Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  “Well,” said Dorothy, “what are we to do, Ozma? Walk down into that thick fog, an’ prob’bly get lost in it, or wait till it clears away?”

  “I’m not sure it will clear away, however long we wait,” replied Ozma, doubtfully. “If we wish to get on, I think we must venture into the mist.”

  “But we can’t see where we’re going, or what we’re stepping on,” protested Dorothy. “There may be dreadful things mixed up in that fog, an’ I’m scared just to think of wading into it.”

  Even Ozma seemed to hesitate. She was silent and thoughtful for a little while, looking at the rolling drifts that were so gray and forbidding. Finally she said:

  “I believe this is a Mist Valley, where these moist clouds always remain, for even the sunshine above does not drive them away. Therefore the Mist Maids must live here, and they are fairies and should answer my call.”

  She placed her two hands before her mouth, forming a hollow with them, and uttered a clear, thrilling, bird-like cry. It floated far out over the mist waves and presently was answered by a similar sound, as of a far-off echo.

  Dorothy was much impressed. She had seen many strange things since coming to this fairy country, but here was a new experience. At ordinary times Ozma was just like any little girl one might chance to meet — simple, merry, lovable as could be — yet with a certain reserve that lent her dignity in her most joyous moods. There were times, however, when seated on her throne and commanding her subjects, or when her fairy powers were called into use, when Dorothy and all others about her stood in awe of their lovely girl Ruler and realized her superiority.

  Ozma waited. Presently out from the billows rose beautiful forms, clothed in fleecy, trailing garments of gray that could scarcely be distinguished from the mist. Their hair was mist-color, too; only their gleaming arms and sweet, pallid faces proved they were living, intelligent creatures answering the call of a sister fairy.

  Like sea nymphs they rested on the bosom of the clouds, their eyes turned questioningly upon the two girls who stood upon the bank. One came quite near and to her Ozma said:

  “Will you please take us to the opposite hillside? We are afraid to venture into the mist. I am Princess Ozma of Oz, and this is my friend Dorothy, a Princess of Oz.”

  The Mist Maids came nearer, holding out their arms. Without hesitation Ozma advanced and allowed them to embrace her and Dorothy plucked up courage to follow. Very gently the Mist Maids held them. Dorothy thought the arms were cold and misty — they didn’t seem real at all — yet they supported the two girls above the surface of the billows and floated with them so swiftly to the green hillside opposite that the girls were astonished to find themselves set upon the grass before they realized they had fairly started.

  “Thank you!” said Ozma gratefully, and Dorothy also added her thanks for the service.

  The Mist Maids made no answer, but they smiled and waved their hands in good-bye as again they floated out into the mist and disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Magic Tent

  “Well,” said Dorothy with a laugh, “that was easier than I expected. It’s worth while, sometimes, to be a real fairy. But I wouldn’t like to be that kind, and live in a dreadful fog all the time.”

  They now climbed the bank and found before them a delightful plain that spread for miles in all directions. Fragrant wild flowers were scattered throughout the grass; there were bushes bearing lovely blossoms and luscious fruits; now and then a group of stately trees added to the beauty of the landscape. But there were no dwellings or signs of life.

  The farther side of the plain was bordered by a row of palms, and just in front of the palms rose a queerly shaped hill that towered above the plain like a mountain. The sides of this hill were straight up and down; it was oblong in shape and the top seemed flat and level.

  “Oh, ho!” cried Dorothy; “I’ll bet that’s the mountain Glinda told us of, where the Flatheads live.”

  “If it is,” replied Ozma, “the Lake of the Skeezers must be just beyond the line of palm trees. Can you walk that far, Dorothy?”

  “Of course, in time,” was the prompt answer. “I’m sorry we had to leave the Sawhorse and the Red Wagon behind us, for they’d come in handy just now; but with the end of our journey in sight a tramp across these pretty green fields won’t tire us a bit.”

