L. Frank Baum - Oz 34

by The Wonder City Of Oz

  “Greetings, Professor Wogglebug,” Ozma said. “I have summoned you and all the rulers of the countries of Oz. I need your advice about an election be held in Oz. The only ruler who cannot be present is JoKing of the Gillikins.”

  The Professor put on his spectacles and his most important expression.

  “Hum, hum,” he said wisely. Ozma went on, “I have been Queen of Oz a long time. It is only fair to let the people decide whether they want me to continue. Therefore I am holding an election.”

  The Wogglebug interrupted. “Your Majesty, according to my latest dictionary, there is no such word. What you undoubtedly mean to hold is an ozlection.”

  The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow got to their

  feet.

  “We stand corrected,” they said together.

  Ozma continued, “I have invited Jenny Jump to run against me. And now you must help me plan the other details of this ozlection.”

  “Ahem, humph!” The Wogglebug again brought attention to himself. “This will be the most important event of Your Majesty’s reign. Only those of man age should vote. I shall be glad to man-age the ozlection for you.”

  “Very well, you be my ozlection man-ager,” Ozma said. “But the children must be allowed to vote, also, or they’ll feel bad. They could have little votes.” Dorothy got up from her chair and moved closer to the Cowardly Lion. She began curling his mane as she listened.

  “What shall we use for votes?” Ozma said, looking around at everyone.

  “Umbrellas,” said the Scarecrow. “They’d keep us safe from an unwelcome reign.”

  “No,” objected the Professor, “some people have more than one umbrella, and a person can have only one vote.”

  “Well, I’ll have to think harder,” said the Scarecrow, and turned his face to the wall. He thought so hard that the straw bulged out of his head.

  “Noses,” the Tin Woodman said. “They’re easy to

  count.”

  Glinda the Good smiled at the Tin Woodman. “We who are made out of flesh cannot take off our noses like you, Nick Chopper,” she said.

  The Hungry Tiger looked up, licked his chops, and said, “A pile of meat noses might fill me up for once. But my conscience would not let me spoil the ozlection by eating the votes. So I’d be obliged to remain hungry,” he ended sadly.

  “Couldn’t we use wisdom teeth?” asked Princess Dorothy. “They would prevent us from making a foolish choice.”

  “No, no!” cried the Professor. “Some people’s teeth are false, and this is to be an honest ozlection.” He thought so hard that his antennae wriggled. Then he said, “We want the people to throw their SOLES into the matter, and to use their RIGHTS. Therefore I conclude that each person’s RIGHT SHOE shall be his vote.”

  “Excellent, Professor Wogglebug,” said Ozma, beaming. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow the Town Crier will cry the ozlection through the Emerald City and all the countries of Oz.”

  “This is the greatest event that ever ozcurred in our land,” said the Professor solemnly.

  Glinda the Good began to unlace her right shoe.

  “Ozma, I want to cast my vote for you right now.” Saying this, Glinda placed her dainty red shoe beside the throne. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman took off their right shoes and placed them beside Glinda’s.

  “Let me warn you,” the Professor said suddenly, “that living in the Sandy Waste outside Oz is a species of spineless sponges known as Heelers. They feed chiefly on votes. When these creatures learn of the ozlection, they may try to break into the Emerald City and carry off the votes.”

  “Jack Pumpkinhead shall keep the votes safe in the ozoplane in which he lives. And the Sawhorse, who never sleeps, shall help Jack to guard the votes,” declared Ozma.

  The Wogglebug bowed before Ozma and backed his way to the door.

  “If there is no further need of my talents, I shall return to my college. I must write a book about the reign of Ozma the Great up to the ozlection. For afterward, we don’t know who our Ruler will be!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Whistlebreeches Scraps

  NEW STYLES, fresh styles, styles for every

  taste!”

  Number Nine came down Celery Street shouting at the top of his voice.

