Ozma of Oz Read online

  Dorothy Opens the Dinner Pail

  "Now Tiktok," said Dorothy, "the first thing to be done is to find a wayfor us to escape from these rocks. The Wheelers are down below, youknow, and threaten to kill us."

  "There is no rea-son to be a-fraid of the Wheel-ers," said Tiktok, thewords coming more slowly than before.

  "Why not?" she asked.

  "Be-cause they are ag-g-g--gr-gr-r-r-"

  He gave a sort of gurgle and stopped short, waving his hands franticallyuntil suddenly he became motionless, with one arm in the air and theother held stiffly before him with all the copper fingers of the handspread out like a fan.

  "Dear me!" said Dorothy, in a frightened tone. "What can the matter be?"

  "He's run down, I suppose," said the hen, calmly. "You couldn't havewound him up very tight."

  "I didn't know how much to wind him," replied the girl; "but I'll try todo better next time."

  She ran around the copper man to take the key from the peg at the backof his neck, but it was not there.

  "It's gone!" cried Dorothy, in dismay.

  "What's gone?" asked Billina.

  "The key."

  "It probably fell off when he made that low bow to you," returned thehen. "Look around, and see if you cannot find it again."

  Dorothy looked, and the hen helped her, and by and by the girldiscovered the clock-key, which had fallen into a crack of the rock.

  At once she wound up Tiktok's voice, taking care to give the key as manyturns as it would go around. She found this quite a task, as you mayimagine if you have ever tried to wind a clock, but the machine man'sfirst words were to assure Dorothy that he would now run for at leasttwenty-four hours.

  "You did not wind me much, at first," he calmly said, "and I told youthat long sto-ry a-bout King Ev-ol-do; so it is no won-der that I randown."

  She next rewound the action clock-work, and then Billina advised her tocarry the key to Tiktok in her pocket, so it would not get lost again.

  "And now," said Dorothy, when all this was accomplished, "tell me whatyou were going to say about the Wheelers."

  "Why, they are noth-ing to be fright-en'd at," said the machine. "Theytry to make folks be-lieve that they are ver-y ter-ri-ble, but as amat-ter of fact the Wheel-ers are harm-less e-nough to an-y one thatdares to fight them. They might try to hurt a lit-tle girl like you,per-haps, be-cause they are ver-y mis-chiev-ous. But if I had a clubthey would run a-way as soon as they saw me."

  "Haven't you a club?" asked Dorothy.

  "No," said Tiktok.

  "And you won't find such a thing among these rocks, either," declaredthe yellow hen.

  "Then what shall we do?" asked the girl.

  "Wind up my think-works tight-ly, and I will try to think of some oth-erplan," said Tiktok.

  So Dorothy rewound his thought machinery, and while he was thinking shedecided to eat her dinner. Billina was already pecking away at thecracks in the rocks, to find something to eat, so Dorothy sat down andopened her tin dinner-pail.

  In the cover she found a small tank that was full of very nice lemonade.It was covered by a cup, which might also, when removed, be used todrink the lemonade from. Within the pail were three slices of turkey,two slices of cold tongue, some lobster salad, four slices of bread andbutter, a small custard pie, an orange and nine large strawberries, andsome nuts and raisins. Singularly enough, the nuts in this dinner-pailgrew already cracked, so that Dorothy had no trouble in picking outtheir meats to eat.

  She spread the feast upon the rock beside her and began her dinner,first offering some of it to Tiktok, who declined because, as he said,he was merely a machine. Afterward she offered to share with Billina,but the hen murmured something about "dead things" and said shepreferred her bugs and ants.

  "Do the lunch-box trees and the dinner-pail trees belong to theWheelers?" the child asked Tiktok, while engaged in eating her meal.

  "Of course not," he answered. "They be-long to the roy-al fam-il-y ofEv, on-ly of course there is no roy-al fam-il-y just now be-cause KingEv-ol-do jumped in-to the sea and his wife and ten chil-dren have beentrans-formed by the Nome King. So there is no one to rule the Land ofEv, that I can think of. Per-haps it is for this rea-son that theWheel-ers claim the trees for their own, and pick the lunch-eons anddin-ners to eat them-selves. But they be-long to the King, and you willfind the roy-al "E" stamped up-on the bot-tom of ev-er-y din-ner pail."

  Dorothy turned the pail over, and at once discovered the royal mark uponit, as Tiktok had said.

  "Are the Wheelers the only folks living in the Land of Ev?" enquired thegirl.

  DOROTHY OPENED HER TIN DINNER-PAIL]

  "No; they on-ly in-hab-it a small por-tion of it just back of thewoods," replied the machine. "But they have al-ways been mis-chiev-ousand im-per-ti-nent, and my old mas-ter, King Ev-ol-do, used to car-ry awhip with him, when he walked out, to keep the crea-tures in or-der.When I was first made the Wheel-ers tried to run o-ver me, and butt mewith their heads; but they soon found I was built of too sol-id ama-ter-i-al for them to in-jure."

