“She has yellow hair and blue eyes, sir,” answered the mother, beginning to weep afresh.
The sight of her tears greatly affected the good Scarecrow.
“I’ll search for your child, ma’am,” said he, and started off as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him.
“Dear me!” sighed the Woggle-Bug; “how much more useful folks could be in an emergency if they would only stop to think. My friends will never be able to find your child, madam; so I must do it myself. And in order to recognize her, I will use one of the magical agencies we sometimes employ in Oz.”
Saying this, he made a tiny prick in the woman’s hand, so that a drop of blood appeared; and, taking this upon the end of his upper right-hand finger, the Woggle-Bug made a queer mark upon her forehead. It looked like this: .
“Now,” said the Woggle-Bug, “the same mark will be plainly seen on the forehead of your child, wherever she may chance to be. So please remain here for a few moments, and I will promise to find your little girl and return her to your arms.”
“Oh, thank you! I knew you were a fairy!” exclaimes the woman, gratefully.
“Well, of course we do things in Oz that are not done in America,” admitted the Woggle-Bug, and started at once upon his quest.
The poor woman, still nervous and excited sat down to wait, and presently up rode Jack Pumpkinhead with a lot of children of all ages perched upon the Saw-Horse.
“Are any of these yours?” he asked, anxiously.
“No, indeed,” answered the woman.
Just then appeared the Tin Woodman, a child riding upon his shoulders, one under each arm, and two more led by his tin hands.
“They all have pink bonnets, ma’am,” he cried: “are any of them yours?”
“Not one of them!” replied the woman.
And now came the Scarecrow, pushing before him a crowd of children of all sorts and conditions.
“One of these surely must be yours, ma’am,” said he, pleasantly, “for all have yellow hair and blue eyes.”
“No, no!” she answered with big tears of anguish rolling down her cheeks. “Take ‘em away!”
But now the Woggle-Bug strolled up, a pretty little girl held fast in his four arms.
“Here you are, madam!” said he. “See! She has the same mark upon her forehead.”
And while the others looked on in surprise, the mother sprang up with a cry of joy and pressed the child to her breast, covering its little face with a hundred loving kisses.
“Oh, thank you! thank you!” she exclaimed, in rapture; “I knew you would find her, for you are a fairy!”
Then she turned away, and as she did so the strange red mark disappeared from the foreheads of both mother and child.
“What was that mark?” the Scarecrow asked the Woggle-Bug.
“A peculiar design much used in heraldry,” answered the wise insect.
“But what is it called?” inquired the Tin Woodman. The Woggle-Bug smiled.
“It really has a name of its own,” said he, “and I shall be pleased to tell you what the mark is called.”
And, while they listened intently, he told them that it was the Cross Crosslet.
THE SCARECROW PRESENTS A MAGIC AUTOMOBILE TO A LITTLE GIRL
Now, although the queer people from Oz had come to the United States on a pleasure trip, they were greatly pleased when an opportunity arose for any og them to do a kindly act.
The Scarecrow was walking one day along a street where the houses were set close together and only the poorer classes of people dwelt. And soon he found, sitting upon a doorstep, a pretty little girl who had covered her face with her hands and was crying softly ‹ as if to herself ‹ in a very affecting manner.
The good Scarecrow was very sorry to see the child so grieved, so he sat down beside her and said:
“Tell me, my dear, why are you so sorrowful?”
“I ‹ I wants a ‹ a ‹ a automobile!” sobbed the girl.
“Good gracious! An automobile! Then why don’t you have one?” asked the Scarecrow, somewhat surprised that so small a child should want so large a toy.
“Because my pop’s too poor to buy me one,” she answered, looking at her new friend in amazement that he should ask such a question.
“In that case, my dear, you shouldn’t want an automobile,” said the Scarecrow, gravely.
“But I do ‹ I do!” sobbed the child, and began crying again.
