to me that girl Ruler of yours is making a big fuss over nothing," remarked Scraps, tossing her yarn hair out of her eyes with a jerk of her patched head. "I don't know what Ojo has done, but it couldn't be anything very bad, for you and I were with him all the time." The Shaggy Man made no reply to this speech and presently the Patchwork Girl forgot all about Ojo in her admiration of the wonderful city she had entered. They soon separated from the Munchkin boy, who was led by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers down a side street toward the prison. Ojo felt very miserable and greatly ashamed of himself, but he was beginning to grow angry because he was treated in such a disgraceful manner. Instead of entering the splendid Emerald City as a respectable traveler who was entitled to a welcome and to hospitality, he was being brought in as a criminal, handcuffed and in a robe that told all he met of his deep disgrace. Ojo was by nature gentle and affectionate and if he had disobeyed the Law of Oz it was to restore his dear Unc Nunkie to life. His fault was more thoughtless than wicked, but that did not alter the fact that he had committed a fault. At first he had felt sorrow and remorse, but the more he thought about the unjust treatment he had received--unjust merely because he considered it so--the more he resented his arrest, blaming Ozma for making foolish laws and then punishing folks who broke them. Only a six-leaved clover! A tiny green plant growing neglected and trampled under foot. What harm could there be in picking it? Ojo began to think Ozma must be a very bad and oppressive Ruler for such a lovely fairyland as Oz. The Shaggy Man said the people loved her; but how could they? The little Munchkin boy was so busy thinking these things--which many guilty prisoners have thought before him--that he scarcely noticed all the splendor of the city streets through which they passed. Whenever they met any of the happy, smiling people, the boy turned his head away in shame, although none knew who was beneath the robe. By and by they reached a house built just beside the great city wall, but in a quiet, retired place. It was a pretty house, neatly painted and with many windows. Before it was a garden filled with blooming flowers. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers led Ojo up the gravel path to the front door, on which he knocked. A woman opened the door and, seeing Ojo in his white robe, exclaimed: "Goodness me! A prisoner at last. But what a small one, Soldier." "The size doesn't matter, Tollydiggle, my dear. The fact remains that he is a prisoner," said the soldier. "And, this being the prison, and you the jailer, it is my duty to place the prisoner in your charge." "True. Come in, then, and I'll give you a receipt for him." They entered the house and passed through a hall to a large circular room, where the woman pulled the robe off from Ojo and looked at him with kindly interest. The boy, on his part, was gazing around him in amazement, for never had he dreamed of such a magnificent apartment as this in which he stood. The roof of the dome was of colored glass, worked into beautiful designs. The walls were paneled with plates of gold decorated with gems of great size and many colors, and upon the tiled floor were soft rugs delightful to walk upon. The furniture was framed in gold and upholstered in satin brocade and it consisted of easy chairs, divans and stools in great variety. Also there were several tables with mirror tops and cabinets filled with rare and curious things. In one place a case filled with books stood against the wall, and elsewhere Ojo saw a cupboard containing all sorts of games. "May I stay here a little while before I go to prison?" asked the boy, pleadingly. "Why, this is your prison," replied Tollydiggle, "and in me behold your jailor. Take off those handcuffs, Soldier, for it is impossible for anyone to escape from this house." "I know that very well," replied the soldier and at once unlocked the handcuffs and released the prisoner. The woman touched a button on the wall and lighted a big chandelier that hung suspended from the ceiling, for it was growing dark outside. Then she seated herself at a desk and asked: "What name?" "Ojo the Unlucky," answered the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. "Unlucky? Ah, that accounts for it," said she. "What crime?" "Breaking a Law of Oz." "All right. There's your receipt, Soldier; and now I'm responsible for the prisoner. I'm glad of it, for this is the first time I've ever had anything to do, in my official capacity," remarked the jailer, in a pleased tone. "It's the same with me, Tollydiggle," laughed the soldier. "But my task is finished and I must go and report to Ozma that I've done my duty like a faithful Police Force, a loyal Army and an honest Body-Guard--as I hope I am." Saying this, he nodded farewell to Tollydiggle and Ojo and went away. "Now, then," said the woman briskly, "I must get you some supper, for you are doubtless hungry. What would you prefer: planked whitefish, omelet with jelly or mutton-chops with gravy?" Ojo thought about it. Then he said: "I'll take the chops, if you please." "Very well; amuse yourself while I'm gone; I won't be long," and then she went out by a door and left the prisoner alone. Ojo was much astonished, for not only was this unlike any prison he had ever heard of, but he was being treated more as a guest than a criminal. There were many windows and they had no locks. There were three doors to the room and none were bolted. He cautiously opened one of the doors and found it led into a hallway. But he had no intention of trying to escape. If his jailor was willing to trust him in this way he would not betray her trust, and moreover a hot supper was being prepared for him and his prison was very pleasant and comfortable. So he took a book from the case and sat down in a big chair to look at the pictures. This amused him until the woman came in with a large tray and spread a cloth on one of the tables. Then she arranged his supper, which proved the most varied and delicious meal Ojo had ever eaten in his life. Tollydiggle sat near him while he ate, sewing on some fancy work she held in her lap. When he had finished she cleared the table and then read to him a story from one of the books. "Is this really a prison?" he asked, when she had finished reading. "Indeed it is," she replied. "It is the only prison in the Land of Oz." "And am I a prisoner?" "Bless the child! Of course." "Then why is the prison so fine, and why are you so kind to me?" he earnestly asked. Tollydiggle seemed surprised by the question, but she presently answered: "We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways--because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners." Ojo thought this over very carefully. "I had an idea," said he, "that prisoners were always treated harshly, to punish them." "That would be dreadful!" cried Tollydiggle. "Isn't one punished enough in knowing he has done wrong? Don't you wish, Ojo, with all your heart, that you had not been disobedient and broken a Law of Oz?" "I--I hate to be different from other people," he admitted. "Yes; one likes to be respected as highly as his neighbors are," said the woman. "When you are tried and found guilty, you will be obliged to make amends, in some way. I don't know just what Ozma will do to you, because this is the first time one of us has broken a Law; but you may be sure she will be just and merciful. Here in the Emerald City people are too happy and contented ever to do wrong; but perhaps you came from some faraway corner of our land, and having no love for Ozma carelessly broke one of her Laws." "Yes," said Ojo, "I've lived all my life in the heart of a lonely forest, where I saw no one but dear Unc Nunkie." "I thought so," said Tollydiggle. "But now we have talked enough, so let us play a game until bedtime." Chapter Sixteen Princess Dorothy Dorothy Gale was sitting in one of her rooms in the royal palace, while curled up at her feet was a little black dog with a shaggy coat and very bright eyes. She wore a plain white frock, without any jewels or other ornaments except an emerald-green hair-ribbon, for Dorothy was a simple little girl and had not been in the least spoiled by the magnificence surrounding her. Once the child had lived on the Kansas prairies, but she seemed marked for adventure, for she had made several trips to the Land of Oz before she came to live there for good. Her very best friend was the beautiful Ozma of Oz, who loved Dorothy so well that she kept her in her own palace, so as to be near her. The girl's Uncle Henry and Aunt Em--the only relatives she had in the world--had also been brought here by Ozma and given a pleasant home. Dorothy knew almost everybody in Oz, and it was she who had discovered the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, as well as Tik-Tok the Clockwork Man. Her life was very pleasant now, and although she had been made a Princess of Oz by her friend Ozma she did not care much to be a Princess and remained as sweet as when she had been plain Dorothy Gale of Kansas. Dorothy was reading in a book this evening when Jellia Jamb, the favorite servant-maid of the palace, came to say that the Shaggy Man wanted to see her. "All right," said Dorothy; "tell him to come right up." "But he has some queer creatures with him--some of the queerest I've ever laid eyes on," reported Jellia. "Never mind; let 'em all come up," replied Dorothy. But when the door opened to admit not only the Shaggy Man, but Scraps, the Woozy and the Glass Cat, Dorothy jumped up and looked at her strange visitors in amazement. The Patchwork Girl was the most curious of all and Dorothy was uncertain at first whether Scraps was really alive or only a dream or a nightmare. Toto, her dog, slowly uncurled himself and going to the Patchwork Girl sniffed at her inquiringly; but soon he lay down again, as if to say he had no interest in such an irregular creation. "You're a new one to me," Dorothy said reflectively, addressing the Patchwork Girl. "I can't imagine where you've come from." "Who, me?" asked Scraps, looking around the pretty room instead of at the girl. "Oh, I came from a bed-quilt, I guess. That's what they say, anyhow. Some call it a crazy-quilt and some a patchwork quilt. But my name is Scraps--and now you know all about me." "Not quite all," returned Dorothy with a smile. "I wish you'd tell me how you came to be alive." "That's an easy job," said Scraps, sitting upon a big upholstered chair and making the springs bounce her up and down. "Margolotte wanted a slave, so she made me out of an old bed-quilt she didn't use. Cotton stuffing, suspender-button eyes, red velvet tongue, pearl beads for teeth. The Crooked Magician made a Powder of Life, sprinkled me with it and--here I am. Perhaps you've noticed my different colors. A very refined and educated gentleman named the Scarecrow, whom I met, told me I am the most beautiful creature in all Oz, and I believe it." "Oh! Have you met our Scarecrow, then?" asked Dorothy, a little puzzled to understand the brief history related. "Yes; isn't he jolly?" "The Scarecrow has many good qualities," replied Dorothy. "But I'm sorry to hear all this 'bout the Crooked Magician. Ozma'll be mad as hops when she hears he's been doing magic again. She told him not to." "He only practices magic for the benefit of his own family," explained Bungle, who was keeping at a respectful distance from the little black dog. "Dear me," said Dorothy; "I hadn't noticed you before. Are you glass, or what?" "I'm glass, and transparent, too, which is more than can be said of some folks," answered the cat. "Also I have some lovely pink brains; you can see 'em work." "Oh; is that so? Come over here and let me see." The Glass Cat hesitated, eyeing the dog. "Send that beast away and I will," she said. "Beast! Why, that's my dog Toto, an' he's the kindest dog in all the world. Toto knows a good many things, too; 'most as much as I do, I guess." "Why doesn't he say anything?" asked Bungle. "He can't talk, not being a fairy dog," explained Dorothy. "He's just a common United States dog; but that's a good deal; and I understand him, and he understands me, just as well as if he could talk." Toto, at this, got up and rubbed his head softly against Dorothy's hand, which she held out to him, and he looked up into her face as if he had understood every word she had said. "This cat, Toto," she said to him, "is made of glass, so you mustn't bother it, or chase it, any more than you do my Pink Kitten. It's prob'ly brittle and might break if it bumped against anything." "Woof!" said Toto, and that meant he understood. The Glass Cat was so proud of her pink brains that she ventured to come close to Dorothy, in order that the girl might "see 'em work." This was really interesting, but when Dorothy patted the cat she found the glass cold and hard and unresponsive, so she decided at once that Bungle would never do for a pet. "What do you know about the Crooked Magician who lives on the mountain?" asked Dorothy. "He made me," replied the cat; "so I know all about him. The Patchwork Girl is new--three or four days old--but I've lived with Dr. Pipt for years; and, though I don't much care for him, I will say that he has always refused to work magic for any of the people who come to his house. He thinks there's no harm in doing magic things for his own family, and he made me out of glass because the meat cats drink too much milk. He also made Scraps come to life so she could do the housework for his wife Margolotte." "Then why did you both leave him?" asked Dorothy. "I think you'd better let me explain that," interrupted the Shaggy Man, and then he told Dorothy all of Ojo's story and how Unc Nunkie and Margolotte had accidentally been turned to marble by the Liquid of Petrifaction. Then he related how the boy had started out in search of the things needed to make the magic charm, which would restore the unfortunates to life, and how he had found the Woozy and taken him along because he could not pull the three hairs out of its tail. Dorothy listened to all this with much interest, and thought that so far Ojo had acted very well. But when the Shaggy Man told her of the Munchkin boy's arrest by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, because he was accused of wilfully breaking a Law of Oz, the little girl was greatly shocked. "What do you s'pose he's done?" she asked. "I fear he has picked a six-leaved clover," answered the Shaggy Man, sadly. "I did not see him do it, and I warned him that to do so was against the Law; but perhaps that is what he did, nevertheless." "I'm sorry 'bout that," said Dorothy gravely, "for now there will be no one to help his poor uncle and Margolotte 'cept this Patchwork Girl, the Woozy and the Glass Cat." "Don't mention it," said Scraps. "That's no affair of mine. Margolotte and Unc Nunkie are perfect strangers to me, for the moment I came to life they came to marble." "I see," remarked Dorothy with a sigh of regret; "the woman forgot to give you a heart." "I'm glad she did," retorted the Patchwork Girl. "A heart must be a great annoyance to one. It makes a person feel sad or sorry or devoted or sympathetic--all of which sensations interfere with one's happiness." "I have a heart," murmured the Glass Cat. "It's made of a ruby; but I don't imagine I shall let it bother me about helping Unc Nunkie and Margolotte." "That's a pretty hard heart of yours," said Dorothy. "And the Woozy, of course--" "Why, as for me," observed the Woozy, who was reclining on the floor with his legs doubled under him, so that he looked much like a square box, "I have never seen those unfortunate people you are speaking of, and yet I am sorry for them, having at times been unfortunate myself. When I was shut up in that forest I longed for some one to help me, and by and by Ojo came and did help me. So I'm willing to help his uncle. I'm only a stupid beast, Dorothy, but I can't help that, and if you'll tell me what to do to help Ojo and his uncle, I'll gladly do it." Dorothy walked over and patted the Woozy on his square head. "You're not pretty," she said, "but I like you. What are you able to do; anything 'special?" "I can make my eyes flash fire--real fire--when I'm angry. When anyone says: 'Krizzle-Kroo' to me I get angry, and then my eyes flash fire." "I don't see as fireworks could help Ojo's uncle," remarked Dorothy. "Can you do anything else?" "I--I thought I had a very terrifying growl," said the Woozy, with hesitation; "but perhaps I was mistaken." "Yes," said the Shaggy Man, "you were certainly wrong about that." Then he turned to Dorothy and added: "What will become of the Munchkin boy?" "I don't know," she said, shaking her head thoughtfully. "Ozma will see him 'bout it, of course, and then she'll punish him. But how, I don't know, 'cause no one ever has been punished in Oz since I knew anything about the place. Too bad, Shaggy Man, isn't it?" While they