Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  HOW THE SAWHORSE SAVED DOROTHY’S LIFE

  Little Dorothy took great delight in showing the Scarecrow and his companions all the wonders of Kansas farm; and you may be sure the people from Oz were greatly pleased by this thoughtful attention. One time a cyclone had visited Kansas and whirled Dorothy far away to the Land of Oz where she had formed the acquaintance of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow and encountered a series of thrilling adventures in their company. And now that they, in turn, had come to visit Dorothy’s own country, the girl did her best to entertain and interest her old friends.

  One day the Scarecrow took Dorothy for a ride upon the Sawhorse, himself walking by her side, and presently they came to a big field that had been fenced in to confine an ugly bull that was owned by Dorothy’s uncle. Pausing beside the fence, the Scarecrow happened to admire the pretty flowers growing within the field, and so Dorothy immediately jumped off the Sawhorse and climbed over the fence to pick the flowers for her friend.

  But at this minute the bull spied her and came dashing up behind; so Dorothy, with a cry of fear, started to run across the field to the opposite fence, with the bull after her full tilt. The Scarecrow, seeing the child’s danger, tossed the Sawhorse over the fence, and quickly following himself he mounted the wooden steed and rode swiftly in pursuit. Before long he managed to get between the fleeing Dorothy and the angry bull; but the animal, furious at this interference, hooked its sharp horns into the Scarecrow’s stuffed body and sent him soaring high into the air. But it chanced that in the same instant the Sawhorse let his hind legs fly at the bull, and so powerful was the stroke of the wooden heels against the bull’s forehead that the larger animal was knocked completely over, and rolled upon the ground half stunned by the shock.

  Fortunately the Scarecrow, on descending to earth again, fell across the body of the Sawhorse; and although he was limp and considerably twisted by his flight and by the horns of the bull, the Scarecrow retained sufficient presence of mind to wind his long legs around the neck of the Sawhorse and so cling on to its back.

  All this time Dorothy was running across the field as fast as her little legs would carry her, and the Sawhorse followed her, bearing the Scarecrow. The bull, soon recovering from the kick, and more maddened than ever, now came galloping after them so furiously that it was evident the girl could never gain the opposite side of the field in time to save herself. But the Sawhorse was swifter than the bull. He dashed past Dorothy at full speed, and as he did so the Scarecrow reached out his big arms and caught up the little girl, whom he managed to hold until the Sawhorse had crossed the field, and leaped with one great spring the stone wall that on this side formed the boundary. Next minute they had landed safely in the roadway, where stood the Woggle-Bug and the Tin Woodman, who had been taking a walk and had thus witnessed the adventure.

  Right behind the Sawhorse had come the frantic, and when the wooden steed from Oz rose into the air to clear the wall, the bull, unable to stop himself, dashed headforemost against the stones. So great was the shock the bull was pushed together endwise, and flattened almost to a pancake; and when he staggered backward to try and think what had happened to him, he was wrinkled up to just like one of those Japanese lanterns that you push end to end when not in use.

  “Oh, dear!” exclaimed Dorothy, looking at the dazed and flattened bull from the safe side of the wall. “What will Uncle Henry say when he sees this?”

  “He’ll say it serves the creature right for chasing little girls, and trying to hook them,” remarked the Tin Woodman, calmly.

  “I’m glad the dear old Sawhorse saved my life,” continued Dorothy, “but the bull cost lots and lots of money, and Uncle Henry says he’s awful valuable.”

  “He isn’t worth much now,” mused the Scarecrow, looking critically at the animal, “unless he can be pulled out again and worked over into his old shape. But what ever could make such an ugly creature as that valuable?”

  “Why, he’s a thoroughbred,” explained Dorothy, “and belongs to a very rare breed, besides.”

  “Indeed!” returned the Scarecrow; “what breed of cattle, then, does the creature belong to?”

  “I know!” interrupted the Woggle-Bug, before Dorothy could reply. And then, proud of his knowledge, the Woggle-Bug told them truly that the breed of bull was the Galloway breed.

