Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  “Oh, you’ll get used to it in time,” declared his brother, and then ran and hid in the barn while their father made Fred sift the ashes from the furnace ‹ a job that even good boys cordially detest.

  Next day the arithmetic examples were awfully hard. Ned got a boy that clerked in the drug store to give him the right answers, and was praised by the teacher. Fred scorned such a dishonest action, and, therefore, failed in his lesson, and was obliged to take a note from the teacher home to his mother, who read it, and promptly punished him with a trunk strap.

  While he was sobbing in the woodshed (the scene of his humiliation), Ned came in and looked at his brother sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry you’re so confounded good, Fred,” he declared. “It spoils half my fun to leave you out of all the joy that’s going ‘round.”

  “It spoils all my fun!” wailed Fred, feeling tenderly of the sore places. “Honest, Fred; it’s getting so it actually hurts to be good.”

  Ned sighed, and rubbed a cobble-stone over the teeth of the bucksaw in a reflective manner.

  “Say,” said Fred, suddenly, “have you wished yet?”

  Ned shook his head.

  “No, I’m saving my wish.”

  “Don’t save it any longer,” pleaded Fred, anxiously. “You just wish I wasn’t any better than the rest of the boys. Do it, Ned, old man, and I’ll make it all right with you.”

  “I don’t seem to have much else to wish for, anyway,” answered Ned, slowly. “So as it’s lonesome havin’ you such a prig, I guess I’ll do it.”

  And he did.

  When the party from Oz stopped at the village on their return, the Tin Woodman again met the two boys, and asked:

  “Well, my little men, what did you wish?”

  “Why,” said Ned, “Fred wished he was good, and it hurt him; and I wished he wasn’t and now he’s all right. So both wishes came true, and we’re much obliged to you.”

  The Tin Woodman looked thoughtful.

  “When it hurts to be good,” said he, “it can’t amount to much. And I don’t suppose any one boy has a right to be better than the rest of the boys. So I shall not give you any more wishes, for fear they might lead you into mischief.”

  Then he got into the Gump and flew away.

  TIM NICHOLS AND THE CAT

  Tim Nichols was not what you could rightly call a bad boy, because he was obedient to his parents, attended school regularly, got his lessons, and submitted to the Saturday night bath with remarkable courage and good nature. But there was a streak of boyish cruelty in his nature that crept to the surface now and again, and permitted him to do such naughty things as to tie a can to a stray dog, stick bramble burrs in the calf’s tail, or chase the chickens until they were wild with terror. But the thing he most delighted to torment was a cat,a nd the big gray pussy, named “Peggy,” that belonged next door, lived in deadly fear of her life every moment that Tim was around. To be sure, she had a habit of sitting on the woodshed roof to utter strange cries at the dead of night, and as Tim’s room overlooked the woodshed he usually carried a number of sticks and stones to his room, so that he could hurl them at Peggy when she became noisy. Sometimes they would miss fire, but often they struck the cat and tumbled her from the roof, and after such an event she would keep quiet until morning. But right after breakfast Tim, still relentless, would hunt her up and chase her with stones and clubs, until she hid herself, and so managed to escape the torment.

  This state of affairs attracted the attention of our queer visitors from the Land of Oz, and after a consultation they decided to perform a little magic. So, through their efforts, all of Tim Nichols, except his body, was transferred into the body of the cat Peggy, and all of Peggy, except her body, was transferred into the body of Tim Nichols.

  This happened just before supper, as Tim was entering the house. His parents only noticed that Tim ate as if he had not been fed for a week, and afterward curled himself upon a rug before the fire, and went to sleep, so that they had to shake him hard at 9 o’clock to arouse him and send him to bed in the little room overlooking the neighbor’s woodshed.

  As for the cat, she sat upon the back fence, blinking in a very disturbed manner, for Tim’s spirit, inside the fur body, was wondering how on earth he ever came to be a cat!

  He smelled supper, and crept toward the kitchen hungrily, but Eliza scared him away with a broom stick, and he ran behind the ash barrel and hid until the moon came out.