were talking Scraps had been roaming around the room and looking at all the pretty things it contained. She had carried Ojo's basket in her hand, until now, when she decided to see what was inside it. She found the bread and cheese, which she had no use for, and the bundle of charms, which were curious but quite a mystery to her. Then, turning these over, she came upon the six-leaved clover which the boy had plucked. Scraps was quick-witted, and although she had no heart she recognized the fact that Ojo was her first friend. She knew at once that because the boy had taken the clover he had been imprisoned, and she understood that Ojo had given her the basket so they would not find the clover in his possession and have proof of his crime. So, turning her head to see that no one noticed her, she took the clover from the basket and dropped it into a golden vase that stood on Dorothy's table. Then she came forward and said to Dorothy: "I wouldn't care to help Ojo's uncle, but I will help Ojo. He did not break the Law--no one can prove he did--and that green-whiskered soldier had no right to arrest him." "Ozma ordered the boy's arrest," said Dorothy, "and of course she knew what she was doing. But if you can prove Ojo is innocent they will set him free at once." "They'll have to prove him guilty, won't they?'' asked Scraps. "I s'pose so." "Well, they can't do that," declared the Patchwork Girl. As it was nearly time for Dorothy to dine with Ozma, which she did every evening, she rang for a servant and ordered the Woozy taken to a nice room and given plenty of such food as he liked best. "That's honey-bees," said the Woozy. "You can't eat honey-bees, but you'll be given something just as nice," Dorothy told him. Then she had the Glass Cat taken to another room for the night and the Patchwork Girl she kept in one of her own rooms, for she was much interested in the strange creature and wanted to talk with her again and try to understand her better. Chapter Seventeen Ozma and Her Friends The Shaggy Man had a room of his own in the royal palace, so there he went to change his shaggy suit of clothes for another just as shaggy but not so dusty from travel. He selected a costume of pea-green and pink satin and velvet, with embroidered shags on all the edges and iridescent pearls for ornaments. Then he bathed in an alabaster pool and brushed his shaggy hair and whiskers the wrong way to make them still more shaggy. This accomplished, and arrayed in his splendid shaggy garments, he went to Ozma's banquet hall and found the Scarecrow, the Wizard and Dorothy already assembled there. The Scarecrow had made a quick trip and returned to the Emerald City with his left ear freshly painted. A moment later, while they all stood in waiting, a servant threw open a door, the orchestra struck up a tune and Ozma of Oz entered. Much has been told and written concerning the beauty of person and character of this sweet girl Ruler of the Land of Oz--the richest, the happiest and most delightful fairyland of which we have any knowledge. Yet with all her queenly qualities Ozma was a real girl and enjoyed the things in life that other real girls enjoy. When she sat on her splendid emerald throne in the great Throne Room of her palace and made laws and settled disputes and tried to keep all her subjects happy and contented, she was as dignified and demure as any queen might be; but when she had thrown aside her jeweled robe of state and her sceptre, and had retired to her private apartments, the girl--joyous, light-hearted and free--replaced the sedate Ruler. In the banquet hall to-night were gathered only old and trusted friends, so here Ozma was herself--a mere girl. She greeted Dorothy with a kiss, the Shaggy Man with a smile, the little old Wizard with a friendly handshake and then she pressed the Scarecrow's stuffed arm and cried merrily: "What a lovely left ear! Why, it's a hundred times better than the old one." "I'm glad you like it," replied the Scarecrow, well pleased. "Jinjur did a neat job, didn't she? And my hearing is now perfect. Isn't it wonderful what a little paint will do, if it's properly applied?" "It really is wonderful," she agreed, as they all took their seats; "but the Sawhorse must have made his legs twinkle to have carried you so far in one day. I didn't expect you back before to-morrow, at the earliest." "Well," said the Scarecrow, "I met a charming girl on the road and wanted to see more of her, so I hurried back." Ozma laughed. "I know," she returned; "it's the Patchwork Girl. She is certainly bewildering, if not strictly beautiful." "Have you seen her, then?" the straw man eagerly asked. "Only in my Magic Picture, which shows me all scenes of interest in the Land of Oz." "I fear the picture didn't do her justice," said the Scarecrow. "It seemed to me that nothing could be more gorgeous," declared Ozma. "Whoever made that patchwork quilt, from which Scraps was formed, must have selected the gayest and brightest bits of cloth that ever were woven." "I am glad you like her," said the Scarecrow in a satisfied tone. Although the straw man did not eat, not being made so he could, he often dined with Ozma and her companions, merely for the pleasure of talking with them. He sat at the table and had a napkin and plate, but the servants knew better than to offer him food. After a little while he asked: "Where is the Patchwork Girl now?" "In my room," replied Dorothy. "I've taken a fancy to her; she's so queer and--and--uncommon." "She's half crazy, I think," added the Shaggy Man. "But she is so beautiful!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, as if that fact disarmed all criticism. They all laughed at his enthusiasm, but the Scarecrow was quite serious. Seeing that he was interested in Scraps they forbore to say anything against her. The little band of friends Ozma had gathered around her was so quaintly assorted that much care must be exercised to avoid hurting their feelings or making any one of them unhappy. It was this considerate kindness that held them close friends and enabled them to enjoy one another's society. Another thing they avoided was conversing on unpleasant subjects, and for that reason Ojo and his troubles were not mentioned during the dinner. The Shaggy Man, however, related his adventures with the monstrous plants which had seized and enfolded the travelers, and told how he had robbed Chiss, the giant porcupine, of the quills which it was accustomed to throw at people. Both Dorothy and Ozma were pleased with this exploit and thought it served Chiss right. Then they talked of the Woozy, which was the most remarkable animal any of them had ever before seen--except, perhaps, the live Sawhorse. Ozma had never known that her dominions contained such a thing as a Woozy, there being but one in existence and this being confined in his forest for many years. Dorothy said she believed the Woozy was a good beast, honest and faithful; but she added that she did not care much for the Glass Cat. "Still," said the Shaggy Man, "the Glass Cat is very pretty and if she were not so conceited over her pink brains no one would object to her as a companion." The Wizard had been eating silently until now, when he looked up and remarked: "That Powder of Life which is made by the Crooked Magician is really a wonderful thing. But Dr. Pipt does not know its true value and he uses it in the most foolish ways." "I must see about that," said Ozma, gravely. Then she smiled again and continued in a lighter tone: "It was Dr. Pipt's famous Powder of Life that enabled me to become the Ruler of Oz." "I've never heard that story," said the Shaggy Man, looking at Ozma questioningly. "Well, when I was a baby girl I was stolen by an old Witch named Mombi and transformed into a boy," began the girl Ruler. "I did not know who I was and when I grew big enough to work, the Witch made me wait upon her and carry wood for the fire and hoe in the garden. One day she came back from a journey bringing some of the Powder of Life, which Dr. Pipt had given her. I had made a pumpkin-headed man and set it up in her path to frighten her, for I was fond of fun and hated the Witch. But she knew what the figure was and to test her Powder of Life she sprinkled some of it on the man I had made. It came to life and is now our dear friend Jack Pumpkinhead. That night I ran away with Jack to escape punishment, and I took old Mombi's Powder of Life with me. During our journey we came upon a wooden Sawhorse standing by the road and I used the magic powder to bring it to life. The Sawhorse has been with me ever since. When I got to the Emerald City the good Sorceress, Glinda, knew who I was and restored me to my proper person, when I became the rightful Ruler of this land. So you see had not old Mombi brought home the Powder of Life I might never have run away from her and become Ozma of Oz, nor would we have had Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse to comfort and amuse us." That story interested the Shaggy Man very much, as well as the others, who had often heard it before. The dinner being now concluded, they all went to Ozma's drawing-room, where they passed a pleasant evening before it came time to retire. Chapter Eighteen Ojo is Forgiven The next morning the Soldier with the Green Whiskers went to the prison and took Ojo away to the royal palace, where he was summoned to appear before the girl Ruler for judgment. Again the soldier put upon the boy the jeweled handcuffs and white prisoner's robe with the peaked top and holes for the eyes. Ojo was so ashamed, both of his disgrace and the fault he had committed, that he was glad to be covered up in this way, so that people could not see him or know who he was. He followed the Soldier with the Green Whiskers very willingly, anxious that his fate might be decided as soon as possible. The inhabitants of the Emerald City were polite people and never jeered at the unfortunate; but it was so long since they had seen a prisoner that they cast many curious looks toward the boy and many of them hurried away to the royal palace to be present during the trial. When Ojo was escorted into the great Throne Room of the palace he found hundreds of people assembled there. In the magnificent emerald throne, which sparkled with countless jewels, sat Ozma of Oz in her Robe of State, which was embroidered with emeralds and pearls. On her right, but a little lower, was Dorothy, and on her left the Scarecrow. Still lower, but nearly in front of Ozma, sat the wonderful Wizard of Oz and on a small table beside him was the golden vase from Dorothy's room, into which Scraps had dropped the stolen clover. At Ozma's feet crouched two enormous beasts, each the largest and most powerful of its kind. Although these beasts were quite free, no one present was alarmed by them; for the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger were well known and respected in the Emerald City and they always guarded the Ruler when she held high court in the Throne Room. There was still another beast present, but this one Dorothy held in her arms, for it was her constant companion, the little dog Toto. Toto knew the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger and often played and romped with them, for they were good friends. Seated on ivory chairs before Ozma, with a clear space between them and the throne, were many of the nobility of the Emerald City, lords and ladies in beautiful costumes, and officials of the kingdom in the royal uniforms of Oz. Behind these courtiers were others of less importance, filling the great hall to the very doors. At the same moment that the Soldier with the Green Whiskers arrived with Ojo, the Shaggy Man entered from a side door, escorting the Patchwork Girl, the Woozy and the Glass Cat. All these came to the vacant space before the throne and stood facing the Ruler. "Hullo, Ojo," said Scraps; "how are you?" "All right," he replied; but the scene awed the boy and his voice trembled a little with fear. Nothing could awe the Patchwork Girl, and although the Woozy was somewhat uneasy in these splendid surroundings the Glass Cat was delighted with the sumptuousness of the court and the impressiveness of the occasion--pretty big words but quite expressive. At a sign from Ozma the soldier removed Ojo's white robe and the boy stood face to face with the girl who was to decide his punishment. He saw at a glance how lovely and sweet she was, and his heart gave a bound of joy, for he hoped she would be merciful. Ozma sat looking at the prisoner a long time. Then she said gently: "One of the Laws of Oz forbids anyone to pick a six-leaved clover. You are accused of having broken this Law, even after you had been warned not to do so." Ojo hung his head and while he hesitated how to reply the Patchwork Girl stepped forward and spoke for him. "All this fuss is about nothing at all," she said, facing Ozma unabashed. "You can't prove he picked the six-leaved clover, so you've no right to accuse him of it. Search him, if you like, but you won't find the clover; look in his basket and you'll find it's not there. He hasn't got it, so I demand that you set this poor Munchkin boy free." The people of Oz listened to this defiance in amazement and wondered at the queer Patchwork Girl who dared talk so boldly to their Ruler. But Ozma sat silent and motionless and it was the little Wizard who answered Scraps. "So the clover hasn't been picked, eh?" he said. "I think it has. I think the boy hid it in his basket, and then gave the basket to you. I also think you dropped the clover into this vase, which stood in Princess Dorothy's room, hoping to get rid of it so it would not prove the boy guilty. You're a stranger here, Miss Patches, and so you don't know that nothing can be hidden from our powerful Ruler's Magic Picture--nor from the watchful eyes of the humble Wizard of Oz. Look, all of you!" With these words he waved his hands toward the vase on the table, which Scraps now noticed for the first time. From the mouth of the vase a plant sprouted, slowly growing before their eyes until it became a beautiful bush, and on the topmost branch appeared the six-leaved clover which Ojo had unfortunately picked. The Patchwork Girl looked at the clover and said: "Oh, so you've found it. Very well; prove he picked it, if you can." Ozma turned to Ojo. "Did you pick the six-leaved clover?" she asked. "Yes," he replied. "I knew it was against the Law, but I wanted to save Unc Nunkie and I was afraid if I asked your consent to pick it you would refuse me." "What caused you to think that?" asked the Ruler. "Why, it seemed to me a foolish law, unjust and unreasonable. Even now I can see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover. And I--I had not seen the Emerald City, then, nor you, and I thought a girl who would make such a silly Law would not be likely to help anyone in trouble." Ozma regarded him musingly, her chin resting upon her hand; but she was not angry. On the contrary she smiled a little at her thoughts and then grew sober again. "I suppose a good many laws seem foolish to those people who do not understand them," she said; "but no law is ever made without some purpose, and that purpose is usually to protect all the people and guard their welfare. As you are a stranger, I will explain this Law which to you seems so foolish. Years ago there were many Witches and Magicians in the Land of Oz, and one of the things they often used in making their magic charms and transformations was a six-leaved clover. These Witches and Magicians caused so much trouble among my people, often using their powers for evil rather than good, that I decided to forbid anyone to practice magic or sorcery except Glinda the Good and her assistant, the Wizard of Oz, both of whom I can trust to use their arts only to benefit my people and to make them happier. Since I issued that Law the Land of Oz has been far more peaceful and quiet; but I learned that some of the Witches and Magicians were still practicing magic on the sly and using the six-leaved clovers to make their potions and charms. Therefore I made another Law forbidding anyone from plucking a six-leaved clover or from gathering other plants and herbs which the Witches boil in their kettles to work magic with. That has almost put an end to wicked sorcery in our land, so you see the Law was not a foolish one, but wise and just; and, in any event, it is wrong to disobey a Law." Ojo knew she was right and felt greatly mortified to realize he had acted and spoken so ridiculously. But he raised his head and looked Ozma in the face, saying: "I am sorry I have acted wrongly and broken your Law. I did it to save Unc Nunkie, and thought I would not be found out. But I am guilty of this act and whatever punishment you think I deserve I will suffer willingly." Ozma smiled more brightly, then, and nodded graciously. "You are forgiven," she said. "For, although you have committed a serious fault, you are now penitent and I think you have been punished enough. Soldier, release Ojo the