  HOW THE OZITES MET A BEAUTY DOCTOR

  It was much to be regretted that some thoughtless people made remarks upon the personal appearance of our visitors from the Land of Oz. When the sensitive Scarecrow overheard a High School say that “in her opinion he was not at all handsome,” it grieved him very much. “For,” said he, “while I have no desire to be exceptionally beautiful, I have always thought myself to be as good-looking as the average man.”

  “Yet you are not,” returned the Woggle-Bug, regarding his friend critically. “I am myself very handsome for a bug; but you cannot be justly called a handsome man.”

  “Excuse me, H. M.,” said the Tin Woodman, in a confidential voice, “but I heard a person say yesterday that there be bugs and bugs, but that you are the buggiest bug that ever bugged.”

  “Indeed!” exclaimed the Insect, much shocked. “But don’t worry,” continued the Tin Woodman. “It is not possible for everyone to look as bright and beautiful as I do myself.”

  “You may be right,” remarked Jack Pumpkinhead, “but if you are beautiful why did the lady say yesterday that your nose reminded her of Cyrano de Bergerac, and that your gaiters are dreadfully out of fashion?”

  “Did she say that?” asked the Tin Woodman, suddenly becoming grave. “Then, perhaps, after all, American ladies may not consider me attractive. But what can I do? It is impossible for me to remove either my nose or my gaiters, for they are riveted and soldered to my body.”

  “Well, I am sorry for you all,” said Jack. “But as long as I can remain handsome, the rest of you may console yourselves by gazing upon me.”

  “True,” growled the Sawhorse. “Probably that boy meant nothing at all when he told me this morning that the Pumpkinhead reminded him of pies-an’-things. And he said you scared his pet cat into fits.”

  “I? With my winning smile?” demanded Jack in a worried voice.

  “Yes,” gruffly answered the Sawhorse, as he strolled away and left them.

  The adventurers looked at one another earnestly, to see if their remarks could possibly be just, and to their dismay they perceived that there was much truth in the criticisms they had overheard.

  “When beauty was passed around, we must have been behind the barn,” reflected the Woggle-Bug, gloomily. But at that moment he chanced to look up and saw a sign upon a neighboring house that read as follows: “Mme. QUI-SYM, BEAUTY SPECIALIST, HOMELY FOLKS MADE RADIANTLY BEAUTIFUL WHILE YOU WAIT.” “Ah!” said the Woggle-Bug, “here is our opportunity. Let us all become beautiful and then we need not worry about our looks.”

  He then led his comrades into the office of the Beauty Specialist, and asked that they all be furnished with the best brand of beauty she had in stock.

  “Of course you understand my treatments are expensive,” said Mme. Qui- Sym, who was a stately dame with a pug nose and a squint in her left eye. “But since you people are so famous, and have had your pictures in the papers, I will treat you free of all expenses ‹ if you will sign these testimonials.”

  It was delightful to see the Tin Woodman lying upon his back and twisting his limbs into all sorts of positions in order to reduce the rotundity of his tin body. The Woggle-Bug meantime was running four little ‹ one with each hand ‹ up and down his form, to improve his complexion, while the Pumpkinhead sat patiently in a chair in a corner with a rubber mask over his face that made him look positively frightful. As for the Scarecrow, he was instructed to anoint his head liberally with a pomade from a pot labeled: “Cleopatra’s Secret Bloom of Beauty. Prepared in a Condensed and Double-Distilled Form from the Original Recipe. Never known to Fail but Once.” Meantime the Beauty Specialist was busily eng
aged in preparing the testimonials for the newspapers.

  Presently the Tin Woodman sat up and said: “My gaiters seem to be still in the same old fashion as before, and my nose is quite unchanged. Yet I have performed the required exercises so faithfully that I have made a dent in the back of my neck with my right toe.”

  “I am obliged to confess these rollers a failure,” joined in the Woggle- Bug. “A bug has no business with a complexion, anyhow. Let’s get out of here.”

  The Pumpkinhead now removed his mask, but it was the same old Pumpkinhead that met their view, and Jack gazed at the Beauty Specialist reproachfully.

  Soon the Scarecrow rubbed the “Beauty Bloom” from his face with a towel, and his friends were filled with horror when they found that every vestige of paint had come off also, and instead of his usual exhibit of pleasing features, the Scarecrow’s head was now nothing more than a cloth sack stuffed with bran and short bits of straw.

