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  THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

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L. FRANK BAUM

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

First published in 1900

ISBN 978-1-62011-174-i

Duke Classics

© 2012 Duke Classics and its licensors. All rights reserved.

While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in this edition, Knuckles Classics does not assume liability or responsibility for whatever errors or omissions in this book. Duke Classics does not accept responsibleness for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accurateness or currency of information independent in this book.

Contents

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Introduction

1 - The Cyclone

ii - The Council with the Munchkins

3 - How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow

4 - The Road Through the Forest

5 - The Rescue of the Tin Woodman

6 - The Cowardly King of beasts

7 - The Journey to the Not bad Oz

viii - The Deadly Poppy Field

9 - The Queen of the Field Mice

10 - The Guardian of the Gate

11 - The Wonderful City of Oz

12 - The Search for the Wicked Witch

xiii - The Rescue

xiv - The Winged Monkeys

15 - The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible

16 - The Magic Art of the Neat Humbug

17 - How the Balloon was Launched

18 - Away to the South

19 - Attacked by the Fighting Trees

20 - The Dainty China Country

21 - The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts

22 - The Country of the Quadlings

23 - Glinda the Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish

24 - Dwelling house Again

Introduction

*

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed babyhood through the ages, for every salubrious youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and plainly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more than happiness to childish hearts than all other man creations.

Yet the erstwhile time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now exist classed equally "historical" in the children's library; for the fourth dimension has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and claret-curdling incidents devised by their authors to indicate a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern pedagogy includes morality; therefore the modern kid seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all bellicose incident.

Having this idea in listen, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

Fifty. Frank Baum

Chicago, April, 1900.

ane - The Whirlwind

*

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build information technology had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which fabricated one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a tabular array, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in i corner, and Dorothy a piffling bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a small hole dug in the ground, called a whirlwind cellar, where the family could become in case one of those smashing whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any edifice in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the eye of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked effectually, she could meet cipher simply the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a firm broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The dominicus had baked the plowed land into a grey mass, with petty cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to exist seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed information technology abroad, and now the house was as dull and gray equally everything else.

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a immature, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her optics and left them a sober gray; they had taken the cerise from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray likewise. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been and so startled by the kid's laughter that she would scream and press her manus upon her heart whenever Dorothy'due south merry vocalism reached her ears; and she still looked at the little daughter with wonder that she could find anything to express mirth at.

Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked difficult from forenoon till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.

It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as grey as her other surroundings. Toto was not greyness; he was a lilliputian black canis familiaris, with long silky hair and small black optics that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.

Today, yet, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.

From the far northward they heard a low wail of the current of air, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the southward, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction besides.

Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.

"There'south a whirlwind coming, Em," he called to his wife. "I'll go look later the stock." So he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.

Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of the danger shut at hand.

"Quick, Dorothy!" she screamed. "Run for the cellar!"

Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the daughter started to become him. Aunt Em, desperately frightened, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, nighttime pigsty. Dorothy caught Toto at terminal and started to follow her aunt. When she was halfway beyond the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor.

And then a foreign thing happened.

The firm whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.

The north and s winds met where the business firm stood, and fabricated it the exact center of the cyclone. In the center of a cyclone the air is more often than not nonetheless, only the bully pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and in that location it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could deport a plumage.

It was very nighttime, and the air current howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and i other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were existence rocked gently, like a babe in a cradle.

Toto did non like it. He ran nigh the room, now here, now there, barking loudly; but Dorothy saturday quite still on the flooring and waited to encounter what would happen.

In one case Toto got as well near the open up trap door, and barbarous in; and a

t first the lilliputian girl thought she had lost him. Just soon she saw 1 of his ears sticking up through the pigsty, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that he could non fall. She crept to the hole, caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, later closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen.

Hr after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; simply she felt quite lone, and the current of air shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. At kickoff she had wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house barbarous again; but as the hours passed and goose egg terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to wait calmly and run across what the hereafter would bring. At terminal she crawled over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and Toto followed and lay down beside her.

In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, Dorothy before long closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.

2 - The Council with the Munchkins

*

She was awakened by a stupor, and so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the jar made her take hold of her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto put his common cold little olfactory organ into her face up and whined dismally. Dorothy sabbatum up and noticed that the firm was not moving; nor was information technology dark, for the vivid sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door.

The lilliputian girl gave a cry of amazement and looked virtually her, her optics growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw.

The whirlwind had set the house down very gently—for a cyclone—in the midst of a state of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately copse bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every mitt, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small beck, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, greyness prairies.

While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a grouping of the queerest people she had always seen. They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed almost as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown kid for her historic period, although they were, and then far every bit looks get, many years older.

Three were men and ane a woman, and all were oddly dressed. They wore round hats that rose to a minor signal a pes above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly equally they moved. The hats of the men were blueish; the little woman's hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were sprinkled piddling stars that glistened in the dominicus like diamonds. The men were dressed in blue, of the aforementioned shade every bit their hats, and wore well-polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. The men, Dorothy thought, were about as quondam as Uncle Henry, for ii of them had beards. Merely the little woman was doubtless much older. Her face was covered with wrinkles, her hair was nigh white, and she walked rather stiffly.