Lucky and--" "I beg your pardon; I'm Ojo the Unlucky," said the boy. "At this moment you are lucky," said she. "Release him, Soldier, and let him go free." The people were glad to hear Ozma's decree and murmured their approval. As the royal audience was now over, they began to leave the Throne Room and soon there were none remaining except Ojo and his friends and Ozma and her favorites. The girl Ruler now asked Ojo to sit down and tell her all his story, which he did, beginning at the time he had left his home in the forest and ending with his arrival at the Emerald City and his arrest. Ozma listened attentively and was thoughtful for some moments after the boy had finished speaking. Then she said: "The Crooked Magician was wrong to make the Glass Cat and the Patchwork Girl, for it was against the Law. And if he had not unlawfully kept the bottle of Liquid of Petrifaction standing on his shelf, the accident to his wife Margolotte and to Unc Nunkie could not have occurred. I can understand, however, that Ojo, who loves his uncle, will be unhappy unless he can save him. Also I feel it is wrong to leave those two victims standing as marble statues, when they ought to be alive. So I propose we allow Dr. Pipt to make the magic charm which will save them, and that we assist Ojo to find the things he is seeking. What do you think, Wizard?" "That is perhaps the best thing to do," replied the Wizard. "But after the Crooked Magician has restored those poor people to life you must take away his magic powers." "I will," promised Ozma. "Now tell me, please, what magic things must you find?" continued the Wizard, addressing Ojo. "The three hairs from the Woozy's tail I have," said the boy. "That is, I have the Woozy, and the hairs are in his tail. The six-leaved clover I--I--" "You may take it and keep it," said Ozma. "That will not be breaking the Law, for it is already picked, and the crime of picking it is forgiven." "Thank you!" cried Ojo gratefully. Then he continued: "The next thing I must find is a gill of water from a dark well." The Wizard shook his head. "That," said he, "will be a hard task, but if you travel far enough you may discover it." "I am willing to travel for years, if it will save Unc Nunkie," declared Ojo, earnestly. "Then you'd better begin your journey at once," advised the Wizard. Dorothy had been listening with interest to this conversation. Now she turned to Ozma and asked: "May I go with Ojo, to help him?" "Would you like to?" returned Ozma. "Yes. I know Oz pretty well, but Ojo doesn't know it at all. I'm sorry for his uncle and poor Margolotte and I'd like to help save them. May I go?" "If you wish to," replied Ozma. "If Dorothy goes, then I must go to take care of her," said the Scarecrow, decidedly. "A dark well can only be discovered in some out-of-the-way place, and there may be dangers there." "You have my permission to accompany Dorothy," said Ozma. "And while you are gone I will take care of the Patchwork Girl." "I'll take care of myself," announced Scraps, "for I'm going with the Scarecrow and Dorothy. I promised Ojo to help him find the things he wants and I'll stick to my promise." "Very well," replied Ozma. "But I see no need for Ojo to take the Glass Cat and the Woozy." "I prefer to remain here," said the cat. "I've nearly been nicked half a dozen times, already, and if they're going into dangers it's best for me to keep away from them." "Let Jellia Jamb keep her till Ojo returns," suggested Dorothy. "We won't need to take the Woozy, either, but he ought to be saved because of the three hairs in his tail." "Better take me along," said the Woozy. "My eyes can flash fire, you know, and I can growl--a little." "I'm sure you'll be safer here," Ozma decided, and the Woozy made no further objection to the plan. After consulting together they decided that Ojo and his party should leave the very next day to search for the gill of water from a dark well, so they now separated to make preparations for the journey. Ozma gave the Munchkin boy a room in the palace for that night and the afternoon he passed with Dorothy--getting acquainted, as she said--and receiving advice from the Shaggy Man as to where they must go. The Shaggy Man had wandered in many parts of Oz, and so had Dorothy, for that matter, yet neither of them knew where a dark well was to be found. "If such a thing is anywhere in the settled parts of Oz," said Dorothy, "we'd prob'ly have heard of it long ago. If it's in the wild parts of the country, no one there would need a dark well. P'raps there isn't such a thing." "Oh, there must be!" returned Ojo, positively; "or else the recipe of Dr. Pipt wouldn't call for it." "That's true," agreed Dorothy; "and, if it's anywhere in the Land of Oz, we're bound to find it." "Well, we're bound to search for it, anyhow," said the Scarecrow. "As for finding it, we must trust to luck." "Don't do that," begged Ojo, earnestly. "I'm called Ojo the Unlucky, you know." Chapter Nineteen Trouble with the Tottenhots A day's journey from the Emerald City brought the little band of adventurers to the home of Jack Pumpkinhead, which was a house formed from the shell of an immense pumpkin. Jack had made it himself and was very proud of it. There was a door, and several windows, and through the top was stuck a stovepipe that led from a small stove inside. The door was reached by a flight of three steps and there was a good floor on which was arranged some furniture that was quite comfortable. It is certain that Jack Pumpkinhead might have had a much finer house to live in had he wanted it, for Ozma loved the stupid fellow, who had been her earliest companion; but Jack preferred his pumpkin house, as it matched himself very well, and in this he was not so stupid, after all. The body of this remarkable person was made of wood, branches of trees of various sizes having been used for the purpose. This wooden framework was covered by a red shirt--with white spots in it--blue trousers, a yellow vest, a jacket of green-and-gold and stout leather shoes. The neck was a sharpened stick on which the pumpkin head was set, and the eyes, ears, nose and mouth were carved on the skin of the pumpkin, very like a child's jack-o'-lantern. The house of this interesting creation stood in the center of a vast pumpkin-field, where the vines grew in profusion and bore pumpkins of extraordinary size as well as those which were smaller. Some of the pumpkins now ripening on the vines were almost as large as Jack's house, and he told Dorothy he intended to add another pumpkin to his mansion. The travelers were cordially welcomed to this quaint domicile and invited to pass the night there, which they had planned to do. The Patchwork Girl was greatly interested in Jack and examined him admiringly. "You are quite handsome," she said; "but not as really beautiful as the Scarecrow." Jack turned, at this, to examine the Scarecrow critically, and his old friend slyly winked one painted eye at him. "There is no accounting for tastes," remarked the Pumpkinhead, with a sigh. "An old crow once told me I was very fascinating, but of course the bird might have been mistaken. Yet I have noticed that the crows usually avoid the Scarecrow, who is a very honest fellow, in his way, but stuffed. I am not stuffed, you will observe; my body is good solid hickory." "I adore stuffing," said the Patchwork Girl. "Well, as for that, my head is stuffed with pumpkin-seeds," declared Jack. "I use them for brains, and when they are fresh I am intellectual. Just now, I regret to say, my seeds are rattling a bit, so I must soon get another head." "Oh; do you change your head?" asked Ojo. "To be sure. Pumpkins are not permanent, more's the pity, and in time they spoil. That is why I grow such a great field of pumpkins--that I may select a new head whenever necessary." "Who carves the faces on them?" inquired the boy. "I do that myself. I lift off my old head, place it on a table before me, and use the face for a pattern to go by. Sometimes the faces I carve are better than others--more expressive and cheerful, you know--but I think they average very well." Before she had started on the journey Dorothy had packed a knapsack with the things she might need, and this knapsack the Scarecrow carried strapped to his back. The little girl wore a plain gingham dress and a checked sunbonnet, as she knew they were best fitted for travel. Ojo also had brought along his basket, to which Ozma had added a bottle of "Square Meal Tablets" and some fruit. But Jack Pumpkinhead grew a lot of things in his garden besides pumpkins, so he cooked for them a fine vegetable soup and gave Dorothy, Ojo and Toto, the only ones who found it necessary to eat, a pumpkin pie and some green cheese. For beds they must use the sweet dried grasses which Jack had strewn along one side of the room, but that satisfied Dorothy and Ojo very well. Toto, of course, slept beside his little mistress. The Scarecrow, Scraps and the Pumpkinhead were tireless and had no need to sleep, so they sat up and talked together all night; but they stayed outside the house, under the bright stars, and talked in low tones so as not to disturb the sleepers. During the conversation the Scarecrow explained their quest for a dark well, and asked Jack's advice where to find it. The Pumpkinhead considered the matter gravely. "That is going to be a difficult task," said he, "and if I were you I'd take any ordinary well and enclose it, so as to make it dark." "I fear that wouldn't do," replied the Scarecrow. "The well must be naturally dark, and the water must never have seen the light of day, for otherwise the magic charm might not work at all." "How much of the water do you need?" asked Jack. "A gill." "How much is a gill?" "Why--a gill is a gill, of course," answered the Scarecrow, who did not wish to display his ignorance. "I know!" cried Scraps. "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch--" "No, no; that's wrong," interrupted the Scarecrow. "There are two kinds of gills, I think; one is a girl, and the other is--" "A gillyflower," said Jack. "No; a measure." "How big a measure?" "Well, I'll ask Dorothy." So next morning they asked Dorothy, and she said: "I don't just know how much a gill is, but I've brought along a gold flask that holds a pint. That's more than a gill, I'm sure, and the Crooked Magician may measure it to suit himself. But the thing that's bothering us most, Jack, is to find the well." Jack gazed around the landscape, for he was standing in the doorway of his house. "This is a flat country, so you won't find any dark wells here," said he. "You must go into the mountains, where rocks and caverns are." "And where is that?" asked Ojo. "In the Quadling Country, which lies south of here," replied the Scarecrow. "I've known all along that we must go to the mountains." "So have I," said Dorothy. "But--goodness me!--the Quadling Country is full of dangers," declared Jack. "I've never been there myself, but--" "I have," said the Scarecrow. "I've faced the dreadful Hammerheads, which have no arms and butt you like a goat; and I've faced the Fighting Trees, which bend down their branches to pound and whip you, and had many other adventures there." "It's a wild country," remarked Dorothy, soberly, "and if we go there we're sure to have troubles of our own. But I guess we'll have to go, if we want that gill of water from the dark well." So they said good-bye to the Pumpkinhead and resumed their travels, heading now directly toward the South Country, where mountains and rocks and caverns and forests of great trees abounded. This part of the Land of Oz, while it belonged to Ozma and owed her allegiance, was so wild and secluded that many queer peoples hid in its jungles and lived in their own way, without even a knowledge that they had a Ruler in the Emerald City. If they were left alone, these creatures never troubled the inhabitants of the rest of Oz, but those who invaded their domains encountered many dangers from them. It was a two days journey from Jack Pumkinhead's house to the edge of the Quadling Country, for neither Dorothy nor Ojo could walk very fast and they often stopped by the wayside to rest. The first night they slept on the broad fields, among the buttercups and daisies, and the Scarecrow covered the children with a gauze blanket taken from his knapsack, so they would not be chilled by the night air. Toward evening of the second day they reached a sandy plain where walking was difficult; but some distance before them they saw a group of palm trees, with many curious black dots under them; so they trudged bravely on to reach that place by dark and spend the night under the shelter of the trees. The black dots grew larger as they advanced and although the light was dim Dorothy thought they looked like big kettles turned upside down. Just beyond this place a jumble of huge, jagged rocks lay scattered, rising to the mountains behind them. Our travelers preferred to attempt to climb these rocks by daylight, and they realized that for a time this would be their last night on the plains. Twilight had fallen by the time they came to the trees, beneath which were the black, circular objects they had marked from a distance. Dozens of them were scattered around and Dorothy bent near to one, which was about as tall as she was, to examine it more closely. As she did so the top flew open and out popped a dusky creature, rising its length into the air and then plumping down upon the ground just beside the little girl. Another and another popped out of the circular, pot-like dwelling, while from all the other black objects came popping more creatures--very like jumping-jacks when their boxes are unhooked--until fully a hundred stood gathered around our little group of travelers. By this time Dorothy had discovered they were people, tiny and curiously formed, but still people. Their skins were dusky and their hair stood straight up, like wires, and was brilliant scarlet in color. Their bodies were bare except for skins fastened around their waists and they wore bracelets on their ankles and wrists, and necklaces, and great pendant earrings. Toto crouched beside his mistress and wailed as if he did not like these strange creatures a bit. Scraps began to mutter something about "hoppity, poppity, jumpity, dump!" but no one paid any attention to her. Ojo kept close to the Scarecrow and the Scarecrow kept close to Dorothy; but the little girl turned to the queer creatures and asked: "Who are you?" They answered this question all together, in a sort of chanting chorus, the words being as follows: "We're the jolly Tottenhots; We do not like the day, But in the night 'tis our delight To gambol, skip and play. "We hate the sun and from it run, The moon is cool and clear, So on this spot each Tottenhot Waits for it to appear. "We're ev'ry one chock full of fun, And full of mischief, too; But if you're gay and with us play We'll do no harm to you. "Glad to meet you, Tottenhots," said the Scarecrow solemnly. "But you mustn't expect us to play with you all night, for we've traveled all day and some of us are tired." "And we never gamble," added the Patchwork Girl. "It's against the Law." These remarks were greeted with shouts of laughter by the impish creatures and one seized the Scarecrow's arm and was astonished to find the straw man whirl around so easily. So the Tottenhot raised the Scarecrow high in the air and tossed him over the heads of the crowd. Some one caught him and tossed him back, and so with shouts of glee they continued throwing the Scarecrow here and there, as if he had been a basket-ball. Presently another imp seized Scraps and began to throw her about, in the same way. They found her a little heavier than the Scarecrow but still light enough to be tossed like a sofa-cushion, and they were enjoying the sport immensely when Dorothy, angry and indignant at the treatment her friends were receiving, rushed among the Tottenhots and began slapping and pushing them until she had rescued the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl and held them close on either side of her. Perhaps she would not have accomplished this victory so easily had not Toto helped her, barking and snapping at the bare legs of the imps until they were glad to flee from his attack. As for Ojo, some of the creatures had attempted to toss him, also, but finding his body too heavy they threw him to the ground and a row of the imps sat on him and held him from assisting Dorothy in her battle. The little brown folks were much surprised at being attacked by the girl and the dog, and one or two who had been slapped hardest began to cry. Then suddenly they gave a shout, all together, and disappeared in a flash into their various houses, the tops of which closed with a series of pops that sounded like a bunch of firecrackers being exploded. The adventurers now found themselves alone, and Dorothy asked anxiously: "Is anybody hurt?" "Not me," answered the Scarecrow. "They have given my straw a good shaking up and taken all the lumps out of