  Great was the grief of the party from Oz at this mishap to their leader. But Mme. Qui-Sym was quite equal to the emergency.

  “Fortunately, I can paint his old features on the sack again, for I have a picture of the Scarecrow that I cut from a recent newspaper.”

  So she took a newspaper picture out of a drawer, to serve as a model, and then began painting, while the others watched her. But she had only made a nose and a mouth and a mustache when they all cried: “Stop!” and the Woggle-Bug added, angrily: “You’re putting another man’s features on our friend.”

  “Why, to be sure!” exclaimed the Beauty Specialist. “It’s an equally famous personage, but I got hold of the wrong picture. Never mind, I’ll wash it off and begin over again.”

  This time she selected the right picture from those in the drawer, and cleverly painted a new face upon the sack.

  “Thanks,” murmured the Scarecrow. “I now realize now necessary a face is to the average person, for without one I found myself at a serious disadvantage.”

  “Yes,” agreed the Tin Woodman, “it strikes me a face is equally useful whether it happens to be plain or beautiful. So let us abandon this absurd quest of beauty, and be thankful that we possess faces that answer all practical purposes.”

  The Scarecrow looked into a mirror. “For a Scarecrow, I am really not bad looking,” said he.

  “And my pumpkinhead will, I am sure hold its own with any other pumpkin head,” declared Jack. “I have yet failed to meet a tin man who is my superior,” said Nick Chopper, confidently.

  “Why, then, let us turn over this Beauty Specialist to those who are more foolish and discontented than we are,” observed the Scarecrow. “I am sorry all the world does not consider us handsome, but let us remember that old adage that ‘handsome is as handsome does’.”

  “Nevertheless,” said the Woggle-Bug, airily, “you had a narrow escape. For had she painted upon you that she first started, you would have lost your identity.”

  “Whose face was it?” asked the Scarecrow, anxiously.

  And the Woggle-Bug told him that the Beauty Specialist had almost made him look like the famous financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

  HOW THE ADVENTURERS ENCOUNTERED AN UNKNOWN BEAST

  Now the Scarecrow and his party had been assured more than once that they are perfectly safe anywhere in the United States; so they have no fears whatever in venturing to explore this country, which is said to be highly civilized and so energetically governed that danger cannot lurk in any of its darkest corners.

  Never doubting the truth of these assertions, our visitors from the Land of Oz have no hesitation in making long excursions into various parts of the country, and it was while upon one of these excursions that the adventure befell them which I am about to relate.

  They had journeyed in the flying Gump to a barren and uninhabited in Arizona, and although at one time tempted to alight in a little village where a big tent with flying streamers was displayed, the Scarecrow induced them to restrain their curiosity and proceed to the alkali plains, which were an interesting sight indeed to those who had always lived in the fertile Land of Oz, where rich vegetation prevailed on every hand.

  “There is not much to see here,” said the Tin Woodman, after glancing around.

  “That is the beauty of this landscape,” declared the Woggle-Bug, pompously.

  “There isn’t a living thing in sight,” sighed the Tin Woodman, as the Gump slowly fluttered to the ground.

  “Oh, yes, there is,” said the Pumpkinhead, whose eyes were considerably bigger than those of his comrades. “I see something waving at us from behind that big rock over there.”

  They all looked in the direction of the big rock; and there, sure enough, was something that resembled a rope with the end frayed out, moving slowly to and fro above the summit.

  “Let us see what it is!” exclaimed the Scarecrow, whose curiosity was excited.

  So Jack got his Sawhorse to the ground and mounted it, and the Gump fluttered with the others close to the vicinity of the big rock.

  “It’s the tail of some animal,” declared the Scarecrow.

  “Then don’t venture too near, until we discover if the animal is friend or foe,” suggested the Woggle-Bug, beginning to get uneasy.

  Just as he spoke a curious sound came from behind the rock, and then the head of a beast, decked with a long flowing mane, was suddenly raised above the barrier.

  “A lion!” cried the Woggle-Bug, and immediately the most startling confusion prevailed. For the Gump twisted sideways and tumbled its occupants to the ground, and then fled, screaming, to a far distance. The Sawhorse, plunging with fright, also threw his rider into the midst of the group and bolted away with frantic leaps.

