The Wonder City of Oz
Author: John R. Neill
Date: 1939-12-31T22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Children's literature; Fantasy; Fairy Tales; Land of Oz
Description: Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun and forces him to make her into a fairy, but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny accidentally jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She soon sets up a fashionable Style Shop with a magic turn-style which will give anyone high style; and then challenges Ozma to an ozlection to become ruler of the Land of Oz.
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public Domain where copyright is "Life+70" or less.

THE  WONDER  CITY
OF  OZ

Founded on and continuing
the famous Oz stories
by L. Frank Baum.

BY
JOHN R. NEILL

MobileRead Edition
2020

CONTENTS

… Cover
… Titlepage
… About this Ebook
THE WONDER CITY OF OZ

1 — How Jenny Lost the Pepper-Cheese
2 — The Speck in the Magic Picture
3 — Ozma’s Birthday Parade
4 — Jenny Becomes a Heroine
5 — The Voice That Lost His Man
6 — The Magic Turn-Style
7 — The House with the Strawberry Roof
8 — The Professor Ponders
9 — Whistlebreeches Scraps
10 — The Battle of the Houses
11 — Jellia Casts Her Vote
12 — Jack Pumpkinhead’s Concert
13 — “Beware of the Heelers!”
14 — An Unexpected Visitor
15 — The Ozoplane Soars
16 — Shoes Desert a Soaring Ship
17 — The Attack of the Chocolate Soldiers
18 — Number Nine Runs the Shop
19 — The Turn-Style Is Rescued
20 — Jenny Escapes
21 — Number Nine Searches for Jenny
22 — The Attack on the Emerald City
23 — The Slide to Freedom
24 — The Midnight Oil Burns Low
25 — The Great Ozlection
26 — Jenny’s Last Flare-Up
27 — The Animals Run Wild
28 — “How Grand I Feel!”

ABOUT THIS EBOOK

The Wonder City of Oz

BY
JOHN R. NEILL
(1877–1943)

Illustrations not available.

Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun and forces him to make her into a fairy, but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny accidentally jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She soon sets up a fashionable Style Shop with a magic turn-style which will give anyone high style; and then challenges Ozma to an ozlection to become ruler of the Land of Oz.

* * * *

John Rea Neill (November 12, 1877 – September 19, 1943) was a magazine and children’s book illustrator primarily known for illustrating more than forty stories set in the Land of Oz, including L. Frank Baum’s, Ruth Plumly Thompson’s, and three of his own. His pen-and-ink drawings have become identified almost exclusively with the Oz series. He also did a great deal of illustration work for other children’s books and magazines and newspapers, which is not as well known today.

The Wonder City of Oz, The Scalawagons of Oz, and Lucky Bucky in Oz, which debuted each year from 1940 to 1942, are considered part of the “Famous Forty.” Neill’s vision of Oz is more manic than Thompson or Baum’s. Houses often get up and do battle, and everything can be alive. His entries take Oz’s color scheme (blue for Munchkin Country, red for Quadling Country, etc.) to an extreme, extending to sky and skin colors.

This ebook was created by ECM for MobileRead.com, December 2020, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

First published in 1940. The text is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

THE  WONDER  CITY
OF  OZ

CHAPTER 1

How Jenny Lost
the Pepper-Cheese

Jenny Jump jumped. She was so surprised, she jumped halfway across the kitchen. She had never seen such a sight, never in the whole state of New Jersey!

A tiny man was stealing pepper-cheese out of the cheese box! He was standing right on the table, and he was no taller than the cheese box.

Jenny became very angry because she was to have that pepper-cheese for supper.

“Don’t do that,” she cried.

The little man turned, and Jenny was startled again. The man was a Leprechaun! She knew right away he was one of the Irish fairy folk because he had bushy red whiskers, a green coat, and an old hat with a white owl’s feather stuck in it. The red whiskers were as bushy as a porcupine. He held the whole pepper-cheese against him, and it was almost as big as he was.