  “Visit Jenny Jump’s Style Shop.Hot styles, cool styles, styles for all the family and the pets!”

  The office boy was working well. He had been working since early this morning, and it was time he had a rest. If he returned to his Uncle’s house without letting Jenny see him, he might take a long, sweet nap.

  His Uncle’s business of emerald cutting was dull, for there was no place left in all the city to put a single emerald. So his Uncle spent his time walking about the city and admiring the emeralds he had already cut. The house would be empty, and Number Nine thought he could enjoy his sleep undisturbed. He had forgotten that his whistlebreeches wouldn’t let him sleep.

  “Ho hum!” he yawned, turning into Pudding Place, where his Uncle’s house stood. As soon as his steps slowed, the breeches began to whistle. The slower he went, the louder they whistled. By the time he reached his Uncle’s house, the breeches sounded like the fire injins’ sirens.

  Just as Number Nine turned in at the gate, someone caught him by the shoulder and swung him around. Number Nine saw the Town Crier, a sad-looking, red-nosed man. Tears were dripping off the end of the Crier’s long nose and splashing on his vest. His shoulders were shaking with his sobs.

  “Stop that noise! You’re interfering with an officer of the law,” he shouted. “Whistlebreeches, can’t you be quiet so I can do my crying in peace? I have an important message from Ozma to cry to the people.”

  “My name isn’t Whistlebreeches, you old tear jerker!” the boy said rudely. His pants were going full blast.

  The Crier’s voice rose to a wail. “Stop it, I say. For 811 years, no one in Oz has made more noise than I. I’ll be blowed if I’ll let your silly whistlebreeches make more noise now!”

  He started to whimper, but found it hard work.

  “I’m expected to work from eight in the morning until seven at night. I’m not going to lose my job for any clap-trap pair of pants. You don’t seem to understand that you are ruining my business.”

  Now the Crier’s tears came so fast they formed a pool around his feet. The whistlebreeches were going like mad, and a crowd of people had gathered around. The Town Crier, seeing what a large audience he had, couldn’t blubber a blub. His face broke into a broad smile. Then, realizing what a mistake he had made, he burst into a hard fit of sobbing.

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” he moaned and wailed. “Her-boo-hoo-ho~Majesty, Ozma–oh, ahz, woe is me-announces an ozlection. Get out and give your right shoe for the one who shall rule for the next thousand years! Ahzme! Oh, my!” A river of tears was flowing away from the Town Crier. Never before had he wept so well. He had to make up for the forbidden smile.

  The Town Crier and the whistlebreeches were making such a racket that Number Nine knew it was hopeless to take a nap. It was better to return to Jenny’s Style Shop and steal a few winks when Jenny wasn’t looking.

  The Crier kept crying, and the boy shouted even

  louder.

  “Fresh styles! Cool styles!” As he hurried along, the breeches grew quiet.

  Number Nine drew close to the wall of the Public Gardens. In one section of the gardens grew living flowers. In another, the animal-plants were kept chained within an enclosure.

  The care of these gardens was one of the great

  pleasures of the city people. Many of them gave their entire lives to it. Travelers from distant parts of Oz came here to get seeds or slips of the flowers and baby animal-plants, which they carried away to plant in their own gardens. The goose-berries were popular with these travelers. Mountaineers carried away dandy-lions and tiger-lilies. But nobody wanted the pretty skunk-cabbage.

  “It would be a lot of fun to walk on top of the wall, instead of in the crowded stree
t,” thought Number Nine. A vine was growing on the wall. The boy seized the vine and began climbing. His breeches whistled in protest.

  “This is better,” he said, as he reached the top and looked down into the living flower garden.

  Here the dew-berries kept the other plants moist, and the umbrella plants kept them shaded. Toad stools offered rest to drooping violets. Maiden fern smiled and chatted with her friends, the daisies, the roses, and the lilac. The spy-rea peeped through the sham-rocks and reported everything it saw. The blue bells made a soft music that kept the gardeners dozing.

