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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

by

L. Frank Baum

Contents

Introduction
1. The Cyclone
2. 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 Lion
7. The Journey to the Great Oz
8. The Deadly Poppy Field
9. The Queen of the Field Mice
10. The Guardian of the Gates
11. The Emerald City of Oz
12. The Search for the Wicked Witch
13. The Rescue
14. The Winged Monkeys
15. The Discovery of Oz the Terrible
16. The Magic Art of the Great 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. Home Again

Introduction

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

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be
classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time 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 blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a
fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality;
therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales
and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, 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.

L. Frank Baum

Chicago, April, 1900.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

1. The Cyclone

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 it had to be carried by wagon
many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one
room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for
the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry
and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in
another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a
small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family
could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to
crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the
middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark
hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see
nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a
house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of
the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a
gray mass, with little 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 be seen everywhere. Once the house
had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed
it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun
and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her
eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks
and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never
smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt
Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream
and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice
reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder
that she could find anything to laugh at.

Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning 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 gray
as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black
dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes 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, however, 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 north they heard a low wail of the wind, 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
south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the
grass coming from that direction also.

Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.

"There's a cyclone coming, Em," he called to his wife. "I'll go look
after the stock." Then 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 close at hand.

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

Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl
started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap
door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark
hole. Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt.
When she was halfway across 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.

Then a strange thing happened.

The house 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 south winds met where the house stood, and made it the
exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is
generally still, but the great 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 there it remained and was carried miles and miles
away as easily as you could carry a feather.

It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy
found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around,
and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were
being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle.

Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there,
barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to
see what would happen.

Once Toto got too near the open trap door, and fell in; and at first
the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his
ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air
was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole,
caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward
closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen.

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