Ozma of Oz
A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of
Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin
Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and
the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good
People too Numerous to Mention
Faithfully Recorded Herein
by L. Frank Baum
The Author of The Wizard of Oz,
The Land of Oz, etc.
Contents
--Author's Note-1. The Girl in the Chicken Coop
2. The Yellow Hen
3. Letters in the Sand
4. Tiktok, the Machine Man
5. Dorothy Opens the Dinner Pail
6. The Heads of Langwidere
7. Ozma of Oz to the Rescue
8. The Hungry Tiger
9. The Royal Family of Ev
10. The Giant with the Hammer
11. The Nome King
12. The Eleven Guesses
13. The Nome King Laughs
14. Dorothy Tries to be Brave
15. Billina Frightens the Nome King
16. Purple, Green and Gold
17. The Scarecrow Wins the Fight
18. The Fate of the Tin Woodman
19. The King of Ev
20. The Emerald City
21. Dorothy's Magic Belt
Author's Note
My friends the children are responsible for this new "Oz Book," as
they were for the last one, which was called The Land of Oz. Their
sweet little letters plead to know "more about Dorothy"; and they ask:
"What became of the Cowardly Lion?" and "What did Ozma do
afterward?"--meaning, of course, after she became the Ruler of Oz.
And some of them suggest plots to me, saying: "Please have Dorothy go
to the Land of Oz again"; or, "Why you make Ozma and Dorothy
meet, and have a good time together?" Indeed, could I do all that my
little friends ask, I would be obliged to write dozens of books to
satisfy their demands. And I wish I could, for I enjoy writing these
stories just as much as the children say they enjoy reading them.
Well, here is "more about Dorothy," and about our old friends the
Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and about the Cowardly Lion, and Ozma,
and all the rest of them; and here, likewise, is a good deal about
some new folks that are queer and unusual. One little friend, who
read this story before it was printed, said to me: "Billina is REAL
OZZY, Mr. Baum, and so are Tiktok and the Hungry Tiger."
If this judgment is unbiased and correct, and the little folks find
this new story "real Ozzy," I shall be very glad indeed that I wrote
it. But perhaps I shall get some more of those very welcome letters
from my readers, telling me just how they like "Ozma of Oz." I hope
so, anyway.
L. FRANK BAUM.
MACATAWA, 1907.
1. The Girl in the Chicken Coop
The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples
across its surface. Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples
until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became
billows. The billows rolled dreadfully high: higher even than the
tops of houses. Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of
tall trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great
billows were like deep valleys.
All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean,
which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever,
resulted in a terrible storm, and a storm on the ocean is liable to
cut many queer pranks and do a lot of damage.
At the time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon
the waters. When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow
bigger and bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped
sidewise--first one way and then the other--and was jostled around so
roughly that even the sailor-men had to hold fast to the ropes and
railings to keep themselves from being swept away by the wind or
pitched headlong into the sea.
And the clouds were so thick in the sky that the sunlight couldn't get
through them; so that the day grew dark as night, which added to the
terrors of the storm.
The Captain of the ship was not afraid, because he had seen storms
before, and had sailed his ship through them in safety; but he knew
that his passengers would be in danger if they tried to stay on deck,
so he put them all into the cabin and told them to stay there until
after the storm was over, and to keep brave hearts and not be scared,
and all would be well with them.
Now, among these passengers was a little Kansas girl named Dorothy
Gale, who was going with her Uncle Henry to Australia, to visit some
relatives they had never before seen. Uncle Henry, you must know, was
not very well, because he had been working so hard on his Kansas farm
that his health had given way and left him weak and nervous. So he
left Aunt Em at home to watch after the hired men and to take care of
the farm, while he traveled far away to Australia to visit his cousins
and have a good rest.
Dorothy was eager to go with him on this journey, and Uncle Henry
thought she would be good company and help cheer him up; so he decided
to take her along. The little girl was quite an experienced traveller,
for she had once been carried by a cyclone as far away from home as
the marvelous Land of Oz, and she had met with a good many adventures
in that strange country before she managed to get back to Kansas
again. So she wasn't easily frightened, whatever happened, and when
the wind began to howl and whistle, and the waves began to tumble and
toss, our little girl didn't mind the uproar the least bit.
"Of course we'll have to stay in the cabin," she said to Uncle
Henry and the other passengers, "and keep as quiet as possible
until the storm is over. For the Captain says if we go on deck
we may be blown overboard."
No one wanted to risk such an accident as that, you may be sure;
so all the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin,
listening to the shrieking of the storm and the creaking of the
masts and rigging and trying to keep from bumping into one another
when the ship tipped sidewise.
Dorothy had almost fallen asleep when she was aroused with a start to
find that Uncle Henry was missing. She imagine where he had
gone, and as he was not very strong she began to worry about him, and
to fear he might have been careless enough to go on deck. In that
case he would be in great danger unless he instantly came down again.
The fact was that Uncle Henry had gone to lie down in his little
sleeping-berth, but Dorothy did not know that. She only remembered
that Aunt Em had cautioned her to take good care of her uncle, so at
once she decided to go on deck and find him, in spite of the fact that
the tempest was now worse than ever, and the ship was plunging in a
really dreadful manner. Indeed, the little girl found it was as much
as she could do to mount the stairs to the deck, and as soon as she
got there the wind struck her so fiercely that it almost tore away the
skirts of her dress. Yet Dorothy felt a sort of joyous excitement in
defying the storm, and while she held fast to the railing she peered
around through the gloom and thought she saw the dim form of a man
clinging to a mast not far away from her. This might be her uncle, so
she called as loudly as she could:
"Uncle Henry! Uncle Henry!"
But the wind screeched and howled so madly that she scarce heard
her own voice, and the man certainly failed to hear her, for he
did not move.
Dorothy decided she must go to him; so she made a dash forward, during
a lull in the storm, to where a big square chicken-coop had been
lashed to the deck with ropes. She reached this place in safety, but
no sooner had she seized fast hold of the slats of the big box in
which the chickens were kept than the wind, as if enraged because the
little girl dared to resist its power, suddenly redoubled its fury.
With a scream like that of an angry giant it tore away the ropes that
held the coop and lifted it high into the air, with Dorothy still
clinging to the slats. Around and over it whirled, this way and that,
and a few moments later the chicken-coop dropped far away into the
sea, where the big waves caught it and slid it up-hill to a foaming
crest and ...
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