Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  “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.”

  8 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:93

  “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.”

&n
bsp; “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.”97

  “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.

  9 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.