The Lost Princess of Oz - Lyman Frank Baum (best historical fiction books of all time txt) 📗
- Author: Lyman Frank Baum
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"Here our journey ends," said the Yips. "We must go back again."
Cayke the Cookie Cook began to weep.
"I shall never find my pretty dishpan again—and my heart will be broken!" she sobbed.
The Frogman went to the edge of the gulf and with his eye carefully measured the distance to the other side.
"Being a frog," said he, "I can leap, as all frogs do; and, being so big and strong, I am sure I can leap across this gulf with ease. But the rest of you, not being frogs, must return the way you came."
"We will do that with pleasure," cried the Yips and at once they turned and began to climb up the steep mountain, feeling they had had quite enough of this unsatisfactory adventure. Cayke the Cookie Cook did not go with them, however. She sat on a rock and wept and wailed and was very miserable.
"Well," said the Frogman to her, "I will now bid you good-bye. If I find your diamond decorated gold dishpan I will promise to see that it is safely returned to you."
"But I prefer to find it myself!" she said. "See here, Frogman, why can't you carry me across the gulf when you leap it? You are big and strong, while I am small and thin."
The Frogman gravely thought over this suggestion. It was a fact that Cayke the Cookie Cook was not a heavy person. Perhaps he could leap the gulf with her on his back.
"If you are willing to risk a fall," said he, "I will make the attempt."
At once she sprang up and grabbed him around his neck with both her arms. That is, she grabbed him where his neck ought to be, for the Frogman had no neck at all. Then he squatted down, as frogs do when they leap, and with his powerful rear legs he made a tremendous jump.
Over the gulf he sailed, with the Cookie Cook on his back, and he had leaped so hard—to make sure of not falling in—that he sailed over a lot of bramble-bushes that grew on the other side and landed in a clear space which was so far beyond the gulf that when they looked back they could not see it at all.
Cayke now got off the Frogman's back and he stood erect again and carefully brushed the dust from his velvet coat and rearranged his white satin necktie.
"I had no idea I could leap so far," he said wonderingly. "Leaping is one more accomplishment I can now add to the long list of deeds I am able to perform."
"You are certainly fine at leap-frog," said the Cookie Cook, admiringly; "but, as you say, you are wonderful in many ways. If we meet with any people down here I am sure they will consider you the greatest and grandest of all living creatures."
"Yes," he replied, "I shall probably astonish strangers, because they have never before had the pleasure of seeing me. Also they will marvel at my great learning. Every time I open my mouth, Cayke, I am liable to say something important."
"That is true," she agreed, "and it is fortunate your mouth is so very wide and opens so far, for otherwise all the wisdom might not be able to get out of it."
"Perhaps nature made it wide for that very reason," said the Frogman: "But come; let us now go on, for it is getting late and we must find some sort of shelter before night overtakes us."
CHAPTER 4
The settled parts
of the Winkie
Country are full
of happy and con-
tented people who are ruled by a tin Emperor named Nick Chopper, who in turn is a subject of the beautiful girl Ruler, Ozma of Oz. But not all of the Winkie Country is fully settled. At the east, which part lies nearest the Emerald City, there are beautiful farmhouses and roads, but as you travel west you first come to a branch of the Winkie River, beyond which there is a rough country where few people live, and some of these are quite unknown to the rest of the world. After passing through this rude section of territory, which no one ever visits, you would come to still another branch of the Winkie River, after crossing which you would find another well-settled part of the Winkie Country, extending westward quite to the Deadly Desert that surrounds all the Land of Oz and separates that favored fairyland from the more common outside world. The Winkies who live in this west section have many tin mines, from which metal they make a great deal of rich jewelry and other articles, all of which are highly esteemed in the Land of Oz because tin is so bright and pretty, and there is not so much of it as there is of gold and silver.
Not all the Winkies are miners, however, for some till the fields and grow grains for food, and it was at one of these far west Winkie farms that the Frogman and Cayke the Cookie Cook first arrived after they had descended from the mountain of the Yips.
"Goodness me!" cried Nellary, the Winkie wife, when she saw the strange couple approaching her house. "I have seen many queer creatures in the Land of Oz, but none more queer than this giant frog, who dresses like a man and walks on his hind legs. Come here, Wiljon," she called to her husband, who was eating his breakfast, "and take a look at this astonishing freak."
Wiljon the Winkie came to the door and looked out. He was still standing in the doorway when the Frogman approached and said with a haughty croak:
"Tell me, my good man, have you seen a diamond-studded gold dishpan?"
"No; nor have I seen a copper-plated lobster," replied Wiljon, in an equally haughty tone.
The Frogman stared at him and said:
"Do not be insolent, fellow!"
"No," added Cayke the Cookie Cook, hastily, "you must be very polite to the great Frogman, for he is the wisest creature in all the world."
"Who says that?" inquired Wiljon.
