The Road to Oz
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L. Frank Baum >> The Road to Oz
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9 The Road to Oz
In which is related how Dorothy Gale of Kansas,
The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome
the Rainbow's Daughter met on an
Enchanted Road and followed
it all the way to the
Marvelous Land
of Oz.
by L. Frank Baum
"Royal Historian of Oz"
Contents
--To My Readers--
1. The Way to Butterfield
2. Dorothy Meets Button-Bright
3. A Queer Village
4. King Dox
5. The Rainbow's Daughter
6. The City of Beasts
7. The Shaggy Man's Transformation
8. The Musicker
9. Facing the Scoodlers
10. Escaping the Soup-Kettle
11. Johnny Dooit Does It
12. The Deadly Desert Crossed
13. The Truth Pond
14. Tik-Tok and Billina
15. The Emperor's Tin Castle
16. Visiting the Pumpkin-Field
17. The Royal Chariot Arrives
18. The Emerald City
19. The Shaggy Man's Welcome
20. Princess Ozma of Oz
21. Dorothy Receives the Guests
22. Important Arrivals
23. The Grand Banquet
24. The Birthday Celebration
To My Readers
Well, my dears, here is what you have asked for: another "Oz Book"
about Dorothy's strange adventures. Toto is in this story, because
you wanted him to be there, and many other characters which you will
recognize are in the story, too. Indeed, the wishes of my little
correspondents have been considered as carefully as possible, and if
the story is not exactly as you would have written it yourselves, you
must remember that a story has to be a story before it can be written
down, and the writer cannot change it much without spoiling it.
In the preface to "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz" I said I would like
to write some stories that were not "Oz" stories, because I thought I
had written about Oz long enough; but since that volume was published
I have been fairly deluged with letters from children imploring me to
"write more about Dorothy," and "more about Oz," and since I write
only to please the children I shall try to respect their wishes.
There are some new characters in this book that ought to win your
live. I'm very fond of the shaggy man myself, and I think you will
like him, too. As for Polychrome--the Rainbow's Daughter--and stupid
little Button-Bright, they seem to have brought a new element of fun
into these Oz stories, and I am glad I discovered them. Yet I am
anxious to have you write and tell me how you like them.
Since this book was written I have received some very remarkable News
from The Land of Oz, which has greatly astonished me. I believe it
will astonish you, too, my dears, when you hear it. But it is such a
long and exciting story that it must be saved for another book--and
perhaps that book will be the last story that will ever be told about
the Land of Oz.
L. FRANK BAUM
Coronado, 1909.
1. The Way to Butterfield
"Please, miss," said the shaggy man, "can you tell me the road
to Butterfield?"
Dorothy looked him over. Yes, he was shaggy, all right, but there was
a twinkle in his eye that seemed pleasant.
"Oh yes," she replied; "I can tell you. But it isn't this road at all."
"No?"
"You cross the ten-acre lot, follow the lane to the highway, go north
to the five branches, and take--let me see--"
"To be sure, miss; see as far as Butterfield, if you like," said the
shaggy man.
"You take the branch next the willow stump, I b'lieve; or else the
branch by the gopher holes; or else--"
"Won't any of 'em do, miss?"
"'Course not, Shaggy Man. You must take the right road to get
to Butterfield."
"And is that the one by the gopher stump, or--"
"Dear me!" cried Dorothy. "I shall have to show you the way, you're
so stupid. Wait a minute till I run in the house and get my sunbonnet."
The shaggy man waited. He had an oat-straw in his mouth, which he
chewed slowly as if it tasted good; but it didn't. There was an
apple-tree beside the house, and some apples had fallen to the ground.
The shaggy man thought they would taste better than the oat-straw, so
he walked over to get some. A little black dog with bright brown eyes
dashed out of the farm-house and ran madly toward the shaggy man, who
had already picked up three apples and put them in one of the big
wide pockets of his shaggy coat. The little dog barked and made a
dive for the shaggy man's leg; but he grabbed the dog by the neck and
put it in his big pocket along with the apples. He took more apples,
afterward, for many were on the ground; and each one that he tossed
into his pocket hit the little dog somewhere upon the head or back,
and made him growl. The little dog's name was Toto, and he was sorry
he had been put in the shaggy man's pocket.
Pretty soon Dorothy came out of the house with her sunbonnet, and she
called out:
"Come on, Shaggy Man, if you want me to show you the road to
Butterfield." She climbed the fence into the ten-acre lot and he
followed her, walking slowly and stumbling over the little hillocks in
the pasture as if he was thinking of something else and did not notice
them.