Her tears were too much for the Scarecrow. “Very well; dry your eyes, and I’ll give you an automobile ‹ since that is the only thing that will make you happy,” said he.
The girl thought her queer companion was making fun of her; but he was not, indeed. He knew what an automobile was, for he had curiously noted one of the big red ones going along the street only that morning. So all he had to do was walk to the curbstone, where by means of a few magic words accompanied by the magical gestures that are usually required, he created an automobile that was exactly the same as the one he had seen.
The little girl sprang to her feet with a cry of astonishment; for there, before the door, stood a beautiful big red touring-car, fitted up with leather cushions and handsome embroidered dust-robes and lunch and golf baskets and sparkling silver lanterns, and all the things that the most expensive automobiles possess!
“There,” said the Scarecrow, “I will make you a present of this automobile. It is your very own, to do what you like with it; and I hope it will make you happy.”
Then he bade her good-bye and walked away, soon disappearing around a corner. The girl half expected to see the automobile disappear, too, but it did not. It still stood before her, big and beautiful enough to delight the heart of a millionaire.
Now, this child had especially wanted an automobile because she believed it impossible for her ever to possess one, and now that the coveted machine was before her she had no idea what to do with it. She was still staring at it when her father came home from his work to get his dinner. The man couldn’t refuse to believe the wonderful story the girl told him, for there stood the automobile to prove it, and he had often heard of the magical powers possessed by the people from Oz. But he was greatly perplexed, nevertheless.
“We haven’t any barn to keep it in,” said he, “nor any clothes good enough to wear while riding in such a swell chariot. And it would cost more than I earn to feed with gasoline. I think we ought to sell it, and buy coal for the winter. Anyhow, I’ve got to get back to work now, and we’ll talk it over when I come home tonight.”
But the girl was quite indignant at the idea of selling her beautiful automobile, and when her father had gone away and a crowd of admiring children from all over the neighborhood had congregated to gaze upon the wonderful thing, she proudly informed them that she was about to take a ride.
“Let me run it! Let me run it for you!” shouted a dozen boys, at once. Not one of them knew anything about an automobile, but most boys are willing to undertake any task that is really dangerous; so the girl thoughtfully selected one who had divided his stick of candy with her that very morning.
She climbed to a back seat and drew an embroidered robe over her faded gingham dress, and the barefooted boy chauffeur proudly mounted in front and gave a glance at the machinery.
“Get out of the way, you dubs!” he shouted to the crowd of children, who were spellbound with awe ‹ and then he shut his teeth tight together and pushed over the lever.
Slowly the huge machine, like a thing of life, moved down the street; then it gathered headway, and, as the crowd shouted and cheered, the boy, swelling with pride, put the lever over as far as it would go. Next instant the magic automobile was flying down the street like a red streak of lightning swaying all the while from side to side and bumping furiously over the broken pavement.
At first the girl had hard work to catch her breath. Then she screamed:
“Stop it! Stop it!”
But the boy didn’t know how to stop it. Pale, but courageous, he seized the steer
ing wheel and swung the machine around a corner. They were getting into the more frequented streets, and the teams they passed crept close to the sidewalks as the great red monster whirled by them.
“It can’t last long!” thought the girl, gasping for breath.
And it didn’t.
They were building a house down the street, and big piles of brick had been placed far out into the roadway. Perhaps an expert automobilist could have avoided the obstruction with ease; but the boy, wild-eyed and frightened, abandoned hope.
Next minute there was a crash and a scream. The girl flew into the air, made a graceful curve, and fell flat into a big box of mortar the workmen had prepared. The boy flew higher, and landed in a sitting position on a scaffold of the new house ‹ breathless, but unhurt. As for the magic automobile, it was a crumpled mass of red slivers and twisted steel and tag-ends of leather; for it struck the brick-pile squarely, and what was left could be called by no especial name.
The boy caught a ride home on a delivery wagon and was soon back home again; but the workmen pulled the little girl from the mortar-box, and scraped her off as well as they could in the time they had to spare, and she finally walked home in a very subdued state of mind.
