Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  “You set down here an’ eat your breakfast,” said his mother, giving her husband a warning look; “we’ll see about that hair-cut afterwards.”

  Dan meekly took his place at table, and the meal proceeded in silence, although ‘Liz’beth could not keep her admiring eyes off her big brother.

  “Arter you’ve finished, Dan’l,” said his father, as he rose from his chair, “I’ll see you in the barn.”

  Dan’s appetite was indifferent, and as be pushed back from the table, his mother said, —

  “Come over here by the winder, son, an’ I’ll see what can be done with that hair. Father can wait a bit, I guess.”

  Dan removed his coat and sat down obediently by the window. Mrs. Biggs took her scissors out of the work basket, and pinned a calico apron around Dan’s neck.

  “The suit ain’t so bad,” she said, musingly; “it looks like good stuff, an’ it’s pretty well made.”

  “Mr. Blodgett said it was the latest style,” remarked Dan, proudly.

  “Oh, you got it over to Blodgett’s store, did you. How much did it cost, Dan?”

  “Never you mind, mar,” said Dan, falling back upon his original defence, “1 earned the money.”

  Mrs. Biggs sighed and snipped busily away with the scissors.

  “I’m glad you wasn’t reckless enough to go to one of them barber fellers over town,” she said.

  “Oh, I were reckless ‘nough; ‘twarn’t that, mar. I clean forgot all about it.”

  “I’m afraid. Dan’l,” sighed Aunt Aanabel, “that you’re gittin’ into bad ways. I never knew your father to spend, so much money at one time in his life. It must ‘a’ cost a heap.”

  Dan was silent, and the scissors clipped away briskly, until Mrs. Biggs announced the job was completed to her satisfaction.

  “Now for pop,” said Dan, and he put on his coat and walked resolutely to the barn. His father sat upon an upturned pail in moody reflection, and when his son halted before him he looked up and said, —

  “Dan, I allus tried to be a good father to you. When you come twenty-one this spring I let the hired man go an’ took you in his place — on half wages. ‘Taint ev’ry father would ‘a’ done that. An’ when you come to me last night an’ wanted fifteen dollars, I made sure you was goin’ to put it in the bank. Sech a thought as your a spendin’ of it recklessly never entered my head. Whatever made you do it, Dan — whatever made you do it?”

  “Look here, pop; we’ve had ‘bout ‘nough o’ this kind o’ talk,” said Dan, with spirit; “I’ve worked steady an’ I’ve earned the money, an’ it’s my bus’ness. I’d got tired o’ them baggy old clo’s an’ home-made shirts, an’ made up my mind I’d dress as a feller should dress; an’ now it’s did, an’ there’s no backin’ out. So you jest take it quiet an’ let it pass.”

  “Well, well,” said Mr. Biggs, after a little thought, “you never did sech a thing afore, an’ so we’ll let it pass, as you say. Mebbe it’ll be a good lesson to you.”

  He arose from his seat, as if to indicate that the interview was at an end, but Dan hung around as though there was something more he wished to say. Finally he mustered up courage to ask, —

  “Kin I take the brown mare an’ the top buggy to drive to church?”

  “The top buggy! Air ye too proud to ride wi’ the rest of us in the wagin?”

  “I thought I’d go over to the Larkinsville church this mornin’.”

  “An’ why?” questioned his father, in surprise; “ain’t the church at the Corners good enough fer you?”

  “Oh, it’s good ‘nough; but all the best folks go to Larkinsville.”

  “The rich farmers as live on the turnpike go there,” said his father, sharply, “but you ain’t got no call to associate with the Larkins an’ Pentons an’ Abbeys. Why, they’d stick up their noses at the son o’ a poor farmer like me.”

  “Anyhow,” persisted Dan, stubbornly, “I’d like to go.”

  “Then go!” growled the farmer; “you’ll know more the next time. I s’pose you want to show off them new clo’s — an’ the red shirt.”

  So Dan drove over to the Larkinsville church, and, strange to say, seemed in high spirits on his return. And on Monday morning he put on his old clothes again and went to work with his usual energy and good will.

