L. Frank Baum - Oz 40

by Merry Go Round In Oz

  “Off-duty just now,” Spots explained. “Assigned to the Second Hunt. That’s young Freckles over there-one of my brightest pupils.” He gestured at one of the strollers with a front paw. “Not a handsome fellow, of course-all his family tend to be

  swine-chopped-but as for Superior Noses-”

  “Excuse me,” Robin interrupted. “Did you say swine chopped?”

  “Means his lower jaw sticks out beyond his upper jaw,” Spots explained impatiently. “Look and you’ll see for yourself. Now, I’m just the opposite-overshot.” He exhibited his profile, displaying a receding chin. “See the difference? Now, Firetail, there by the gate, is handsome enough, but he’s a skirter. Cuts corners and runs wide of the Pack. Bad business.” Spots shook his head gravely, and growled a little under his breath. “Terrible disappointment to his father. Well-let’s go in. You’ll be meeting some foxes, too, unless they’re all at the fence-wriggling contest. Remember Lesson One, and see that you don’t mention killing to any of them,” he added severely.

  Robin assured him indignantly that he would do no such tactless thing, and followed his teacher into the kennel yard. He had always liked dogs, and couldn’t help looking forward to getting acquainted with the hounds.

  After spending most of that day with them, however, he decided that these hounds were the dullest dogs he had ever met. They seemed to have no interest in life outside of foxhunting. When they were not actually hunting, they were talking about it. The ones off-duty lolled about interminably outside the kennel doors or in the shade of some tree, always in groups-which usually included a visiting fox or two-and they were always talking shop.

  “It was after that second check we lost you,” one hound was

  saying to a fox as Robin and Spots paused nearby late that afternoon. “All I could smell was hare, once we crossed that big

  ditch.”

  “You should have followed the hare, old boy,” the fox said with a yelp of laughter.

  “Followed the hare? My dear fellow, what are you talking about?” the hound demanded indignantly. “I hope I know better than to run riot, at my age! Why, a foiled field simply sickens me”.

  “I know!” said the fox, laughing harder than ever.

  “I think you went to earth in that big drain,” put in a second hound. “Trouble was, we didn’t close our cast, and missed your drag.”

  “No, no,” another said impatiently. “We lost him by that rasper just this side of the bullfinch. Then after we’d feathered, it was a stale line.”

  “What on earth do they mean?” Robin muttered crossly. In spite of his vocabulary drill, they might as well have been speaking Serbo-Croatian. But Spots was chuckling and nodding as if the discussion couldn’t have been more fascinating.

  “Smart fox, old Bushy,” he remarked to Robin. “I’ll bet he paired up with that hare, and took it easy the rest of the morning. He’s experienced, he is. Like to meet him?”

  At that moment, the fox glanced around, and Robin recognized him as the one he and Merry had encountered in the meadow the day before.

  “No thank you,” he told Spots stiffly. “I have met him, and he

  laughed at my horse.”

  “Oh, I say, no offense, my boy,” said Bushy, trotting over to them. “Just knew the Huntsmen would find her rather unusual, y’know.”

  “I wish they hadn’t found her at all,” Robin muttered. “They’ve taken her away from me.”

  “Oh, she’s got to be trained,” Bushy remarked. His slanty eyes gleamed suddenly, and he pulled Robin to one side, voice to a hoarse whisper. “Want to hear how I fooled the Pack this morning?”

  “Well-” said Robin, who didn’t. His lack of enthusiasm failed to dampen Bushy’s abundance of it. He nudged Robin a little farther away from Spots and began whispering animatedly, shoving his sharp nose so close that his whiskers tickled Robin’s ear, and casting excited, mischievous glances over his shoulder at the hounds.

  “I used a trick my great-uncle Whitetail taught me. I cut north for a hundred yards down that first lane, see, then ran my foil for fifty or sixty, then turned sharp by the bullfinch, jumped the big ditch and met a friend of mine-a hare! The two of us ran around a little to foil the field, then just sat in a thicket and watched the fun. Laugh? Thought I’d burst. You never saw such confused hounds. Except one other time, about a year ago-that day I headed due south, then jumped a rasper and-”

  This went on for some time, while Robin yawned, shifted from

  one foot to the other, dodged the tickling whiskers, and wished Spots would come and rescue him. The old hound finally finished examining a pup’s hurt paw, and ambled over to them just as Bushy came to the end of his fourth story and was starting, with undiminished enjoyment, on a fifth.

