L. Frank Baum_Oz 12 (9 page)

This seemed very wonderful to Woot, who knew that such a thing could
never happen in any place but a fairy country like Oz.

The Munchkin Country was much nicer than the Gillikin Country, and all
the fields were separated by blue fences, with grassy lanes and paths
of blue ground, and the land seemed well cultivated. They were on a
little hill looking down upon this favored country, but had not quite
reached the settled parts, when on turning a bend in the path they were
halted by a form that barred their way.

A more curious creature they had seldom seen, even in the Land of Oz,
where curious creatures abound. It had the head of a young
man—evidently a Munchkin—with a pleasant face and hair neatly combed.
But the body was very long, for it had twenty legs—ten legs on each
side—and this caused the body to stretch out and lie in a horizontal
position, so that all the legs could touch the ground and stand firm.
From the shoulders extended two small arms; at least, they seemed small
beside so many legs.

This odd creature was dressed in the regulation clothing of the
Munchkin people, a dark blue coat neatly fitting the long body and each
pair of legs having a pair of sky-blue trousers, with blue-tinted
stockings and blue leather shoes turned up at the pointed toes.

"I wonder who you are?" said Polychrome the Canary, fluttering above
the strange creature, who had probably been asleep on the path.

"I sometimes wonder, myself, who I am," replied the many-legged young
man; "but, in reality, I am Tommy Kwikstep, and I live in a hollow tree
that fell to the ground with age. I have polished the inside of it, and
made a door at each end, and that's a very comfortable residence for me
because it just fits my shape."

"How did you happen to have such a shape?" asked the Scarecrow Bear,
sitting on his haunches and regarding Tommy Kwikstep with a serious
look. "Is the shape natural?"

"No; it was wished on me," replied Tommy, with a sigh. "I used to be
very active and loved to run errands for anyone who needed my services.
That was how I got my name of Tommy Kwikstep. I could run an errand
more quickly than any other boy, and so I was very proud of myself. One
day, however, I met an old lady who was a fairy, or a witch, or
something of the sort, and she said if I would run an errand for
her—to carry some magic medicine to another old woman—she would grant
me just one Wish, whatever the Wish happened to be. Of course I
consented and, taking the medicine, I hurried away. It was a long
distance, mostly up hill, and my legs began to grow weary. Without
thinking what I was doing I said aloud: 'Dear me; I wish I had twenty
legs!' and in an instant I became the unusual creature you see beside
you. Twenty legs! Twenty on one man! You may count them, if you doubt
my word."

"You've got 'em, all right," said Woot the Monkey, who had already
counted them.

"After I had delivered the magic medicine to the old woman, I returned
and tried to find the witch, or fairy, or whatever she was, who had
given me the unlucky wish, so she could take it away again. I've been
searching for her ever since, but never can I find her," continued poor
Tommy Kwikstep, sadly.

"I suppose," said the Tin Owl, blinking at him, "you can travel very
fast, with those twenty legs."

"At first I was able to," was the reply; "but I traveled so much,
searching for the fairy, or witch, or whatever she was, that I soon got
corns on my toes. Now, a corn on one toe is not so bad, but when you
have a hundred toes—as I have—and get corns on most of them, it is
far from pleasant. Instead of running, I now painfully crawl, and
although I try not to be discouraged I do hope I shall find that witch
or fairy, or whatever she was, before long."

"I hope so, too," said the Scarecrow. "But, after all, you have the
pleasure of knowing you are unusual, and therefore remarkable among the
people of Oz. To be just like other persons is small credit to one,
while to be unlike others is a mark of distinction."

"That sounds very pretty," returned Tommy Kwikstep, "but if you had to
put on ten pair of trousers every morning, and tie up twenty shoes, you
would prefer not to be so distinguished."

"Was the witch, or fairy, or whatever she was, an old person, with
wrinkled skin and half her teeth gone?" inquired the Tin Owl.

"No," said Tommy Kwikstep.

"Then she wasn't Old Mombi," remarked the transformed Emperor.

"I'm not interested in who it wasn't, so much as I am in who it was,"
said the twenty-legged young man. "And, whatever or whomsoever she was,
she has managed to keep out of my way."

