The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels

by Various Authors

  Then, swinging his axe in a great circle to right and left before him, he advanced upon the gate, and the others followed him without hesitation.

  The girls, who had expected no resistance whatever, were terrified by the sweep of the glittering axe and fled screaming into the city; so that our travelers passed the gates in safety and marched down the green marble pavement of the wide street toward the royal palace.

  “At this rate we will soon have your Majesty upon the throne again,” said the Tin Woodman, laughing at his easy conquest of the guards.

  “Thank you, friend Nick,” returned the Scarecrow, gratefully. “Nothing can resist your kind heart and your sharp axe.”

  As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.

  “What has happened?” the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby-carriage along the sidewalk.

  “Why, we’ve had a revolution, your Majesty as you ought to know very well,” replied the man; “and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I’m glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.”

  “Hm!” said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. “If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?”

  “I really do not know” replied the man, with a deep sigh. “Perhaps the women are made of castiron.”

  No movement was made, as they passed along the street, to oppose their progress. Several of the women stopped their gossip long enough to cast curious looks upon our friends, but immediately they would turn away with a laugh or a sneer and resume their chatter. And when they met with several girls belonging to the Army of Revolt, those soldiers, instead of being alarmed or appearing surprised, merely stepped out of the way and allowed them to advance without protest.

  This action rendered the Scarecrow uneasy.

  “I’m afraid we are walking into a trap,” said he.

  “Nonsense!” returned Nick Chopper, confidently; “the silly creatures are conquered already!”

  But the Scarecrow shook his head in a way that expressed doubt, and Tip said:

  “It’s too easy, altogether. Look out for trouble ahead.”

  “I will,” returned his Majesty. Unopposed they reached the royal palace and marched up the marble steps, which had once been thickly crusted with emeralds but were now filled with tiny holes where the jewels had been ruthlessly torn from their settings by the Army of Revolt. And so far not a rebel barred their way.

  [Full page line-art drawing: “IT’S TOO EASY, ALTOGETHER."]

  Through the arched hallways and into the magnificent throne room marched the Tin Woodman and his followers, and here, when the green silken curtains fell behind them, they saw a curious sight.

  Seated within the glittering throne was General Jinjur, with the Scarecrow’s second-best crown upon her head, and the royal sceptre in her right hand. A box of caramels, from which she was eating, rested in her lap, and the girl seemed entirely at ease in her royal surroundings.

  The Scarecrow stepped forward and confronted her, while the Tin Woodman leaned upon his axe and the others formed a half-circle back of his Majesty’s person.

  “How dare you sit in my throne?” demanded the Scarecrow, sternly eyeing the intruder. “Don’t you know you are guilty of treason, and that there is a law against treason?”

  “The throne belongs to whoever is able to take it,” answered Jinjur, as she slowly ate another caramel. “I have taken it, as you see; so just now I am the Queen, and all who oppose me are guilty of treason, and must be punished by the law you have just mentioned.”

  This view of the case puzzled the Scarecrow.

  “How is it, friend Nick?” he asked, turning to the Tin Woodman.

  “Why, when it comes to Law, I have nothing to, say” answered that personage. “for laws were never meant to be understood, and it is foolish to make the attempt.”

  “Then what shall we do?” asked the Scarecrow, in dismay.

  “Why don’t you marry the Queen? And then you can both rule,” suggested the Woggle-Bug.

  Jinjur glared at the insect fiercely. “Why don’t you send her back to her mother, where she belongs?” asked Jack Pumpkinhead.

  Jinjur frowned.

  “Why don’t you shut her up in a closet until she behaves herself, and promises to be good?” enquired Tip. Jinjur’s lip curled scornfully.

  “Or give her a good shaking!” added the Saw-Horse.

  “No,” said the Tin Woodman, “we must treat the poor girl with gentleness. Let us give her all the Jewels she can carry, and send her away happy and contented.”

  At this Queen Jinjur laughed aloud, and the next minute clapped her pretty hands together thrice, as if for a signal.

  “You are very absurd creatures,” said she; “but I am tired of your nonsense and have no time to bother with you longer.”

  While the monarch and his friends listened in amazement to this impudent speech, a startling thing happened. The Tin Woodman’s axe was snatched from his grasp by some person behind him, and he found himself disarmed and helpless. At the same instant a shout of laughter rang in the ears of the devoted band, and turning to see whence this came they found themselves surrounded by the Army of Revolt, the girls bearing in either hand their glistening knitting-needles. The entire throne room seemed to be filled with the rebels, and the Scarecrow and his comrades realized that they were prisoners.

  “You see how foolish it is to oppose a woman’s wit,” said Jinjur, gaily; “and this event only proves that I am more fit to rule the Emerald City than a Scarecrow. I bear you no ill will, I assure you; but lest you should prove troublesome to me in the future I shall order you all to be destroyed. That is, all except the boy, who belongs to old Mombi and must be restored to her keeping. The rest of you are not human, and therefore it will not be wicked to demolish you. The Saw-Horse and the Pumpkinhead’s body I will have chopped up for kindling-wood; and the pumpkin shall be made into tarts. The Scarecrow will do nicely to start a bonfire, and the tin man can be cut into small pieces and fed to the goats. As for this immense Woggle-Bug—”

  “Highly Magnified, if you please!” interrupted the insect.

