Oz, The Complete Collection
Page 192
“Ozma will be delighted with the idea. How clever I am!” he murmured, twirling his antennae and walking rapidly down the pleasant blue lane.
The Professor, whose College of Art and Athletic Perfection is in the southwestern part of the Munchkin country, is the biggest bug in Oz, or in anyplace else, for that matter. He has made education painless by substituting school pills for books. His students take Latin, history and spelling pills; they swallow knowledge of every kind with ease and pleasure and spend the rest of their time in sport. No wonder he is so well thought of in Oz! No wonder he thinks so well of himself! Swinging his cane jauntily, the Professor hurried toward the yellow brick road that leads to the Emerald City, and by nightfall had reached the lovely capital of Oz.
Oz! That marvelous country where no one grows old, where animals and birds talk as sensibly as people, and adventures happen every day. Indeed, of all fairylands in the world, Oz is the most delightful, and of all fairy cities, the Emerald City is the most beautiful. A soft green light shone for miles about, and the gemmed turrets and spires of the palace flashed more brightly than the stars. But its loveliness was familiar to Professor Wogglebug, and without a pause he proceeded to Ozma’s palace and was at once admitted to the great hall.
A roar of merriment greeted his ears. Ozma, the lovely girl Ruler of Oz, was having a party, and the room was full of most surprising people, surprising to some, that is, but old friends to most of us.
Jack, holding tightly to his pumpkin head, was running as fast as his wooden feet and wobbly legs would take him from Dorothy. A game of blind-man’s-buff was in full swing, and Scraps and Tik-Tok, the Scarecrow and Nick Chopper, the Glass Cat and the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard of Oz and the Wooden Sawhorse, Cap’n Bill and Betsy Bobbin, Billina and the Hungry Tiger were tumbling over each other in an effort to keep away from the blindfolded little girl. But Dorothy was too quick for them. With a sudden whirl, she spun ’round and grasped a coatsleeve.
“The Scarecrow!” she laughed triumphantly. “I can tell by the way he skwoshes and now he’s it!”
“I’m always it!” chuckled the droll person. “But hah! Behold the learned Professor standing so aloofly in our midst.”
No one had noticed Professor Wogglebug, who had been quietly watching the game. “I don’t like to interrupt the party,” he began, approaching Ozma’s throne apologetically, “but I’ve just had a most brilliant idea!”
“What? Another?” murmured the Scarecrow, rolling up his eyes.
“Where did you lose it?” asked Jack Pumpkinhead, edging forward anxiously.
“Lose it! Who said I’d lost it?” snapped the Professor, glaring at poor Jack.
“Well, you said you’d had it, and had is the past tense, so . . .” Jack’s voice trailed off uncertainly, and Ozma, seeing he was embarrassed, begged the Professor to explain.
“Your Highness!” began Professor Wogglebug, while the company settled down in a resigned circle on the floor, “As Oz is the most interesting and delightful country on the Continent of Imagination and its people the most unusual and talented, I am about to compile a Royal Book which will give the names and history of all our people. In other words, I am to be the Great, Grand Genealogist of Oz!”
“Whatever that is,” the Scarecrow whispered in Dorothy’s ear.
“And,” the Professor frowned severely on the Scarecrow, “with your Majesty’s permission, I shall start at once!”
“Please do,” said the Scarecrow with a wave toward the door, “and we will go on with the party!”
Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, who had been staring fixedly at the Professor with her silver suspender-button eyes, now sprang to her feet:
“What is a genealogist?
It’s something no one here has missed;
What puts such notions in your head?
Turn out your toes or go to bed!”
she shouted gaily, then, catching Ozma’s disapproving glance, fell over backwards.
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Jack Pumpkinhead in a depressed voice. “I’m afraid my head’s too ripe.”
“Nor I,” said Tik-Tok, the copper clockwork man. “Please wind me up a lit-tle tight-er Dor-o-thy, I want to think!”
Dorothy obligingly took a key suspended from a hook on his back and wound him up under his left arm. Everybody began to talk at once, and what with the Cowardly Lion’s deep growl and Tik-Tok’s squeaky voice and all the rest of the tin and meat and wooden voices, the confusion was terrible.