"If you found her, do you suppose she'd change you back into a
two-legged boy?" asked Woot.

"Perhaps so, if I could run another errand for her and so earn another
wish."

"Would you really like to be as you were before?" asked Polychrome the
Canary, perching upon the Green Monkey's shoulder to observe Tommy
Kwikstep more attentively.

"I would, indeed," was the earnest reply.

"Then I will see what I can do for you," promised the Rainbow's
Daughter, and flying to the ground she took a small twig in her bill
and with it made several mystic figures on each side of Tommy Kwikstep.

"Are you a witch, or fairy, or something of the sort?" he asked as he
watched her wonderingly.

The Canary made no answer, for she was busy, but the Scarecrow Bear
replied: "Yes; she's something of the sort, and a bird of a magician."

The twenty-legged boy's transformation happened so queerly that they
were all surprised at its method. First, Tommy Kwikstep's last two legs
disappeared; then the next two, and the next, and as each pair of legs
vanished his body shortened. All this while Polychrome was running
around him and chirping mystical words, and when all the young man's
legs had disappeared but two he noticed that the Canary was still busy
and cried out in alarm:

"Stop—stop! Leave me two of my legs, or I shall be worse off than
before."

"I know," said the Canary. "I'm only removing with my magic the corns
from your last ten toes."

"Thank you for being so thoughtful," he said gratefully, and now they
noticed that Tommy Kwikstep was quite a nice looking young fellow.

"What will you do now?" asked Woot the Monkey.

"First," he answered, "I must deliver a note which I've carried in my
pocket ever since the witch, or fairy, or whatever she was, granted my
foolish wish. And I am resolved never to speak again without taking
time to think carefully on what I am going to say, for I realize that
speech without thought is dangerous. And after I've delivered the note,
I shall run errands again for anyone who needs my services."

So he thanked Polychrome again and started away in a different
direction from their own, and that was the last they saw of Tommy
Kwikstep.

As they followed a path down the blue-grass hillside, the first house
that met the view of the travelers was joyously recognized by the
Scarecrow Bear as the one inhabited by his friend Jinjur, so they
increased their speed and hurried toward it.

On reaching the place, how ever, they found the house deserted. The
front door stood open, but no one was inside. In the garden surrounding
the house were neat rows of bushes bearing cream-puffs and macaroons,
some of which were still green, but others ripe and ready to eat.
Farther back were fields of caramels, and all the land seemed well
cultivated and carefully tended. They looked through the fields for the
girl farmer, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"Well," finally remarked the little Brown Bear, "let us go into the
house and make ourselves at home. That will be sure to please my friend
Jinjur, who happens to be away from home just now. When she returns,
she will be greatly surprised."

"Would she care if I ate some of those ripe cream-puffs?" asked the
Green Monkey.

"No, indeed; Jinjur is very generous. Help yourself to all you want,"
said the Scarecrow Bear.

So Woot gathered a lot of the cream-puffs that were golden yellow and
filled with a sweet, creamy substance, and ate until his hunger was
satisfied. Then he entered the house with his friends and sat in a
rocking-chair—just as he was accustomed to do when a boy. The Canary
perched herself upon the mantel and daintily plumed her feathers; the
Tin Owl sat on the back of another chair; the Scarecrow squatted on his
hairy haunches in the middle of the room.

"I believe I remember the girl Jinjur," remarked the Canary, in her
sweet voice. "She cannot help us very much, except to direct us on our
way to Glinda's castle, for she does not understand magic. But she's a
good girl, honest and sensible, and I'll be glad to see her."

"All our troubles," said the Owl with a deep sigh, "arose from my
foolish resolve to seek Nimmie Amee and make her Empress of the
Winkies, and while I wish to reproach no one, I must say that it was
Woot the Wanderer who put the notion into my head."

"Well, for my part, I am glad he did," responded the Canary. "Your
journey resulted in saving me from the Giantess, and had you not
traveled to the Yoop Valley, I would still be Mrs. Yoop's prisoner. It
is much nicer to be free, even though I still bear the enchanted form
of a Canary-Bird."

"Do you think we shall ever be able to get our proper forms back
again?" asked the Green Monkey earnestly.

