The Road to Oz Read online

  Dorothy Meets Button-bright

  The seventh road was a good road, and curved this way and that--windingthrough green meadows and fields covered with daisies and buttercups andpast groups of shady trees. There were no houses of any sort to be seen,and for some distance they met with no living creature at all.

  Dorothy began to fear they were getting a good way from the_farm-house_, since here everything was strange to her; but it would dono good at all to go back where the other roads all met, because thenext one they chose might lead her just as far from home.

  She kept on beside the shaggy man, who whistled cheerful tunes tobeguile the journey, until by-and-by they followed a turn in the roadand saw before them a big chestnut tree making a shady spot over thehighway. In the shade sat a little boy dressed in sailor clothes, whowas digging a hole in the earth with a bit of wood. He must have beendigging some time, because the hole was already big enough to drop afoot-ball into.

  Dorothy and Toto and the shaggy man came to a halt before the littleboy, who kept on digging in a sober and persistent fashion.

  "Who are you?" asked the girl.

  He looked up at her calmly. His face was round and chubby and his eyeswere big, blue, and earnest.

  "I'm Button-Bright," said he.

  "But what's you real name?" she inquired.

  "Button-Bright."

  "That isn't a really-truly name!" she exclaimed.

  "Isn't it?" he asked, still digging.

  "'Course not. It's just a--a thing to call you by. You must have aname."

  "Must I?"

  "To be sure. What does your mamma call you?"

  He paused in his digging and tried to think.

  "Papa always said I was bright as a button; so mamma always called meButton-Bright," he said.

  "What is your papa's name?"

  "Just Papa."

  "What else?"

  "Don't know."

  "Never mind," said the shaggy man, smiling. "We'll call the boyButton-Bright, as his mamma does. That name is as good as any, andbetter than some."

  Dorothy watched the boy dig.

  "Where do you live?" she asked.

  "Don't know," was the reply.

  "How did you come here?"

  "Don't know," he said again.

  "Don't you know where you came from?"

  "No," said he.

  "Why, he must be lost," she said to the shaggy man. She turned to theboy once more.

  "What are you going to do?" she inquired.

  "Dig," said he.

  "But you can't dig forever; and what are you going to do then?" shepersisted.

  "Don't know," said the boy.

  "But you _must_ know _something_," declared Dorothy, getting provoked.

  "Must I?" he asked, looking up in surprise.

  "Of course you must."

  "What must I know?"

  "What's going to become of you, for one thing," she answered.

  "Do _you_ know what's going to become of me?" he asked.

  "Not--not 'zactly," she admitted.

  "Do you know what's going to become of _you_?" he continued, earnestly.

  "I can't say I do," replied Dorothy, remembering her presentdifficulties.

  The shaggy man laughed.

  "No one knows everything, Dorothy," he said.

  "But Button-Bright doesn't seem to know _anything_," she declared. "Doyou, Button-Bright?"

  He shook his head, which had pretty curls all over it, and replied withperfect calmness:

  "Don't know."

  Never before had Dorothy met with any one who could give her so littleinformation. The boy was evidently lost, and his people would be sure toworry about him. He seemed two or three years younger than Dorothy, andwas prettily dressed, as if some one loved him dearly and took muchpains to make him look well. How, then, did he come to be in this lonelyroad? she wondered.

  Near Button-Bright, on the ground, lay a sailor hat with a gilt anchoron the band. His sailor trousers were long and wide at the bottom, andthe broad collar of his blouse had gold anchors sewed on its corners.The boy was still digging at his hole.

  "Have you ever been to sea?" asked Dorothy.

  "To see what?" answered Button-Bright.

  "I mean have you ever been where there's water?"

  "Yes," said Button-Bright; "there's a well in our back yard."

  "You don't understand," cried Dorothy. "I mean, have you ever been on abig ship floating on a big ocean?"

  "Don't know," said he.

  "Then why do you wear sailor clothes?"

  "Don't know," he answered, again.

  Dorothy was in despair.

  "You're just _awful_ stupid, Button-Bright," she said.

  "Am I?" he asked.

  "Yes, you are."

  "Why?" looking up at her with big eyes.

  She was going to say: "Don't know," but stopped herself in time.

  "That's for you to answer," she replied.

  "It's no use asking Button-Bright questions," said the shaggy man, whohad been eating another apple; "but some one ought to take care of thepoor little chap, don't you think? So he'd better come along with us."

  Toto had been looking with great curiosity into the hole which the boywas digging, and growing more and more excited every minute, perhapsthinking that Button-Bright was after some wild animal. The little dogbegan barking loudly and jumped into the hole himself, where he began todig with his tiny paws, making the earth fly in all directions. Itspattered over the boy. Dorothy seized him and raised him to his feet,brushing his clothes with her hand.

  "Stop that, Toto!" she called. "There aren't any mice or woodchucks inthat hole, so don't be foolish."

  Toto stopped, sniffed at the hole suspiciously, and jumped out of it,wagging his tail as if he had done something important.

  "Well," said the shaggy man, "let's start on, or we won't get anywherebefore night comes."

  "Where do you expect to get to?" asked Dorothy.

  "I'm like Button-Bright; I don't know," answered the shaggy man, with alaugh. "But I've learned from long experience that every road leadssomewhere, or there wouldn't be any road; so it's likely that if wetravel long enough, my dear, we will come to some place or another inthe end. What place it will be we can't even guess at this moment, butwe're sure to find out when we get there."

  "Why, yes," said Dorothy; "that seems reas'n'ble, Shaggy Man."