The little man looked at Jenny, and she stared back, remembering that a Leprechaun can’t get away as long as you keep your eyes fixed on him but if you as much as blink, he’ll get away. A Leprechaun will grant you any wish while your eyes have him in your power.

Jenny stared and stared, until her eyes began to hurt. She dared not blink, for if she did the Leprechaun would be free to run away, and she would not get her wish. Jenny thought hard and fast, trying to decide what she wanted. Most of all, she wanted the pepper-cheese for supper.

“Drop the pepper-cheese,” she ordered. The cheese fell to the table.

Jenny’s eyes hurt more and more from looking so hard, but she would not blink until she had made the Leprechaun give her everything she wanted.

“Make me into a fairy,” she said, staring at him. The strangest things began to happen. Her toes on one foot began to tingle and want to dance. First one finger felt that it was tinkling like a silver bell, then another finger, and then another. Both of her ears were full of wonderful music, and she could hear the chairs talking to each other. One eye changed and saw everything with new and more beautiful colors. Even the old kitchen wall became as bright as a rainbow. She felt like the song of an oriole, and the murmuring of leaves. She felt as if everything were beautiful and happy. She knew that she was being turned into a real fairy.

Then a terrible thing happened: Jenny’s left eye, the one that wasn’t a fairy eye, blinked.

Instantly the Leprechaun ran across the table and leaped to the window.

“Stop, stop!” Jenny screamed.

The Leprechaun stood on the window sill, but he did not lift his eyes to Jenny’s face.

“Shure, and what d’ye want?” he asked with his Irish brogue. His voice was as gruff as an old bullfrog’s.

“Make me into a full fairy. I’m half girl and half fairy now. Only one eye is a fairy eye, and one foot; eight of my fingers are fairy fingers, and both of my ears. But I want to be all fairy.”

“I’ll not be doin’ it. ’Twill only get ye into trouble,” the Leprechaun said roughly.

Jenny became so angry, she jumped. She jumped so high that she was headed right for the ceiling. She would have jumped clear through it, if she had not thrown up her hands and stopped herself. When she dropped down to the floor she was so surprised and pleased that she forgot to be angry.

“Did you see that?” she asked.

The Leprechaun did not answer, but turned to go. Jenny was sorry that she had been cross with him.

“Do you have to go so soon?” she said politely. “If you’ll stay, you may have all the cheese you want – if you only take a little piece.”

The Leprechaun jumped back to the table. He stuffed such a big piece of pepper-cheese into his mouth that his cheeks bulged wider than his shoulders. With his mouth full he said, “What may your name be?”

“Jenny Jump,” she said.

“How old be ye, Jenny?”

“Fifteen,” she snapped, growing angry all over again. She didn’t like the way he kept tearing off bits of pepper-cheese, while her share grew smaller.

“Now, me own name is a long one, for shure.” He puffed out his chest. “Siko Pompus it is. And it’s 857 years old I am!”

“Don’t eat any more,” Jenny commanded.

Siko Pompus kept eating and eating.

“My, aren’t ye the spitfire, now,” he said.

When Jenny tried to answer, instead of words, she was spitting fire. A spark fell on the Leprechaun’s bushy red beard. The beard began to flame and smoke, and to Jenny’s astonishment, it grew longer and longer as it burned.

Siko Pompus jumped up and down and screeched, “Git some water git some water! It’s a-growin’ so long, I shan’t be able to carry it around.”

The red beard grew and grew while it smoked and flamed, until it half filled the kitchen. Jenny could no longer see Siko Pompus behind the big, red, burning beard.

“Be throwin’ water on it!” Siko Pompus shouted. Jenny felt so sorry for the little fellow that she forgot to be angry. She ran for a bucket of water and splashed it over his beard. The fire went out, and the beard lay all over the kitchen floor, like an old hair mattress.

“More water, more water,” Siko Pompus cried. Jenny fetched a second bucket and threw it over the beard. The beard began to shrink. It shrank a little way, then stopped.

“More water, more water,” Siko Pompus kept ordering. Jenny had to fetch so many buckets that her arms ached. And each time the beard shrank a little way.