  This garden was peaceful and enchanted compared with the noisy plot where the animal-plants were kept. Number Nine got more fun out of watching the

  animal-plants. He walked along the wall until he could see these strange creatures.

  He could see the tiger-lilies pulling at their flower chains, and he heard the snap-dragons snapping at the cow-slips, who paid no attention, but went on grazing. The goose-berries were honking and hissing. The bull-rushes were charging at the horse-radishes, and the dandy-lions, having beautified themselves with cocks-combs, were strutting before the pussywillows. Dogtooth violets and larkspur were fighting a bloody battle.

  When the animal-plants heard the whistlebreeches they roared, shrieked, and spat in anger. Number Nine, fearing that they would snap their chains and come at him, began to run.

  “Whistlebreeches, Whistlebreeches,

  Runs as though he had the itches!” Number Nine stopped and looked around. “who said that?” he demanded.

  “I was the one to shout it,

  What’ll you do about it?”

  The boy looked up. A tree grew beside the wall, and out of the branches peeped Scraps, the Patchwork Girl. Her shoebutton eyes were gleaming merrily, and her red velvet tongue stuck out at

  the boy.

  “Want to fight? I say, all right!” she taunted.

  Number Nine did not feel like fighting Scraps. He knew what a good boxer she was. He drew himself up with dignity and said, “I’m a business man. I must get back to work.”

  The breeches gave a loud blast. Number Nine slid down the vine. He watched Scraps to see what she would do. Scraps dropped from the tree to the wall. She found a shadow and began boxing with it.

  “Oh, oh,” said Number Nine, “she’ll come after

  me next.”

  He turned and began running.

  “What makes him run away from me?

  Perhaps he doubts my sanity!” chanted Scraps from above. Turning a few cartwheels on the high wall, she leaped lightly to the ground and was after the boy, shouting gayly at him,

  “He flies like a thistle,

  Hey, gimme a whistle!”

  Number Nine could see her somersaulting after him. Jenny’s Style Shop now seemed the safest place in Oz. He ran harder, dodging the crowd, bumping into baby carriages, and starting the dogs chasing

  after him. But Scraps kept tumbling close behind him. Her many-colored patches of silk, velvet, gingham, and calico flashed like a pinwheel.

  “Whistlebreeches, stay and play,

  You can work another day!” she called after him.

  Whistlebreeches came running around the corner of Strawberry Street and dashed into the shelter of Jenny’s Style Shop.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I finally got away from that patchwork tomboy!”

  “Look out! Here she comes!” called Jenny.

  Number Nine jumped just in time. Scraps came tumbling into the shop, and somersaulted right through the turn-style!

  When the Patchwork Girl arose, she looked at herself in surprise. The turn-style had dressed her in an eight-year-old boy’s bathing suit! Scaps threw out her arms to Jenny and wailed,

  “Please take this horrid suit away,

  And hang it on a rack;

  Your office boy I’ll not delay,

  If you’ll give my patches back.”

  Number Nine felt sorry for the Patchwork Girl.

  “Scraps can’t go out in this bathing suit,” he said to Jenny. “Everyone will laugh at her. Please give her back her patches.”

  But Jenny said in a peppery tone, “This wouldn’t have happened, Whistlebreeches, if you had been minding my business!”

  Poor Scraps clutched the door with her cotton fingers and closed her button eyes and moaned. Her costume was too much even for her own sense of humor. Not one second did she waste, but shot out of the door even faster than she had entered. She headed straight for Jack Pumpkinhed’s ozoplane.

  Chapter 10

  The Battle of the Houses

  NO SOONER has the town crier’s wails gone over the first doorsteps of the Emerald City, than the news of the ozlection was passed from house to house.

  The people in the streets and in the houses ran about talking exitedly.

  “Isn’t Ozma going to be Queen any more?”

  “Who is this Jenny Jump?”