“Wait!” cried Ozma, clapping her hands. Immediately the room grew so still that one could hear Tik-Tok’s machinery whirring ’round. “Now!” said Ozma, “One at a time, please, and let us hear from the Scarecrow first.”
The Scarecrow rose. “I think, your Highness,” he said modestly, “that anyone who has studied his Geozify already knows who we are and—”
“Who you are?” broke in the Wogglebug scornfully, “Of course they do. But I shall tell them who you were!”
“Who I were?” gasped the Scarecrow in a dazed voice, raising his cotton glove to his forehead. “Who I were? Well, who were I?”
“That’s just the point,” said Professor Wogglebug. “Who were you? Who were your ancestors? Where is your family? Where is your family tree? From what did you descend?”
At each question, the Scarecrow looked more embarrassed. He repeated the last one several times. “From what did I descend? From what did I descend? Why, from a bean pole!” he cried.
This was perfectly true, for Dorothy, a little girl blown by a Kansas cyclone to the Kingdom of Oz, had discovered the Scarecrow in a farmer’s cornfield and had lifted him down from his pole. Together they had made the journey to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz had fitted him out with a fine set of brains. At one time, he had ruled Oz and was generally considered its cleverest citizen.
Before he could reply further, the Patchwork Girl, who was simply irrepressible, burst out:
“An ex-straw-ordinary man is he!
A bean pole for his family tree,
A Cornishman, upon my soul,
Descended from a tall, thin Pole!”
“Nonsense!” said Professor Wogglebug sharply, “Being stuffed with straw may make him extraordinary, but it is quite plain that the Scarecrow was nobody before he was himself. He has no ancestors, no family; only a bean pole for a family tree, and is therefore entitled to the merest mention in the Royal Book of Oz!”
“How about my brains?” asked the Scarecrow in a hurt voice. “Aren’t they enough?”
“Brains have simply nothing to do with royalty!” Professor Wogglebug waved his fountain pen firmly. “Now—”
“But see here, wasn’t I Ruler of Oz?” put in the Scarecrow anxiously.
“A Ruler but never a royalty!” snapped out the Professor. “Now, if you will all answer my questions as I call your names, I’ll get the necessary data and be off.” He took out a small memorandum book. “Your Highness,” he bowed to Ozma, “need not bother. I have already entered your name at the head of the list. Being descended as you are from a long line of fairies, your family tree is the oldest and most illustrious in Oz. Princess Dorothy!”
At the sound of her name, the little girl stood up.
“I know you are from Kansas and were created a Princess of Oz by our gracious Ruler, but can you tell me anything of your ancestors in America?” demanded the Professor, staring over the top of his thick glasses.
“You’ll have to ask Uncle Henry and Aunt Em,” said Dorothy rather sulkily.
The Professor had hurt the feelings of her best friend, the Scarecrow, and ancestors did not interest her one little bit.
“Very well,” said the Professor, writing industriously in his book. “I’ll just enter you as ‘Dorothy, Princess of Oz and sixth cousin to a President!’”
“I’m not!” Dorothy shook her head positively.
“Oh, everyone in America can claim that!” said the Professor easily. “Nick Chopper!”
“You were a man of meat at one time and a woodman by trade?” queried Professor Wogglebug, poising his pen in the air.
“I am a Tin Woodman, and you may enter me in your book under the name of Smith, for a tin Smith made me, and as Royal Emperor of the Winkies, I do not care to go back to my meat connections,” said the Tin Woodman in a dignified voice.
The company applauded, and the Cowardly Lion thumped the floor with his tail.
“Smith is a very good name. I can work up a whole chapter on that,” smiled the Professor. The Tin Woodman had once been a regular person, but a wicked witch enchanted his ax, and first it chopped off one leg, then the other, and next both arms and his head. After each accident, Nick went to a tinsmith for repairs, and finally was entirely made of tin. Nowhere but in Oz could such a thing happen. But no one can be killed in this marvelous country, and Nick, with his tin body, went gaily on living and was considered so distinguished that the Winkies had begged him to be their Emperor.