  "You seem very durable," said Dorothy. "Who made you?"

  "The firm of Smith & Tin-ker, in the town of Ev-na, where the roy-alpal-ace stands," answered Tiktok.

  "Did they make many of you?" asked the child.

  "No; I am the on-ly au-to-mat-ic me-chan-i-cal man they ev-ercom-plet-ed," he replied. "They were ver-y won-der-ful in-ven-tors, weremy mak-ers, and quite ar-tis-tic in all they did."

  "I am sure of that," said Dorothy. "Do they live in the town of Evnanow?"

  "They are both gone," replied the machine. "Mr. Smith was an art-ist, aswell as an in-vent-or, and he paint-ed a pic-ture of a riv-er which wasso nat-ur-al that, as he was reach-ing a-cross it to paint some flow-erson the op-po-site bank, he fell in-to the wa-ter and was drowned."

  "Oh, I'm sorry for that!" exclaimed the little girl.

  "Mis-ter Tin-ker," continued Tiktok, "made a lad-der so tall that hecould rest the end of it a-gainst the moon, while he stood on thehigh-est rung and picked the lit-tle stars to set in the points of theking's crown. But when he got to the moon Mis-ter Tin-ker found it sucha love-ly place that he de-cid-ed to live there, so he pulled up thelad-der af-ter him and we have nev-er seen him since."

  "He must have been a great loss to this country," said Dorothy, who wasby this time eating her custard pie.

  "He was," acknowledged Tiktok. "Also he is a great loss to me. For if Ishould get out of or-der I do not know of an-y one a-ble to re-pair me,be-cause I am so com-pli-cat-ed. You have no i-de-a how full ofma-chin-er-y I am."

  "I can imagine it," said Dorothy, readily.

  "And now," continued the machine, "I must stop talk-ing and be-ginthink-ing a-gain of a way to es-cape from this rock." So he turnedhalfway around, in order to think without being disturbed.

  "The best thinker I ever knew," said Dorothy to the yellow hen, "was ascarecrow."

  "Nonsense!" snapped Billina.

  "It is true," declared Dorothy. "I met him in the Land of Oz, and hetravelled with me to the city of the great Wizard of Oz, so as to getsome brains, for his head was only stuffed with straw. But it seemed tome that he thought just as well before he got his brains as he didafterward."

  "Do you expect me to believe all that rubbish about the Land of Oz?"enquired Billina, who seemed a little cross--perhaps because bugs werescarce.

  "What rubbish?" asked the child, who was now finishing her nuts andraisins.

  "Why, your impossible stories about animals that can talk, and a tinwoodman who is alive, and a scarecrow who can think."

  "They are all there," said Dorothy, "for I have seen them."

  "I don't believe it!" cried the hen, with a toss of her head.

  "That's 'cause you're so ign'rant," replied the girl, who was a littleoffended at her friend Billina's speech.

  "In the Land of Oz," remarked Tiktok, turning toward them, "an-y-thingis pos-si-ble. For it is a won-der-ful fair-y coun-try."

  "There, Bill
ina! what did I say?" cried Dorothy. And then she turned tothe machine and asked in an eager tone: "Do you know the Land of Oz,Tiktok?"

  MISTER TINKER VISITS THE MOON]

  "No; but I have heard a-bout it," said the copper man. "For it is on-lysep-a-ra-ted from this Land of Ev by a broad des-ert."

  Dorothy clapped her hands together delightedly.

  "I'm glad of that!" she exclaimed. "It makes me quite happy to be sonear my old friends. The scarecrow I told you of, Billina, is the Kingof the Land of Oz."

  "Par-don me. He is not the king now," said Tiktok.

  "He was when I left there," declared Dorothy.

  "I know," said Tiktok, "but there was a rev-o-lu-tion in the Land of Oz,and the Scare-crow was de-posed by a sol-dier wo-man named Gen-er-alJin-jur. And then Jin-jur was de-posed by a lit-tle girl named Oz-ma,who was the right-ful heir to the throne and now rules the land un-derthe ti-tle of Oz-ma of Oz."

  "That is news to me," said Dorothy, thoughtfully. "But I s'pose lots ofthings have happened since I left the Land of Oz. I wonder what hasbecome of the Scarecrow, and of the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion.And I wonder who this girl Ozma is, for I never heard of her before."

  But Tiktok did not reply to this. He had turned around again to resumehis thinking.

  Dorothy packed the rest of the food back into the pail, so as not to bewasteful of good things, and the yellow hen forgot her dignity farenough to pick up all of the scattered crumbs, which she ate rathergreedily, although she had so lately pretended to despise the thingsthat Dorothy preferred as food.

  By this time Tiktok approached them with his stiff bow.

  "Be kind e-nough to fol-low me," he said, "and I will lead you a-wayfrom here to the town of Ev-na, where you will be more com-for-ta-ble,and also I will pro-tect you from the Wheel-ers."

  "All right," answered Dorothy, promptly. "I'm ready!"