"My, but you're clumsy!" said the little girl. "Are your feet tired?"
"No, miss; it's my whiskers; they tire very easily in this warm
weather," said he. "I wish it would snow, don't you?"
"'Course not, Shaggy Man," replied Dorothy, giving him a severe look.
"If it snowed in August it would spoil the corn and the oats and the
wheat; and then Uncle Henry wouldn't have any crops; and that would
make him poor; and--"
"Never mind," said the shaggy man. "It won't snow, I guess. Is this
the lane?"
"Yes," replied Dorothy, climbing another fence; "I'll go as far as
the highway with you."
"Thankee, miss; you're very kind for your size, I'm sure,"
said he gratefully.
"It isn't everyone who knows the road to Butterfield," Dorothy
remarked as she tripped along the lane; "but I've driven there many a
time with Uncle Henry, and so I b'lieve I could find it blindfolded."
"Don't do that, miss," said the shaggy man earnestly; "you might make
a mistake."
"I won't," she answered, laughing. "Here's the highway. Now it's the
second--no, the third turn to the left--or else it's the fourth.
Let's see. The first one is by the elm tree, and the second is by the
gopher holes; and then--"
"Then what?" he inquired, putting his hands in his coat pockets.
Toto grabbed a finger and bit it; the shaggy man took his hand out of
that pocket quickly, and said "Oh!"
Dorothy did not notice. She was shading her eyes from the sun with
her arm, looking anxiously down the road.
"Come on," she commanded. "It's only a little way farther, so I may
as well show you."
After a while, they came to the place where five roads branched in
different directions; Dorothy pointed to one, and said:
"That's it, Shaggy Man."
"I'm much obliged, miss," he said, and started along another road.
"Not that one!" she cried; "you're going wrong."
He stopped.
"I thought you said that other was the road to Butterfield," said he,
running his fingers through his shaggy whiskers in a puzzled way.
"So it is."
"But I don't want to go to Butterfield, miss."
"You don't?"
"Of course not. I wanted you to show me the road, so I shouldn't go
there by mistake."
"Oh! Where DO you want to go, then?"
"I'm not particular, miss."
This answer astonished the little girl; and it made her provoked, too,
to think she had taken all this trouble for nothing.
"There are a good many roads here," observed the shaggy man, turning
slowly around, like a human windmill. "Seems to me a person could go
'most anywhere, from this place."
Dorothy turned around too, and gazed in surprise. There WERE a
good many roads; more than she had ever seen before. She tried to
count them, knowing there ought to be five, but when she had counted
seventeen she grew bewildered and stopped, for the roads were as many
as the spokes of a wheel and ran in every direction from the place
where they stood; so if she kept on counting she was likely to count
some of the roads twice.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "There used to be only five roads, highway
and all. And now--why, where's the highway, Shaggy Man?"
"Can't say, miss," he responded, sitting down upon the ground as if
tired with standing. "Wasn't it here a minute ago?"
"I thought so," she answered, greatly perplexed. "And I saw the
gopher holes, too, and the dead stump; but they're not here now.
These roads are all strange--and what a lot of them there are!
Where do you suppose they all go to?"
"Roads," observed the shaggy man, "don't go anywhere. They stay in
one place, so folks can walk on them."
He put his hand in his side-pocket and drew out an apple--quick,
before Toto could bite him again. The little dog got his head out
this time and said "Bow-wow!" so loudly that it made Dorothy jump.
"O, Toto!" she cried; "where did you come from?"
"I brought him along," said the shaggy man.
"What for?" she asked.
"To guard these apples in my pocket, miss, so no one would steal them."
With one hand the shaggy man held the apple, which he began eating,
while with the other hand he pulled Toto out of his pocket and dropped
him to the ground. Of course Toto made for Dorothy at once, barking
joyfully at his release from the dark pocket. When the child had
patted his head lovingly, he sat down before her, his red tongue
hanging out one side of his mouth, and looked up into her face with
his bright brown eyes, as if asking her what they should do next.
Dorothy didn't know. She looked around her anxiously for some
familiar landmark; but everything was strange. Between the branches
of the many roads were green meadows and a few shrubs and trees, but
she couldn't see anywhere the farm-house from which she had just come,
or anything she had ever seen before--except the shaggy man and Toto.
Besides this, she had turned around and around so many times trying to
find out where she was, that now she couldn't even tell which
direction the farm-house ought to be in; and this began to worry her
and make her feel anxious.
"I'm 'fraid, Shaggy Man," she said, with a sigh, "that we're lost!"