When the beard was back to its own size, Siko Pompus said gruffly, “Next time ye’ll be thinkin’ twice, before losin’ your temper.”

Jenny was too tired to be angry again. The little man was not through giving advice.

“Remember, Jenny Jump, that it’s half fairy ye are now. Ye must not be selfish, vain, and fiery tempered. Now, I’ll be takin’ another piece of cheese and go. But I’ll come back, sometime!”

“Just a small piece,” Jenny said, watching him closely.

There was hardly any of the cheese left. The Leprechaun picked up the whole piece, jumped to the window, and sat in the tree outside.

At that, Jenny was so furious, she stamped her fairy foot and bounced right out of the window!

She stood surprised. “Well, I never took such a jump before,” she said. “I’ll try it again.”

She stamped her foot, sailed over the house and came down on the other side.

“Leaping Leprechauns!” she said. Looking far off, she saw the mountain that had stood between her and the rest of the world all her life.

“I wonder if I could jump over that?” she said. “First I’ll have to dress more warmly.” Running into the house, she put on a hat and a cape. Then she ran out again. She bounced on her fairy foot, and next minute she was up, sailing over the pine trees on top of the mountain. She dropped to the other side.

“Such wonderful things never happened to me in all my lonesome life. I wonder how far I can really jump?”

As she said this, she stamped hard with her fairy foot, and the next instant she shot up and away through the air.

Jenny sailed for four days, wondering all the time if she would ever land. Just afternoonon the fourth day, she looked down and saw a new country. One section of it was yellow, one blue, one purple, and another red. And right in the center there was a green sparkling patch.

“That looks like a land of enchantment,” she said. “I can see it with my magic eye, but not with my ordinary one. I wish I were down there.”

She felt herself beginning to drop.

CHAPTER 2

The Speck in the Magic Picture

Ozma was in her dressing room in the palace in the Emerald City of the enchanted Land of Oz of which she is queen. She was being dressed by her chief maid-in-waiting, Jellia Jamb. The fair young ruler was wearing her most beautiful clothes. It was her birthday, and there was to be a parade in her honor.

Outside the palace, all the strange people and stranger creatures of Oz had gathered. They stood cheering for their Queen and for the parade. Everybody in Oz loves parades. The people had come from the four states of Oz. The Munchkins came from the western blue country, the Gillikins, from the northern purple country, the Winkies, from the eastern yellow country, and the Quadlings, from the land to the south that was bright red.

The people were colored the same as their country, and all their clothes and pets and belongings were that color, too. It was easy to tell those who lived in the Emerald City, for they were green.

Ozma was very happy because all was well in her land, and her subjects were contented and prosperous.

“I hope trouble will never come to our fair land,” she said to her two friends who were watching her get ready. These two girls were Glinda the Good, a kindly, red-haired sorceress who ruled in the South; and Princess Dorothy, who had blown to Oz from Kansas on a cyclone many years ago.

Jellia Jamb, who stood by with her mouth full of golden needles and silver thread, started to answer without taking the needles out of her mouth.

“As long as you are Queen, there will be no—”

That was all she was able to say. For as her lips and tongue moved, they worked the needles and thread in and out and sewed her lips tightly together.

Ozma turned to her maid. “What were you going to say, Jellia?”

Jellia tried to answer, but the words couldn’t get out of her mouth. They just kept piling up inside her cheeks. The maid got very excited. She did not feel any pain, of course, for the needles and thread were those she had used to make Ozma’s dress, and therefore they were enchanted. But when her mouth became full of words, Jellia grew more excited. The more excited she became, the more she talked. And the more she talked, the fuller her mouth became.

She was so frightened that she began to scream. And when the scream came into her mouth, her head became so full of sound that it lifted her right off the floor like a balloon.

Dorothy ran and pulled the maid down, saying, “Help her, dear Ozma. Cut the thread that holds her lips together.”

Ozma shook her head. “The silver thread is magical, and will not break until I have a new birthday dress made. Don’t talk any more, Jellia, or your head will get so big, it will explode.”