“Scraps!” called the Professor as Nick sat stiffly down beside Dorothy.
The Patchwork Girl pirouetted madly to the front. Putting one finger in her mouth, she sang:
“I’m made of patches, as you see.
A clothes tree is my family tree
But, pshaw! It’s all the same to me!”
A clothes tree? Even Professor Wogglebug grinned. Who could help laughing at Scraps? Made of odd pieces of goods and brought to life by the powder of life, the comical girl was the jolliest person imaginable.
“Put me down as a man of me-tal!” drawled Tik-Tok the copper man as the laugh following Scraps’ rhyme had subsided. Tik-Tok was still another of Dorothy’s discoveries, and this marvelous machine man, guaranteed to last a thousand years, could think, walk, and talk when properly wound.
The Cowardly Lion was entered as a King in his own right. One after the other, the celebrities of Oz came forward to answer Professor Wogglebug’s questions. The Professor wrote rapidly in his little book. Ozma listened attentively to each one, and they all seemed interested except the Scarecrow. Slumped down beside Dorothy, he stared morosely at the ceiling, his jolly face all wrinkled down on one side.
“If I only knew who I were!” he muttered over and over. “I must think!”
“Don’t you mind.” Dorothy patted his shoulder kindly. “Royalties are out of date, and I’ll bet the Professor’s family tree was a milkweed!”
But the Scarecrow refused to be comforted, and long after the company had retired he sat hunched sadly in his corner. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” he exclaimed at last, rising unsteadily to his feet. Jellia Jamb, Ozma’s little waiting maid, returning somewhat later to fetch a handkerchief her mistress had dropped, was surprised to see him running through the long hall.
“Why, where are you going?” asked Jellia.
“To find my family tree!” said the Scarecrow darkly, and drawing himself up to his full height, he fell through the doorway.
Chapter 2
The SCARECROW’S FAMILY TREE
he moon shone brightly, but everyone in the Emerald City was fast asleep! Through the deserted streets hurried the Scarecrow. For the first time since his discovery by little Dorothy, he was really unhappy. Living as he did in a Fairyland, he had taken many things for granted and had rather prided himself on his unusual appearance. Indeed, not until Professor Wogglebug’s rude remarks concerning his family had he given his past a thought.
“I am the only person in Oz without a family!” he reflected sorrowfully. “Even the Cowardly Lion has kingly parents and a palm tree! But I must keep thinking. My brains have never failed me yet. Who was I? Who were I? Who were I?”
Often he thought so hard that he forgot to look where he was going and ran headlong into fences, stumbled down gutters, and over stiles. But fortunately, the dear fellow could not hurt himself, and he would struggle up, pat his straw into shape, and walk straightway into something else. He made good time in between falls, however, and was soon well on his way down the yellow brick road that ran through the Munchkin Country. For he had determined to return to the Munchkin farm where Dorothy had first discovered him and try to find some traces of his family.
Now being stuffed with straw had many advantages, for requiring neither food nor sleep the Scarecrow could travel night and day without interruption. The stars winked out one by one, and by the time the cocks of the Munchkin farmers began to crow, he had come to the banks of a broad blue river!
The Scarecrow took off his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. Crossing rivers is no easy matter in Oz, for there isn’t a ferry in the Kingdom, and unless one is a good swimmer or equipped with some of the Wizard’s magic it is mighty troublesome. Water does not agree with the Scarecrow at all, and as for swimming, he can no more swim than a bag of meal.
But he was too wise a person to give up merely because a thing appeared to be impossible. It was for just such emergencies that his excellent brains had been given to him.
“If Nick Chopper were here, he would build a raft in no time,” murmured the Scarecrow, “but as he is not, I must think of another way!”
Turning his back on the river, which distracted his mind, he began to think with all his might. Before he could collect his thoughts, there was a tremendous crash, and next minute he was lying face down in the mud. Several little crashes followed, and a shower of water. Then a wet voice called out with a cheerful chuckle:
“Come on out, my dear Rattles. Not a bad place at all, and here’s breakfast already waiting!”
“Breakfast!” The Scarecrow turned over cautiously. A huge and curious creature was slashing through the grass toward him. A smaller and still more curious one followed. Both were extremely damp and had evidently just come out of the river.