  “I think I will ask the cook to make green-turtle soup of you,” continued the Queen, reflectively.

  The Woggle-Bug shuddered.

  “Or, if that won’t do, we might use you for a Hungarian goulash, stewed and highly spiced,” she added, cruelly.

  This programme of extermination was so terrible that the prisoners looked upon one another in a panic of fear. The Scarecrow alone did not give way to despair. He stood quietly before the Queen and his brow was wrinkled in deep thought as he strove to find some means to escape.

  While thus engaged he felt the straw within his breast move gently. At once his expression changed from sadness to joy, and raising his hand he quickly unbuttoned the front of his jacket.

  [Line-Art Drawing]

  This action did not pass unnoticed by the crowd of girls clustering about him, but none of them suspected what he was doing until a tiny grey mouse leaped from his bosom to the floor and scampered away between the feet of the Army of Revolt. Another mouse quickly followed; then another and another, in rapid succession. And suddenly such a scream of terror went up from the Army that it might easily have filled the stoutest heart with consternation. The flight that ensued turned to a stampede, and the stampede to a panic.

  For while the startled mice rushed wildly about the room the Scarecrow had only time to note a whirl of skirts and a twinkling of feet as the girls disappeared from the palace—pushing and crowding one another in their mad efforts t
o escape.

  The Queen, at the first alarm, stood up on the cushions of the throne and began to dance frantically upon her tiptoes. Then a mouse ran up the cushions, and with a terrified leap poor Jinjur shot clear over the head of the Scarecrow and escaped through an archway—never pausing in her wild career until she had reached the city gates.

  So, in less time than I can explain, the throne room was deserted by all save the Scarecrow and his friends, and the Woggle-Bug heaved a deep sigh of relief as he exclaimed:

  “Thank goodness, we are saved!”

  “For a time, yes;” answered the Tin Woodman. “But the enemy will soon return, I fear.”

  “Let us bar all the entrances to the palace!” said the Scarecrow. “Then we shall have time to think what is best to be done.”

  So all except Jack Pumpkinhead, who was still tied fast to the Saw-Horse, ran to the various entrances of the royal palace and closed the heavy doors, bolting and locking them securely. Then, knowing that the Army of Revolt could not batter down the barriers in several days, the adventurers gathered once more in the throne room for a council of war.

  The Scarecrow Takes Time to Think

  “It seems to me,” began the Scarecrow, when all were again assembled in the throne room, “that the girl Jinjur is quite right in claiming to be Queen. And if she is right, then I am wrong, and we have no business to be occupying her palace.”

  “But you were the King until she came,” said the Woggle-Bug, strutting up and down with his hands in his pockets; “so it appears to me that she is the interloper instead of you.”

  “Especially as we have just conquered her and put her to flight,” added the Pumpkinhead, as he raised his hands to turn his face toward the Scarecrow.

  “Have we really conquered her?” asked the Scarecrow, quietly. “Look out of the window, and tell me what you see.”

  Tip ran to the window and looked out.

  “The palace is surrounded by a double row of girl soldiers,” he announced.

  “I thought so,” returned the Scarecrow. “We are as truly their prisoners as we were before the mice frightened them from the palace.”

  “My friend is right,” said Nick Chopper, who had been polishing his breast with a bit of chamois-leather. “Jinjur is still the Queen, and we are her prisoners.”

  “But I hope she cannot get at us,” exclaimed the Pumpkinhead, with a shiver of fear. “She threatened to make tarts of me, you know.”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Tin Woodman. “It cannot matter greatly. If you stay shut up here you will spoil in time, anyway. A good tart is far more admirable than a decayed intellect.”

  “Very true,” agreed the Scarecrow.

  “Oh, dear!” moaned Jack; “what an unhappy lot is mine! Why, dear father, did you not make me out of tin—or even out of straw—so that I would keep indefinitely.”

  “Shucks!” returned Tip, indignantly. “You ought to be glad that I made you at all.” Then he added, reflectively, “everything has to come to an end, some time.”

  “But I beg to remind you,” broke in the Woggle-Bug, who had a distressed look in his bulging, round eyes, “that this terrible Queen Jinjur suggested making a goulash of me—Me! the only Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Woggle-Bug in the wide, wide world!”

  “I think it was a brilliant idea,” remarked the Scarecrow, approvingly.

  “Don’t you imagine he would make a better soup?” asked the Tin Woodman, turning toward his friend.

  “Well, perhaps,” acknowledged the Scarecrow.

  The Woggle-Bug groaned.

  “I can see, in my mind’s eye,” said he, mournfully, “the goats eating small pieces of my dear comrade, the Tin Woodman, while my soup is being cooked on a bonfire built of the Saw-Horse and Jack Pumpkinhead’s body, and Queen Jinjur watches me boil while she feeds the flames with my friend the Scarecrow!”

  This morbid picture cast a gloom over the entire party, making them restless and anxious.