  “Why, she’s just an upstart!

  The questions flew back and forth like swallows, and finally nested in the chimneys. The houses dropped their eaves, listening, and then caught the excitement themselves. Their gables puckered into frowns, their windows showed their panes, and their sills curled like snarling lips.

  It made the houses angry to think that Ozma might not be Queen after the ozlection. But there was one house on Strawberry Street that was smiling with delight. That was Jenny’s house. Proudly tilting its cupola, it fluttered its window shades at the other houses, as if to say, “My tenant may some day be Queen!”

  This made the other houses so angry that they would have shouted, if there hadn’t been a law forbidding them to do so.

  “Crack!” The house next door had slammed its chimney down on Jenny’s house. Promptly, Jenny’s house caught up its stoop and hurled it at the other’s attic. The shingles on the roof of the first house bristled Bending over, it hurled its lightning rod, like a spear, through the roof of Jenny’s house, which shuddered and pulled out the spear.

  The other houses on the street began to bounce

  up and down on their foundations, eager to get into the fight.

  Then a house far down the street threw a piano. All the people went scampering into the cellars. They knew enough to stay out of sight when the houses were quarreling.

  Jenny’s house threw the piano back and pulled up a tree and pounded the house next door. Water pipes, sinks, garden statues, and flower pots rained on Jenny’s house. Jenny’s house fought back furiously and bravely.

  Inside the shop, the walls were swaying, the ceiling was cracking, the floor was pitching like a boat in a storm, and the turn-style was whirling around like a windmill.

  “What is happening?” Jenny exclaimed. Number Nine was running around the shop looking for a place to hide.

  “The houses are fighting! Hide yourself, quick!” the boy cried. Number Nine crawled under the counter, but Jenny ran fearlessly to the door. Going out was impossible. The air was filled with flying rafters, beams, bricks, and glass.

  “My shop will be in ruins!” Jenny exclaimed, and her temper began to grow hot. “Stop it! Stop it!” she shrieked at the houses. But they paid no attention to her.

  “Come out, Number Nine, and help me stop this

  fight!”

  But the office boy refused to show his head.

  “I’ll get you!” she said, and dashing to the counter she pulled him out by the seat of his whistlebreeches. The house shook violently again. A slab of plaster crashed down. The turn-style whirled more furiously than ever.

  “Go out and order those houses to stop fighting!” Jenny commanded.

  She shoved Number Nine out the door. Instead of obeying, the boy ducked under her arm and ran back into the shop. He went so fast, he was pitched straight into the turn-style that kept whirling around. Around and around went the office boy, caught in the arms of the turn-style. His clothes changed from whistlebreeches to overalls, to evening gown, to play suit, to ze
bra skin, to clown suit.

  “Help, help!” he shouted. But Jenny was too busy and too angry to help him now. She wasn’t afraid of houses, or anything else. She ran out into the street. Whang! A bathtub sailed over her head. Squash! A brick fell in front of her..

  “Ouch!” A doorknob hit her foot. Jenny’s temper went up. She got hotter and hotter with anger. She had not been so angry since the Leprechaun had stolen her pepper-cheese.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed. With every word she was spitting fire, fast and far. The house at which she was screaming caught fire. In a minute, flames were running up the steps and into the house. The people came leaping out of the cellars.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!” they shouted. Down the street came clanging the fire injins, drawing a long green hose. They turned the hose into the burning house and put out the flames.

  Fortunately somebody had notified the Town Crier. He took up a collection of handkerchiefs and then went seriously to work. He moaned and sobbed, shrieked and howled, while he mopped at the tears that ran down his face. He didn’t miss a single groan.

  Once he stopped and began to weep all over again in a different key, wringing his hands.

  The houses fought less and less furiously. Finally a soft forbidden sob came from one of them and then a half-smothered whimper. There was a deep sighand then the piles of broken buildings began to pull themselves together bit by bit. Each one picked