  During the week, farmer Larkins, reputed the richest man in the county, rode up to the Biggs farm to arrange for the purchase of some milch cows. While he was talking with Dan’s father the boy passed by and touched his hat respectfully to the great man.

  “That’s a good lad you have there,” said Mr. Larkins, looking after him; “he was over to our church Sunday, an’ set in our pew; an’ Sally ‘lowed as he was the best behaved young man at the meetin’.”

  Mr. Biggs reddened with pleasure at this praise from so high an authority.

  “Dan’s a rare worker,” he said, “an’ I’m payin’ him half wages now for takin’ the hired man’s place. He’ll make a right smart farmer one o’ these days.”

  “Yes,” replied Mr. Larkin, thoughtfully, “he has a likely look. I wish I had a son like him,” and he mounted his grey nag and rode slowly away.

  The next Sunday there was no opposition to Dan’s driving the bay mare to the Larkinsville church, and Mrs. Biggs was really proud of her boy as she watched him drive away, so sprucely dressed in his new clothes. It was nearly dark when he returned, but no one questioned him, and he made no explanation as to what had detained him.

  And so the summer passed away, and Sunday became Dan’s day off. Sometimes he would not return until the family was in bed, and his father and mother spoke to each other anxiously about his “carryin’s on” and feared his bad habits were growing on him. But Dan’s newly developed stubbornness restrained them from remonstrating seriously.

  Dan asked permission to attend the county fair in October, and to drive the brown mare with the top buggy, and his father reluctantly consented. But when the young man, after much hesitation, asked for two dollars to spend, Mr. Biggs firmly refused.

  “Fifty cents was all I ever spent at a fair when I was a boy,” he said, “an’ to chuck away two dollars for sech nonsense would be downright sinful. I’ll give you fifty cents, if you want it, but no more.”

  Dan looked him straight in the eye.

  “There’s about twenty dollars comin’ to me, ain’t there?” he asked.

  “‘Bout that. But I ain’t goin’ to encourage you in extravygent habits.”

  “I’ll trouble you for two dollars,” said Dan, white with anger, “or I’ll take what’s due me an’ you can find another hand. I’m twenty-one, an’ I’m my own master.”

  His father eyed him curiously a moment, but he saw Dan was in earnest, and so with a groan of protest he took the money from his pocket and gave it to him.

  “I s’pose you’re goin’ to take that redheaded gal o’ Jinkinses with you, an’ squander the money buyin’ her peanuts an’ candy,” he said spitefully; “them redheaded gals has ruined more men than you, Dan. But I see you’re headed for destruction, an’ you must go your own bent.”

  Dan did not reply. He put the money in his pocket, climbed into the “buggy and drove away without a word.

  After that Dan got into the habit of absenting himself more than one evening in the week, and his parents became so worried that Mr. Biggs began praying earnestly for him at family prayers.

  But nothing seemed to move Dan; even the prayers were ineffectual to stop him in what Aunt Annabel called his down’ard course.”

  One morning in December, Dan, having returned exceptionally late the preceding evening, remarked calmly at the breakfast table, —

  “You’d better look up a hired man, pop; I’m goin’ to be married New Year’s day.”

  If a bomb had been exploded in their midst the Biggs family could not have been more startled.

  His mother lay back in her chair and stared with eyes and mouth wide open; Aunt Annabel screamed and scared little ‘Liz’beth
into tears, and the farmer uttered a word under his breath that must have been taken bodily from the prayer-book.

  Mrs. Biggs recovered herself first.

  “Who to, Dan?” she enquired, breathlessly.

  “To Sally Larkins.”

  “Sally Larkins!” they echoed, with one voice.

  “Why, she’s the richest gal in the county,” said Aunt Annabel, in amazement.

  “An’ the prettiest!” said ‘Liz’beth.

  Dan caught his little sister in his arms and kissed her rapturously.

  “An’ she’s an only child!” cried his mother, as the importance of the announcement came home to her.

  “Dan,” said his father, rising from the table and trembling with excitement, “I’ll see you in the barn arter you’re through your breakfast.”