  “It can’t happen for some time,” said the Tin Woodman, trying to speak cheerfully; “for we shall be able to keep Jinjur out of the palace until she manages to break down the doors.”

  “And in the meantime I am liable to starve to death, and so is the Woggle-Bug,” announced Tip.

  “As for me,” said the Woggle-Bug, “I think that I could live for some time on Jack Pumpkinhead. Not that I prefer pumpkins for food; but I believe they are somewhat nutritious, and Jack’s head is large and plump.”

  “How heartless!” exclaimed the Tin Woodman, greatly shocked. “Are we cannibals, let me ask? Or are we faithful friends?”

  “I see very clearly that we cannot stay shut up in this palace,” said the Scarecrow, with decision. “So let us end this mournful talk and try to discover a means to escape.”

  At this suggestion they all gathered eagerly around the throne, wherein was seated the Scarecrow, and as Tip sat down upon a stool there fell from his pocket a pepper-box, which rolled upon the floor.

  “What is this?” asked Nick Chopper, picking up the box.

  “Be careful!” cried the boy. “That’s my Powder of Life. Don’t spill it, for it is nearly gone.”

  “And what is the Powder of Life?” enquired the Scarecrow, as Tip replaced the box carefully in his pocket.

  “It’s some magical stuff old Mombi got from a crooked sorcerer,” explained the boy. “She brought Jack to life with it, and afterward I used it to bring the Saw-Horse to life. I guess it will make anything live that is sprinkled with it; but there’s only about one dose left.”

  “Then it is very precious,” said the Tin Woodman.

  “Indeed it is,” agreed the Scarecrow. “It may prove our best means of escape from our difficulties. I believe I will think for a few minutes; so I will thank you, friend Tip, to get out your knife and rip this heavy crown from my forehead.”

  Tip soon cut the stitches that had fastened the crown to the Scarecrow’s head, and the former monarch of the Emerald City removed it with a sigh of relief and hung it on a peg beside the throne.

  [Line-Art Drawing]

  “That is my last memento of royalty” said he; “and I’m glad to get rid of it. The former King of this City, who was named Pastoria, lost the crown to the Wonderful Wizard, who passed it on to me. Now the girl Jinjur claims it, and I sincerely hope it will not give her a headache.”

  “A kindly thought, which I greatly admire,” said the Tin Woodman, nodding approvingly.

  “And now I will indulge in a quiet think,” continued the Scarecrow, lying back in the throne.

  The others remained as silent and still as possible, so as not to disturb him; for all had great confidence in the extraordinary brains of the Scarecrow.

  And, after what seemed a very long time indeed to the anxious watchers, the thinker sat up, looked upon his friends with his most whimsical expression, and said:

  “My brains work beautifully today. I’m quite proud of them. Now, listen! If we attempt to escape through the doors of the palace we shall surely be captured. And, as we can’t escape through the ground, there is only one other thing to be done. We must escape through the air!”

  He paused to note the effect of these words; but all his hearers seemed puzzled and unconvinced.

  “The Wonderful Wizard escaped in a balloon,” he continued. “We don’t know how to make a balloon, of course; but any sort of thing that can fly through the air can carry us easily. So I suggest that my friend the Tin Woodman, who is a skillful mechanic, shall build some sort of a machine, with good strong wings, to carry us; and our friend Tip can then bring the Thing to life with his magical powder.”

  “Bravo!” cried Nick Chopper.

  “What splendid brains!” murmured Jack.

  “Really quite clever!” said the Educated Woggle-Bug.

  “I believe it can be done
,” declared Tip; “that is, if the Tin Woodman is equal to making the Thing.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Nick, cheerily; “and, as a matter of fact, I do not often fail in what I attempt. But the Thing will have to be built on the roof of the palace, so it can rise comfortably into the air.”

  [Line-Art Drawing]

  “To be sure,” said the Scarecrow.

  “Then let us search through the palace,” continued the Tin Woodman, “and carry all the material we can find to the roof, where I will begin my work.”

  “First, however,” said the Pumpkinhead, “I beg you will release me from this horse, and make me another leg to walk with. For in my present condition I am of no use to myself or to anyone else.”

  So the Tin Woodman knocked a mahogany center-table to pieces with his axe and fitted one of the legs, which was beautifully carved, on to the body of Jack Pumpkinhead, who was very proud of the acquisition.

  “It seems strange,” said he, as he watched the Tin Woodman work, “that my left leg should be the most elegant and substantial part of me.”

  “That proves you are unusual,” returned the Scarecrow. “and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”

  “Spoken like a philosopher!” cried the Woggle-Bug, as he assisted the Tin Woodman to set Jack upon his feet.

  “How do you feel now?” asked Tip, watching the Pumpkinhead stump around to try his new leg.

  “As good as new” answered Jack, joyfully, “and quite ready to assist you all to escape.”

  “Then let us get to work,” said the Scarecrow, in a business-like tone.

  So, glad to be doing anything that might lead to the end of their captivity, the friends separated to wander over the palace in search of fitting material to use in the construction of their aerial machine.