Dorothy put two heavy emerald bookends from the Queen’s table on the maid’s feet to hold her down.

Ozma said, “I can’t undo the magic of the silver thread and the golden needles. But I can open one of your ears, so that the words can get out. You will have to talk through that ear until my new birthday dress is made.”

Jellia nodded. Ozma closed her eyes, put one of her hands over Jellia’s ear, and said a few magical words. Immediately there was a rush of words and screams from her ear. The force of them was so strong that it pulled out the curtains and blew over two trees outside.

The blue Munchkins, the purple Gillikins, the yellow Winkies, and the red Quadlings around the palace danced and shouted, for they thought magic was being performed for them.

Jellia’s cheeks snapped together like a rubber band. She no longer needed to be weighted down.

“For cake’s sake!” she said out of her ear, “I never had such a fright. It’s going to be awfully hard to chew chicken bones with my ear.”

Ozma smiled. “I’ll enchant you so you won’t be hungry until your lips are free again,” she said, putting her arm around her little maid. “Now we must hurry with my dressing, for soon it will be time for the parade.”

“Yes, dear Ozma,” Jellia said out of her ear.

The dress of silver and gold was drawn about Ozma, and emerald bracelets were put around her wrist. The emerald crown that held the magic name of OZ was placed on her head.

“You are very beautiful,” Glinda the Good said admiringly.

There were still a few minutes before the parade. “I will look at the magic picture to see what is happening in all my countries,” Ozma said.

Ozma went to the wall and drew a heavy cord there. Some thick velvet curtains drew apart, and a magic picture was revealed. This picture showed everything that was happening in the Land of Oz. Ozma smiled as she saw a peaceful country scene, for this meant that there was peace and happiness everywhere in her kingdom.

Suddenly the smile went from Ozma’s face, and she leaned closer to the picture. Something was wrong. She looked and looked. There was a faraway speck in the picture, and the longer she looked, the bigger it got. Finally it was no longer a speck, but a girl. In her magic way, Ozma could see where she came from but she could not tell who she was.

“A girl from U.S.A. is on her way to Oz. I wonder who she can be?” said Ozma, “She must have magic powers to get through the barrier surrounding Oz. Dorothy, come here, please.”

Dorothy stepped up to the picture and looked at it. She saw the girl sailing through the air, coming straight toward the peaceful land of Oz.

“We will have another friend,” she exclaimed. “She is a girl like me, only a few years older.”

“I hope she is as dear and kind as you,” said Ozma. “Do you know her?”

Dorothy stared hard into the picture and shook her head.

“I never saw her before. But maybe Aunt Em and Uncle Henry will know. They lived longer in the States ’cause they were born first. Shall I get them?”

“Yes, fetch them.”

Dorothy went out and soon came back, followed by her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

“Do you know that girl who is sailing through the air?” Ozma asked.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry looked into the picture.

“I never saw that girl before,” Aunt Em said. “I hope she’s not bringing trouble.”

Uncle Henry stared and stared. “You know who that might be?” he said. “’Pears to me she looks something like Nancy Dew Hickman who used to live on the farm next to ours in Kansas. Only Nancy Dew had black hair, and this girl’s hair is red. And Nancy Dew had brown eyes, and this girl’s eyes are green. And Nancy Dew had a sweet smile, but this girl looks as cross as a hen whose eggs have been stolen from her nest.”

“Land sakes!” Aunt Em exclaimed. “How can you say they look alike, then? And anyway, Nancy Dew must be grown up by now. Maybe the Wizard knows who she is. He traveled all over the U.S.A. when he was a plain magician. He knows a lot of people.”

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Ozma.

The Wizard of Oz entered. He was a short, round man, with a ruddy face, a brisk manner, and a twinkle in his eye.

“I was trying out my latest invention, the teletable, just now, and heard you talking about me. So I came right down, without stopping to put on a disguise,” said the Wizard.

“I’m glad you hurried,” said Ozma, “for something unusual is happening. Will you look at the magic picture and tell me whether you know that girl?”