Polychrome did not make reply at once to this important question, but
after a period of thoughtfulness she said:

"I have been taught to believe that there is an antidote for every
magic charm, yet Mrs. Yoop insists that no power can alter her
transformations. I realize that my own fairy magic cannot do it,
although I have thought that we Sky Fairies have more power than is
accorded to Earth Fairies. The yookoohoo magic is admitted to be very
strange in its workings and different from the magic usually practiced,
but perhaps Glinda or Ozma may understand it better than I. In them
lies our only hope. Unless they can help us, we must remain forever as
we are."

"A Canary-Bird on a Rainbow wouldn't be so bad," asserted the Tin Owl,
winking and blinking with his round tin eyes, "so if you can manage to
find your Rainbow again you need have little to worry about."

"That's nonsense, Friend Chopper," exclaimed Woot. "I know just how
Polychrome feels. A beautiful girl is much superior to a little yellow
bird, and a boy—such as I was—far better than a Green Monkey. Neither
of us can be happy again unless we recover our rightful forms."

"I feel the same way," announced the stuffed Bear. "What do you suppose
my friend the Patchwork Girl would think of me, if she saw me wearing
this beastly shape?"

"She'd laugh till she cried," admitted the Tin Owl. "For my part, I'll
have to give up the notion of marrying Nimmie Amee, but I'll try not to
let that make me unhappy. If it's my duty, I'd like to do my duty, but
if magic prevents my getting married I'll flutter along all by myself
and be just as contented."

Their serious misfortunes made them all silent for a time, and as their
thoughts were busy in dwelling upon the evils with which fate had
burdened them, none noticed that Jinjur had suddenly appeared in the
doorway and was looking at them in astonishment. The next moment her
astonishment changed to anger, for there, in her best rocking-chair,
sat a Green Monkey. A great shiny Owl perched upon another chair and a
Brown Bear squatted upon her parlor rug. Jinjur did not notice the
Canary, but she caught up a broomstick and dashed into the room,
shouting as she came:

"Get out of here, you wild creatures! How dare you enter my house?"

With a blow of her broom she knocked the Brown Bear over, and the Tin
Owl tried to fly out of her reach and made a great clatter with his tin
wings. The Green Monkey was so startled by the sudden attack that he
sprang into the fireplace—where there was fortunately no fire—and
tried to escape by climbing up the chimney. But he found the opening
too small, and so was forced to drop down again. Then he crouched
trembling in the fireplace, his pretty green hair all blackened with
soot and covered with ashes. From this position Woot watched to see
what would happen next.

"Stop, Jinjur—stop!" cried the Brown Bear, when the broom again
threatened him. "Don't you know me? I'm your old friend the Scarecrow?"

"You're trying to deceive me, you naughty beast! I can see plainly that
you are a bear, and a mighty poor specimen of a bear, too," retorted
the girl.

"That's because I'm not properly stuffed," he assured her. "When Mrs.
Yoop transformed me, she didn't realize I should have more stuffing."

"Who is Mrs. Yoop?" inquired Jinjur, pausing with the broom still
upraised.

"A Giantess in the Gillikin Country."

"Oh; I begin to understand. And Mrs. Yoop transformed you? You are
really the famous Scarecrow of Oz."

"I was, Jinjur. Just now I'm as you see me—a miserable little Brown
Bear with a poor quality of stuffing. That Tin Owl is none other than
our dear Tin Woodman—Nick Chopper, the Emperor of the Winkies—while
this Green Monkey is a nice little boy we recently became acquainted
with, Woot the Wanderer."

"And I," said the Canary, flying close to Jinjur, "am Polychrome, the
Daughter of the Rainbow, in the form of a bird."

"Goodness me!" cried Jinjur, amazed; "that Giantess must be a powerful
Sorceress, and as wicked as she is powerful."

"She's a yookoohoo," said Polychrome. "Fortunately, we managed to
escape from her castle, and we are now on our way to Glinda the Good to
see if she possesses the power to restore us to our former shapes."

"Then I must beg your pardons; all of you must forgive me," said
Jinjur, putting away the broom. "I took you to be a lot of wild,
unmannerly animals, as was quite natural. You are very welcome to my
home and I'm sorry I haven't the power to help you out of your
troubles. Please use my house and all that I have, as if it were your
own."