it. I am now in splendid condition and am really obliged to the Tottenhots for their kind treatment." "I feel much the same way," said Scraps. "My cotton stuffing had sagged a good deal with the day's walking and they've loosened it up until I feel as plump as a sausage. But the play was a little rough and I'd had quite enough of it when you interfered." "Six of them sat on me," said Ojo, "but as they are so little they didn't hurt me much." Just then the roof of the house in front of them opened and a Tottenhot stuck his head out, very cautiously, and looked at the strangers. "Can't you take a joke?" he asked, reproachfully; "haven't you any fun in you at all?" "If I had such a quality," replied the Scarecrow, "your people would have knocked it out of me. But I don't bear grudges. I forgive you." "So do I," added Scraps. "That is, if you behave yourselves after this." "It was just a little rough-house, that's all," said the Tottenhot. "But the question is not if we will behave, but if you will behave? We can't be shut up here all night, because this is our time to play; nor do we care to come out and be chewed up by a savage beast or slapped by an angry girl. That slapping hurts like sixty; some of my folks are crying about it. So here's the proposition: you let us alone and we'll let you alone." "You began it," declared Dorothy. "Well, you ended it, so we won't argue the matter. May we come out again? Or are you still cruel and slappy?" "Tell you what we'll do," said Dorothy. "We're all tired and want to sleep until morning. If you'll let us get into your house, and stay there until daylight, you can play outside all you want to." "That's a bargain!" cried the Tottenhot eagerly, and he gave a queer whistle that brought his people popping out of their houses on all sides. When the house before them was vacant, Dorothy and Ojo leaned over the hole and looked in, but could see nothing because it was so dark. But if the Tottenhots slept there all day the children thought they could sleep there at night, so Ojo lowered himself down and found it was not very deep. "There's a soft cushion all over," said he. "Come on in." Dorothy handed Toto to the boy and then climbed in herself. After her came Scraps and the Scarecrow, who did not wish to sleep but preferred to keep out of the way of the mischievous Tottenhots. There seemed no furniture in the round den, but soft cushions were strewn about the floor and these they found made very comfortable beds. They did not close the hole in the roof but left it open to admit air. It also admitted the shouts and ceaseless laughter of the impish Tottenhots as they played outside, but Dorothy and Ojo, being weary from their journey, were soon fast asleep. Toto kept an eye open, however, and uttered low, threatening growls whenever the racket made by the creatures outside became too boisterous; and the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl sat leaning against the wall and talked in whispers all night long. No one disturbed the travelers until daylight, when in popped the Tottenhot who owned the place and invited them to vacate his premises. Chapter Twenty The Captive Yoop As they were preparing to leave, Dorothy asked: "Can you tell us where there is a dark well?" "Never heard of such a thing," said the Tottenhot. "We live our lives in the dark, mostly, and sleep in the daytime; but we've never seen a dark well, or anything like one." "Does anyone live on those mountains beyond here?" asked the Scarecrow. "Lots of people. But you'd better not visit them. We never go there," was the reply. "What are the people like?" Dorothy inquired. "Can't say. We've been told to keep away from the mountain paths, and so we obey. This sandy desert is good enough for us, and we're not disturbed here," declared the Tottenhot. So they left the man snuggling down to sleep in his dusky dwelling, and went out into the sunshine, taking the path that led toward the rocky places. They soon found it hard climbing, for the rocks were uneven and full of sharp points and edges, and now there was no path at all. Clambering here and there among the boulders they kept steadily on, gradually rising higher and higher until finally they came to a great rift in a part of the mountain, where the rock seemed to have split in two and left high walls on either side. "S'pose we go this way," suggested Dorothy; "it's much easier walking than to climb over the hills." "How about that sign?" asked Ojo. "What sign?" she inquired. The Munchkin boy pointed to some words painted on the wall of rock beside them, which Dorothy had not noticed. The words read: "LOOK OUT FOR YOOP." The girl eyed this sign a moment and turned to the Scarecrow, asking: "Who is Yoop; or what is Yoop?" The straw man shook his head. Then looked at Toto and the dog said "Woof!" "Only way to find out is to go on," said Scraps. This being quite true, they went on. As they proceeded, the walls of rock on either side grew higher and higher. Presently they came upon another sign which read: "BEWARE THE CAPTIVE YOOP." "Why, as for that," remarked Dorothy, "if Yoop is a captive there's no need to beware of him. Whatever Yoop happens to be, I'd much rather have him a captive than running around loose." "So had I," agreed the Scarecrow, with a nod of his painted head. "Still," said Scraps, reflectively: "Yoop-te-hoop-te-loop-te-goop! Who put noodles in the soup? We may beware but we don't care, And dare go where we scare the Yoop." "Dear me! Aren't you feeling a little queer, just now?" Dorothy asked the Patchwork Girl. "Not queer, but crazy," said Ojo. "When she says those things I'm sure her brains get mixed somehow and work the wrong way. "I don't see why we are told to beware the Yoop unless he is dangerous," observed the Scarecrow in a puzzled tone. "Never mind; we'll find out all about him when we get to where he is," replied the little girl. The narrow canyon turned and twisted this way and that, and the rift was so small that they were able to touch both walls at the same time by stretching out their arms. Toto had run on ahead, frisking playfully, when suddenly he uttered a sharp bark of fear and came running back to them with his tail between his legs, as dogs do when they are frightened. "Ah," said the Scarecrow, who was leading the way, "we must be near Yoop." Just then, as he rounded a sharp turn, the Straw man stopped so suddenly that all the others bumped against him. "What is it?" asked Dorothy, standing on tip-toes to look over his shoulder. But then she saw what it was and cried "Oh!" in a tone of astonishment. In one of the rock walls--that at their left--was hollowed a great cavern, in front of which was a row of thick iron bars, the tops and bottoms being firmly fixed in the solid rock. Over this cavern was a big sign, which Dorothy read with much curiosity, speaking the words aloud that all might know what they said: "MISTER YOOP--HIS CAVE The Largest Untamed Giant in Captivity. Height, 21 Feet.--(And yet he has but 2 feet.) Weight, 1640 Pounds.--(But he waits all the time.) Age, 400 Years 'and Up' (as they say in the Department Store advertisements). Temper, Fierce and Ferocious.--(Except when asleep.) Appetite, Ravenous.--(Prefers Meat People and Orange Marmalade.) STRANGERS APPROACHING THIS CAVE DO SO AT THEIR OWN PERIL! P.S.--Don't feed the Giant yourself." "Very well," said Ojo, with a sigh; "let's go back." "It's a long way back," declared Dorothy. "So it is," remarked the Scarecrow, "and it means a tedious climb over those sharp rocks if we can't use this passage. I think it will be best to run by the Giant's cave as fast as we can go. Mister Yoop seems to be asleep just now." But the Giant wasn't asleep. He suddenly appeared at the front of his cavern, seized the iron bars in his great hairy hands and shook them until they rattled in their sockets. Yoop was so tall that our friends had to tip their heads way back to look into his face, and they noticed he was dressed all in pink velvet, with silver buttons and braid. The Giant's boots were of pink leather and had tassels on them and his hat was decorated with an enormous pink ostrich feather, carefully curled. "Yo-ho!" he said in a deep bass voice; "I smell dinner." "I think you are mistaken," replied the Scarecrow. "There is no orange marmalade around here." "Ah, but I eat other things," asserted Mister Yoop. "That is, I eat them when I can get them. But this is a lonely place, and no good meat has passed by my cave for many years; so I'm hungry." "Haven't you eaten anything in many years?" asked Dorothy. "Nothing except six ants and a monkey. I thought the monkey would taste like meat people, but the flavor was different. I hope you will taste better, for you seem plump and tender." "Oh, I'm not going to be eaten," said Dorothy. "Why not?" "I shall keep out of your way," she answered. "How heartless!" wailed the Giant, shaking the bars again. "Consider how many years it is since I've eaten a single plump little girl! They tell me meat is going up, but if I can manage to catch you I'm sure it will soon be going down. And I'll catch you if I can." With this the Giant pushed his big arms, which looked like tree-trunks (except that tree-trunks don't wear pink velvet) between the iron bars, and the arms were so long that they touched the opposite wall of the rock passage. Then he extended them as far as he could reach toward our travelers and found he could almost touch the Scarecrow--but not quite. "Come a little nearer, please," begged the Giant. "I'm a Scarecrow." "A Scarecrow? Ugh! I don't care a straw for a scarecrow. Who is that bright-colored delicacy behind you?" "Me?" asked Scraps. "I'm a Patchwork Girl, and I'm stuffed with cotton." "Dear me," sighed the Giant in a disappointed tone; "that reduces my dinner from four to two--and the dog. I'll save the dog for dessert." Toto growled, keeping a good distance away. "Back up," said the Scarecrow to those behind him. "Let us go back a little way and talk this over." So they turned and went around the bend in the passage, where they were out of sight of the cave and Mister Yoop could not hear them. "My idea," began the Scarecrow, when they had halted, "is to make a dash past the cave, going on a run." "He'd grab us," said Dorothy. "Well, he can't grab but one at a time, and I'll go first. As soon as he grabs me the rest of you can slip past him, out of his reach, and he will soon let me go because I am not fit to eat." They decided to try this plan and Dorothy took Toto in her arms, so as to protect him. She followed just after the Scarecrow. Then came Ojo, with Scraps the last of the four. Their hearts beat a little faster than usual as they again approached the Giant's cave, this time moving swiftly forward. It turned out about the way the Scarecrow had planned. Mister Yoop was quite astonished to see them come flying toward him, and thrusting his arms between the bars he seized the Scarecrow in a firm grip. In the next instant he realized, from the way the straw crunched between his fingers, that he had captured the non-eatable man, but during that instant of delay Dorothy and Ojo had slipped by the Giant and were out of reach. Uttering a howl of rage the monster threw the Scarecrow after them with one hand and grabbed Scraps with the other. The poor Scarecrow went whirling through the air and so cleverly was he aimed that he struck Ojo's back and sent the boy tumbling head over heels, and he tripped Dorothy and sent her, also, sprawling upon the ground. Toto flew out of the little girl's arms and landed some distance ahead, and all were so dazed that it was a moment before they could scramble to their feet again. When they did so they turned to look toward the Giant's cave, and at that moment the ferocious Mister Yoop threw the Patchwork Girl at them. Down went all three again, in a heap, with Scraps on top. The Giant roared so terribly that for a time they were afraid he had broken loose; but he hadn't. So they sat in the road and looked at one another in a rather bewildered way, and then began to feel glad. "We did it!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, with satisfaction. "And now we are free to go on our way." "Mister Yoop is very impolite," declared Scraps. "He jarred me terribly. It's lucky my stitches are so fine and strong, for otherwise such harsh treatment might rip me up the back." "Allow me to apologize for the Giant," said the Scarecrow, raising the Patchwork Girl to her feet and dusting her skirt with his stuffed hands. "Mister Yoop is a perfect stranger to me, but I fear, from the rude manner in which he has acted, that he is no gentleman." Dorothy and Ojo laughed at this statement and Toto barked as if he understood the joke, after which they all felt better and resumed the journey in high spirits. "Of course," said the little girl, when they had walked a way along the passage, "it was lucky for us the Giant was caged; for, if he had happened to be loose, he--he--" "Perhaps, in that case, he wouldn't be hungry any more," said Ojo gravely. Chapter Twenty-One Hip Hopper the Champion They must have had good courage to climb all those rocks, for after getting out of the canyon they encountered more rock hills to be surmounted. Toto could jump from one rock to another quite easily, but the others had to creep and climb with care, so that after a whole day of such work Dorothy and Ojo found themselves very tired. As they gazed upward at the great mass of tumbled rocks that covered the steep incline, Dorothy gave a little groan and said: "That's going to be a ter'ble hard climb, Scarecrow. I wish we could find the dark well without so much trouble." "Suppose," said Ojo, "you wait here and let me do the climbing, for it's on my account we're searching for the dark well. Then, if I don't find anything, I'll come back and join you." "No," replied the little girl, shaking her head positively, "we'll all go together, for that way we can help each other. If you went alone, something might happen to you, Ojo." So they began the climb and found it indeed difficult, for a way. But presently, in creeping over the big crags, they found a path at their feet which wound in and out among the masses of rock and was quite smooth and easy to walk upon. As the path gradually ascended the mountain, although in a roundabout way, they decided to follow it. "This must be the road to the Country of the Hoppers," said the Scarecrow. "Who are the Hoppers?" asked Dorothy. "Some people Jack Pumpkinhead told me about," he replied. "I didn't hear him," replied the girl. "No; you were asleep," explained the Scarecrow. "But he told Scraps and me that the Hoppers and the Horners live on this mountain." "He said in the mountain," declared Scraps; "but of course he meant on it." "Didn't he say what the Hoppers and Horners were like?" inquired Dorothy. "No; he only said they were two separate nations, and that the Horners were the most important." "Well, if we go to their country we'll find out all about 'em," said the girl. "But I've never heard Ozma mention those people, so they can't be very important." "Is this mountain in the Land of Oz?" asked Scraps. "Course it is," answered Dorothy. "It's in the South Country of the Quadlings. When one comes to the edge of Oz, in any direction, there is nothing more to be seen at all. Once you could see sandy desert all around Oz; but now it's diff'rent, and no other people can see us, any more than we can see them." "If the mountain is under Ozma's rule, why doesn't she know about the Hoppers and the Horners?" Ojo asked. "Why, it's a fairyland," explained Dorothy, "and lots of queer people live in places so tucked away that those in the Emerald City never even hear of 'em. In the middle of the country it's diff'rent, but when you get around the edges you're sure to run into strange little corners that surprise you. I know, for I've traveled in Oz a good deal, and so has the Scarecrow." "Yes," admitted the straw man, "I've been considerable of a traveler, in my time, and I like to explore strange places. I find I learn much more by traveling than by staying at home." During this conversation they had been walking up the steep pathway and now found themselves well up on the mountain. They could see nothing around them, for the rocks beside their path were higher than their heads. Nor could they see far in front of them, because the path was so crooked. But suddenly they stopped, because the path ended and there was no place to go. Ahead was a big rock lying against the side of the mountain, and this blocked the way completely. "There wouldn't be a path, though, if it didn't go somewhere," said the Scarecrow, wrinkling his forehead in deep thought. "This is somewhere, isn't it?" asked the Patchwork Girl, laughing at the bewildered looks of the others. "The path is locked, the way is blocked, Yet here we've innocently flocked; And now we're here it's rather queer There's no front door that can be knocked." "Please don't, Scraps," said Ojo. "You make me nervous." "Well," said Dorothy, "I'm