Complete Works of L. Frank Baum
Page 30
“It can’t be auto’biles,” replied the girl, “for this is a new, wild country, without even trolley-cars or tel’phones. The people here haven’t been discovered yet, I’m sure; that is, if there ARE any people. So I don’t b’lieve there CAN be any auto’biles, Billina.”
“Perhaps not,” admitted the yellow hen. “Where are you going now?”
“Over to those trees, to see if I can find some fruit or nuts,” answered Dorothy.
She tramped across the sand, skirting the foot of one of the little rocky hills that stood near, and soon reached the edge of the forest.
At first she was greatly disappointed, because the nearer trees were all punita, or cotton-wood or eucalyptus, and bore no fruit or nuts at all. But, bye and bye, when she was almost in despair, the little girl came upon two trees that promised to furnish her with plenty of food.
One was quite full of square paper boxes, which grew in clusters on all the limbs, and upon the biggest and ripest boxes the word “Lunch” could be read, in neat raised letters. This tree seemed to bear all the year around, for there were lunch-box blossoms on some of the branches, and on others tiny little lunch-boxes that were as yet quite green, and evidently not fit to eat until they had grown bigger.
The leaves of this tree were all paper napkins, and it presented a very pleasing appearance to the hungry little girl.
But the tree next to the lunch-box tree was even more wonderful, for it bore quantities of tin dinner-pails, which were so full and heavy that the stout branches bent underneath their weight. Some were small and dark-brown in color; those larger were of a dull tin color; but the really ripe ones were pails of bright tin that shone and glistened beautifully in the rays of sunshine that touched them.
Dorothy was delighted, and even the yellow hen acknowledged that she was surprised.
The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest and biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground and eagerly opened it. Inside she found, nicely wrapped in white papers, a ham sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and an apple. Each thing had a separate stem, and so had to be picked off the side of the box; but Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and she ate every bit of luncheon in the box before she had finished.
“A lunch isn’t zactly breakfast,” she said to Billina, who sat beside her curiously watching. “But when one is hungry one can eat even supper in the morning, and not complain.”
“I hope your lunch-box was perfectly ripe,” observed the yellow hen, in a anxious tone. “So much sickness is caused by eating green things.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was ripe,” declared Dorothy, “all, that is, ‘cept the pickle, and a pickle just HAS to be green, Billina. But everything tasted perfectly splendid, and I’d rather have it than a church picnic. And now I think I’ll pick a dinner-pail, to have when I get hungry again, and then we’ll start out and ‘splore the country, and see where we are.”
“Haven’t you any idea what country this is?” inquired Billina.
“None at all. But listen: I’m quite sure it’s a fairy country, or such things as lunch-boxes and dinner-pails wouldn’t be growing upon trees. Besides, Billina, being a hen, you wouldn’t be able to talk in any civ’lized country, like Kansas, where no fairies live at all.”
“Perhaps we’re in the Land of Oz,” said the hen, thoughtfully.
“No, that can’t be,” answered the little girl; “because I’ve been to the Land of Oz, and it’s all surrounded by a horrid desert that no one can cross.”
“Then how did you get away from there again?” asked Billina.
“I had a pair of silver shoes, that carried me through the air; but I lost them,” said Dorothy.
“Ah, indeed,” remarked the yellow hen, in a tone of unbelief.
“Anyhow,” resumed the girl, “there is no seashore near the Land of Oz, so this must surely be some other fairy country.”
While she was speaking she selected a bright and pretty dinner-pail that seemed to have a stout handle, and picked it from its branch. Then, accompanied by the yellow hen, she walked out of the shadow of the trees toward the sea-shore.
They were part way across the sands when Billina suddenly cried, in a voice of terror:
“What’s that?”
Dorothy turned quickly around, and saw coming out of a path that led from between the trees the most peculiar person her eyes had ever beheld.
It had the form of a man, except that it walked, or rather rolled, upon all fours, and its legs were the same length as its arms, giving them the appearance of the four legs of a beast. Yet it was no beast that Dorothy had discovered, for the person was clothed most gorgeously in embroidered garments of many colors, and wore a straw hat perched jauntily upon the side of its head. But it differed from human beings in this respect, that instead of hands and feet there grew at the end of its arms and legs round wheels, and by means of these wheels it rolled very swiftly over the level ground. Afterward Dorothy found that these odd wheels were of the same hard substance that our finger-nails and toe-nails are composed of, and she also learned that creatures of this strange race were born in this queer fashion. But when our little girl first caught sight of the first individual of a race that was destined to cause her a lot of trouble, she had an idea that the brilliantly-clothed personage was on roller-skates, which were attached to his hands as well as to his feet.
“Run!” screamed the yellow hen, fluttering away in great fright. “It’s a Wheeler!”
“A Wheeler?” exclaimed Dorothy. “What can that be?”
“Don’t you remember the warning in the sand: ‘Beware the Wheelers’? Run, I tell you--run!”
So Dorothy ran, and the Wheeler gave a sharp, wild cry and came after her in full chase.