  It was a longer tramp than they suspected, however, and night overtook them before they could reach the flat mountain. So Ozma proposed they camp for the night and Dorothy was quite ready to approve. She didn’t like to admit to her friend she was tired, but she told herself that her legs “had prickers in ‘em,” meaning they had begun to ache.

  Usually when Dorothy started on a journey of exploration or adventure, she carried with her a basket of food, and other things that a traveler in a strange country might require, but to go away with Ozma was quite a different thing, as experience had taught her. The fairy Ruler of Oz only needed her silver wand — tipped at one end with a great sparkling emerald — to provide through its magic all that they might need. Therefore Ozma, having halted with her companion and selected a smooth, grassy spot on the plain, waved her wand in graceful curves and chanted some mystic words in her sweet voice, and in an instant a handsome tent appeared before them. The canvas was striped purple and white, and from the center pole fluttered the royal banner of Oz.

  “Come, dear,” said Ozma, taking Dorothy’s hand, “I am hungry and I’m sure you must be also; so let us go in and have our feast.”

  On entering the tent they found a table set for two, with snowy linen, bright silver and sparkling glassware, a vase of roses in the center and many dishes of delicious food, some smoking hot, waiting to satisfy their hunger. Also, on either side of the tent were beds, with satin sheets, warm blankets and pillows filled with swansdown. There were chairs, too, and tall lamps that lighted the interior of the tent with a soft, rosy glow.

  Dorothy, resting herself at her fairy friend’s command, and eating her dinner with unusual enjoyment, thought of the wonders of magic. If one were a fairy and knew the secret laws of nature and the mystic words and ceremonies that commanded those laws, then a simple wave of a silver wand would produce instantly all that men work hard and anxiously for through weary years. And Dorothy wished in her kindly, innocent heart, that all men and women could be fairies with silver wands, and satisfy all their needs without so much work and worry, for then, she imagined, they would have all their working hours to be happy in. But Ozma, looking into her friend’s face and reading those thoughts, gave a laugh and said:

  “No, no, Dorothy, that wouldn’t do at all. Instead of happiness your plan would bring weariness to the world. If every one could wave a wand and have his wants fulfilled there would be little to wish for. There would be no eager striving to obtain the difficult, for nothing would then be difficult, and the pleasure of earning something longed for, and only to be secured by hard work and careful thought, would be utterly lost. There would be nothing to do, you see, and no interest in life and in our fellow creatures. That is all that makes life worth our while — to do good deeds and to help those less fortunate than ourselves.”

  “Well, you’re a fairy, Ozma. Aren’t you happy?” asked Dorothy.

  “Yes, dear, because I can use my fairy powers to make others happy. Had I no kingdom to rule, and no subjects to look after, I would be miserable. Also, you must realize that while I am a more powerful fairy than any other inhabitant of Oz, I am not as powerful as Glinda the Sorceress, who has studied many arts of magic that I know nothing of. Even the little Wizard of Oz can do some things I am unable to accomplish, while I can accomplish things unknown to the Wizard. This is to explain that I am not all-powerful, by any means. My magic is simply fairy magic, and not sorcery or wizardry.”

  “All the same,” said Dorothy, “I’m mighty glad you could make this tent appear, with our dinners and beds all ready for us.”

  Ozma smiled.

  “Yes, it is inde
ed wonderful,” she agreed. “Not all fairies know that sort of magic, but some fairies can do magic that fills me with astonishment. I think that is what makes us modest and unassuming — the fact that our magic arts are divided, some being given each of us. I’m glad I don’t know everything, Dorothy, and that there still are things in both nature and in wit for me to marvel at.”

  Dorothy couldn’t quite understand this, so she said nothing more on the subject and presently had a new reason to marvel. For when they had quite finished their meal table and contents disappeared in a flash.

  “No dishes to wash, Ozma!” she said with a laugh. “I guess you’d make a lot of folks happy if you could teach ‘em just that one trick.”