glad of a little rest, for that's a drea'ful steep path." As she spoke she leaned against the edge of the big rock that stood in their way. To her surprise it slowly swung backward and showed behind it a dark hole that looked like the mouth of a tunnel. "Why, here's where the path goes to!" she exclaimed. "So it is," answered the Scarecrow. "But the question is, do we want to go where the path does?" "It's underground; right inside the mountain," said Ojo, peering into the dark hole. "Perhaps there's a well there; and, if there is, it's sure to be a dark one." "Why, that's true enough!" cried Dorothy with eagerness. "Let's go in, Scarecrow; 'cause, if others have gone, we're pretty safe to go, too." Toto looked in and barked, but he did not venture to enter until the Scarecrow had bravely gone first. Scraps followed closely after the straw man and then Ojo and Dorothy timidly stepped inside the tunnel. As soon as all of them had passed the big rock, it slowly turned and filled up the opening again; but now they were no longer in the dark, for a soft, rosy light enabled them to see around them quite distinctly. It was only a passage, wide enough for two of them to walk abreast--with Toto in between them--and it had a high, arched roof. They could not see where the light which flooded the place so pleasantly came from, for there were no lamps anywhere visible. The passage ran straight for a little way and then made a bend to the right and another sharp turn to the left, after which it went straight again. But there were no side passages, so they could not lose their way. After proceeding some distance, Toto, who had gone on ahead, began to bark loudly. They ran around a bend to see what was the matter and found a man sitting on the floor of the passage and leaning his back against the wall. He had probably been asleep before Toto's barks aroused him, for he was now rubbing his eyes and staring at the little dog with all his might. There was something about this man that Toto objected to, and when he slowly rose to his foot they saw what it was. He had but one leg, set just below the middle of his round, fat body; but it was a stout leg and had a broad, flat foot at the bottom of it, on which the man seemed to stand very well. He had never had but this one leg, which looked something like a pedestal, and when Toto ran up and made a grab at the man's ankle he hopped first one way and then another in a very active manner, looking so frightened that Scraps laughed aloud. Toto was usually a well behaved dog, but this time he was angry and snapped at the man's leg again and again. This filled the poor fellow with fear, and in hopping out of Toto's reach he suddenly lost his balance and tumbled heel over head upon the floor. When he sat up he kicked Toto on the nose and made the dog howl angrily, but Dorothy now ran forward and caught Toto's collar, holding him back. "Do you surrender?" she asked the man. "Who? Me?" asked the Hopper. "Yes; you," said the little girl. "Am I captured?" he inquired. "Of course. My dog has captured you," she said. "Well," replied the man, "if I'm captured I must surrender, for it's the proper thing to do. I like to do everything proper, for it saves one a lot of trouble." "It does, indeed," said Dorothy. "Please tell us who you are." "I'm Hip Hopper--Hip Hopper, the Champion." "Champion what?" she asked in surprise. "Champion wrestler. I'm a very strong man, and that ferocious animal which you are so kindly holding is the first living thing that has ever conquered me." "And you are a Hopper?" she continued. "Yes. My people live in a great city not far from here. Would you like to visit it?" "I'm not sure," she said with hesitation. "Have you any dark wells in your city?" "I think not. We have wells, you know, but they're all well lighted, and a well lighted well cannot well be a dark well. But there may be such a thing as a very dark well in the Horner Country, which is a black spot on the face of the earth." "Where is the Horner Country?" Ojo inquired. "The other side of the mountain. There's a fence between the Hopper Country and the Horner Country, and a gate in the fence; but you can't pass through just now, because we are at war with the Horners." "That's too bad," said the Scarecrow. "What seems to be the trouble?" "Why, one of them made a very insulting remark about my people. He said we were lacking in understanding, because we had only one leg to a person. I can't see that legs have anything to do with understanding things. The Horners each have two legs, just as you have. That's one leg too many, it seems to me." "No," declared Dorothy, "it's just the right number." "You don't need them," argued the Hopper, obstinately. "You've only one head, and one body, and one nose and mouth. Two legs are quite unnecessary, and they spoil one's shape." "But how can you walk, with only one leg?" asked Ojo. "Walk! Who wants to walk?" exclaimed the man. "Walking is a terribly awkward way to travel. I hop, and so do all my people. It's so much more graceful and agreeable than walking." "I don't agree with you," said the Scarecrow. "But tell me, is there any way to get to the Horner Country without going through the city of the Hoppers?" "Yes; there is another path from the rocky lowlands, outside the mountain, that leads straight to the entrance of the Horner Country. But it's a long way around, so you'd better come with me. Perhaps they will allow you to go through the gate; but we expect to conquer them this afternoon, if we get time, and then you may go and come as you please." They thought it best to take the Hopper's advice, and asked him to lead the way. This he did in a series of hops, and he moved so swiftly in this strange manner that those with two legs had to run to keep up with him. Chapter Twenty-Two The Joking Horners It was not long before they left the passage and came to a great cave, so high that it must have reached nearly to the top of the mountain within which it lay. It was a magnificent cave, illumined by the soft, invisible light, so that everything in it could be plainly seen. The walls were of polished marble, white with veins of delicate colors running through it, and the roof was arched and fantastic and beautiful. Built beneath this vast dome was a pretty village--not very large, for there seemed not more than fifty houses altogether--and the dwellings were of marble and artistically designed. No grass nor flowers nor trees grew in this cave, so the yards surrounding the houses carved in designs both were smooth and bare and had low walls around them to mark their boundaries. In the streets and the yards of the houses were many people all having one leg growing below their bodies and all hopping here and there whenever they moved. Even the children stood firmly upon their single legs and never lost their balance. "All hail, Champion!" cried a man in the first group of Hoppers they met; "whom have you captured?" "No one," replied the Champion in a gloomy voice; "these strangers have captured me." "Then," said another, "we will rescue you, and capture them, for we are greater in number." "No," answered the Champion, "I can't allow it. I've surrendered, and it isn't polite to capture those you've surrendered to." "Never mind that," said Dorothy. "We will give you your liberty and set you free." "Really?" asked the Champion in joyous tones. "Yes," said the little girl; "your people may need you to help conquer the Horners." At this all the Hoppers looked downcast and sad. Several more had joined the group by this time and quite a crowd of curious men, women and children surrounded the strangers. "This war with our neighbors is a terrible thing," remarked one of the women. "Some one is almost sure to get hurt." "Why do you say that, madam?" inquired the Scarecrow. "Because the horns of our enemies are sharp, and in battle they will try to stick those horns into our warriors," she replied. "How many horns do the Horners have?" asked Dorothy. "Each has one horn in the center of his forehead," was the answer. "Oh, then they're unicorns," declared the Scarecrow. "No; they're Horners. We never go to war with them if we can help it, on account of their dangerous horns; but this insult was so great and so unprovoked that our brave men decided to fight, in order to be revenged," said the woman. "What weapons do you fight with?" the Scarecrow asked. "We have no weapons," explained the Champion. "Whenever we fight the Horners, our plan is to push them back, for our arms are longer than theirs." "Then you are better armed," said Scraps. "Yes; but they have those terrible horns, and unless we are careful they prick us with the points," returned the Champion with a shudder. "That makes a war with them dangerous, and a dangerous war cannot be a pleasant one." "I see very clearly," remarked the Scarecrow, "that you are going to have trouble in conquering those Horners--unless we help you." "Oh!" cried the Hoppers in a chorus; "can you help us? Please do! We will be greatly obliged! It would please us very much!" and by these exclamations the Scarecrow knew that his speech had met with favor. "How far is it to the Horner Country?" he asked. "Why, it's just the other side of the fence," they answered, and the Champion added: "Come with me, please, and I'll show you the Horners." So they followed the Champion and several others through the streets and just beyond the village came to a very high picket fence, built all of marble, which seemed to divide the great cave into two equal parts. But the part inhabited by the Horners was in no way as grand in appearance as that of the Hoppers. Instead of being marble, the walls and roof were of dull gray rock and the square houses were plainly made of the same material. But in extent the city was much larger than that of the Hoppers and the streets were thronged with numerous people who busied themselves in various ways. Looking through the open pickets of the fence our friends watched the Horners, who did not know they were being watched by strangers, and found them very unusual in appearance. They were little folks in size and had bodies round as balls and short legs and arms. Their heads were round, too, and they had long, pointed ears and a horn set in the center of the forehead. The horns did not seem very terrible, for they were not more than six inches long; but they were ivory white and sharp pointed, and no wonder the Hoppers feared them. The skins of the Horners were light brown, but they wore snow-white robes and were bare-footed. Dorothy thought the most striking thing about them was their hair, which grew in three distinct colors on each and every head--red, yellow and green. The red was at the bottom and sometimes hung over their eyes; then came a broad circle of yellow and the green was at the top and formed a brush-shaped top-knot. None of the Horners was yet aware of the presence of strangers, who watched the little brown people for a time and then went to the big gate in the center of the dividing fence. It was locked on both sides and over the latch was a sign reading: "WAR IS DECLARED" "Can't we go through?" asked Dorothy. "Not now," answered the Champion. "I think," said the Scarecrow, "that if I could talk with those Horners they would apologize to you, and then there would be no need to fight." "Can't you talk from this side?" asked the Champion. "Not so well," replied the Scarecrow. "Do you suppose you could throw me over that fence? It is high, but I am very light." "We can try it," said the Hopper. "I am perhaps the strongest man in my country, so I'll undertake to do the throwing. But I won't promise you will land on your feet." "No matter about that," returned the Scarecrow. "Just toss me over and I'll be satisfied." So the Champion picked up the Scarecrow and balanced him a moment, to see how much he weighed, and then with all his strength tossed him high into the air. Perhaps if the Scarecrow had been a trifle heavier he would have been easier to throw and would have gone a greater distance; but, as it was, instead of going over the fence he landed just on top of it, and one of the sharp pickets caught him in the middle of his back and held him fast prisoner. Had he been face downward the Scarecrow might have managed to free himself, but lying on his back on the picket his hands waved in the air of the Horner Country while his feet kicked the air of the Hopper Country; so there he was. "Are you hurt?" called the Patchwork Girl anxiously. "Course not," said Dorothy. "But if he wiggles that way he may tear his clothes. How can we get him down, Mr. Champion?" The Champion shook his head. "I don't know," he confessed. "If he could scare Horners as well as he does crows, it might be a good idea to leave him there." "This is terrible," said Ojo, almost ready to cry. "I s'pose it's because I am Ojo the Unlucky that everyone who tries to help me gets into trouble." "You are lucky to have anyone to help you," declared Dorothy. "But don't worry. We'll rescue the Scarecrow somehow." "I know how," announced Scraps. "Here, Mr. Champion; just throw me up to the Scarecrow. I'm nearly as light as he is, and when I'm on top the fence I'll pull our friend off the picket and toss him down to you." "All right," said the Champion, and he picked up the Patchwork Girl and threw her in the same manner he had the Scarecrow. He must have used more strength this time, however, for Scraps sailed far over the top of the fence and, without being able to grab the Scarecrow at all, tumbled to the ground in the Horner Country, where her stuffed body knocked over two men and a woman and made a crowd that had collected there run like rabbits to get away from her. Seeing the next moment that she was harmless, the people slowly returned and gathered around the Patchwork Girl, regarding her with astonishment. One of them wore a jeweled star in his hair, just above his horn, and this seemed a person of importance. He spoke for the rest of his people, who treated him with great respect. "Who are you, Unknown Being?" he asked. "Scraps," she said, rising to her feet and patting her cotton wadding smooth where it had bunched up. "And where did you come from?" he continued. "Over the fence. Don't be silly. There's no other place I could have come from," she replied. He looked at her thoughtfully. "You are not a Hopper," said he, "for you have two legs. They're not very well shaped, but they are two in number. And that strange creature on top the fence--why doesn't he stop kicking?--must be your brother, or father, or son, for he also has two legs." "You must have been to visit the Wise Donkey," said Scraps, laughing so merrily that the crowd smiled with her, in sympathy. "But that reminds me, Captain--or King--" "I am Chief of the Horners, and my name is Jak." "Of course; Little Jack Horner; I might have known it. But the reason I volplaned over the fence was so I could have a talk with you about the Hoppers." "What about the Hoppers?" asked the Chief, frowning. "You've insulted them, and you'd better beg their pardon," said Scraps. "If you don't, they'll probably hop over here and conquer you." "We're not afraid--as long as the gate is locked," declared the Chief. "And we didn't insult them at all. One of us made a joke that the stupid Hoppers couldn't see." The Chief smiled as he said this and the smile made his face look quite jolly. "What was the joke?" asked Scraps. "A Horner said they have less understanding than we, because they've only one leg. Ha, ha! You see the point, don't you? If you stand on your legs, and your legs are under you, then--ha, ha, ha!