Looking over her shoulder as she ran, the girl now saw a great procession of Wheelers emerging from the forest--dozens and dozens of them--all clad in splendid, tight-fitting garments and all rolling swiftly toward her and uttering their wild, strange cries.
“They’re sure to catch us!” panted the girl, who was still carrying the heavy dinner-pail she had picked. “I can’t run much farther, Billina.”
“Climb up this hill,--quick!” said the hen; and Dorothy found she was very near to the heap of loose and jagged rocks they had passed on their way to the forest. The yellow hen was even now fluttering among the rocks, and Dorothy followed as best she could, half climbing and half tumbling up the rough and rugged steep.
She was none too soon, for the foremost Wheeler reached the hill a moment after her; but while the girl scrambled up the rocks the creature stopped short with howls of rage and disappointment.
Dorothy now heard the yellow hen laughing, in her cackling, henny way.
“Don’t hurry, my dear,” cried Billina. “They can’t follow us among these rocks, so we’re safe enough now.”
Dorothy stopped at once and sat down upon a broad boulder, for she was all out of breath.
The rest of the Wheelers had now reached the foot of the hill, but it was evident that their wheels would not roll upon the rough and jagged rocks, and therefore they were helpless to follow Dorothy and the hen to where they had taken refuge. But they circled all around the little hill, so the child and Billina were fast prisoners and could not come down without being captured.
Then the creatures shook their front wheels at Dorothy in a threatening manner, and it seemed they were able to speak as well as to make their dreadful outcries, for several of them shouted:
“We’ll get you in time, never fear! And when we do get you, we’ll tear you into little bits!”
“Why are you so cruel to me?” asked Dorothy. “I’m a stranger in your country, and have done you no harm.”
“No harm!” cried one who seemed to be their leader. “Did you not pick our lunch-boxes and dinner-pails? Have you not a stolen dinner-pail still in your hand?”
“I only picked one of each,” she answered. “I was hungry, and I did
n’t know the trees were yours.”
“That is no excuse,” retorted the leader, who was clothed in a most gorgeous suit. “It is the law here that whoever picks a dinner-pail without our permission must die immediately.”
“Don’t you believe him,” said Billina. “I’m sure the trees do not belong to these awful creatures. They are fit for any mischief, and it’s my opinion they would try to kill us just the same if you hadn’t picked a dinner-pail.”
“I think so, too,” agreed Dorothy. “But what shall we do now?”
“Stay where we are,” advised the yellow hen. “We are safe from the Wheelers until we starve to death, anyhow; and before that time comes a good many things can happen.”
4. Tiktok the Machine Man
After an hour or so most of the band of Wheelers rolled back into the forest, leaving only three of their number to guard the hill. These curled themselves up like big dogs and pretended to go to sleep on the sands; but neither Dorothy nor Billina were fooled by this trick, so they remained in security among the rocks and paid no attention to their cunning enemies.
Finally the hen, fluttering over the mound, exclaimed: “Why, here’s a path!”
So Dorothy at once clambered to where Billina sat, and there, sure enough, was a smooth path cut between the rocks. It seemed to wind around the mound from top to bottom, like a cork-screw, twisting here and there between the rough boulders but always remaining level and easy to walk upon.
Indeed, Dorothy wondered at first why the Wheelers did not roll up this path; but when she followed it to the foot of the mound she found that several big pieces of rock had been placed directly across the end of the way, thus preventing any one outside from seeing it and also preventing the Wheelers from using it to climb up the mound.
Then Dorothy walked back up the path, and followed it until she came to the very top of the hill, where a solitary round rock stood that was bigger than any of the others surrounding it. The path came to an end just beside this great rock, and for a moment it puzzled the girl to know why the path had been made at all. But the hen, who had been gravely following her around and was now perched upon a point of rock behind Dorothy, suddenly remarked:
“It looks something like a door, doesn’t it?”
“What looks like a door?” enquired the child.
“Why, that crack in the rock, just facing you,” replied Billina, whose little round eyes were very sharp and seemed to see everything. “It runs up one side and down the other, and across the top and the bottom.”
“What does?”
“Why, the crack. So I think it must be a door of rock, although I do not see any hinges.”
“Oh, yes,” said Dorothy, now observing for the first time the crack in the rock. “And isn’t this a key-hole, Billina?” pointing to a round, deep hole at one side of the door.
“Of course. If we only had the key, now, we could unlock it and see what is there,” replied the yellow hen. “May be it’s a treasure chamber full of diamonds and rubies, or heaps of shining gold, or--”
“That reminds me,” said Dorothy, “of the golden key I picked up on the shore. Do you think that it would fit this key-hole, Billina?”
“Try it and see,” suggested the hen.
So Dorothy searched in the pocket of her dress and found the golden key. And when she had put it into the hole of the rock, and turned it, a sudden sharp snap was heard; then, with a solemn creak that made the shivers run down the child’s back, the face of the rock fell outward, like a door on hinges, and revealed a small dark chamber just inside.
“Good gracious!” cried Dorothy, shrinking back as far as the narrow path would let her.
