The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels

by Various Authors

  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:

  +–––––––––––––––––––––—+

  | |

  | SMITH & TINKER’S |

  | Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, |

  | Thought-Creating, Perfect-Talking |

  | MECHANICAL MAN |

  | Fitted with our Special Clock-Work Attachment. |

  | Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live. |

  | Manufactured only at our Works at Evna, Land of Ev. |

  | All infringements will be promptly Prosecuted according to Law. |

  | |

  +–––––––––––––––––––––—+

  “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:”

  +––––––––––––––––—+

  | |

  | DIRECTIONS FOR USING: |

  | For THINKING:—Wind the Clock-work Man under his |

  | left arm, (marked No. 1.) |

  | For SPEAKING:—Wind the Clock-work Man under his |

  | right arm, (marked No. 2.) |

  | For WALKING and ACTION:—Wind Clock-work in the |

  | middle of his back, (marked No. 3.) |

  | N. B.—This Mechanism is guaranteed to work |

  | perfectly for a thousand years. |

  | |

  +––––––––––––––––—+

  “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?”

  “It is a long sto-ry,” replied the copper man; “but I will tell it to you brief-ly. I was pur-chased from Smith & Tin-ker, my man-u-fac-tur-ers, by a cru-el King of Ev, named Ev-ol-do, who used to beat all his serv-ants un-til they died. How-ev-er, he was not a-ble to kill
me, be-cause I was not a-live, and one must first live in or-der to die. So that all his beat-ing did me no harm, and mere-ly kept my cop-per bod-y well pol-ished.

  “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.”

  “That will please me ve-ry much,” said the machine.

  So she wound up Number Three, and at once the copper man in a somewhat stiff and jerky fashion walked out of the rocky cavern, took off his copper hat and bowed politely, and then kneeled before Dorothy. Said he:

  “From this time forth I am your o-be-di-ent ser-vant. What-ev-er you com-mand, that I will do will-ing-ly—if you keep me wound up.”

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Tik-tok,” he replied. “My for-mer mas-ter gave me that name be-cause my clock-work al-ways ticks when it is wound up.”

  “I can hear it now,” said the yellow hen.

  “So can I,” said Dorothy. And then she added, with some anxiety: “You don’t strike, do you?”

  “No,” answered Tiktok; “and there is no a-larm con-nec-ted with my ma-chin-er-y. I can tell the time, though, by speak-ing, and as I nev-er sleep I can wak-en you at an-y hour you wish to get up in the morn-ing.”

  “That’s nice,” said the little girl; “only I never wish to get up in the morning.”

  “You can sleep until I lay my egg,” said the yellow hen. “Then, when I cackle, Tiktok will know it is time to waken you.”

  “Do you lay your egg very early?” asked Dorothy.

  “About eight o’clock,” said Billina. “And everybody ought to be up by that time, I’m sure.”

  5. Dorothy Opens the Dinner Pail

  “Now Tiktok,” said Dorothy, “the first thing to be done is to find a way for us to escape from these rocks. The Wheelers are down below, you know, and threaten to kill us.”

  “There is no rea-son to be a-fraid of the Wheel-ers,” said Tiktok, the words coming more slowly than before.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Be-cause they are ag-g-g—gr-gr-r-r-“

  He gave a sort of gurgle and stopped short, waving his hands frantically until suddenly he became motionless, with one arm in the air and the other held stiffly before him with all the copper fingers of the hand spread out like a fan.

  “Dear me!” said Dorothy, in a frightened tone. “What can the matter be?”

  “He’s run down, I suppose,” said the hen, calmly. “You couldn’t have wound him up very tight.”

  “I didn’t know how much to wind him,” replied the girl; “but I’ll try to do better next time.”

  She ran around the copper man to take the key from the peg at the back of his neck, but it was not there.

  “It’s gone!” cried Dorothy, in dismay.

  “What’s gone?” asked Billina.

  “The key.”

  “It probably fell off when he made that low bow to you,” returned the hen. “Look around, and see if you cannot find it again.”

  Dorothy looked, and the hen helped her, and by and by the girl discovered the clock-key, which had fallen into a crack of the rock.

  At once she wound up Tiktok’s voice, taking care to give the key as many turns as it would go around. She found this quite a task, as you may imagine if you have ever tried to wind a clock, but the machine man’s first words were to assure Dorothy that he would now run for at least twenty-four hours.

  “You did not wind me much, at first,” he calmly said, “and I told you that long sto-ry a-bout King Ev-ol-do; so it is no won-der that I ran down.”

  She next rewound the action clock-work, and then Billina advised her to carry the key to Tiktok in her pocket, so it would not get lost again.