“That Scarecrow was right,” she reflected, shivering also at the thought of what her mother would say about her soiled clothes. “Nobody ‹ not even a little girl ‹ has any right to want a thing they ought not to have. What I really need is a good switching, and the chances are that I’ll get it when I get home!”
HOW THE TIN WOODMAN BECAME A FIRE HERO
Night was a rather dreary time for our friends, the visitors from the marvelous Land of Oz. For, with the single exception of the Woggle-Bug, not one of the queer people ever slept. One was straw, and one was tin; one had a carved pumpkin head, and their Saw-Horse was made of wood. To such creatures, sleep was, of course, an impossibility; but to avoid annoying other folks who DID sleep, they made a practice of standing in the corners of a room with their faces to the wall during all the night, so they might not be tempted to talk or make a noise.
This standing still for so long a time was somewhat tedious, as any child who has tried it will be glad to acknowledge; so that one night, when the bells began clanging, and the whistles tooting, they all turned around from their corners with a sigh of relief.
“Someone else is making a racket now,” said the Scarecrow. “I wonder what all those bells and whistles mean?”
But before any could answer, they heard cries of “Fire! Fire!” coming from the street.
“How dreadful!” exclaimed the Pumpkinhead. “But I dare not go near the fire, because my body is made of wood.” And he turned his face resolutely to the wall again.
“Those are exactly my sentiments!” declared the Saw-Horse, and poked his nose as far into the corner as it would go.
“For my part,” remarked the Scarecrow, “fire has ever been my great abhorrence. Any chance spark would soon be an end of me.”
“My case is different,” said the Tin Woodman. “I am composed of three- ply metal plate of the best quality, and fire does not worry me in the least. So, if you will excuse me, I’ll go see if I can be of any service.”
He walked into the street, and seeing people running in a certain direction, he followed them to a tall apartment building, from the windows of which smoke was pouring in great clouds. The firemen had already arrived and were shooting streams of water through some of the windows, while across the street were groups of half-dressed people shivering in the cold, who had been driven from their beds by the burning of the house. As the Tin Woodman joined the crowd of spectators, a very short but very fat woman, with variegated yellow hair and pink cheeks, rushed forward and cried out:
“Oh, my darling; my darling! He will be burned alive!”
“Where is he?” asked a big fireman, excitedly.
“There! There in that corner room!” screamed the woman, pointing to the second story.
At once the fireman placed a ladder against the building, and the big fellow bravely ran up the rungs to the window that the woman had indicated. But a burst of flame and smoke quickly drove him back again, and the woman began dancing hysterically up and down and crying: “My darling will be burned alive!”
“I’m afraid he will,” said the fireman, sadly, “for no person can enter that room through the window without being killed.”
“I can!” exclaimed the Tin Woodman. “Fear not, my good woman, for I will save your darling!”
A cheer broke from the crowd at hearing this courageous speech. But the Tin Woodman reflected that if a child was in the room he could not carry it out through the flames; so he looked around and discovered a big flour can, which a man had carefully carried downstairs after throwing his clocks and mirrors from the third-story window. So the Tin Woodman grabbed the big round flour can, which was also made of tin, and climbed up the ladder to the window. In through the smoke and raging flames he made his way, and in a few minutes the anxious crowd watching him from below saw him reappear, carefully holding a flour can in his arms.
“Your darling is saved!” shouted the Tin Woodman to the woman; and then a tremdous cheer greeted him as he came down the ladder and reached the ground. For no one but a tin man could ever have passed through the flames in safety, and even he was glowing red in several places where the fire had caught him. The big fireman, who admired bravery, grasped his tin hand with emotion ‹ and dropped it with a howl.
As soon as he was on the ground the Tin Woodman threw off the cover of the flour can and out jumped a little poodle dog, which the woman caught in her arms.
“Oh, thank you for saving my darling!” she cried, joyfully.