  Dan kissed his mother and Aunt Annabel and ‘Liz’beth with happiness shining from every feature of his round face, and then he sought his father.

  “Dan,” said that parent, impressively, “how air yon goin’ to support a wife, to say nothin’ o’ supportin’ yourself?”

  “Mr. Larkins has promised to give us the Downs Farm for a weddin’ present. There ain’t no better piece o’ land in the county.”

  Mr. Biggs sat silently upon the upturned pail, evidently engaged in deep thought.

  “Dan,” he said, at length, “I may have kicked a little at yer extravygence now an’ then, but let bygones be bygones. A business deal is a business deal, an’ to tell you the truth, that bit o’ money o’ yourn were mighty well invested!”

  Nelebel’s Fairyland

  From: The Russ (a publication of San Diego High School) June, 1905.

  I do not know exactly what naughty thing Princess Nelebel had done. Perhaps she had been making eyes at the Gnomes - which all fairies are forbidden to do. Anyway, she had been guilty of something so sadly unfairy-like, that her punishment was of a grievous nature. She was no more to inhabit the palace of the Fairy Queen, in the beautiful forest of Burzee--she was not even to live in Burzee at all, at least for a hundred years--but was condemned to banishment and exile in the first land she might come to, after crossing the ocean to the eastward.

  Really, Nelebel must have done more than merely make eyes at the Gnomes; for the punishment she incurred was something awful. Yet the sweet, dainty little fairy could not have been very wicked, I am sure; for she was not the only one that wept when she prepared to leave Burzee, with its hosts of immortals, to take residence in some dreary, unknown land across the seas.

  Of course, the beautiful fairy was not to go unattended, even into exile. Queen Lulea appointed forty of the crooked wood-knooks, and forty of the sprightly field-ryls, and forty of the monstrous gigans to accompany and protect Nelebel in her new home. The knooks, you know, are the immortals that make the trees and shrubs grow and thrive; and the ryls feed the flowers and grasses, and color them brilliantly with their brushes and paint-pots. As for the gigans, they were only strong and faithful.

  On a fine morning, while the eyes of her old comrades were all wet with sorrowful tears, Princess Nelebel waved her wand and vanished with her little band from Burzee, to begin that exile which had been decreed, in punishment of her fault.

  Although I have examined the Records of Fairyland with great care, I do not find anywhere the slightest reference to that journey of Nelebel across the great ocean; which leads me to believe the flight was so instantaneous, that there was no time for anything to happen; or else the journey was too unimportant to need recording.

  But we know that she came to a strip of beach both rocky and sandstrewn--a barren waste, gently washed by the waves of the mighty Pacific--and that her first act, upon setting foot on this shore, was to throw herself flat upon the ground and sob until the very earth shook with the tremor of his wild expression of grief and loneliness.

  The forty knooks squatted about her, silent and scowling. These creatures are very kindhearted, in spite of their ugly crookedness, and they scowled because the lovely princess was so sad. The restless ryls, sorrowful but busy, pattered around and touched the knolls and hills, here and there, with their magic fingers. So presently the brown earth and yellow sands were covered with emerald grasses, wherein banks of fragrant roses and gorgeous poppies nestled. And, as Nelebel wriggled around in the abandon of her grief, her fair head finally rested upon a mass of blooming flowers, and their touch soothed her. And sweet grasses brushed and cooled her tearstained cheeks, till under their comforting influence she fell asleep. And upon her fell the warm rays of the kindliest sun that any country has ever known--or ever will know--and brought to the little maid forgetfulness of all her woes.

  The crooked knooks, noting the transformations effected by the busy ryls, seemed suddenly to become ashamed of their own sullen inaction. They sprang up and bestirred themselves; and when they do this, something is bound to happen. Before long their masterful art had evoked a grove of graceful palms, which now, for the first time, vanquished the barrenness of this neglected coast, and gave the evening zephyrs something to play with. When the sun wooed the sleeping fairy too warmly, the palms threw their shadows over her; but the breeze crept low and kissed her brow and whispered lovingly into her pink ears. And Nelebel smiled, and sighed, and slumbered sweetly.