“Good morning!” quavered the Scarecrow, sitting up with a jerk and at the same time reaching for a stick that lay just behind him.
“I won’t eat it if it talks—so there!” The smaller creature stopped and stared fixedly at the Scarecrow.
The Scarecrow, hearing this, tried to think of something else to say, but the appearance of the two was so amazing that, as he told Dorothy afterwards, he was struck dumb. The larger was at least two hundred feet long and made entirely of blocks of wood. On each block was a letter of the alphabet. The head was a huge square block with a serpent’s face and long, curling, tape-measure tongue. The little one was very much smaller and seemed to consist of hundreds of rattles, wood, celluloid, and rubber, fastened together with wires. Every time it moved, the rattles tinkled. Its face, however, was not unpleasant, so the Scarecrow took heart and made a deep bow.
“And I’m not going to eat anything that squirms.” This time it was the big serpent who spoke.
“Thank you!” said the Scarecrow, bowing several times more. “You relieve my mind. I’ve never been a breakfast yet, and I’d rather not begin. But if I cannot be your breakfast, let me be your friend!” He extended his arms impulsively.
There was something so jolly about the Scarecrow’s smile that the two creatures became friendly at once, and moreover told him the story of their lives.
“As you have doubtless noted,” began the larger creature, “I am an A-B-Sea Serpent. I am employed in the nursery of the Mer children to teach them their letters. My friend, here, is a Rattlesnake, and it is his business to amuse the Mer babies while the Mermaids are mer-marketing. Once a year, we take a vacation, and proceeding from the sea depths up a strange river, we came out upon this shore. Perhaps you, Sir, will be able to tell us where we are?”
“You are in the Munchkin Country of the Land of Oz,” explained the Scarecrow politely. “It is a charming place for a vacation. I would show you about myself if I were not bound on an important mission.” Here the Scarecrow sighed deeply.
“Have you a family?” he asked the A-B-Sea Serpent curiously.
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“Yes, indeed,” replied the monster, snapping its tape-measure tongue in and out, “I have five great-grandmothers, twenty-one grandnieces, seven brothers, and six sisters-in-law!”
“Ah!” murmured the Scarecrow, clasping his hands tragically, “How I envy you. I have no one—no aunts—no ancestors—no family—no family tree but a bean pole. I am, alas, a man without a past!” The Scarecrow looked so dejected that the Rattlesnake thought he was going to cry.
“Oh, cheer up!” it begged in a distressed voice. “Think of your presence—here—I give you permission to shake me!” The Scarecrow was so affected by this kind offer that he cheered up immediately.
“No past but a presence—I’ll remember that!” He swelled out his straw chest complacently, and leaning over, stroked the Rattlesnake on the head.
“Are you good at riddles?” asked the Rattlesnake timidly.
“Well,” answered the Scarecrow judiciously, “I have very good brains, given me by the famous Wizard of Oz.”
“Then why is the A-B-Sea Serpent like a city?” asked the Rattlesnake promptly.
The Scarecrow thought hard for several seconds.
“Because it is made up of blocks!” he roared triumphantly. “That’s easy; now it’s my turn. Why is the A-B-Sea Serpent such a slow talker?”
“Give it up!” said the Rattlesnake after shaking himself several times.
“Because his tongue is a tape measure, and he has to measure his words!” cried the Scarecrow, snapping his clumsy fingers. “And that’s a good one, if I did make it myself. I must remember to tell it to Dorothy!”
Then he sobered quite suddenly, for the thought of Dorothy brought back the purpose of his journey. Interrupting the Rattlesnake in the midst of a new riddle, he explained how anxious he was to return to the little farm where he had been discovered and try to find some traces of his family.
“And the real riddle,” he sighed with a wave of his hand, “is how to cross this river.”
“That’s easy and no riddle at all,” rumbled the A-B-Sea Serpent, who had been listening attentively to the Scarecrow’s remarks. “I’ll stretch across, and you can walk over.” Suiting the action to the word, he began backing very cautiously toward the river so as not to shake the Scarecrow off his feet.