"That's nothing to be afraid of," he replied, throwing away the core
of his apple and beginning to eat another one. "Each of these roads
must lead somewhere, or it wouldn't be here. So what does it matter?"
"I want to go home again," she said.
"Well, why don't you?" said he.
"I don't know which road to take."
"That is too bad," he said, shaking his shaggy head gravely. "I wish
I could help you; but I can't. I'm a stranger in these parts."
"Seems as if I were, too," she said, sitting down beside him. "It's
funny. A few minutes ago I was home, and I just came to show you the
way to Butterfield--"
"So I shouldn't make a mistake and go there--"
"And now I'm lost myself and don't know how to get home!"
"Have an apple," suggested the shaggy man, handing her one with pretty
red cheeks.
"I'm not hungry," said Dorothy, pushing it away.
"But you may be, to-morrow; then you'll be sorry you didn't eat the
apple," said he.
"If I am, I'll eat the apple then," promised Dorothy.
"Perhaps there won't be any apple then," he returned, beginning to eat
the red-cheeked one himself. "Dogs sometimes can find their way home
better than people," he went on; "perhaps your dog can lead you back
to the farm."
"Will you, Toto?" asked Dorothy.
Toto wagged his tail vigorously.
"All right," said the girl; "let's go home."
Toto looked around a minute and dashed up one of the roads.
"Good-bye, Shaggy Man," called Dorothy, and ran after Toto. The
little dog pranced briskly along for some distance; when he turned
around and looked at his mistress questioningly.
"Oh, don't 'spect ME to tell you anything; I don't know the way," she
said. "You'll have to find it yourself."
But Toto couldn't. He wagged his tail, and sneezed, and shook his
ears, and trotted back where they had left the shaggy man. From here
he started along another road; then came back and tried another; but
each time he found the way strange and decided it would not take them
to the farm-house. Finally, when Dorothy had begun to tire with
chasing after him, Toto sat down panting beside the shaggy man and
gave up.
Dorothy sat down, too, very thoughtful. The little girl had
encountered some queer adventures since she came to live at the farm;
but this was the queerest of them all. To get lost in fifteen minutes,
so near to her home and in the unromantic State of Kansas, was an
experience that fairly bewildered her.
"Will your folks worry?" asked the shaggy man, his eyes twinkling in
a pleasant way.
"I s'pose so," answered Dorothy with a sigh. "Uncle Henry says
there's ALWAYS something happening to me; but I've always come
home safe at the last. So perhaps he'll take comfort and think I'll
come home safe this time."
"I'm sure you will," said the shaggy man, smilingly nodding at her.
"Good little girls never come to any harm, you know. For my part, I'm
good, too; so nothing ever hurts me."
Dorothy looked at him curiously. His clothes were shaggy, his boots
were shaggy and full of holes, and his hair and whiskers were shaggy.
But his smile was sweet and his eyes were kind.
"Why didn't you want to go to Butterfield?" she asked.
"Because a man lives there who owes me fifteen cents, and if I went to
Butterfield and he saw me he'd want to pay me the money. I don't want
money, my dear."
"Why not?" she inquired.
"Money," declared the shaggy man, "makes people proud and haughty. I
don't want to be proud and haughty. All I want is to have people love
me; and as long as I own the Love Magnet, everyone I meet is sure to
love me dearly."
"The Love Magnet! Why, what's that?"
"I'll show you, if you won't tell any one," he answered, in a low,
mysterious voice.
"There isn't any one to tell, 'cept Toto," said the girl.
The shaggy man searched in one pocket, carefully; and in another
pocket; and in a third. At last he drew out a small parcel wrapped in
crumpled paper and tied with a cotton string. He unwound the string,
opened the parcel, and took out a bit of metal shaped like a
horseshoe. It was dull and brown, and not very pretty.
"This, my dear," said he, impressively, "is the wonderful Love Magnet.
It was given me by an Eskimo in the Sandwich Islands--where there are
no sandwiches at all--and as long as I carry it every living thing I
meet will love me dearly."
"Why didn't the Eskimo keep it?" she asked, looking at the Magnet
with interest.
"He got tired of being loved and longed for some one to hate him.
So he gave me the Magnet and the very next day a grizzly bear ate him."
"Wasn't he sorry then?" she inquired.
"He didn't say," replied the shaggy man, wrapping and tying the Love
Magnet with great care and putting it away in another pocket. "But
the bear didn't seem sorry a bit," he added.
"Did you know the bear?" asked Dorothy.