  Then, scarcely knowing why he did it, he jumped to the roof of the woodshed and eyed the moon with as much content as a hungry cat can possibly feel. Bye and bye a strange feeling came over him, and, for the first time since he could remember, Tim yearned to sing. So he lifted up his voice, and in a long “Ker-r-r-o-mee-ow-w-w!” sent a wailing cry soaring toward the moon.

  Bang! came a big stone, bounding over the roof and just escaping his left ear.

  Tim reflected. “It’s that confounded boy up in the room there!” he growled. And then it struck him as curious that the boy in the window wore the body he used to own.

  Chug! came a heavy piece of wood, striking his front leg a blow that made it tingle as if a thousand needles had pierced it.

  “Why can’t that brute leave a poor cat alone?” he grumbled, when the pain would let him think. And then, to relieve his anguish, he again lifted up his voice.

  “Cuth-er-a-mee-ow! ‹ ow! ‹ ow!”

  A second stick, hurled from the window, caught him unawares. Plumb against his lean body it crashed, and sent him sliding from the roof, to fall headlong upon the ground below. For a time, he lay quiet, unable to move. My, how it hurt! Would the awful pain ever cease?

  No more singing to the moon tonight. After a time the stricken cat, breathing slowly, and with dulled eyes, recovered sufficiently to crawl to a refuge behind the ash barrel. And the boy went to bed and slept.

  Early in the morning the people from Oz completed the magic charm, and transferred Tim back to his own body, and Peggy back to hers.

  At breakfast, the boy was very thoughtful and sober, and soon afterward his mother found him sitting on the back steps and feeding Peggy out of a big bowl.

  “What do you mean by giving that horrid cat all my nice cream?” demanded Tim’s mother, reproachfully.

  “Well,” said Tim, “the poor old thing don’t have much fun in life, I guess. So I’m goin’ to see that Peggy has a square meal, once in a while, if I have to do without myself.”

  And, while Tim’s mother stood by in silent astonishment, the cat lifted her face from the bowl and eyed the boy gratefully.

  MR. WIMBLE’S WOODEN LEG

  Mr. Wimble was one of the heroes of Spanish War. In climbing San Juan Hill a cannon ball carried away his left leg to the stump that remained and so hobbled around with the aid of a cane.

  The government paid him enough pension money to enable him to live frugally, and Mrs. Wimble was such a good manager that she kept the little cottage neat and comfortable and cooked her hero husband dainty meals and cared for him most tenderly.

  She placed a cushioned chair for him on the front porch every morning, where he sat and enjoyed the sunshine and admiration of the crowd of children that always assembled to look with awe upon his wooden leg and listen enraptured to his tales of war. When he wanted a match to light his pipe one of the children would eagerly run to fetch it, and it was considered a great honor to any child to be permitted to get the hero a cup of water from the pump.

  At evening Mrs. Wimble helped him into the little parlor, where his slipper was warming beside the stove, and she hung up his hat and waited upon him lovingly, seeing that his place was supplied with the choicest bits she could afford to provide.

  It is really delightful to know how our gallant soldiers are honored when they have suffered so much for their country.

  Well, our friend Jack Pumpkinhead, one of the queer people from the Marvelous Land of Oz, passed by one day and noticed Mr. Wimble’s wooden leg as he sat upon the porch
sunning himself. “Poor fellow!” thought Jack. “I must really do something to relieve him!”

  Jack is a bit stupid (being a Pumpkinhead), but he has a heart of oak, so he went home and performed a magical incantation that a powerful witch in the Land of Oz had once taught him. Mr. Wimble knew nothing of what Jack was doing, and went to bed in a peaceful frame of mind, his good wife unstrapping his woodenleg and hanging it on a peg beside the bed. But during the night the Pumpkinhead’s incantation took effect, causing a new leg of flesh and blood to grow upon the stump of Mr. Wimble’s old leg, so that when he got up the next morning he found, to his amazement, that he was just as good a man as he was before he went to war!

  Mrs. Wimble was too astonished to say much. All her husband’s trousers had the left leg cut off, so she had to patch up two pair to make one of them have both legs, and this seemed to her very wasteful.