  For an hour Ozma told stories, and talked with Dorothy about various people in whom they were interested. And then it was bedtime, and they undressed and crept into their soft beds and fell asleep almost as soon as their heads touched their pillows.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Magic Stairway

  The flat mountain looked much nearer in the clear light of the morning sun, but Dorothy and Ozma knew there was a long tramp before them, even yet. They finished dressing only to find a warm, delicious breakfast awaiting them, and having eaten they left the tent and started toward the mountain which was their first goal. After going a little way Dorothy looked back and found that the fairy tent had entirely disappeared. She was not surprised, for she knew this would happen.

  “Can’t your magic give us a horse an’ wagon, or an automobile?” inquired Dorothy.

  “No, dear; I’m sorry that such magic is beyond my power,” confessed her fairy friend.

  “Perhaps Glinda could,” said Dorothy thoughtfully.

  “Glinda has a stork chariot that carries her through the air,” said Ozma, “but even our great Sorceress cannot conjure up other modes of travel. Don’t forget what I told you last night, that no one is powerful enough to do everything.”

  “Well, I s’pose I ought to know that, having lived so long in the Land of Oz,” replied Dorothy; “but I can’t do any magic at all, an’ so I can’t figure out e’zactly how you an’ Glinda an’ the Wizard do it.”

  “Don’t try,” laughed Ozma. “But you have at least one magical art, Dorothy: you know the trick of winning all hearts.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Dorothy earnestly. “If I really can do it, Ozma, I am sure I don’t know how I do it.”

  It took them a good two hours to reach the foot of the round, flat mountain, and then they found the sides so steep that they were like the wall of a house.

  “Even my purple kitten couldn’t climb ‘em,” remarked Dorothy, gazing upward.

  “But there is some way for the Flatheads to get down and up again,” declared Ozma; “otherwise they couldn’t make war with the Skeezers, or even meet them and quarrel with them.”

  “That’s so, Ozma. Let’s walk around a ways; perhaps we’ll find a ladder or something.”

  They walked quite a distance, for it was a big mountain, and as they circled around it and came to the side that faced the palm trees, they suddenly discovered an entrance way cut out of the rock wall. This entrance was arched overhead and not very deep because it merely led to a short flight of stone stairs.

  “Oh, we’ve found a way to the top at last,” announced Ozma, and the two girls turned and walked straight toward the entrance. Suddenly they bumped against something and stood still, unable to proceed farther.

  “Dear me!” exclaimed Dorothy, rubbing her nose, which had struck something hard, although she could not see what it was; “this isn’t as easy as it looks. What has stopped us, Ozma? Is it magic of some sort?”

  Ozma was feeling around, her hands outstretched before her.

  “Yes, dear, it is magic,” she replied. “The Flatheads had to have a way from their mountain top from the plain below, but to prevent enemies from rushing up the stairs to conquer them, they have built, at a small distance before the entrance a wall of solid stone, the stones being held in place by cement, and then they made the wall invisible.”

  “I wonder why they did that?” mused Dorothy. “A wall would keep folks out anyhow, whether it could be seen or not, so there wasn’t any use making it invisible. Seems to me it would have been better to have left it solid, for then no one would have seen the entrance behind it. Now anybody can see the entrance, as we did. And prob’bly anybody that tries to go up the stairs gets bumped, as we did.”

  Ozma made no reply at once. Her face was grave and thoughtful.

  “I think I know the reason for making the wall invisible,” she said after a while. “The Flatheads use the stairs for coming down and going up. If there was a solid stone wall to keep them from reaching the plain they would themselves be imprisoned by the wall. So they had to leave some place to get around the wall, and, if the wall was visible, all strangers or enemies would find the place to go around it and then the wall would be useless. So the Flatheads cunningly made their wall invisible, believing that everyone who saw the entrance to the mountain would walk straight toward it, as we did, and find it impossible to go any farther. I suppose the wall is really high and thick, and can’t be broken through, so those who find it in their way are obliged to go away again.”

  “Well,” said Dorothy, “if there’s a way around the wall, where is it?”