  “Tally-ho, Spots! Time to get on with the lessons, eh?” the fox said good-naturedly. “Well, good luck, young man. Don’t worry about your little mare. How’s she getting on with her jumping, d’you know?”

  “No, I don’t!” Robin said. “I haven’t even seen her.”

  “Never mind, I expect you will in a month or so, when she’s passed her exams,” Bushy said. “I’d better be loping along, I guess.

  Leu in!”

  “Leu in!” responded Spots affably.

  The fox waved a nonchalant paw and sauntered away, leaving Robin staring after him. “A month or so!” he gasped. “Why, they can’t keep Merry away from me a whole month! I won’t let them!” He turned furiously on Spots. “She’s sensitive, and they don’t understand her-they’ll hurt her feelings! Besides, she’s my horse! We don’t want to stay here in this old County! We never even-

  “Cope, cope!” Spots growled. “A little less tongue-throwing, if you please, or I’ll have to bite you. Huic-huic to me now, it’s time to mix the evening food.”

  Robin didn’t care to be bitten, so he clamped his mouth shut and followed Spots to the long pink kennel house and the discouraging

  array of feeding bowls. But his mind was made up. Before tomorrow, he and Merry were going to be far away from View-Halloo.

  That night, as soon as he heard Spots begin snoring in the next room, he crept out of his bed of hay, cautiously pried up a window, and crawled out into the dark. He felt his way along a graveled path he knew led to Yoick s mansion, then followed his nose toward the stables beyond. He was just edging cautiously around the corner of a well-house when he bumped straight into something that nickered with fright and bounced away.

  “Merry!” whispered Robin, who had recognized the nicker. “Robin! Is that you?” came a tremulous voice from the darkness, and the next instant Robin was being muzzled joyfully by a tear-wet nose. “Oh, I’ve been trying to find you! I hate it here! Please, let’s go away!”

  “Shhhh! Somebody’ll hear. I was looking for you, too. Don’t worry, we re going-and right this minute!”

  “Oh, quick, before those nosy Real Horses find out I’m not in my stall. Climb on my back, Robin, I can see in the dark better than you can.

  Robin was up in a moment, and Merry starred slowly across the royal lawns, gradually gaining speed.

  “I don’t need the calliope music now,” she whispered over her shoulder to Robin. “Although I’d like it, of course. And I can nearly always canter in a straight line, and I can jump quite

  well.”

  “Can you jump that five-barred fence?” Robin asked her anxiously.

  “I don’t know, but I’ve been practicing hard. There’s a place near our training-ring where it isn’t quite so tall. That’s where I’m going to try.

  “All right,” Robin said, looking nervously behind him. The moon had come out from behind a cloud bank, and he could see much better now-but so, he reflected, could any pursuers. “Is it much farther?” he whispered.

  “No, there it is ahead-see?”

  At that moment Robin saw movement near the white bars glimmering ahead, and the flash of a white-tipped tail. “A fox!” he groaned. “Practicing his fence-wriggling, I’ll bet!”<
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  “At this time of night?” Merry gasped.

  “They always do. It’s so the hounds won’t see them, and learn their secrets. Oh, maybe he won’t notice us!”

  But the fox had noticed them already. It let out a yelp of surprise and streaked for The Kennels, howling for Spots at the top of its lungs. Spots’s answering deep bark sounded almost immediately, baying the message to the Whipper-In, and in another instant every hound in View-Halloo was giving tongue. Lights flared in the mansion, in the courtyard; against the glow Robin could see the first Huntsmen running toward the stables and shouting for their horses to be saddled.

  “Run, Merry!” he cried. “Don’t look back, just run!”

  “Oh, Robin, are they after us?” she whinnied in fright, and began to run in terrified circles.