The Wizard stepped up and looked hard at the speck.

“I don’t know who she is, but she is coming right here,” he said. “I calculate she will land at twenty-two minutes after two p.m.”

“Why, that is the exact time I am to ascend my carriage in the parade,” said Ozma.

“So it is,” replied the Wizard. He kept staring into the picture. “Trouble ahead, fair Ruler. I can smell trouble 4,000 miles away. And I’m smelling it now. That girl who is coming has a terrible temper.”

“Dear me,” Aunt Em said, “I know that kind of people. Just looking at ’em causes a commotion.”

The Wizard went toward the door. “If I am not wanted here any longer, I shall return to my laboratory and continue my experiments.”

“Wait, please,” said Ozma. “I need your advice. What shall I do to keep trouble from Oz?”

“Turn that girl back and send her to the U.S.A.” The Wizard sneezed and blew his nose, for the smell of trouble was in his head.

“I had better do that,” Ozma said.

But Princess Dorothy asked eagerly, “Please, Ozma, can’t she come? It would be fun for us to have another friend.”

Glinda the Good added, “Yes, why not let her come? There’s no harm she can do that your magic can’t undo.”

“I won’t deny anyone’s wish on my birthday,” said Ozma, smiling. “I’ll let her come and hope she won’t make too much trouble.”

Uncle Henry smiled. “A good spanking before every meal would teach her to behave.”

“Spankings are old-fashioned,” Aunt Em put in. “What I say about mean folks is, let them get into all the trouble they can until they learn that making trouble isn’t any fun.”

Ozma stood thinking. Finally she said, “I think you are right, Aunt Em.”

Jellia Jamb thought it was time for her to give some advice. She began to talk out of her ear, “Trouble has started already. It started with me—” She began to weep sugary tears.

As the tears hit the floor they hardened to crystal candies. Jellia Jamb could not stop weeping. The sugar tears poured until the floor was piled high with candy.

Ozma summoned another maid-in-waiting and asked her to wade in and shovel up the candy The maid pushed the candy out of the window. The people outside caught it and laughed and shouted, for there was nothing tastier in all Oz than teardrop candy.

“Now, then,” said Ozma, “on to the parade. We’ll know what to do about the girl from the U.S.A. when she gets here.”

CHAPTER 3

Ozma’s Birthday Parade

From the balcony of the palace, Ozma looked down on the people below. On either side of her stood Glinda and Dorothy. From Strawberry Street to Banana Boulevard, the loyal subjects were thickly crowded. Their red, purple, yellow, and blue faces looked like blossoms in a flower bed.

“What a lovely sight,” said Ozma, lifting her hand. She felt so happy that she forgot the girl who was coming from the U.S.A.

At the far end of Banana Boulevard she could see the old Soldier with the Green Whiskers playing emerald marbles with a blue Munchkin boy.

“I hate to spoil their game,” Ozma said, “but the parade must begin.”

She put her hand to her magic belt and thought, “Wantowin Battles, appear at my side.”

Instantly the old Soldier stood beside her. “The Army reports for duty, your majesty.” He saluted.

“Blow your trumpet,” Queen Ozma ordered.

The Soldier, who was the whole army of Oz, lifted his trumpet and blew four loud notes:

TA-RA-TA-TA!

A thousand flags went up. The parade began to form.

First came Kabumpo the Elephant, on roller skates. His robe was made of bells and played a tune as he moved. With the tip of his trunk he twirled a gold drum major’s stick.

Next came a dragon, holding his fiery breath in an ozbestoz box so he wouldn’t burn anyone.

Behind the dragon marched red Quadling cats, yellow Winkie cows, purple Gillikin dogs, and blue Munchkin horses. Then came china bulls, unicorns, saddled sea-horses, and other queer creatures of Oz.

After the animals came the people of the four countries of Oz. The Winkies, with yellow banners flying, were led by the Tin Woodman, their emperor. Then came Glinda the Good’s people, the red Quadlings. After them, the purple Gillikins. Lastly, the blue Munchkins marched behind their king, the Scarecrow.

