The Marvelous Land of Oz
Jack Pumpkinhead watched Tip curiously, but refused to join in the
repast. “I don’t seem to be made the same way you are,” he said.
“I know you are not,” returned Tip; “for I made you.”
“Oh! Did you?” asked Jack.
“Certainly. And put you together. And carved your eyes and nose and
ears and mouth,” said Tip proudly. “And dressed you.”
Jack looked at his body and limbs critically.
“It strikes me you made a very good job of it,” he remarked.
“Just so-so,” replied Tip, modestly; for he began to see certain
defects in the construction of his man. “If I’d known we were going to
travel together I might have been a little more particular.”
“Why, then,” said the Pumpkinhead, in a tone that expressed surprise,
“you must be my creator my parent my father!”
“Or your inventor,” replied the boy with a laugh. “Yes, my son; I
really believe I am!”
“Then I owe you obedience,” continued the man, “and you owe
me—support.”
“That’s it, exactly”, declared Tip, jumping up. “So let us be off.”
“Where are we going?” asked Jack, when they had resumed their journey.
“I’m not exactly sure,” said the boy; “but I believe we are headed
South, and that will bring us, sooner or later, to the Emerald City.”
“What city is that?” enquired the Pumpkinhead.
“Why, it’s the center of the Land of Oz, and the biggest town in all
the country. I’ve never been there, myself, but I’ve heard all about
its history. It was built by a mighty and wonderful Wizard named Oz,
and everything there is of a green color—just as everything in this
Country of the Gillikins is of a purple color.”
“Is everything here purple?” asked Jack.
“Of course it is. Can’t you see?” returned the boy.
“I believe I must be color-blind,” said the Pumpkinhead, after staring
about him.
“Well, the grass is purple, and the trees are purple, and the houses
and fences are purple,” explained Tip. “Even the mud in the roads is
purple. But in the Emerald City everything is green that is purple
here. And in the Country of the Munchkins, over at the East, everything
is blue; and in the South country of the Quadlings everything is red;
and in the West country of the Winkies, where the Tin Woodman rules,
everything is yellow.”
“Oh!” said Jack. Then, after a pause, he asked: “Did you say a Tin
Woodman rules the Winkies?”
“Yes; he was one of those who helped Dorothy to destroy the Wicked
Witch of the West, and the Winkies were so grateful that they invited
him to become their ruler,—just as the people of the Emerald City
invited the Scarecrow to rule them.”
“Dear me!” said Jack. “I’m getting confused with all this history. Who
is the Scarecrow?”
“Another friend of Dorothy’s,” replied Tip.
“And who is Dorothy?”
“She was a girl that came here from Kansas, a place in the big, outside
World. She got blown to the Land of Oz by a cyclone, and while she was
here the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman accompanied her on her travels.”
“And where is she now?” inquired the Pumpkinhead.
“Glinda the Good, who rules the Quadlings, sent her home again,” said
the boy.
“Oh. And what became of the Scarecrow?”
“I told you. He rules the Emerald City,” answered Tip.
“I thought you said it was ruled by a wonderful Wizard,” objected Jack,
seeming more and more confused.
“Well, so I did. Now, pay attention, and I’ll explain it,” said Tip,
speaking slowly and looking the smiling Pumpkinhead squarely in the
eye. “Dorothy went to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard to send her
back to Kansas; and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman went with her.
But the Wizard couldn’t send her back, because he wasn’t so much of a
Wizard as he might have been. And then they got angry at the Wizard,
and threatened to expose him; so the Wizard made a big balloon and
escaped in it, and no one has ever seen him since.”
“Now, that is very interesting history,” said Jack, well pleased; “and
I understand it perfectly all but the explanation.”
“I’m glad you do,” responded Tip. “After the Wizard was gone, the
people of the Emerald City made His Majesty, the Scarecrow, their King;
and I have heard that he became a very popular ruler.”
“Are we going to see this queer King?” asked Jack, with interest.
“I think we may as well,” replied the boy; “unless you have something
better to do.”
“Oh, no, dear father,” said the Pumpkinhead. “I am quite willing to go
wherever you please.”
Tip Makes an Experiment in Magic
The boy, small and rather delicate in appearance seemed somewhat
embarrassed at being called “father” by the tall, awkward,
pumpkinheaded man, but to deny the relationship would involve another
long and tedious explanation; so he changed the subject by asking,
abruptly:
“Are you tired?”
“Of course not!” replied the other. “But,” he continued, after a pause,
“it is quite certain I shall wear out my wooden joints if I keep on
walking.”
Tip reflected, as they journeyed on, that this was true. He began to
regret that he had not constructed the wooden limbs more carefully and
substantially. Yet how could he ever have guessed that the man he had
made merely to scare old Mombi with would be brought to life by means
of a magical powder contained in an old pepper-box?
So he ceased to reproach himself, and began to think how he might yet
remedy the deficiencies of Jack’s weak joints.
While thus engaged they came to the edge of a wood, and the boy sat
down to rest upon an old sawhorse that some woodcutter had left there.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he asked the Pumpkinhead.
“Won’t it strain my joints?” inquired the other.
“Of course not. It’ll rest them,” declared the boy.
So Jack tried to sit down; but as soon as he bent his joints farther
than usual they gave way altogether, and he came clattering to the
ground with such a crash that Tip feared he was entirely ruined.