  “No, no, go straight, Merry! You can’t do this now! Control yourself!” Robin shouted, dragging frantically at the reins. Behind he could hear the sound of hoofs in the courtyard, mixed with the jingle of bridles and the yells of Huntsmen. “Merry they’ll be after us any second…” Then Robin thought of the harmonica in his pocket, and made a dive for it. An instant later he was blowing teedle-eedle-ees and oompahs as loud as he could blow. Merry’s head came up, her ears pricked, and suddenly she was no longer going around and around, but bounding straight across the sawdust of the training-ring and the strip of soft grass beyond.

  “Now!” yelled Robin, and blew a long, loud chord. Merry gave one last tremendous bound, sailed over the five-bar fence without so much as nicking the paint with a rear hoof, and landing running on the other side.

  “We’re safe, we’re safe!’, Robin cried, flinging both arms around her pole because he couldn’t reach her neck without falling off. “You can slow down now, Merry-we’ve left them all behind!”

  “Let’s leave them farther behind!” Merry gasped. “Hang on, Robin, I’m going to keep on running.”

  Keep on she did, across meadows and over hedges and ditches, until the moon was high in the sky and the landscape around them had changed from the pleasant fields of the Fox-Hunters’ County to rugged hills and forests and abrupt, narrow valleys. Here the

  little mare was forced to slow down and pick her way more carefully, though she still cast nervous glances over her shoulder and would not consent to stop for the night until they found themselves in a deep and winding gorge through which a swift little river ran. Ahead, Robin could hear the muffled roar of a waterfall.

  “We’re perfectly safe now, Merry!” Robin told her. “And I’m tired. Let’s stop, and go on in the morning.”

  “Can we go on?” Merry said dubiously as he slid down from her back. “Isn’t that a waterfall we hear?”

  “We’ll worry about that tomorrow,” Robin said with a yawn. He knelt for a long, refreshing drink of the icy water of the river, then curled up in a shallow cave in the rocks nearby, and was instantly asleep.

  Chapter 8

  ROBIN awoke early next morning, much refreshed to find Merry peering in the entrance of his little cave. She nickered softly, and when he said “Good morning!” she gave a little bounce ofjoy.

  “Oh goody, you’re awake. I’ve been awfully bored, waiting

  for you.”

  “Haven’t you even been to sleep?” Robin asked, stepping out into the sunshine.

  “No, I don’t know how. I guess I’m not made for sleeping.” “Or for getting tired, either,” Robin added, patting her ad-Page 86

  miringly. “That was a wonderful run you made last night!”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Merry sighed. “I think I ran too far. There doesn’t seem to be any way out of this gorge, unless we go right back toward FoxHunting country, and please, let’s not

  do that, Robin!”

  “Have you been exploring?” Robin asked, beginning to do some exploring himself, in search of breakfast. He quickly discovered some wild raspberries, and moved from bush to bush picking them into his handkerchief, with Merry tagging at his heejs.

  “No,” she answered, “I was afraid I might get lost from you. But a bird told me that noise is a waterfall up ahead, and we can’t climb a waterfall, can we?”

  “Maybe there’s a way around,” Robin told her. He had a handkerchief full of berries by now, and sat down on the bank of the little river to eat them. “You know, Merry,” he added, “I’ve been thinking about what that redbird told us about this country we re in.

  “It’s called Oz,” Merry said helpfully.

  “Yes, and we’re in the southern section of it, and there’s a capital called the Emerald City, and a fairy princess is the ruler. A fairy princess wouldn’t be mean to us, or capture us, or anything, would she? I think we ought to try to find this Emerald City and ask her if she’ll help us. She might know the way to Oregon.”

  “She might,” Merry said uncertainly.

  Robin felt a little uncertain himself. So far, nobody in Oz

  seemed even to have heard of Oregon, any more than he had ever heard of Oz.

  “Fairies probably know everything,” he said stoutly. “Anyway, we’ve got to go somewhere, and I’d like to see an emerald city, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes!” Merry agreed. “But Robin-what if it’s too far to walk from there to Oregon?”