Before any more of the parade came past Ozma, she saw something go up in the air.

“What is happening – more trouble?” she exclaimed.

Dorothy smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Ozma. You’re going to like this.”

Ozma looked again and saw that it was the dragon riding to the tops of the skyscrapers and into the ozone. There he stopped, opened the ozbestoz box, and freed his fiery breath. Then he wrote in letters of smoke across the sky:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR OZMA

There was a thunderclap of applause from the people. Ozma smiled in delight. The dragon caught his breath safely into the box and turned back to earth.

The parade moved on. Ozma said to the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, “It is time for me to get into my carriage.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

He raised his trumpet to his lips – TA-RA-TA-TA! From behind the large soda fountain that bubbled in the center of the city (where anyone could help himself to sodas when he felt like it) came Ozma’s carriage. It blazed with emeralds and other gems and was pulled by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. The coachman was Tik-Tok, who was all wound up for the occasion.

Before the carriage reached the palace stairs, the Sawhorse came dashing up. Tik-Tok looked down from the carriage.

“Well-well,” he began tocking, “you-got-here-just-in-time. Now-if-I-ran-down-I-would-not-be-going.”

Ozma looked at her watch and saw that it was two twenty-one, p.m.

“Come, Dorothy and Glinda, sit beside me in the carriage.”

They went down the balcony stairs. The people shouted and waved their flags.

It was two twenty-one and a half, p.m. Ozma stopped. She had just remembered that the Wizard had said the girl from the U.S.A. would arrive at two twenty-two. That was just a half-minute from now.

Ozma looked up to the sky. There, dropping out of the blue, was the girl. She was headed right for the carriage.

CHAPTER 4

Jenny Becomes a Heroine

Jenny Jump was falling fast. Below her she could see thousands of differently colored people and a palace with many spires. If she weren’t careful, she’d catch on one of the spires. She had to find a soft spot on which to land. Suddenly she saw it. There, right in the middle of the crowd, was a gorgeous carriage with a soft green pillow seat.

“That’s just right!” she said and pointed her fairy fingers toward it.

Plop! Jenny hit the pillow and came to a stop for the first time in four days.

“Leaping Leprechauns!” she exclaimed. “Where am I?” The air was full of cheers and waving banners.

“Well, how did all these people know I was coming?” Jenny thought. The cheering stopped short. The people, seeing a stranger in their Queen’s carriage, began to buzz excitedly.

“That’s not the Queen! Who is she? What does she want?”

There was a rush of yellow, blue, purple, and red people toward the carriage. All the strange creatures and fantastic animals crowded around Jenny. The old Soldier leaped up and shook a trumpet in her face.

“Surrender to the Army of Oz!”

Jenny was too frightened to be angry. She began to cry.

“I thought all this celebration was for me,” she said.

The more she cried, the braver the Army became.

“You’ll be locked in the Dungeon of Oblivion for this,” he said sternly. Jenny thought it must be all over for her. The Army seized her arm.

“This is the end of me,” thought Jenny. But just then she heard a voice speaking softly, yet so clearly, that it could be heard through all the city.

“My good Army! Is this the way to treat a visitor?”

The Soldier dropped Jenny’s arm. Jenny looked out. There, close to the carriage, stood the loveliest girl she had ever seen.

“I am sorry, my dear, that you were frightened. My Army thought you were taking my carriage.”

“I’ll get out,” Jenny said, very thankful that nothing was going to happen to her.

“Oh, no. You must stay and ride with me and my friends. This is the Land of Oz, and you are my guest.”

Ozma turned and beckoned to Dorothy and Glinda the Good. As the two girls stepped up, Ozma explained, “Dorothy came from the U.S.A., just like you.”

“I am so glad you are here,” Dorothy said. “And this girl with the glorious red hair is Glinda, the good sorceress who rules one of my countries.”