  “And now,” said Dorothy, when all this was accomplished, “tell me what you were going to say about the Wheelers.”

  “Why, they are noth-ing to be fright-en’d at,” said the machine. “They try to make folks be-lieve that they are ver-y ter-ri-ble, but as a mat-ter of fact the Wheel-ers are harm-less e-nough to an-y one that dares to fight them. They might try to hurt a lit-tle girl like you, per-haps, be-cause they are ver-y mis-chiev-ous. But if I had a club they would run a-way as soon as they saw me.”

  “Haven’t you a club?” asked Dorothy.

  “No,” said Tiktok.

  “And you won’t find such a thing among these rocks, either,” declared the yellow hen.

  “Then what shall we do?” asked the girl.

  “Wind up my think-works tight-ly, and I will try to think of some oth-er plan,” said Tiktok.

  So Dorothy rewound his thought machinery, and while he was thinking she decided to eat her dinner. Billina was already pecking away at the cracks in the rocks, to find something to eat, so Dorothy sat down and opened her tin dinner-pail.

  In the cover she found a small tank that was full of very nice lemonade. It was covered by a cup, which might also, when removed, be used to drink the lemonade from. Within the pail were three slices of turkey, two slices of cold tongue, some lobster salad, four slices of bread and butter, a small custard pie, an orange and nine large strawberries, and some nuts and raisins. Singularly enough, the nuts in this dinner-pail grew already cracked, so that Dorothy had no trouble in picking out their meats to eat.

  She spread the feast upon the rock beside her and began her dinner, first offering some of it to Tiktok, who declined because, as he said, he was merely a machine. Afterward she offered to share with Billina, but the hen murmured something about “dead things” and said she preferred her bugs and ants.

  “Do the lunch-box trees and the dinner-pail trees belong to the Wheelers?” the child asked Tiktok, while engaged in eating her meal.

  “Of course not,” he answered. “They be-long to the roy-al fam-il-y of Ev, on-ly of course there is no roy-al fam-il-y just now be-cause King Ev-ol-do jumped in-to the sea and his wife and ten chil-dren have been trans-formed by the Nome King. So there is no one to rule the Land of Ev, that I can think of. Per-haps it is for this rea-son that the Wheel-ers claim the trees for their own, and pick the lunch-eons and din-ners to eat them-selves. But they be-long to the King, and you will find the roy-al “E” stamped up-on the bot-tom of ev-er-y din-ner pail.”

  Dorothy turned the pail over, and at once discovered the royal mark upon it, as Tiktok had said.

  “Are the Wheelers the only folks living in the Land of Ev?” enquired the girl.

  “No; they on-ly
in-hab-it a small por-tion of it just back of the woods,” replied the machine. “But they have al-ways been mis-chiev-ous and im-per-ti-nent, and my old mas-ter, King Ev-ol-do, used to car-ry a whip with him, when he walked out, to keep the crea-tures in or-der. When I was first made the Wheel-ers tried to run o-ver me, and butt me with their heads; but they soon found I was built of too sol-id a ma-ter-i-al for them to in-jure.”

  “You seem very durable,” said Dorothy. “Who made you?”

  “The firm of Smith & Tin-ker, in the town of Evna, where the roy-al pal-ace stands,” answered Tiktok.

  “Did they make many of you?” asked the child.

  “No; I am the on-ly au-to-mat-ic me-chan-i-cal man they ev-er com-plet-ed,” he replied. “They were ver-y won-der-ful in-ven-tors, were my mak-ers, and quite ar-tis-tic in all they did.”

  “I am sure of that,” said Dorothy. “Do they live in the town of Evna now?”

  “They are both gone,” replied the machine. “Mr. Smith was an art-ist, as well as an in-vent-or, and he paint-ed a pic-ture of a riv-er which was so nat-ur-al that, as he was reach-ing a-cross it to paint some flow-ers on the op-po-site bank, he fell in-to the wa-ter and was drowned.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry for that!” exclaimed the little girl.

  “Mis-ter Tin-ker,” continued Tiktok, “made a lad-der so tall that he could rest the end of it a-gainst the moon, while he stood on the high-est rung and picked the lit-tle stars to set in the points of the king’s crown. But when he got to the moon Mis-ter Tin-ker found it such a love-ly place that he de-cid-ed to live there, so he pulled up the lad-der af-ter him and we have nev-er seen him since.”

  “He must have been a great loss to this country,” said Dorothy, who was by this time eating her custard pie.

  “He was,” acknowledged Tiktok. “Also he is a great loss to me. For if I should get out of or-der I do not know of an-y one a-ble to re-pair me, be-cause I am so com-pli-cat-ed. You have no i-de-a how full of ma-chin-er-y I am.”