  “Then we’ll take a train. In a city, I could get a job to earn our fare. I was a caddy once, at the Cherryburg Golf Club, and another time I had a paper route. The only thing I won’t be is a kennel-boy!” he added with a grin. He finished his raspberries, except for a handful which he put thoughtfully in his pocket for lunch, and jumped up, eager to be off. Reassuring Merry had made him feel much more confident himself. “Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see,” he told her as they started along the gorge.

  But the farther they went, the narrower the gorge became, and the steeper and higher its red, craggy walls grew, while the waterfall boomed ever louder ahead. Within a few minutes they had scarcely room to pick their way along the rocky river-bank, and Robin wondered if they would soon be forced to wade. Then they rounded a sharp bend and halted in astonishment and admiration at the scene before them. The gorge had opened out abruptly into a steep-sided basin, with the river, suddenly broadened into a little lake, lying like a clear jewel at the bottom. Straight ahead, the waterfall leaped in a broad and sparkling torrent over the edge of the basin far above, to plunge with a roar and a cloud of spray into

  the lake.

  “How beautiful!” Robin exclaimed. His voice was lost in the thunder of the waterfall, and he ended by shouting his remark directly into Merry’s ear. She nodded, but seemed frightened as she gazed with wide eyes this way and that.

  “Where’s the way around?” she whinnied. “You said there’d be a way round.”

  “I might’ve been wrong,” Robin admitted.

  He, too, began to examine his surroundings with an eye to escaping from them, and walking farther into the basin, peered rather anxiously across the river. At once he spotted a curious little hut on the opposite shore. It looked as if it were built entirely of twigs, woven together in some fashion, and smoke was spiraling from its crooked chimney. Most encouraging of all, there was a crude raft moored near the hut.

  “Somebody must live there,” Robin shouted, pointing. “Make as much noise as you can, Merry!”

  Merry whinnied shrilly, and Robin cupped his hands about his mouth and yelled with all his might. It was useless. The waterfall’s thunder swallowed their voices. After a few moments of effort, however, Robin stopped to catch his breath and noticed a small sign tacked to a tree growing near the water’s edge, only a few steps away from him.

  “PULL SIGNAL CORD FOR FERRYMAN,” it read.

  “Now, why didn’t I see that in the first place!” Robin panted,

  running forward in relief. A cord was dangling from the tree on which the sign was tacked. Wondering what sort of noise it would make, Robin pulled it. He heard nothing at all, but on closer ex-animation he discovered that the cord was threaded
through a complicated system of pulleys, screw-eyes and guide-hooks right under the river to a large drum-like stump on the opposite shore near the hut. Every time he pulled the cord, a wooden mallet banged hard upon the stump-and presently a very bent old man, with a long, pointed pink beard, emerged from the hut and peered across the river at them. Robin waved both hands and Merry her tail, and they received an answering wave from the Ferryman, who hobbled rapidly into his hut, came out again wearing a battered, official-looking scarlet cap, and hurried down to the raft.

  “He’s coming!” Robin shouted joyfully. “It won’t be long now, Merry, and we’ll be on our way.

  As a matter of fact, though the river was not very wide, the old Ferryman took an unconscionable length of time to cross it. He boarded his raft promptly enough, but only after an enormous amount of energy expended and motions made did he succeed in casting off. To the puzzled travelers, who stood watching for some time and finally sat down on the red sands to wait, the ferry appeared to be a mere raft of logs with two railings which ran along a rope stretched across the river, but judging by the Ferryman’s furious activity its operation seemed to be extremely complicated. Ropes of all sizes had to be untied every few minutes, and tied again in different places; a great many wooden levers had to be adjusted

  and readjusted; soundings had to be taken every ten seconds. What with all these things to attend to, the Ferryman was a perfect whirlwind of motion all the way across the river-yet the ferry traveled so slowly it was almost impossible to see it move. Robin and Merry had ample time to inspect the strange craft minutely as it crept near, and to read the words printed across the front of the Ferryman’s battered cap and handwritten, in red chalk, on both the railings:

  “MUNICIPAL INTERSTATE RAPID TRANSIT WATERWAYS SYSTEM COMMISSION OF THE QUADLING