Jenny was growing happier every minute. “I am half-fairy. Could I rule one of your countries?” Ozma smiled. “Just at present there are no vacancies. But my maid, Jellia Jamb, will let you fill out an application. And remember, dear, if you know any magic, it is against the law to use it on anyone but yourself. Only Glinda and I and the Wizard may practice magic on others.”

The seat of the carriage was wide enough for all four girls. The Army blew a fresh blast on his trumpet: TA-RA-TA-TA! This was a signal for the people to cheer Ozma again. They cheered and cheered, and became so excited that they threw their hats in the air. They threw them so high that they never came down again.

The Munchkin boy who had been playing emerald marbles with the Army forgot that his hat was tied under his chin. He threw his hat so hard that he went sailing up with it. In a few minutes, he was out of sight.

“Man overboard!” yelled the Army.

“Oh, we must get him back!” exclaimed Princess Dorothy.

“I’ll get him,” said Jenny Jump. She stood up and stamped her fairy foot and bounded straight up. Passing the palace spires, she came to the tops of the skyscrapers. These were busily scraping the sky clean of all the hats.

The boy was still on his way up. Jenny gave her fairy foot an extra kick, caught him by the heel, and began to drop.

She dropped into the carriage, and the Munchkin boy tumbled into her lap.

The Army sighed with relief. “What a broad escape!” he said.

The people waved their flags and cheered again, and this time their cheers were for Jenny.

“Why,” thought Jenny, “they are cheering me just as if I were their queen.” And she felt proud of herself.

Ozma said graciously, “You did a very brave thing, dear, and we all thank you. I see that in your case the practicing of a little magic now and then will have to be excused. What is your name?”

“Jenny Jump,” the girl said, giving the boy a push to remind him that he wasn’t to sit in her lap all day. He turned to Jenny as he climbed out, “My name is Number Nine. Your humble servant.” His eyes were full of a warm blue light.

The parade moved toward the city gate. The Guardian of the Gate bowed low as Ozma’s carriage passed. Outside the city wall, the paraders mounted the new ozealator, a moving road, and seated themselves on comfortable chairs.

The road had been invented by Mr. Oz Q. Later, a clever Quadling. The Wizard had thought of it first, but had left the making of it to Later.

The road slid southward into the Quadling country. Here everything was red. Jenny looked around in astonishment. She had never seen fields of red corn, red carrots, red cucumbers; or red cows, red rivers, and red haystacks.

At the end of the Quadling country, the ozcalator stopped and Glinda the Good with all her people, got off.

“Goodbye, and happy birthday,” Glinda called, and her people waved as the ozcalator moved on.

It turned to the East. Jenny found herself riding through the land of the Winkies, where everything was yellow. There were many trees bearing yellow plums, and there were yellow grapes, watermelons, and blackberries. The fruit trees bowed in greeting to the Queen, and shook fruit into the people’s laps.

After awhile the Winkies left the ozcalator and followed their Tin Woodman emperor back to their homes.

At the boundary of the Gillikin country, the ozcalator jarred to a stop with a shrieking of brakes. Everyone stretched his neck to see what was the matter, but only the giraffes could see.

A purple-speckled giraffe bent his head back to Ozma and said, “The bridge over Cream River is out. The river doesn’t know when the bridge will be in. We may have to wait all day.”

“We can’t hold up the parade,” said Ozma. “Ask Cream River to churn.”

The giraffe gave her message to the river, and the river began to churn, until the banks were piled with lumps of butter.

“Spread the butter,” ordered Ozma. Two sword-fishes left their aquarium seats to obey. Using their sword noses, they spread the butter smoothly over the river and made a new bridge. Ozma thanked them, and the ozcalator slid easily over the butter bridge, into the purple land of the Gillikins.

Jenny breathed the purple air with delight.

“I’d like to live in Oz forever!” she exclaimed.

“You may do so,” answered Ozma. “Stay on as my subject.”

“I’d rather be a Queen than a subject,” Jenny said, thinking how wonderful it would be to live in a palace and have serving maids and a private army. “When is the next election for the Rulership?” she asked.

“Queens aren’t elected, you know,” Dorothy said. “They inherit their thrones, and remain in them as long as they like.”