  “We must find it,” returned Ozma, and began feeling her way along the wall. Dorothy followed and began to get discouraged when Ozma had walked nearly a quarter of a mile away from the entrance. But now the invisible wall curved in toward the side of the mountain and suddenly ended, leaving just space enough between the wall and the mountain for an ordinary person to pass through.

  The girls went in, single file, and Ozma explained that they were now behind the barrier and could go back to the entrance. They met no further obstructions.

  “Most people, Ozma, wouldn’t have figured this thing out the way you did,” remarked Dorothy. “If I’d been alone the invisible wall surely would have stumped me.”

  Reaching the entrance they began to mount the stone stairs. They went up ten stairs and then down five stairs, following a passage cut from the rock. The stairs were just wide enough for the two girls to walk abreast, arm in arm. At the bottom of the five stairs the passage turned to the right, and they ascended ten more stairs, only to find at the top of the flight five stairs leading straight down again. Again the passage turned abruptly, this time to the left, and ten more stairs led upward.

  The passage was now quite dark, for they were in the heart of the mountain and all daylight had been shut out by the turns of the passage. However, Ozma drew her silver wand from her bosom and the great jewel at its end gave out a lustrous, green-tinted light which lighted the place well enough for them to see their way plainly.

  Ten steps up, five steps down, and a turn, this way or that. That was the program, and Dorothy figured that they were only gaining five stairs upward each trip that they made.

  “Those Flatheads must be funny people,” she said to Ozma. “They don’t seem to do anything in a bold, straightforward manner. In making this passage they forced everyone to walk three times as far as is necessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome to the Flatheads as it is to other folks.”

  “That is true,” answered Ozma; “yet it is a clever arrangement to prevent their being surprised by intruders. Every time we reach the tenth step of a flight, the pressure of our feet on the stone makes a bell ring on top of the mountain, to warn the Flatheads of our coming.”

  “How do you know that?” demanded Dorothy, astonished.

  “I’ve heard the bell ever since we started,” Ozma told her. “You could not hear it, I know, but when I am holding my wand in my hand I can hear sounds a great distance off.”

  “Do you hear anything on top of the mountain ‘cept the bell?” inquired Dorothy.

  “Yes. The people are calling to one another in alarm and many footsteps are approaching the place where we will reach the flat
top of the mountain.”

  This made Dorothy feel somewhat anxious.

  “I’d thought we were going to visit just common, ordinary people,” she remarked, “but they’re pretty clever, it seems, and they know some kinds of magic, too. They may be dangerous, Ozma. P’raps we’d better stayed at home.”

  Finally the upstairs-and-downstairs passage seemed coming to an end, for daylight again appeared ahead of the two girls and Ozma replaced her wand in the bosom of her gown. The last ten steps brought them to the surface, where they found themselves surrounded by such a throng of queer people that for a time they halted, speechless, and stared into the faces that confronted them.

  Dorothy knew at once why these mountain people were called Flatheads. Their heads were really flat on top, as if they had been cut off just above the eyes and ears. Also the heads were bald, with no hair on top at all, and the ears were big and stuck straight out, and the noses were small and stubby, while the mouths of the Flatheads were well shaped and not unusual. Their eyes were perhaps their best feature, being large and bright and a deep violet in color.

  The costumes of the Flatheads were all made of metals dug from their mountain. Small gold, silver, tin and iron discs, about the size of pennies, and very thin, were cleverly wired together and made to form knee trousers and jackets for the men and skirts and waists for the women. The colored metals were skillfully mixed to form stripes and checks of various sorts, so that the costumes were quite gorgeous and reminded Dorothy of pictures she had seen of Knights of old clothed in armor.

  Aside from their flat heads, these people were not really bad looking. The men were armed with bows and arrows and had small axes of steel stuck in their metal belts. They wore no hats nor ornaments.

  CHAPTER 6

  Flathead Mountain

  When they saw that the intruders on their mountain were only two little girls, the Flatheads grunted with satisfaction and drew back, permitting them to see what the mountain top looked like. It was shaped like a saucer, so that the houses and other buildings — all made of rocks — could not be seen over the edge by anyone standing in the plain below.