“Your darling!” growled the big fireman, disgusted and angry. “Were you raising all that row over a measly dog?”
“He isn’t measly,” she simpered; “he’s a dear, and a love, and a darling!”
The fireman turned to the Tin Woodman.
I don’t blame you for being hot,” he said, indignantly.
“It isn’t my honor that’s tarnished, anyhow,” replied the hero, with a slight sigh; “and if I’m obliged to get myself replated in the morning I shall not complain. For, after all, to the dog and the woman, the life I saved is very precious, and I am glad I had the chance to make somebody happy.”
But at this kind speech the fireman only frowned.
“You’ll feel different when you’ve cooled off,” he said.
THE TWO WISHES
In a certain village lived a pair of twin brothers, Fred and Ned. They were chubby, stout, freckle-faced boys, with big eyes and ears, warts on their hands, and usually bandages around one or another of their numerous fingers and toes.
One day the queer visitors to America from the marvelous Land of Oz visited the village, and Fred and Ned were among the children who thronged to see them. The boys were looking a bit grave and solemn just then, having recieved a sound scolding from their mother. So their sad faces attracted the attention of the kindhearted Tin Woodman, who said to them:
“Come, look pleasant, my little men, for I have decided to give you each a fine present.”
“What is it?” asked Ned eagerly.
“You shall each have one wish granted ‹ the first wish you care to make,” replied the Tin Woodman. “So run along and be happy, and take care that you wish for exactly the right thing.”
So the boys trotted along home filled with joy at the fairy gift of the good man of Oz, and on the way Fred said: “Look here, Ned; I’m sick of getting scolded all the time. I wish I might be a good boy.”
“Well, then, you are,” replied Ned with a grin, “for your first wish is bound to come true.”
“That’s all right. I’m glad I made a wise wish,” declared Fred, soberly. “What do you wish?”
“I’m going to save my wish. There’s no hurry,” said Ned.
They entered the house through the back way, and there they spied on the pantry shelf a great pan
ful of cookies, which their mother had just baked. “I’ll make double the recipe for the boys’ll be sure to steal half of them,” she had thought.
Well, Ned filled his pockets full of cookies; but Fred shook his head and said:
“It’s wrong to take those cookies without permission, so I’ll let them alone.”
“Your wish was magic, all right,” announced Ned, with his mouth full of the delicious cookies.
Fred sighed, but said nothing.
In the afternoon, when they started for school the grocery wagon was driving by.
“Let’s catch on!” shouted Ned, and ran to grab at the end board and swing there while the wagon rolled swiftly on. But Fred refused to join him, and walked all the way to school, which made him miss a fine snowball fight.
There Ned met him, and whispered: “Let’s play hooky this afternoon. Some of us boys are going to the pond to skate.”
“No, indeed. It is wrong to run away from school, and wrong to go skating without mother’s knowledge. So I shall be good and go straight to my seat,” said Fred.
“Well, good luck to you!” cried his brother, and ran off with the other bad boys.
Fred studied until his head ached, and then the teacher accused him of throwing a paper-wad that had been slyly snapped by the bad boy sitting behind him, and he had to stay an hour after school. He got home, tired and sad, just in time for supper, and found Ned, rosy-cheeked and fresh, coming in from the pond.
“The ice was great!” confided Ned. “Sorry as how you couldn’t come, being as how you’re so good.”
“Yes, my wish has come true, and I’m glad of it,” answered noble Fred. But he had not much appetite for supper, and enviously watched his bad brother, who ate with an eagerness that proved he was hungry and the food tasted good.
Next morning their uncle gave them each a dime; but Fred put the money in a missionary box to help buy neckties for the heathen in Africa, while Ned spent his for gum-drops and ate them during school hours.
“How do you like being good?” asked Ned, curiously, when they were going home.
“Pretty well; but it ain’t just the feeling I thought it was,” acknowldged Fred.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 840