--then your legs are your under-standing. Hee, hee, hee! Ho, ho! My, but that's a fine joke. And the stupid Hoppers couldn't see it! They couldn't see that with only one leg they must have less under-standing than we who have two legs. Ha, ha, ha! Hee, hee! Ho, ho!" The Chief wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes with the bottom hem of his white robe, and all the other Horners wiped their eyes on their robes, for they had laughed just as heartily as their Chief at the absurd joke. "Then," said Scraps, "their understanding of the understanding you meant led to the misunderstanding." "Exactly; and so there's no need for us to apologize," returned the Chief. "No need for an apology, perhaps, but much need for an explanation," said Scraps decidedly. "You don't want war, do you?" "Not if we can help it," admitted Jak Horner. "The question is, who's going to explain the joke to the Horners? You know it spoils any joke to be obliged to explain it, and this is the best joke I ever heard." "Who made the joke?" asked Scraps. "Diksey Horner. He is working in the mines, just now, but he'll be home before long. Suppose we wait and talk with him about it? Maybe he'll be willing to explain his joke to the Hoppers." "All right," said Scraps. "I'll wait, if Diksey isn't too long." "No, he's short; he's shorter than I am. Ha, ha, ha! Say! that's a better joke than Diksey's. He won't be too long, because he's short. Hee, hee, ho!" The other Horners who were standing by roared with laughter and seemed to like their Chief's joke as much as he did. Scraps thought it was odd that they could be so easily amused, but decided there could be little harm in people who laughed so merrily. Chapter Twenty-Three Peace Is Declared "Come with me to my dwelling and I'll introduce you to my daughters," said the Chief. "We're bringing them up according to a book of rules that was written by one of our leading old bachelors, and everyone says they're a remarkable lot of girls." So Scraps accompanied him along the street to a house that seemed on the outside exceptionally grimy and dingy. The streets of this city were not paved nor had any attempt been made to beautify the houses or their surroundings, and having noticed this condition Scraps was astonished when the Chief ushered her into his home. Here was nothing grimy or faded, indeed. On the contrary, the room was of dazzling brilliance and beauty, for it was lined throughout with an exquisite metal that resembled translucent frosted silver. The surface of this metal was highly ornamented in raised designs representing men, animals, flowers and trees, and from the metal itself was radiated the soft light which flooded the room. All the furniture was made of the same glorious metal, and Scraps asked what it was. "That's radium," answered the Chief. "We Horners spend all our time digging radium from the mines under this mountain, and we use it to decorate our homes and make them pretty and cosy. It is a medicine, too, and no one can ever be sick who lives near radium." "Have you plenty of it?" asked the Patchwork Girl. "More than we can use. All the houses in this city are decorated with it, just the same as mine is." "Why don't you use it on your streets, then, and the outside of your houses, to make them as pretty as they are within?" she inquired. "Outside? Who cares for the outside of anything?" asked the Chief. "We Horners don't live on the outside of our homes; we live inside. Many people are like those stupid Hoppers, who love to make an outside show. I suppose you strangers thought their city more beautiful than ours, because you judged from appearances and they have handsome marble houses and marble streets; but if you entered one of their stiff dwellings you would find it bare and uncomfortable, as all their show is on the outside. They have an idea that what is not seen by others is not important, but with us the rooms we live in are our chief delight and care, and we pay no attention to outside show." "Seems to me," said Scraps, musingly, "it would be better to make it all pretty--inside and out." "Seems? Why, you're all seams, my girl!" said the Chief; and then he laughed heartily at his latest joke and a chorus of small voices echoed the chorus with "tee-hee-hee! ha, ha!" Scraps turned around and found a row of girls seated in radium chairs ranged along one wall of the room. There were nineteen of them, by actual count, and they were of all sizes from a tiny child to one almost a grown woman. All were neatly dressed in spotless white robes and had brown skins, horns on their foreheads and three-colored hair. "These," said the Chief, "are my sweet daughters. My dears, I introduce to you Miss Scraps Patchwork, a lady who is traveling in foreign parts to increase her store of wisdom." The nineteen Horner girls all arose and made a polite curtsey, after which they resumed their seats and rearranged their robes properly. "Why do they sit so still, and all in a row?" asked Scraps. "Because it is ladylike and proper," replied the Chief. "But some are just children, poor things! Don't they ever run around and play and laugh, and have a good time?" "No, indeed," said the Chief. "That would be improper in young ladies, as well as in those who will sometime become young ladies. My daughters are being brought up according to the rules and regulations laid down by a leading bachelor who has given the subject much study and is himself a man of taste and culture. Politeness is his great hobby, and he claims that if a child is allowed to do an impolite thing one cannot expect the grown person to do anything better." "Is it impolite to romp and shout and be jolly?" asked Scraps. "Well, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't," replied the Horner, after considering the question. "By curbing such inclinations in my daughters we keep on the safe side. Once in a while I make a good joke, as you have heard, and then I permit my daughters to laugh decorously; but they are never allowed to make a joke themselves." "That old bachelor who made the rules ought to be skinned alive!" declared Scraps, and would have said more on the subject had not the door opened to admit a little Horner man whom the Chief introduced as Diksey. "What's up, Chief?" asked Diksey, winking nineteen times at the nineteen girls, who demurely cast down their eyes because their father was looking. The Chief told the man that his joke had not been understood by the dull Hoppers, who had become so angry that they had declared war. So the only way to avoid a terrible battle was to explain the joke so they could understand it. "All right," replied Diksey, who seemed a good-natured man; "I'll go at once to the fence and explain. I don't want any war with the Hoppers, for wars between nations always cause hard feelings." So the Chief and Diksey and Scraps left the house and went back to the marble picket fence. The Scarecrow was still stuck on the top of his picket but had now ceased to struggle. On the other side of the fence were Dorothy and Ojo, looking between the pickets; and there, also, were the Champion and many other Hoppers. Diksey went close to the fence and said: "My good Hoppers, I wish to explain that what I said about you was a joke. You have but one leg each, and we have two legs each. Our legs are under us, whether one or two, and we stand on them. So, when I said you had less understanding than we, I did not mean that you had less understanding, you understand, but that you had less standundering, so to speak. Do you understand that?" The Hoppers thought it over carefully. Then one said: "That is clear enough; but where does the joke come in?'" Dorothy laughed, for she couldn't help it, although all the others were solemn enough. "I'll tell you where the joke comes in," she said, and took the Hoppers away to a distance, where the Horners could not hear them. "You know," she then explained, "those neighbors of yours are not very bright, poor things, and what they think is a joke isn't a joke at all--it's true, don't you see?" "True that we have less understanding?" asked the Champion. "Yes; it's true because you don't understand such a poor joke; if you did, you'd be no wiser than they are." "Ah, yes; of course," they answered, looking very wise. "So I'll tell you what to do," continued Dorothy. "Laugh at their poor joke and tell 'em it's pretty good for a Horner. Then they won't dare say you have less understanding, because you understand as much as they do." The Hoppers looked at one another questioningly and blinked their eyes and tried to think what it all meant; but they couldn't figure it out. "What do you think, Champion?" asked one of them. "I think it is dangerous to think of this thing any more than we can help," he replied. "Let us do as this girl says and laugh with the Horners, so as to make them believe we see the joke. Then there will be peace again and no need to fight." They readily agreed to this and returned to the fence laughing as loud and as hard as they could, although they didn't feel like laughing a bit. The Horners were much surprised. "That's a fine joke--for a Horner--and we are much pleased with it," said the Champion, speaking between the pickets. "But please don't do it again." "I won't," promised Diksey. "If I think of another such joke I'll try to forget it." "Good!" cried the Chief Horner. "The war is over and peace is declared." There was much joyful shouting on both sides of the fence and the gate was unlocked and thrown wide open, so that Scraps was able to rejoin her friends. "What about the Scarecrow?" she asked Dorothy. "We must get him down, somehow or other," was the reply. "Perhaps the Horners can find a way," suggested Ojo. So they all went through the gate and Dorothy asked the Chief Horner how they could get the Scarecrow off the fence. The Chief didn't know how, but Diksey said: "A ladder's the thing." "Have you one?" asked Dorothy. "To be sure. We use ladders in our mines," said he. Then he ran away to get the ladder, and while he was gone the Horners gathered around and welcomed the strangers to their country, for through them a great war had been avoided. In a little while Diksey came back with a tall ladder which he placed against the fence. Ojo at once climbed to the top of the ladder and Dorothy went about halfway up and Scraps stood at the foot of it. Toto ran around it and barked. Then Ojo pulled the Scarecrow away from the picket and passed him down to Dorothy, who in turn lowered him to the Patchwork Girl. As soon as he was on his feet and standing on solid ground the Scarecrow said: "Much obliged. I feel much better. I'm not stuck on that picket any more." The Horners began to laugh, thinking this was a joke, but the Scarecrow shook himself and patted his straw a little and said to Dorothy: "Is there much of a hole in my back?" The little girl examined him carefully. "There's quite a hole," she said. "But I've got a needle and thread in the knapsack and I'll sew you up again." "Do so," he begged earnestly, and again the Hoppers laughed, to the Scarecrow's great annoyance. While Dorothy was sewing up the hole in the straw man's back Scraps examined the other parts of him. "One of his legs is ripped, too!" she exclaimed. "Oho!" cried little Diksey; "that's bad. Give him the needle and thread and let him mend his ways." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Chief, and the other Horners at once roared with laughter. "What's funny?" inquired the Scarecrow sternly. "Don't you see?" asked Diksey, who had laughed even harder than the others. "That's a joke. It's by odds the best joke I ever made. You walk with your legs, and so that's the way you walk, and your legs are the ways. See? So, when you mend your legs, you mend your ways. Ho, ho, ho! hee, hee! I'd no idea I could make such a fine joke!" "Just wonderful!" echoed the Chief. "How do you manage to do it, Diksey?" "I don't know," said Diksey modestly. "Perhaps it's the radium, but I rather think it's my splendid intellect." "If you don't quit it," the Scarecrow told him, "there'll be a worse war than the one you've escaped from." Ojo had been deep in thought, and now he asked the Chief: "Is there a dark well in any part of your country?" "A dark well? None that ever I heard of," was the answer. "Oh, yes," said Diksey, who overheard the boy's question. "There's a very dark well down in my radium mine." "Is there any water in it?" Ojo eagerly asked. "Can't say; I've never looked to see. But we can find out." So, as soon as the Scarecrow was mended, they decided to go with Diksey to the mine. When Dorothy had patted the straw man into shape again he declared he felt as good as new and equal to further adventures. "Still," said he, "I prefer not to do picket duty again. High life doesn't seem to agree with my constitution." And then they hurried away to escape the laughter of the Horners, who thought this was another joke. Chapter Twenty-Four Ojo Finds the Dark Well They now followed Diksey to the farther end of the great cave, beyond the Horner city, where there were several round, dark holes leading into the ground in a slanting direction. Diksey went to one of these holes and said: "Here is the mine in which lies the dark well you are seeking. Follow me and step carefully and I'll lead you to the place." He went in first and after him came Ojo, and then Dorothy, with the Scarecrow behind her. The Patchwork Girl entered last of all, for Toto kept close beside his little mistress. A few steps beyond the mouth of the opening it was pitch dark. "You won't lose your way, though," said the Horner, "for there's only one way to go. The mine's mine and I know every step of the way. How's that for a joke, eh? The mine's mine." Then he chuckled gleefully as they followed him silently down the steep slant. The hole was just big enough to permit them to walk upright, although the Scarecrow, being much the taller of the party, often had to bend his head to keep from hitting the top. The floor of the tunnel was difficult to walk upon because it had been worn smooth as glass, and pretty soon Scraps, who was some distance behind the others, slipped and fell head foremost. At once she began to slide downward, so swiftly that when she came to the Scarecrow she knocked him off his feet and sent him tumbling against Dorothy, who tripped up Ojo. The boy fell against the Horner, so that all went tumbling down the slide in a regular mix-up, unable to see where they were going because of the darkness. Fortunately, when they reached the bottom the Scarecrow and Scraps were in front, and the others bumped against them, so that no one was hurt. They found themselves in a vast cave which was dimly lighted by the tiny grains of radium that lay scattered among the loose rocks. "Now," said Diksey, when they had all regained their feet, "I will show you where the dark well is. This is a big place, but if we hold fast to each other we won't get lost." They took hold of hands and the Horner led them into a dark corner, where he halted. "Be careful," said he warningly. "The well is at your feet." "All right," replied Ojo, and kneeling down he felt in the well with his hand and found that it contained a quantity of water. "Where's the gold flask, Dorothy?" he asked, and the little girl handed him the flask, which she had brought with her. Ojo knelt again and by feeling carefully in the dark managed to fill the flask with the unseen water that was in the well. Then he screwed the top of the flask firmly in place and put the precious water in his pocket. "All right!" he said again, in a glad voice; "now we can go back." They returned to the mouth of the tunnel and began to creep cautiously up the incline. This time they made Scraps stay behind, for fear she would slip again; but they all managed to get up in safety and the Munchkin boy was very happy when he stood in the Horner city and realized that the water from the dark well, which he and his friends had traveled so far to secure, was safe in his jacket pocket. Chapter Twenty-Five They Bribe the Lazy Quadling "Now," said Dorothy, as they stood on the mountain path, having left behind them the cave in which dwelt the Hoppers and the Horners, "I think we must find a road into the Country of the Winkies, for there is where Ojo wants to go next." "Is there such a road?" asked the Scarecrow. "I don't know," she replied. "I s'pose we can go back the way we came, to Jack Pumpkinhead's house, and then turn into the Winkie Country; but that seems like running 'round a haystack, doesn't it?" "Yes," said the Scarecrow. "What is the next thing Ojo must get?" "A yellow butterfly," answered the boy. "That means the Winkie Country, all right, for it's the yellow country of Oz," remarked Dorothy. "I think, Scarecrow, we ought to take him to the Tin Woodman, for he's the Emp'ror of the Winkies and will help us to find what Ojo wants." "Of course," replied the Scarecrow, brightening at the suggestion. "The Tin Woodman will do anything we ask him, for he's one of my dearest friends. I believe we can take a crosscut into his country and so get to his castle a day sooner than if we travel back the way we came." "I think so, too," said the girl; "and that means we must keep to the left." They were obliged to go down the mountain before they found any path that led in the direction they wanted to go, but among the tumbled rocks at the foot of the mountain was a faint trail which they decided to follow. Two or three hours walk along this trail brought them to a clear, level country, where there were a few farms and some scattered houses. But they knew they were still in the Country of the Quadlings, because everything had a bright red color. Not that the trees and grasses were red, but the fences and houses were painted that color and all the wild-flowers that bloomed by the wayside had red blossoms. This part of the Quadling Country seemed peaceful and prosperous, if rather lonely, and the road was more distinct and easier to follow. But just as they were congratulating themselves upon the progress they had made they came upon a broad river which swept along between high banks, and here the road ended and there was no bridge of any sort to allow them to cross. "This is queer," mused Dorothy, looking at the water reflectively. "Why should there be any road, if the river stops everyone walking along it?" "Wow!" said Toto, gazing earnestly into her face. "That's the best answer you'll