  While they were at breakfast the pension agent came around and, finding the hero had now two legs, refused to pay him any more money. This made Mrs. Wimble nervous and angry.

  “Get out of here!” she cried, pushing her husband toward the door. “You must find a job, now that you are an able man, and hustle to earn us a living!”

  Poor Mr. Wimble knew not what to do. He had got out of the habit of work, and now found that, instead of being petted and cuddled, he would be called upon to lead a strenuous life. Formerly he had been a book- keeper, but he knew it would be quite difficult to get another position as good as the one he had abandoned to fight for his country.

  As he stood upon the front porch thinking of this the children came along, but finding that their formerly interesting hero was now just like other men, they passed on their way to school with jeers and jokes at his expense.

  Poor Mr. Wimble! The grocer came up, having met the pension agent, and said: “Now that you are no longer paid by the government I must have cash in advance for my goods.” And the tailor followed, waving a bill for the last one-legged trouser he had made and demanding his money.

  Then came Jack Pumpkinhead, proud and glad to see the hero with two whole legs, and he told Mr. Wimble of his incantation.

  “Alas!” cried the unhappy man, “why did you interfere with the decrees of Providence? With one leg I was happy and honored; with two I am miserable and despised!”

  “Well,” said Jack, surprised to find his kind intentions had done harm rather than good. “It is easy enough to remove the leg again.”

  “Then do! Do it by all means!” begged Mr. Wimble, anxiously. “It was really shot away in the war, you know; and you had no right to replace it without my consent.”

  So Jack did another incantation that same night, and when Mr. Wimble awoke the following morning he called to his wife:

  “Come, Susie, and strap on my wooden leg!” And, sure enough, there was only a stump where his left leg should have been!

  As he sat on the porch that morning, telling stories to an awed group of children while his wife arranged cushions to support his back, Mr. Wimble looked and saw the Pumpkinhead.

  “Thank you, my friend from Oz,” said he. “I’m all right now; but for goodness’ sake don’t interfere in my affairs again!”

  A MAGNETIC PERSONALITY

  One day, while the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were out for a walk, they were caught in a severe thunderstorm. They were on the brow of a bare hill when the storm broke, with no trees or other refuge near where they might seek shelter. The rain fell in torrents, wetting the Scarecrow so thoroughly that soon all the crispness was gone from his straw, and he sank upon the ground as limp as a rag and unable to move.

  The Tin Woodman stood above his comrade in silent sympathy, while the lightning flashed around him and ran up and down his tin body and filled him so full of electricity that he became magnetized to a wonderful degree. Of course, he knew nothing of this, or that his body had acquired a power of magnetic attraction greater than 10,000 of those horse-shoe magnets which children use to pick up pins and tacks with. To be sure, he tingled in every limb, but the sensation was rather pleasant, and he did not mind it in the least.

  When the storm had subsided he picked up the soaked form of his friend, the Scarecrow, and carried it back to the town, where he placed it, pulpy and helpless as it was, on a cot, and then ran out to find a bundle of fresh straw to restuff him with.

  But as the Tin Woodman walked down the street his magnetized body created tremendous excitement. For when he passed Mrs. Van Druydur, the president of the Woman’s Club, every hairpin shot from her head and stuck to the Woodman’s body and stuck to his tin. The hatpins came also, and the lady’s hat and hair both fell to the pavement, to her great confusion. A fat gentleman approached, and paused in his surprise; for the metal buttons of his vest tore themselves loose and joined the pins upon the Woodman’s magnetized form, and his scarf-pin and cuff buttons followed, leaving the gentleman in a state that demanded instant attention. Mr. Spitzer now came along, and three silver dollars, four quarters and a dime sprang from his pocket and laid their flat surfaces against the Tin Woodman’s breast. Also his watch and chain failed to withstand the magnetic attraction, and jerked themselves loose to fly to the Tin Man’s body.

  The poor Woodman attempted to restore these articles (for Mr. Spitzer was yelling “Stop thief!” at the top of his voice), but he could not keep the metal things away from him.

  “They seem stuck on me, sir!” he exclaimed, with annoyance. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped.”

  He started to walk away, but the gentleman followed, protesting loudly, although Mrs. Van Druydur had grabbed her hair and hat from the ground and skipped down a side street.