"Yes; we used to play ball together in the Caviar Islands. The bear
loved me because I had the Love Magnet. I couldn't blame him for
eating the Eskimo, because it was his nature to do so."
"Once," said Dorothy, "I knew a Hungry Tiger who longed to eat fat
babies, because it was his nature to; but he never ate any because he
had a Conscience."
"This bear," replied the shaggy man, with a sigh, "had no Conscience,
you see."
The shaggy man sat silent for several minutes, apparently considering
the cases of the bear and the tiger, while Toto watched him with an
air of great interest. The little dog was doubtless thinking of his
ride in the shaggy man's pocket and planning to keep out of reach in
the future.
At last the shaggy man turned and inquired, "What's your name,
little girl?"
"My name's Dorothy," said she, jumping up again, "but what are we
going to do? We can't stay here forever, you know."
"Let's take the seventh road," he suggested. "Seven is a lucky number
for little girls named Dorothy."
"The seventh from where?"
"From where you begin to count."
So she counted seven roads, and the seventh looked just like all the
others; but the shaggy man got up from the ground where he had been
sitting and started down this road as if sure it was the best way to
go; and Dorothy and Toto followed him.
2. Dorothy Meets Button-Bright
The seventh road was a good road, and curved this way and that--
winding through green meadows and fields covered with daisies and
buttercups and past groups of shady trees. There were no houses
of any sort to be seen, and for some distance they met with no living
creature at all.
Dorothy began to fear they were getting a good way from the
farm-house, since here everything was strange to her; but it would do
no good at all to go back where the other roads all met, because the
next one they chose might lead her just as far from home.
She kept on beside the shaggy man, who whistled cheerful tunes to
beguile the journey, until by and by they followed a turn in the road
and saw before them a big chestnut tree making a shady spot over the
highway. In the shade sat a little boy dressed in sailor clothes, who
was digging a hole in the earth with a bit of wood. He must have been
digging some time, because the hole was already big enough to drop a
football into.
Dorothy and Toto and the shaggy man came to a halt before the little
boy, who kept on digging in a sober and persistent fashion.
"Who are you?" asked the girl.
He looked up at her calmly. His face was round and chubby and his
eyes were big, blue and earnest.
"I'm Button-Bright," said he.
"But what's your real name?" she inquired.
"Button-Bright."
"That isn't a really-truly name!" she exclaimed.
"Isn't it?" he asked, still digging.
"'Course not. It's just a--a thing to call you by. You must have a name."
"Must I?"
"To be sure. What does your mama call you?"
He paused in his digging and tried to think.
"Papa always said I was bright as a button; so mama always called me
Button-Bright," he said.
"What is your papa's name?"
"Just Papa."
"What else?"
"Don't know."
"Never mind," said the shaggy man, smiling. "We'll call the boy
Button-Bright, as his mama does. That name is as good as any,
and better than some."
Dorothy watched the boy dig.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"Don't know," was the reply.
"How did you come here?"
"Don't know," he said again.
"Don't you know where you came from?"
"No," said he.
"Why, he must be lost," she said to the shaggy man. She turned
to the boy once more.
"What are you going to do?" she inquired.
"Dig," said he.
"But you can't dig forever; and what are you going to do then?"
she persisted.
"Don't know," said the boy.
"But you MUST know SOMETHING," declared Dorothy, getting provoked.
"Must I?" he asked, looking up in surprise.
"Of course you must."
"What must I know?"
"What's going to become of you, for one thing," she answered.
"Do YOU know what's going to become of me?" he asked.
"Not--not 'zactly," she admitted.
"Do you know what's going to become of YOU?" he continued, earnestly.
"I can't say I do," replied Dorothy, remembering her present difficulties.
The shaggy man laughed.
"No one knows everything, Dorothy," he said.
"But Button-Bright doesn't seem to know ANYthing," she declared. "Do
you, Button-Bright?"
He shook his head, which had pretty curls all over it, and replied
with perfect calmness:
"Don't know."
Never before had Dorothy met with anyone who could give her so little
information. The boy was evidently lost, and his people would be sure
to worry about him. He seemed two or three years younger than Dorothy,
and was prettily dressed, as if someone loved him dearly and took much
pains to make him look well. How, then, did he come to be in this
lonely road? she wondered.
Near Button-Bright, on the ground, lay a sailor hat with a gilt anchor
on the band. His sailor trousers were long and wide at the bottom,
and the broad collar of his blouse had gold anchors sewed on its
corners. The boy was still digging at his hole.
"Have you ever been to sea?" asked Dorothy.
"To see what?" answered Button-Bright.
"I mean, have you ever been where there's water?"