get," declared the Scarecrow, with his comical smile, "for no one knows any more than Toto about this road." Said Scraps: "Ev'ry time I see a river, I have chills that make me shiver, For I never can forget All the water's very wet. If my patches get a soak It will be a sorry joke; So to swim I'll never try Till I find the water dry." "Try to control yourself, Scraps," said Ojo; "you're getting crazy again. No one intends to swim that river." "No," decided Dorothy, "we couldn't swim it if we tried. It's too big a river, and the water moves awful fast." "There ought to be a ferryman with a boat," said the Scarecrow; "but I don't see any." "Couldn't we make a raft?" suggested Ojo. "There's nothing to make one of," answered Dorothy. "Wow!" said Toto again, and Dorothy saw he was looking along the bank of the river. "Why, he sees a house over there!" cried the little girl. "I wonder we didn't notice it ourselves. Let's go and ask the people how to get 'cross the river." A quarter of a mile along the bank stood a small, round house, painted bright red, and as it was on their side of the river they hurried toward it. A chubby little man, dressed all in red, came out to greet them, and with him were two children, also in red costumes. The man's eyes were big and staring as he examined the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl, and the children shyly hid behind him and peeked timidly at Toto. "Do you live here, my good man?" asked the Scarecrow. "I think I do, Most Mighty Magician," replied the Quadling, bowing low; "but whether I'm awake or dreaming I can't be positive, so I'm not sure where I live. If you'll kindly pinch me I'll find out all about it!" "You're awake," said Dorothy, "and this is no magician, but just the Scarecrow." "But he's alive," protested the man, "and he oughtn't to be, you know. And that other dreadful person--the girl who is all patches--seems to be alive, too." "Very much so," declared Scraps, making a face at him. "But that isn't your affair, you know." "I've a right to be surprised, haven't I?" asked the man meekly. "I'm not sure; but anyhow you've no right to say I'm dreadful. The Scarecrow, who is a gentleman of great wisdom, thinks I'm beautiful," retorted Scraps. "Never mind all that," said Dorothy. "Tell us, good Quadling, how we can get across the river." "I don't know," replied the Quadling. "Don't you ever cross it?" asked the girl. "Never." "Don't travelers cross it?" "Not to my knowledge," said he. They were much surprised to hear this, and the man added: "It's a pretty big river, and the current is strong. I know a man who lives on the opposite bank, for I've seen him there a good many years; but we've never spoken because neither of us has ever crossed over." "That's queer," said the Scarecrow. "Don't you own a boat?" The man shook his head. "Nor a raft?" "Where does this river go to?" asked Dorothy. "That way," answered the man, pointing with one hand, "it goes into the Country of the Winkies, which is ruled by the Tin Emperor, who must be a mighty magician because he's all made of tin, and yet he's alive. And that way," pointing with the other hand, "the river runs between two mountains where dangerous people dwell." The Scarecrow looked at the water before them. "The current flows toward the Winkie Country," said he; "and so, if we had a boat, or a raft, the river would float us there more quickly and more easily than we could walk." "That is true," agreed Dorothy; and then they all looked thoughtful and wondered what could be done. "Why can't the man make us a raft?" asked Ojo. "Will you?" inquired Dorothy, turning to the Quadling. The chubby man shook his head. "I'm too lazy," he said. "My wife says I'm the laziest man in all Oz, and she is a truthful woman. I hate work of any kind, and making a raft is hard work." "I'll give you my em'rald ring," promised the girl. "No; I don't care for emeralds. If it were a ruby, which is the color I like best, I might work a little while." "I've got some Square Meal Tablets," said the Scarecrow. "Each one is the same as a dish of soup, a fried fish, a mutton pot-pie, lobster salad, charlotte russe and lemon jelly--all made into one little tablet that you can swallow without trouble." "Without trouble!" exclaimed the Quadling, much interested; "then those tablets would be fine for a lazy man. It's such hard work to chew when you eat." "I'll give you six of those tablets if you'll help us make a raft," promised the Scarecrow. "They're a combination of food which people who eat are very fond of. I never eat, you know, being straw; but some of my friends eat regularly. What do you say to my offer, Quadling?" "I'll do it," decided the man. "I'll help, and you can do most of the work. But my wife has gone fishing for red eels to-day, so some of you will have to mind the children." Scraps promised to do that, and the children were not so shy when the Patchwork Girl sat down to play with them. They grew to like Toto, too, and the little dog allowed them to pat him on his head, which gave the little ones much joy. There were a number of fallen trees near the house and the Quadling got his axe and chopped them into logs of equal length. He took his wife's clothesline to bind these logs together, so that they would form a raft, and Ojo found some strips of wood and nailed them along the tops of the logs, to render them more firm. The Scarecrow and Dorothy helped roll the logs together and carry the strips of wood, but it took so long to make the raft that evening came just as it was finished, and with evening the Quadling's wife returned from her fishing. The woman proved to be cross and bad-tempered, perhaps because she had only caught one red eel during all the day. When she found that her husband had used her clothesline, and the logs she had wanted for firewood, and the boards she had intended to mend the shed with, and a lot of gold nails, she became very angry. Scraps wanted to shake the woman, to make her behave, but Dorothy talked to her in a gentle tone and told the Quadling's wife she was a Princess of Oz and a friend of Ozma and that when she got back to the Emerald City she would send them a lot of things to repay them for the raft, including a new clothesline. This promise pleased the woman and she soon became more pleasant, saying they could stay the night at her house and begin their voyage on the river next morning. This they did, spending a pleasant evening with the Quadling family and being entertained with such hospitality as the poor people were able to offer them. The man groaned a good deal and said he had overworked himself by chopping the logs, but the Scarecrow gave him two more tablets than he had promised, which seemed to comfort the lazy fellow. Chapter Twenty-Six The Trick River Next morning they pushed the raft into the water and all got aboard. The Quadling man had to hold the log craft fast while they took their places, and the flow of the river was so powerful that it nearly tore the raft from his hands. As soon as they were all seated upon the logs he let go and away it floated and the adventurers had begun their voyage toward the Winkie Country. The little house of the Quadlings was out of sight almost before they had cried their good-byes, and the Scarecrow said in a pleased voice: "It won't take us long to get to the Winkie Country, at this rate." They had floated several miles down the stream and were enjoying the ride when suddenly the raft slowed up, stopped short, and then began to float back the way it had come. "Why, what's wrong?" asked Dorothy, in astonishment; but they were all just as bewildered as she was and at first no one could answer the question. Soon, however, they realized the truth: that the current of the river had reversed and the water was now flowing in the opposite direction--toward the mountains. They began to recognize the scenes they had passed, and by and by they came in sight of the little house of the Quadlings again. The man was standing on the river bank and he called to them: "How do you do? Glad to see you again. I forgot to tell you that the river changes its direction every little while. Sometimes it flows one way, and sometimes the other." They had no time to answer him, for the raft was swept past the house and a long distance on the other side of it. "We're going just the way we don't want to go," said Dorothy, "and I guess the best thing we can do is to get to land before we're carried any farther." But they could not get to land. They had no oars, nor even a pole to guide the raft with. The logs which bore them floated in the middle of the stream and were held fast in that position by the strong current. So they sat still and waited and, even while they were wondering what could be done, the raft slowed down, stopped, and began drifting the other way--in the direction it had first followed. After a time they repassed the Quadling house and the man was still standing on the bank. He cried out to them: "Good day! Glad to see you again. I expect I shall see you a good many times, as you go by, unless you happen to swim ashore." By that time they had left him behind and were headed once more straight toward the Winkie Country. "This is pretty hard luck," said Ojo in a discouraged voice. "The Trick River keeps changing, it seems, and here we must float back and forward forever, unless we manage in some way to get ashore." "Can you swim?" asked Dorothy. "No; I'm Ojo the Unlucky." "Neither can I. Toto can swim a little, but that won't help us to get to shore." "I don't know whether I could swim, or not," remarked Scraps; "but if I tried it I'd surely ruin my lovely patches." "My straw would get soggy in the water and I would sink," said the Scarecrow. So there seemed no way out of their dilemma and being helpless they simply sat still. Ojo, who was on the front of the raft, looked over into the water and thought he saw some large fishes swimming about. He found a loose end of the clothesline which fastened the logs together, and taking a gold nail from his pocket he bent it nearly double, to form a hook, and tied it to the end of the line. Having baited the hook with some bread which he broke from his loaf, he dropped the line into the water and almost instantly it was seized by a great fish. They knew it was a great fish, because it pulled so hard on the line that it dragged the raft forward even faster than the current of the river had carried it. The fish was frightened, and it was a strong swimmer. As the other end of the clothesline was bound around the logs he could not get it away, and as he had greedily swallowed the gold hook at the first bite he could not get rid of that, either. When they reached the place where the current had before changed, the fish was still swimming ahead in its wild attempt to escape. The raft slowed down, yet it did not stop, because the fish would not let it. It continued to move in the same direction it had been going. As the current reversed and rushed backward on its course it failed to drag the raft with it. Slowly, inch by inch, they floated on, and the fish tugged and tugged and kept them going. "I hope he won't give up," said Ojo anxiously. "If the fish can hold out until the current changes again, we'll be all right." The fish did not give up, but held the raft bravely on its course, till at last the water in the river shifted again and floated them the way they wanted to go. But now the captive fish found its strength failing. Seeking a refuge, it began to drag the raft toward the shore. As they did not wish to land in this place the boy cut the rope with his pocket-knife and set the fish free, just in time to prevent the raft from grounding. The next time the river backed up the Scarecrow managed to seize the branch of a tree that overhung the water and they all assisted him to hold fast and prevent the raft from being carried backward. While they waited here, Ojo spied a long broken branch lying upon the bank, so he leaped ashore and got it. When he had stripped off the side shoots he believed he could use the branch as a pole, to guide the raft in case of emergency. They clung to the tree until they found the water flowing the right way, when they let go and permitted the raft to resume its voyage. In spite of these pauses they were really making good progress toward the Winkie Country and having found a way to conquer the adverse current their spirits rose considerably. They could see little of the country through which they were passing, because of the high banks, and they met with no boats or other craft upon the surface of the river. Once more the trick river reversed its current, but this time the Scarecrow was on guard and used the pole to push the raft toward a big rock which lay in the water. He believed the rock would prevent their floating backward with the current, and so it did. They clung to this anchorage until the water resumed its proper direction, when they allowed the raft to drift on. Floating around a bend they saw ahead a high bank of water, extending across the entire river, and toward this they were being irresistibly carried. There being no way to arrest the progress of the raft they clung fast to the logs and let the river sweep them on. Swiftly the raft climbed the bank of water and slid down on the other side, plunging its edge deep into the water and drenching them all with spray. As again the raft righted and drifted on, Dorothy and Ojo laughed at the ducking they had received; but Scraps was much dismayed and the Scarecrow took out his handkerchief and wiped the water off the Patchwork Girl's patches as well as he was able to. The sun soon dried her and the colors of her patches proved good, for they did not run together nor did they fade. After passing the wall of water the current did not change or flow backward any more but continued to sweep them steadily forward. The banks of the river grew lower, too, permitting them to see more of the country, and presently they discovered yellow buttercups and dandelions growing amongst the grass, from which evidence they knew they had reached the Winkie Country. "Don't you think we ought to land?" Dorothy asked the Scarecrow. "Pretty soon," he replied. "The Tin Woodman's castle is in the southern part of the Winkie Country, and so it can't be a great way from here." Fearing they might drift too far, Dorothy and Ojo now stood up and raised the Scarecrow in their arms, as high as they could, thus allowing him a good view of the country. For a time he saw nothing he recognized, but finally he cried: "There it is! There it is!" "What?" asked Dorothy. "The Tin Woodman's tin castle. I can see its turrets glittering in the sun. It's quite a way off, but we'd better land as quickly as we can." They let him down and began to urge the raft toward the shore by means of the pole. It obeyed very well, for the current was more sluggish now, and soon they had reached the bank and landed safely. The Winkie Country was really beautiful, and across the fields they could see afar the silvery sheen of the tin castle. With light hearts they hurried toward it, being fully rested by their long ride on the river. By and by they began to cross an immense field of splendid yellow lilies, the delicate fragrance of which was very delightful. "How beautiful they are!" cried Dorothy, stopping to admire the perfection of these exquisite flowers. "Yes," said the Scarecrow, reflectively, "but we must be careful not to crush or injure any of these lilies." "Why not?" asked Ojo. "The Tin Woodman is very kind-hearted," was the reply, "and he hates to see any living thing hurt in any way." "Are flowers alive?" asked Scraps. "Yes, of course. And these flowers belong to the Tin Woodman. So, in order not to offend him, we must not tread on a single blossom." "Once," said Dorothy, "the Tin Woodman stepped on a beetle and killed the little creature. That made him very unhappy and he cried until his tears rusted his joints, so he couldn't move 'em." "What did he do then?" asked Ojo. "Put oil on them, until the joints worked smooth again." "Oh!" exclaimed the boy, as if a great discovery had flashed across his mind. But he did not tell anybody what the discovery was and kept the idea to himself. It was a long walk, but a pleasant one, and they did not mind it a bit. Late in the afternoon they drew near to the wonderful tin castle of the Emperor of the Winkies, and Ojo and Scraps, who had never seen it before, were filled with amazement. Tin abounded in the Winkie Country and the Winkies were said to be the most skillful tinsmiths in all the world. So the Tin Woodman had employed them in building his magnificent castle, which was all of tin, from the ground to the tallest turret, and so brightly polished that it glittered in the sun's rays more gorgeously than silver. Around the grounds of the castle ran a tin wall, with tin gates; but the gates stood wide open because the Emperor had no enemies to disturb him. When they entered the spacious grounds our travelers found more to admire. Tin