  Soon the Tin Woodman passed a peddler bearing a tray of pocket knives, every one of which flew to the metal body of the man from Oz and clung to it. The peddler shouted that he was robbed, and followed with the fat gentleman and Mr. Spitzer, while the Tin Woodman, becoming alarmed, started to run, and fled along the street as rapidly as possible. A shower of collar buttons leaped from the tray of another street peddler and attached themselves to the Tin Man’s back. A policeman, too astonished to move, stood still while the Tin Woodman passed, and saw his silver star leap from his breast and cling to the back of the magnetized one’s head. A tiny poodle dog, with a big brass collar around its neck, was drawn bodily to the fleeing Woodman’s left elbow, where it yelped and howled without avail.

  The Tin Woodman’s body was by this time a regular curiousity shop of miscellaneous wares, and the crowd of pursuers grew thick behind him, crying to him to stop and restore the plunder. So he dodged into the open door of an electric light plant ‹ the first refuge he saw ‹ where the great dynamo was whirling rapidly to assemble the electricity that was needed. The man in charge yelled for everyone to keep back, as there was danger; but the Tin Woodman was not afraid of the dynamo, so he stood beside it while the big machine drew the magnetism out of his body that had been placed there by lightning.

  Presently the hairpins and collar buttons and the poodle dog and money and other articles began to drop from his body and roll upon the floor, where their owners scrambled for them until each obtained possession of his property.

  And while this restoration was taking place the Tin Woodman stole out of a back door and escaped, being very glad indeed to lose his personal magnetism.

  He managed to secure a bundle of fresh straw and return with it to his friend, the Scarecrpw, whom he carefully stuffed into his usual dignified and attractive form.

  “Ah, now we are all right again,” said the Scarecrow, much pleased.

  “To be sure,” rejoined the Tin Woodman, thoughtfully. “But I think it will be best for both of us in the future, to avoid thunderstorms.”

  NAN’S MAGIC BUTTON

  The Woggle-Bug was about to start out one morning upon his travels when little Nan Digsby came to him and said:

  “Won’t you please help me, Mr. Woggle-Bug?”

  “Why, of course! But what can I do for you, little maide
n?” asked the wise insect.

  “They tell me you are a fairy, and can do anything,” replied the child, “and so I want you to tell me how to cook.”

  “To cook!” exclaimed the astonished Woggle-Bug.

  “Yes, we haven’t any mamma, you know, and I have to take care of my four little brothers and sisters and do the cooking for them and for daddy, when he comes home from work. And I’m afraid my cooking is something dreadful, for daddy said this morning the toast was burned and the coffee was dishwater and the bacon nothing but chips! Isn’t that terrible, dear Mr. Woggle-Bug? I do the best I can, but I don’t seem to know how to cook things. So I thought I’d ask you to help me.”

  Now this appeal touched the Woggle-Bug’s tender heart, so he said to Nan:

  “Here is a magic button, little girl. Sew it fast to your dress, for while you wear it you will be the best cook in all America.”

  Very gratefully she thanked him, and ran away home with the button, which she at once sewed to her gingham dress with stout linen thread.

  My! what a supper Mr. Digsby found when he came home that night! The biscuits were so light and delicious that they fairly melted in his mouth; the coffee was fragrant and clear as amber; the ham was broiled to a turn, and for dessert there was a wonderful pudding that would have made the Prince of Chefs strut with pardonable pride.

  “My dear,” said Mr. Digsby, “you’ve been a long time experimenting; but you’ve struck the gait now, and if you keep on in this way, you’ll be worth your weight in gold!”

  Nan did keep on in that way, and her arts of cookery soon became famous in the neighborhood. Never was bread so flakey or delicous as that Nan baked, and her fried cakes were simply marvelous. So the neighbors hired her to cook such things for them, and paid her very well for it, and soon the girl heard of a “Woman’s Exchange,” where good cakes and pies and doughnuts and other edibles were sold to people who had no time to do their own cooking or else didn’t know how.

  One evening she noticed that her father looked sad and gloomy, and asked him the reason.