He rushed to the man, lifted him to his feet, straightened his arms and
legs, and felt of his head to see if by chance it had become cracked.
But Jack seemed to be in pretty good shape, after all, and Tip said to
him:
“I guess you’d better remain standing, hereafter. It seems the safest
way.”
“Very well, dear father.” just as you say, replied the smiling Jack,
who had been in no wise confused by his tumble.
Tip sat down again. Presently the Pumpkinhead asked:
“What is that thing you are sitting on?”
“Oh, this is a horse,” replied the boy, carelessly.
“What is a horse?” demanded Jack.
“A horse? Why, there are two kinds of horses,” returned Tip, slightly
puzzled how to explain. “One kind of horse is alive, and has four legs
and a head and a tail. And people ride upon its back.”
“I understand,” said Jack, cheerfully “That’s the kind of horse you are
now sitting on.”
“No, it isn’t,” answered Tip, promptly.
“Why not? That one has four legs, and a head, and a tail.” Tip looked
at the saw-horse more carefully, and found that the Pumpkinhead was
right. The body had been formed from a tree-trunk, and a branch had
been left sticking up at one end that looked very much like a tail. In
the other end were two big knots that resembled eyes, and a place had
been chopped away that might easily be mistaken for the horse’s mouth.
As for the legs, they were four straight limbs cut from trees and stuck
fast into the body, being spread wide apart so that the saw-horse would
stand firmly when a log was laid across it to be sawed.
“This thing resembles a real horse more than I imagined,” said Tip,
trying to explain. “But a real horse is alive, and trots and prances
and eats oats, while this is nothing more than a dead horse, made of
wood, and used to saw logs upon.”
“If it were alive, wouldn’t it trot, and prance, and eat oats?”
inquired the Pumpkinhead.
“It would trot and prance, perhaps; but it wouldn’t eat oats,” replied
the boy, laughing at the idea. “And of course it can’t ever be alive,
because it is made of wood.”
“So am I,” answered the man.
Tip looked at him in surprise.
“Why, so you are!” he exclaimed. “And the magic powder that brought you
to life is here in my pocket.”
He brought out the pepper box, and eyed it curiously.
“I wonder,” said he, musingly, “if it would bring the saw-horse to
life.”
“If it would,” returned Jack, calmly for nothing seemed to surprise him
“I could ride on its back, and that would save my joints from wearing
out.”
“I’ll try it!” cried the boy, jumping up. “But I wonder if I can
remember the words old Mombi said, and the way she held her hands up.”
He thought it over for a minute, and as he had watched carefully from
the hedge every motion of the old witch, and listened to her words, he
believed he could repeat exactly what she had said and done.
So he began by sprinkling some of the magic Powder of Life from the
pepper-box upon the body of the saw-horse. Then he lifted his left
hand, with the little finger pointing upward, and said: “Weaugh!”
“What does that mean, dear father?” asked Jack, curiously.
“I don’t know,” answered Tip. Then he lifted his right hand, with the
thumb pointing upward and said: “Teaugh!”
“What’s that, dear father?” inquired Jack.
“It means you must keep quiet!” replied the boy, provoked at being
interrupted at so important a moment.
“How fast I am learning!” remarked the Pumpkinhead, with his eternal
smile.
Tip now lifted both hands above his head, with all the fingers and
thumbs spread out, and cried in a loud voice: “Peaugh!”
Immediately the saw-horse moved, stretched its legs, yawned with its
chopped-out mouth, and shook a few grains of the powder off its back.
The rest of the powder seemed to have vanished into the body of the
horse.
“Good!” called Jack, while the boy looked on in astonishment. “You are
a very clever sorcerer, dear father!”
The Awakening of the Saw-horse
The Saw-Horse, finding himself alive, seemed even more astonished than
Tip. He rolled his knotty eyes from side to side, taking a first
wondering view of the world in which he had now so important an
existence. Then he tried to look at himself; but he had, indeed, no
neck to turn; so that in the endeavor to see his body he kept circling
around and around, without catching even a glimpse of it. His legs were
stiff and awkward, for there were no knee-joints in them; so that
presently he bumped against Jack Pumpkinhead and sent that personage
tumbling upon the moss that lined the roadside.
Tip became alarmed at this accident, as well as at the persistence of
the Saw-Horse in prancing around in a circle; so he called out:
“Whoa! Whoa, there!”
The Saw-Horse paid no attention whatever to this command, and the next
instant brought one of his wooden legs down upon Tip’s foot so forcibly
that the boy danced away in pain to a safer distance, from where he
again yelled:
“Whoa! Whoa, I say!”
Jack had now managed to raise himself to a sitting position, and he
looked at the Saw-Horse with much interest.
“I don’t believe the animal can hear you,” he remarked.
“I shout loud enough, don’t I?” answered Tip, angrily.
“Yes; but the horse has no ears,” said the smiling Pumpkinhead.
“Sure enough!” exclaimed Tip, noting the fact for the first time. “How,
then, am I going to stop him?”
But at that instant the Saw-Horse stopped himself, having concluded it
was impossible to see his own body. He saw Tip, however, and came close
to the boy to observe him more fully.
It was really comical to see the creature walk; for it moved the legs
on its right side together, and those on its left side together, as a