  But what do you suppose the gigans were doing all this time? Where do you imagine they disposed of their enormous bodies, that the repose of their wee mistress might not be disturbed? From all accounts those gigans were the largest of all beings ever known, and even the giants that Jack killed must have been mere pygmies beside them. I am informed that seventy-four years, five months and eight days after the events I am recording, Queen Lulea, becoming annoyed at the awkwardness of the huge gigans, transformed them into rampsies--the smallest of all immortals. So there are no gigans at all, in these days.

  Well, while Princess Nelebel was sleeping away her grief on the brow of the hill,* her forty gigans were squatting in the sand of the beach, close to the water’s edge. And here, idly amusing themselves, the big fellows began digging in the sand--just as children do now-adays. They scooped up huge mountains of sand at every handful and tossed it out into the sea; and this soon built up a ridge of land between them and the ocean, while the hollow they made filled up with seawater and became an inland lake. When, in their digging, they came across a rock, they tossed it to the north of them; and thus was formed the promontory we now know as Point Loma. Then these playful gigans--not knowing they were changing the geography of a country--heaped piles of rock and sand and earth to the southward, forming those peaks, known to future ages as the San Bernardino range of mountains. And one of the gigans, finding the inland lake was now deep enough, stretched out an arm and hollowed a trench against the side of Point Loma, that soon connected the lake with the ocean, thus creating a bay that is now world famous.**

  What more those tremendous gigans might have accomplished, is uncertain. The ryls and knooks had, until now, been too busy to interfere with their big comrades’ pastimes. But, at this moment, Nelebel awoke and sat up, and gave a little cry of delight.

  All about her spread a carpet of green grass, inlaid with exquisite patterns of wild flowers. Gracious pepper and eucalyptus trees nodded to her a pleasant greeting. At her feet lay the beautiful bay, its wave-tips sparkling like millions of diamonds. And, while Nelebel gazed, a sun of golden red sank toward the rugged head of Loma and touched it with a caressing good-night kiss.

  The exiled fairy, turning with indrawn breath to gaze upon the purple and rose tints of the mountains, clapped her pretty hands in an ecstacy of joy, and cried to her faithful servants:

  “Here is a new Fairyland, my friends! and to me it is far more lovely than the dark and stately groves of old Burzee. What matters our exile, when the beauties of this earthly paradise are ours to enjoy?”

  They are silent people--these knooks and ryls and gigans--so they did not bother to tell Princess Nelebel, that the magic of busy hands and loving hearts had made a b
arren waste beautiful to soothe her sorrow. Instead, they contended themselves with bowing mutely before their mistress.

  But Nelebel wished a response to her enthusiasm.

  “Speak!” she commanded. “Is it not, indeed, a new Fairyland?”

  So now a crooked, scarred and grey-bearded knook made bold to answer:

  “Wherever the fairest of the fairies dwells,” said he, “that place must be Fairyland.” Whereat she smiled; for even fairies love compliments.

  The Records, after dwelling long upon the beauties of this favored spot (which, long afterward, was called “Coronado”), relate the grief of Nelebel when her term of exile expired, and she was compelled to leave it. But the charm of her fairy presence still lingers over land and sea, and to this day casts its influence upon the lives of those pilgrims who stray, by good fortune, into the heart of Nelebel’s Fairyland.

  To Macatawa

  From The Herald (Grand Rapids, Michigan), September 1, 1907

  Fair Macatawa, let me fling

  My praises in thy face, and sing

  A tribute so deserved, mayhap

  All men to nestle in thy lap

  Will long, and be inspired with zest

  To rest their heads upon thy breast!

  This may be metaphoric, yet

  The nestle and the rest you bet

  Your badge belong no place but here -

  And here you’ll find them, never fear.

  I beg to ask where else you’ll find

  A summer haven that’s designed

  So perfectly to charm mankind

  And tone the liver, heart and mind?

  Where else is every nerve relaxed

  And every lung-cell overtaxed

  To breathe the ozone laden breeze

  That gives you sleep whene’er you please?

  Where else do jaunty villas peep

  From leafy bowers across the deep

  Expense of Michigan, who soaks

  With crystal tears the bathing-folks?