fountains sent sprays of clear water far into the air and there were many beds of tin flowers, all as perfectly formed as any natural flowers might be. There were tin trees, too, and here and there shady bowers of tin, with tin benches and chairs to sit upon. Also, on the sides of the pathway leading up to the front door of the castle, were rows of tin statuary, very cleverly executed. Among these Ojo recognized statues of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Wizard, the Shaggy Man, Jack Pumpkinhead and Ozma, all standing upon neat pedestals of tin. Toto was well acquainted with the residence of the Tin Woodman and, being assured a joyful welcome, he ran ahead and barked so loudly at the front door that the Tin Woodman heard him and came out in person to see if it were really his old friend Toto. Next moment the tin man had clasped the Scarecrow in a warm embrace and then turned to hug Dorothy. But now his eye was arrested by the strange sight of the Patchwork Girl, and he gazed upon her in mingled wonder and admiration. Chapter Twenty-Seven The Tin Woodman Objects The Tin Woodman was one of the most important personages in all Oz. Though Emperor of the Winkies, he owed allegiance to Ozma, who ruled all the land, and the girl and the tin man were warm personal friends. He was something of a dandy and kept his tin body brilliantly polished and his tin joints well oiled. Also he was very courteous in manner and so kind and gentle that everyone loved him. The Emperor greeted Ojo and Scraps with cordial hospitality and ushered the entire party into his handsome tin parlor, where all the furniture and pictures were made of tin. The walls were paneled with tin and from the tin ceiling hung tin chandeliers. The Tin Woodman wanted to know, first of all, where Dorothy had found the Patchwork Girl, so between them the visitors told the story of how Scraps was made, as well as the accident to Margolotte and Unc Nunkie and how Ojo had set out upon a journey to procure the things needed for the Crooked Magician's magic charm. Then Dorothy told of their adventures in the Quadling Country and how at last they succeeded in getting the water from a dark well. While the little girl was relating these adventures the Tin Woodman sat in an easy chair listening with intense interest, while the others sat grouped around him. Ojo, however, had kept his eyes fixed upon the body of the tin Emperor, and now he noticed that under the joint of his left knee a tiny drop of oil was forming. He watched this drop of oil with a fast-beating heart, and feeling in his pocket brought out a tiny vial of crystal, which he held secreted in his hand. Presently the Tin Woodman changed his position, and at once Ojo, to the astonishment of all, dropped to the floor and held his crystal vial under the Emperor's knee joint. Just then the drop of oil fell, and the boy caught it in his bottle and immediately corked it tight. Then, with a red face and embarrassed manner, he rose to confront the others. "What in the world were you doing?" asked the Tin Woodman. "I caught a drop of oil that fell from your knee-joint," confessed Ojo. "A drop of oil!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman. "Dear me, how careless my valet must have been in oiling me this morning. I'm afraid I shall have to scold the fellow, for I can't be dropping oil wherever I go." "Never mind," said Dorothy. "Ojo seems glad to have the oil, for some reason." "Yes," declared the Munchkin boy, "I am glad. For one of the things the Crooked Magician sent me to get was a drop of oil from a live man's body. I had no idea, at first, that there was such a thing; but it's now safe in the little crystal vial." "You are very welcome to it, indeed," said the Tin Woodman. "Have you now secured all the things you were in search of?" "Not quite all," answered Ojo. "There were five things I had to get, and I have found four of them. I have the three hairs in the tip of a Woozy's tail, a six-leaved clover, a gill of water from a dark well and a drop of oil from a live man's body. The last thing is the easiest of all to get, and I'm sure that my dear Unc Nunkie--and good Margolotte, as well--will soon be restored to life." The Munchkin boy said this with much pride and pleasure. "Good!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman; "I congratulate you. But what is the fifth and last thing you need, in order to complete the magic charm?" "The left wing of a yellow butterfly," said Ojo. "In this yellow country, and with your kind assistance, that ought to be very easy to find." The Tin Woodman stared at him in amazement. "Surely you are joking!" he said. "No," replied Ojo, much surprised; "I am in earnest." "But do you think for a moment that I would permit you, or anyone else, to pull the left wing from a yellow butterfly?" demanded the Tin Woodman sternly. "Why not, sir?" "Why not? You ask me why not? It would be cruel--one of the most cruel and heartless deeds I ever heard of," asserted the Tin Woodman. "The butterflies are among the prettiest of all created things, and they are very sensitive to pain. To tear a wing from one would cause it exquisite torture and it would soon die in great agony. I would not permit such a wicked deed under any circumstances!" Ojo was astounded at hearing this. Dorothy, too, looked grave and disconcerted, but she knew in her heart that the Tin Woodman was right. The Scarecrow nodded his head in approval of his friend's speech, so it was evident that he agreed with the Emperor's decision. Scraps looked from one to another in perplexity. "Who cares for a butterfly?" she asked. "Don't you?" inquired the Tin Woodman. "Not the snap of a finger, for I have no heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "But I want to help Ojo, who is my friend, to rescue the uncle whom he loves, and I'd kill a dozen useless butterflies to enable him to do that." The Tin Woodman sighed regretfully. "You have kind instincts," he said, "and with a heart you would indeed be a fine creature. I cannot blame you for your heartless remark, as you cannot understand the feelings of those who possess hearts. I, for instance, have a very neat and responsive heart which the wonderful Wizard of Oz once gave me, and so I shall never--never--never permit a poor yellow butterfly to be tortured by anyone." "The yellow country of the Winkies," said Ojo sadly, "is the only place in Oz where a yellow butterfly can be found." "I'm glad of that," said the Tin Woodman. "As I rule the Winkie Country, I can protect my butterflies." "Unless I get the wing--just one left wing--" said Ojo miserably, "I can't save Unc Nunkie." "Then he must remain a marble statue forever," declared the Tin Emperor, firmly. Ojo wiped his eyes, for he could not hold back the tears. "I'll tell you what to do," said Scraps. "We'll take a whole yellow butterfly, alive and well, to the Crooked Magician, and let him pull the left wing off." "No, you won't," said the Tin Woodman. "You can't have one of my dear little butterflies to treat in that way." "Then what in the world shall we do?" asked Dorothy. They all became silent and thoughtful. No one spoke for a long time. Then the Tin Woodman suddenly roused himself and said: "We must all go back to the Emerald City and ask Ozma's advice. She's a wise little girl, our Ruler, and she may find a way to help Ojo save his Unc Nunkie." So the following morning the party started on the journey to the Emerald City, which they reached in due time without any important adventure. It was a sad journey for Ojo, for without the wing of the yellow butterfly he saw no way to save Unc Nunkie--unless he waited six years for the Crooked Magician to make a new lot of the Powder of Life. The boy was utterly discouraged, and as he walked along he groaned aloud. "Is anything hurting you?" inquired the Tin Woodman in a kindly tone, for the Emperor was with the party. "I'm Ojo the Unlucky," replied the boy. "I might have known I would fail in anything I tried to do." "Why are you Ojo the Unlucky?" asked the tin man. "Because I was born on a Friday." "Friday is not unlucky," declared the Emperor. "It's just one of seven days. Do you suppose all the world becomes unlucky one-seventh of the time?" "It was the thirteenth day of the month," said Ojo. "Thirteen! Ah, that is indeed a lucky number," replied the Tin Woodman. "All my good luck seems to happen on the thirteenth. I suppose most people never notice the good luck that comes to them with the number 13, and yet if the least bit of bad luck falls on that day, they blame it to the number, and not to the proper cause." "Thirteen's my lucky number, too," remarked the Scarecrow. "And mine," said Scraps. "I've just thirteen patches on my head." "But," continued Ojo, "I'm left-handed." "Many of our greatest men are that way," asserted the Emperor. "To be left-handed is usually to be two-handed; the right-handed people are usually one-handed." "And I've a wart under my right arm," said Ojo. "How lucky!" cried the Tin Woodman. "If it were on the end of your nose it might be unlucky, but under your arm it is luckily out of the way." "For all those reasons," said the Munchkin boy, "I have been called Ojo the Unlucky." "Then we must turn over a new leaf and call you henceforth Ojo the Lucky," declared the tin man. "Every reason you have given is absurd. But I have noticed that those who continually dread ill luck and fear it will overtake them, have no time to take advantage of any good fortune that comes their way. Make up your mind to be Ojo the Lucky." "How can I?" asked the boy, "when all my attempts to save my dear uncle have failed?" "Never give up, Ojo," advised Dorothy. "No one ever knows what's going to happen next." Ojo did not reply, but he was so dejected that even their arrival at the Emerald City failed to interest him. The people joyfully cheered the appearance of the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and Dorothy, who were all three general favorites, and on entering the royal palace word came to them from Ozma that she would at once grant them an audience. Dorothy told the girl Ruler how successful they had been in their quest until they came to the item of the yellow butterfly, which the Tin Woodman positively refused to sacrifice to the magic potion. "He is quite right," said Ozma, who did not seem a bit surprised. "Had Ojo told me that one of the things he sought was the wing of a yellow butterfly I would have informed him, before he started out, that he could never secure it. Then you would have been saved the troubles and annoyances of your long journey." "I didn't mind the journey at all," said Dorothy; "it was fun." "As it has turned out," remarked Ojo, "I can never get the things the Crooked Magician sent me for; and so, unless I wait the six years for him to make the Powder of Life, Unc Nunkie cannot be saved." Ozma smiled. "Dr. Pipt will make no more Powder of Life, I promise you," said she. "I have sent for him and had him brought to this palace, where he now is, and his four kettles have been destroyed and his book of recipes burned up. I have also had brought here the marble statues of your uncle and of Margolotte, which are standing in the next room." They were all greatly astonished at this announcement. "Oh, let me see Unc Nunkie! Let me see him at once, please!" cried Ojo eagerly. "Wait a moment," replied Ozma, "for I have something more to say. Nothing that happens in the Land of Oz escapes the notice of our wise Sorceress, Glinda the Good. She knew all about the magic-making of Dr. Pipt, and how he had brought the Glass Cat and the Patchwork Girl to life, and the accident to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, and of Ojo's quest and his journey with Dorothy. Glinda also knew that Ojo would fail to find all the things he sought, so she sent for our Wizard and instructed him what to do. Something is going to happen in this palace, presently, and that 'something' will, I am sure, please you all. And now," continued the girl Ruler, rising from her chair, "you may follow me into the next room." Chapter Twenty-Eight The Wonderful Wizard of Oz When Ojo entered the room he ran quickly to the statue of Unc Nunkie and kissed the marble face affectionately. "I did my best, Unc," he said, with a sob, "but it was no use!" Then he drew back and looked around the room, and the sight of the assembled company quite amazed him. Aside from the marble statues of Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, the Glass Cat was there, curled up on a rug; and the Woozy was there, sitting on its square hind legs and looking on the scene with solemn interest; and there was the Shaggy Man, in a suit of shaggy pea-green satin, and at a table sat the little Wizard, looking quite important and as if he knew much more than he cared to tell. Last of all, Dr. Pipt was there, and the Crooked Magician sat humped up in a chair, seeming very dejected but keeping his eyes fixed on the lifeless form of his wife Margolotte, whom he fondly loved but whom he now feared was lost to him forever. Ozma took a chair which Jellia Jamb wheeled forward for the Ruler, and back of her stood the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and Dorothy, as well as the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. The Wizard now arose and made a low bow to Ozma and another less deferent bow to the assembled company. "Ladies and gentlemen and beasts," he said, "I beg to announce that our Gracious Ruler has permitted me to obey the commands of the great Sorceress, Glinda the Good, whose humble Assistant I am proud to be. We have discovered that the Crooked Magician has been indulging in his magical arts contrary to Law, and therefore, by Royal Edict, I hereby deprive him of all power to work magic in the future. He is no longer a crooked magician, but a simple Munchkin; he is no longer even crooked, but a man like other men." As he pronounced these words the Wizard waved his hand toward Dr. Pipt and instantly every crooked limb straightened out and became perfect. The former magician, with a cry of joy, sprang to his feet, looked at himself in wonder, and then fell back in his chair and watched the Wizard with fascinated interest. "The Glass Cat, which Dr. Pipt lawlessly made," continued the Wizard, "is a pretty cat, but its pink brains made it so conceited that it was a disagreeable companion to everyone. So the other day I took away the pink brains and replaced them with transparent ones, and now the Glass Cat is so modest and well behaved that Ozma has decided to keep her in the palace as a pet." "I thank you," said the cat, in a soft voice. "The Woozy has proved himself a good Woozy and a faithful friend," the Wizard went on, "so we will send him to the Royal Menagerie, where he will have good care and plenty to eat all his life." "Much obliged," said the Woozy. "That beats being fenced up in a lonely forest and starved." "As for the Patchwork Girl," resumed the Wizard, "she is so remarkable in appearance, and so clever and good tempered, that our Gracious Ruler intends to preserve her carefully, as one of the curiosities of the curious Land of Oz. Scraps may live in the palace, or wherever she pleases, and be nobody's servant but her own." "That's all right," said Scraps. "We have all been interested in Ojo," the little Wizard continued, "because his love for his unfortunate uncle has led him bravely to face all sorts of dangers, in order that he might rescue him. The Munchkin boy has a loyal and generous heart and has done his best to restore Unc Nunkie to life. He has failed, but there are others more powerful than the Crooked Magician, and there are more ways than Dr. Pipt knew of to destroy the charm of the Liquid of Petrifaction. Glinda the Good has told me of one way, and you shall now learn how great is the knowledge and power of our peerless Sorceress." As he said this the Wizard advanced to the statue of Margolote and made a magic pass, at the same time muttering a magic word that none could hear distinctly. At once the woman moved, turned her head wonderingly this way and that, to note all who stood before her, and seeing Dr. Pipt, ran forward and threw herself into her husband's outstretched arms. Then the Wizard made the magic pass and spoke the magic word before the statue of Unc Nunkie. The old Munchkin immediately came to life and with a low bow to the Wizard said: "Thanks." But now Ojo rushed up and threw his arms joyfully about his uncle, and the old man hugged his little nephew tenderly and stroked his hair and wiped away the boy's tears with a handkerchief, for Ojo was crying from pure happiness. Ozma came forward to congratulate them. "I have given to you, my dear Ojo and Unc Nunkie, a nice house just outside the walls of the Emerald City," she said, "and there you shall make your future home and be under my protection." "Didn't I say you were Ojo the Lucky?" asked the Tin Woodman, as everyone crowded around to shake Ojo's hand. "Yes; and it is true!" replied Ojo, gratefully.