For, standing within the narrow chamber of rock, was the form of a man--or, at least, it seemed like a man, in the dim light. He was only about as tall as Dorothy herself, and his body was round as a ball and made out of burnished copper. Also his head and limbs were copper, and these were jointed or hinged to his body in a peculiar way, with metal caps over the joints, like the armor worn by knights in days of old. He stood perfectly still, and where the light struck upon his form it glittered as if made of pure gold.
“Don’t be frightened,” called Billina, from her perch. “It isn’t alive.”
“I see it isn’t,” replied the girl, drawing a long breath.
“It is only made out of copper, like the old kettle in the barn-yard at home,” continued the hen, turning her head first to one side and then to the other, so that both her little round eyes could examine the object.
“Once,” said Dorothy, “I knew a man made out of tin, who was a woodman named Nick Chopper. But he was as alive as we are, ‘cause he was born a real man, and got his tin body a little at a time--first a leg and then a finger and then an ear--for the reason that he had so many accidents with his axe, and cut himself up in a very careless manner.”
“Oh,” said the hen, with a sniff, as if she did not believe the story.
“But this copper man,” continued Dorothy, looking at it with big eyes, “is not alive at all, and I wonder what it was made for, and why it was locked up in this queer place.”
“That is a mystery,” remarked the hen, twisting her head to arrange her wing-feathers with her bill.
Dorothy stepped inside the little room to get a back view of the copper man, and in this way discovered a printed card that hung between his shoulders, it being suspended from a small copper peg at the back of his neck. She unfastened this card and returned to the path, where the light was better, and sat herself down upon a slab of rock to read the printing.
“What does it say?” asked the hen, curiously.
Dorothy read the card aloud, spelling out the big words with some difficulty; and this is what she read:
“How queer!” said the yellow hen. “Do you think that is all true, my dear?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dorothy, who had more to read. “Listen to this, Billina:”
“Well, I declare!” gasped the yellow hen, in amazement; “if the copper man can do half of these things he is a very wonderful machine. But I suppose it is all humbug, like so many other patented articles.”
“We might wind him up,” suggested Dorothy, “and see what he’ll do.”
“Where is the key to the clock-work?” asked Billina.
“Hanging on the peg where I found the card.”
“Then,” said the hen, “let us try him, and find out if he will go. He is warranted for a thousand years, it seems; but we do not know how long he has been standing inside this rock.”
Dorothy had already taken the clock key from the peg.
“Which shall I wind up first?” she asked, looking again at the directions on the card.
“Number One, I should think,” returned Billina. “That makes him think, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Dorothy, and wound up Number One, under the left arm.
“He doesn’t seem any different,” remarked the hen, critically.
“Why, of course not; he is only thinking, now,” said Dorothy.
“I wonder what he is thinking about.”
“I’ll wind up his talk, and then perhaps he can tell us,” said the girl.
So she wound up Number Two, and immediately the clock-work man said, without moving any part of his body except his lips:
“Good morn-ing, lit-tle girl. Good morn-ing, Mrs. Hen.”
The words sounded a little hoarse and creaky, and they were uttered all in the same tone, without any change of expression whatever; but both Dorothy and Billina understood them perfectly.
“Good morning, sir,” they answered, politely.
“Thank you for res-cu-ing me,” continued the machine, in the same monotonous voice, which seemed to be worked by a bellows inside of him, like the little toy lambs and cats the children squeeze so that they will make a noise.
“Don’t mention it,” answered Dorothy. And then, being very curious, she asked: “How did you come to be locked up in this place?”
“This cru-el king had a love-ly wife and ten beau-ti-ful chil-dren--five boys and five girls--but in a fit of an-ger he sold them all to the Nome King, who by means of his mag-ic arts changed them all in-to oth-er forms and put them in his un-der-ground pal-ace to or-na-ment the rooms.
“Af-ter-ward the King of Ev re-gret-ted his wick-ed ac-tion, and tried to get his wife and chil-dren a-way from the Nome King, but with-out a-vail. So, in de-spair, he locked me up in this rock, threw the key in-to the o-cean, and then jumped in af-ter it and was drowned.”
“How very dreadful!” exclaimed Dorothy.
“It is, in-deed,” said the machine. “When I found my-self im-pris-oned I shout-ed for help un-til my voice ran down; and then I walked back and forth in this lit-tle room un-til my ac-tion ran down; and then I stood still and thought un-til my thoughts ran down. Af-ter that I re-mem-ber noth-ing un-til you wound me up a-gain.”
“It’s a very wonderful story,” said Dorothy, “and proves that the Land of Ev is really a fairy land, as I thought it was.”
“Of course it is,” answered the copper man. “I do not sup-pose such a per-fect ma-chine as I am could be made in an-y place but a fair-y land.”
“I’ve never seen one in Kansas,” said Dorothy.
“But where did you get the key to un-lock this door?” asked the clock-work voice.
“I found it on the shore, where it was prob’ly washed up by the waves,” she answered. “And now, sir, if you don’t mind, I’ll wind up your action.”