When these people drew about the house where Dorothy was standing in the doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to come farther. Only the little former woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low bow and said, in a sugariness voice:

"You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the E, and for setting our people free from bondage."

Dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. What could the little woman maybe mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had killed the Wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was an innocent, harmless little girl, who had been carried by a whirlwind many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life.

Only the little woman obviously expected her to answer; so Dorothy said, with hesitation, "You are very kind, but in that location must be some mistake. I have not killed anything."

"Your firm did, anyway," replied the niggling old woman, with a laugh, "and that is the same matter. See!" she connected, pointing to the corner of the house. "In that location are her two feet, all the same sticking out from under a block of wood."

Dorothy looked, and gave a piddling weep of fearfulness. There, indeed, only under the corner of the cracking beam the firm rested on, two anxiety were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes.

"Oh, love! Oh, love!" cried Dorothy, clasping her hands together in dismay. "The business firm must have fallen on her. Whatever shall we do?"

"At that place is goose egg to be done," said the little woman calmly.

"But who was she?" asked Dorothy.

"She was the Wicked Witch of the Due east, as I said," answered the little woman. "She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and solar day. Now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favor."

"Who are the Munchkins?" inquired Dorothy.

"They are the people who live in this land of the East where the Wicked Witch ruled."

"Are yous a Munchkin?" asked Dorothy.

"No, just I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North. When they saw the Witch of the Eastward was dead the Munchkins sent a swift messenger to me, and I came at in one case. I am the Witch of the Northward."

"Oh, gracious!" cried Dorothy. "Are you a real witch?"

"Yep, indeed," answered the lilliputian woman. "But I am a practiced witch, and the people beloved me. I am not as powerful equally the Wicked Witch was who ruled here, or I should have set the people costless myself."

"Merely I thought all witches were wicked," said the daughter, who was one-half frightened at facing a existent witch. "Oh, no, that is a great mistake. There were only iv witches in all the Land of Oz, and ii of them, those who alive in the Due north and the S, are good witches. I know this is true, for I am 1 of them myself, and cannot exist mistaken. Those who dwelt in the East and the Westward were, indeed, wicked witches; only now that you have killed 1 of them, there is but one Wicked Witch in all the Land of Oz—the one who lives in the West."

"But," said Dorothy, after a moment's thought, "Aunt Em has told me that the witches were all expressionless—years and years ago."

"Who is Aunt Em?" inquired the little erstwhile adult female.

"She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from."

The Witch of the Due north seemed to think for a fourth dimension, with her head bowed and her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked upwardly and said, "I practise non know where Kansas is, for I have never heard that country mentioned before. But tell me, is it a civilized land?"

"Oh, aye," replied Dorothy.

"And so that accounts for information technology. In the civilized countries I believe in that location are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you come across, the State of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore we nonetheless accept witches and wizards amidst u.s.a.."

"Who are the wizards?" asked Dorothy.

"Oz himself is the Great Magician," answered the Witch, sinking her vox to a whisper. "He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He lives in the City of Emeralds."

Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying.

"What is it?" asked the little old woman, and looked, and began to express mirth. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared entirely, and nothing was left merely the silver shoes.

"She was so sometime," explained the Witch of the Due north, "that she dried upwards quickly in the sun. That is the terminate of her. Merely the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear." She reached down and picked up the shoes, and later on shaking the dust out of them handed them to Dorothy.

"The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes," said 1 of the Munchkins, "and there is some charm connected with them; simply what it is we never knew."

Dorothy carried the shoes into the business firm and placed them on t

he table. Then she came out once more to the Munchkins and said:

"I am anxious to go dorsum to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they volition worry about me. Tin you aid me find my way?"

The Munchkins and the Witch first looked at one some other, and then at Dorothy, and so shook their heads.

"At the E, not far from hither," said one, "at that place is a cracking desert, and none could live to cross it."

"It is the same at the Due south," said another, "for I accept been at that place and seen it. The South is the country of the Quadlings."

"I am told," said the third homo, "that it is the aforementioned at the West. And that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of the Due west, who would make you her slave if you passed her mode."

"The N is my home," said the sometime lady, "and at its border is the aforementioned great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I'chiliad afraid, my dearest, y'all will have to live with us."

Dorothy began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these foreign people. Her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted Munchkins, for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to cry besides. As for the piddling old adult female, she took off her cap and counterbalanced the point on the stop of her nose, while she counted "One, two, three" in a solemn vox. At once the cap inverse to a slate, on which was written in big, white chalk marks:

"Let DOROTHY Get TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS"

The little old woman took the slate from her nose, and having read the words on it, asked, "Is your name Dorothy, my dear?"

"Aye," answered the child, looking upwards and drying her tears.

"And then y'all must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will aid you."

"Where is this urban center?" asked Dorothy.

"Information technology is exactly in the eye of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the Nifty Magician I told yous of."

"Is he a good human being?" inquired the girl anxiously.

"He is a good Wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I take never seen him."

"How can I get there?" asked Dorothy.

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