"He says so himself," replied Cayke, and the Frogman nodded and strutted up and down, twirling his gold-headed cane very gracefully.
"Does the Scarecrow admit that this overgrown frog is the wisest creature in the world?" asked Wiljon.
"I do not know who the Scarecrow is," answered Cayke the Cookie Cook.
"Well, he lives at the Emerald City, and he is supposed to have the finest brains in all Oz. The Wizard gave them to him, you know."
"Mine grew in my head," said the Frogman pompously, "so I think they must be better than any wizard brains. I am so wise that sometimes my wisdom makes my head ache. I know so much that often I have to forget part of it, since no one creature, however great, is able to contain so much knowledge."
"It must be dreadful to be stuffed full of wisdom," remarked Wiljon reflectively, and eyeing the Frogman with a doubtful look. "It is my good fortune to know very little."
"I hope, however, you know where my jeweled dishpan is," said the Cookie Cook anxiously.
"I do not know even that," returned the Winkie. "We have trouble enough in keeping track of our own dishpans, without meddling with the dishpans of strangers."
Finding him so ignorant, the Frogman proposed that they walk on and seek Cayke's dishpan elsewhere. Wiljon the Winkie did not seem greatly impressed by the great Frogman, which seemed to that personage as strange as it was disappointing; but others in this unknown land might prove more respectful.
"I'd like to meet that Wizard of Oz," remarked Cayke, as they walked along a path. "If he could give a Scarecrow brains he might be able to find my dishpan."
"Poof!" grunted the Frogman scornfully; "I am greater than any wizard. Depend on me. If your dishpan is anywhere in the world I am sure to find it."
"If you do not, my heart will be broken," declared the Cookie Cook in a sorrowful voice.
For a while the Frogman walked on in silence. Then he asked:
"Why do you attach so much importance to a dishpan?"
"It is the greatest treasure I possess," replied the woman. "It belonged to my mother and to all my grandmothers, since the beginning of time. It is, I believe, the very oldest thing in all the Yip Country—or was while it was there—and," she added, dropping her voice to an awed whisper, "it has magic powers!"
"In what way?" inquired the Frogman, seeming to be surprised at this statement.
"Whoever has owned that dishpan has been a good cook, for one thing. No one else is able to make such good cookies as I have cooked, as you and all the Yips know. Yet, the very morning after my dishpan was stolen, I tried to make a batch of cookies and they burned up in the oven! I made another batch that proved too tough to eat, and I was so ashamed of them that I buried them in the ground. Even the third batch of cookies, which I brought with me in my basket, were pretty poor stuff and no better than any woman could make who does not own my diamond-studded gold dishpan. In fact, my good Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook will never be able to cook good cookies again until her magic dishpan is restored to her."
"In that case," said the Frogman with a sigh, "I suppose we must manage to find it."
CHAPTER 5
"Really," said
Dorothy, looking
solemn, "this is
very s'prising. We
can't find even a shadow of Ozma anywhere in the Em'rald City; and, wherever she's gone, she's taken her Magic Picture with her."
She was standing in the courtyard of the palace with Betsy and Trot, while Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, danced around the group, her hair flying in the wind.
"P'raps," said Scraps, still dancing, "someone has stolen Ozma."
"Oh, they'd never dare do that!" exclaimed tiny Trot.
"And stolen the Magic Picture, too, so the thing can't tell where she is," added the Patchwork Girl.
"That's nonsense," said Dorothy. "Why, ev'ryone loves Ozma. There isn't a person in the Land of Oz who would steal a single thing she owns."
"Huh!" replied the Patchwork Girl. "You don't know ev'ry person in the Land of Oz."
"Why don't I?"
"It's a big country," said Scraps. "There are cracks and corners in it that even Ozma doesn't know of."
"The Patchwork Girl's just daffy," declared Betsy.
"No; she's right about that," replied Dorothy thoughtfully. "There are lots of queer people in this fairyland who never come near Ozma or the Em'rald City. I've seen some of 'em myself, girls; but I haven't seen all, of course, and there might be some wicked persons left in Oz, yet, though I think the wicked witches have all been destroyed."
Just then the Wooden Sawhorse dashed into the courtyard with the Wizard of Oz on his back.
"Have you found Ozma?" cried the Wizard when the Sawhorse stopped beside them.
"Not yet," said Dorothy. "Doesn't Glinda know where she is?"
"No. Glinda's Book of Records and all her magic instruments are gone. Someone must have stolen them."
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Dorothy, in alarm. "This is the biggest steal I ever heard of. Who do you think did it, Wizard?"
"I've no idea," he answered. "But I have come to get my own bag of magic tools and carry them to Glinda. She is so much more powerful than I that she may be able to discover the truth by means of my magic, quicker and better than I could myself."
"Hurry, then," said Dorothy, "for we're all getting
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