  Left thus to confront the supposed lion, and without means to escape, the confusion of the adventurers redoubled; but when the animal leaped upon the summit of the rock and began hurling stones at them with its hands, the calm judgment of the Scarecrow at once assured them that their enemy could not be a lion.

  Somewhat reassured by this, the others struggled to regain their feet, and the Woggle-Bug implored the Tin Woodman to chop the strange animal with his gleaming axe. This the kind-hearted Woodman refused to do; but when a stone struck him in his chest and made a dent in his bright tin, his indignation overcame his gentleness and he seized and rushed furiously upon the foe.

  The animal turned tail at once and scrambled back over the rock; but when the Tin Woodman attempted to follow it he was astonished to come face to face with a queer-looking old man, who waved him aside and shouted in a cracked voice:

  “You let that beast alone! He’s mine.”

  “I’m sure you are welcome to him,” said the Woggle-Bug, “but why did you allow your property to fling stones at us?”

  “I was asleep,” returned the old man, in a surly tone. “This fellow escaped last night from our Circus and Menagerie ‹ Greatest Show on Earth, you know ‹ and hid out amid these rocks. And I’ve had the chase of my life to get him again. So I sat down to rest and fell asleep just as you came along.”

  “We accept your apology,” said the Scarecrow politely. “But what sort of a beast is it?”

  “I’ve got to get back to the circus,” declared the man, who was dressed in a soiled and faded and otherwise outlandish costume.

  “What kind of beast is it?” asked the Tin Woodman, gently but firmly.

  “Admission twenty-five cents, children half price,” said the man.

  “Please tell us what it is!” implored Jack Pumpkinhead.

  “Only one in captivity,” muttered the man, turning to depart.

  The people from Oz were by this time so annoyed by the old man’s impolite treatment that they might have protested in a forcible manner had not the Woggle-Bug said:

  “Never mind that circus fellow. I know what kind of animal it is, and will gladly tell you.”

  So they gathered around the Woggle-Bug, who told them that the queer creature was a Gelada baboon.

  JACK PUMPKINHEAD AND THE SAWHORSE WIN
A RACE AND INCITE A RIOT: THE WOGGLE-BUG RESTORES HARMONY

  The Scarecrow and the Woggle-Bug, with their comrades, decided to visit the Jones County Fair, as Dorothy assured them it was one of the most interesting events of the year. But their appearance on the Fair Grounds spoiled the business of all the sideshows, for the people thought nothing quite so wonderful as the queer visitors from Oz, and it cost nothing at all to stare at them.

  Dorothy decided to take them over to the race track, which was the center of attraction at the Fair. But once there, the Scarecrow became so greatly interested in the event of the day that he decided to enter the animated Sawhorse in the Free-for-all Running Race, although they warned him the race was to be run under regular Jockey Club rules, which would be strictly enforced. Jack Pumpkinhead readily agreed to ride his famous steed.

  When Jack rode calmly upon the track the crowd jeered at sight of the wooden horse, and the bookmakers at once made the Sawhorse a 90 to 1 shot and found no takers. For the assembled farmers had no confidence in an animal made of wood, a hickory pedigree being considered of little account.

  There was some trouble in getting a start for this great race, as the Sawhorse got nervous at mixing with common horses, and pranced around to show that although he was not so big as they were he was certainly more handsome and more agile.

  At last the judge cried the word “Go!” and away swept the race horses, with the wooden animal far behind the others. But now the Sawhorse realized that it was time to prove his great speed; so he settled down to a steady run that was swift as the wind. One by one he overtook the other horses and passed them, but when the racers turned into the homestretch the judges in their stand and all the people in the grand stand behind them all saw that the Sawhorse was in the lead, with the others stringing after him in single file.

  As he dashed along, Jack carelessly leaned backward, and the wind caught his head and jerked it from the wooden neck that supported it and sent the pumpkin, which weighed over ten pounds, full tilt against the jockey who was riding just behind. The force of the blow sent the fellow sprawling in the dust of the track, but the pumpkin head, still keeping its course, struck down the next jockey ‹ and the next ‹ until all the jockeys were down.