"Yes," said Button-Bright; "there's a well in our back yard."
"You don't understand," cried Dorothy. "I mean, have you ever been on
a big ship floating on a big ocean?"
"Don't know," said he.
"Then why do you wear sailor clothes?"
"Don't know," he answered, again.
Dorothy was in despair.
"You're just AWFUL stupid, Button-Bright," she said.
"Am I?" he asked.
"Yes, you are."
"Why?" looking up at her with big eyes.
She was going to say: "Don't know," but stopped herself in time.
"That's for you to answer," she replied.
"It's no use asking Button-Bright questions," said the shaggy man, who
had been eating another apple; "but someone ought to take care of the
poor little chap, don't you think? So he'd better come along with us."
Toto had been looking with great curiosity in the hole which the boy
was digging, and growing more and more excited every minute, perhaps
thinking that Button-Bright was after some wild animal. The little
dog began barking loudly and jumped into the hole himself, where he
began to dig with his tiny paws, making the earth fly in all directions.
It spattered over the boy. Dorothy seized him and raised him to
his feet, brushing his clothes with her hand.
"Stop that, Toto!" she called. "There aren't any mice or woodchucks
in that hole, so don't be foolish."
Toto stopped, sniffed at the hole suspiciously, and jumped out of it,
wagging his tail as if he had done something important.
"Well," said the shaggy man, "let's start on, or we won't get anywhere
before night comes."
"Where do you expect to get to?" asked Dorothy.
"I'm like Button-Bright. I don't know," answered the shaggy man, with
a laugh. "But I've learned from long experience that every road leads
somewhere, or there wouldn't be any road; so it's likely that if we
travel long enough, my dear, we will come to some place or another in
the end. What place it will be we can't even guess at this moment,
but we're sure to find out when we get there."
"Why, yes," said Dorothy; "that seems reas'n'ble, Shaggy Man."
3. A Queer Village
Button-Bright took the shaggy man's hand willingly; for the shaggy man
had the Love Magnet, you know, which was the reason Button-Bright had
loved him at once. They started on, with Dorothy on one side, and Toto
on the other, the little party trudging along more cheerfully than you
might have supposed. The girl was getting used to queer adventures,
which interested her very much. Wherever Dorothy went Toto was sure
to go, like Mary's little lamb. Button-Bright didn't seem a bit
afraid or worried because he was lost, and the shaggy man had no home,
perhaps, and was as happy in one place as in another.
Before long they saw ahead of them a fine big arch spanning the
road, and when they came nearer they found that the arch was
beautifully carved and decorated with rich colors. A row of peacocks
with spread tails ran along the top of it, and all the feathers were
gorgeously painted. In the center was a large fox's head, and the fox
wore a shrewd and knowing expression and had large spectacles over its
eyes and a small golden crown with shiny points on top of its head.
While the travelers were looking with curiosity at this beautiful
arch there suddenly marched out of it a company of soldiers--only the
soldiers were all foxes dressed in uniforms. They wore green jackets
and yellow pantaloons, and their little round caps and their high
boots were a bright red color. Also, there was a big red bow tied
about the middle of each long, bushy tail. Each soldier was armed
with a wooden sword having an edge of sharp teeth set in a row, and
the sight of these teeth at first caused Dorothy to shudder.
A captain marched in front of the company of fox-soldiers, his uniform
embroidered with gold braid to make it handsomer than the others.
Almost before our friends realized it the soldiers had surrounded
them on all sides, and the captain was calling out in a harsh voice:
"Surrender! You are our prisoners."
"What's a pris'ner?" asked Button-Bright.
"A prisoner is a captive," replied the fox-captain, strutting up and
down with much dignity.
"What's a captive?" asked Button-Bright.
"You're one," said the captain.
That made the shaggy man laugh
"Good afternoon, captain," he said, bowing politely to all the foxes
and very low to their commander. "I trust you are in good health, and
that your families are all well?"
The fox-captain looked at the shaggy man, and his sharp features grew
pleasant and smiling.
"We're pretty well, thank you, Shaggy Man," said he; and Dorothy knew
that the Love Magnet was working and that all the foxes now loved the
shaggy man because of it. But Toto didn't know this, for he began
barking angrily and tried to bite the captain's hairy leg where it
showed between his red boots and his yellow pantaloons.
"Stop, Toto!" cried the little girl, seizing the dog in her arms.
"These are our friends."
"Why, so we are!" remarked the captain in tones of astonishment.
"I thought at first we were enemies, but it seems you are friends
instead. You must come with me to see King Dox."
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