“What!” exclaimed Jenny in surprise. “Don’t the people have votes?”

Dorothy shook her head. “This isn’t the U.S.A. Everything is different in Oz.”

“This is very interesting,” said Ozma. “What is a vote?”

“A piece of paper with an X on it,” Jenny explained, proud that she could teach Ozma something.

“There, you see?” Dorothy exclaimed triumphantly. “We couldn’t have votes in Oz because X stands for the unknown, and everyone knows that Ozma would be elected.”

Ozma laughed in her silvery voice. “Thank you, Dorothy dear. But this election idea pleases me very much. It might amuse my people to hold an election.”

“But we can’t have an election without someone to run against you,” Dorothy objected.

Ozma turned to Jenny. “Would you, as a personal favor to me, run against me? Then our election is sure to be a success.”

Jenny was delighted. “I certainly will. But I warn you, I shall try to get all the votes and become Ruler.”

“If my people would rather have you, then you should be their Ruler,” Ozma said. “But let us not discuss it any more now.”

At this point the ozcalator stopped to let off the Gillikins. When it started again, Jenny looked around and saw that they were in the blue land of the Munchkins. Small round houses were set in neat lawns of blue grass with many forget-me-nots. The country looked so pretty that Jenny wanted to stay in it awhile.

Just then she heard a voice beside the carriage say, “Jenny, won’t you come to my house for supper?”

Looking down, she saw Number Nine. His invitation had come just in time. She might have supper at his house and sleep there, too.

The ozcalator stopped to let the Munchkins off.

Jenny thanked Ozma for all her kindness.

“When you are in the Emerald City, come and see me at the palace,” Ozma invited. “Later on, I shall announce the election.”

Jenny and Number Nine marched with the Munchkins after their Scarecrow king off the ozcalator. They turned to wave to Ozma, and after the ozcalator had disappeared over a blue mountain, Number Nine said, “Follow me.”

Jenny followed him.

CHAPTER 5

The Voice That Lost His Man

Number Nine led Jenny toward a round, blue Munchkin house.

“This is where I live,” he said, opening the door wide. “Munchkin houses have only one room. But my mother and father and thirteen sisters and brothers are never crowded.” It seemed to Jenny that the room became a little larger as she stepped in. She saw the table set for supper and the family all seated around it.

“Welcome,” the father said. She could tell he was a farmer.

“This is Jenny Jump, from the U.S.A.,” said Number Nine, as he brought a chair for Jenny.

Jenny was introduced to the mother and all the children – Number One, Number Two, Number Three, and so on, down to Number Fourteen, who was the baby. She had not yet come to the stop-growing age, which in this family was ten for the girls and twelve for the boys.

Jenny started to eat. The food was delicious. There was blue cottage cheese, blue bread, blue grapefruit juice, and blue chocolate cake. And there were glasses of blue milk.

During the meal, nobody said anything. Jenny thought this very strange. She ate until she could not hold another blue bite. Then she turned to the farmer and asked, “May I sleep here tonight?”

The farmer raised his fork and said sternly, “Save all questions for the question hour.”

When the meal was over, the dishes done, and the floor swept, the father said, “The question hour has come. Make your formation, children.”

Jenny looked on as the fourteen children seated themselves on the floor in the form of a question mark.

“You may be the dot,” the farmer said to Jenny.

Jenny, very puzzled, sat down at the bottom of the question mark.

Then the farmer explained, “In most homes, the children ask questions all the time. This disturbed their parents and wastes a lot of time. Munchkin children save their questions all day and ask them all at one time, after supper.

“We will begin with you, Jenny.”

There were so many questions she wanted to ask, that she did not know where to begin. She paused and finally asked, “How many questions may I ask?”

“One,” said the farmer. “Next, please.” He turned his eyes away. Jenny’s turn was over. Number Nine raised his hand, and his father nodded at him.

“Do you know what?” asked Number Nine.

“I used to. But he moved to the Emerald City a year ago,” answered the father. “Who’s next?” All the children raised their hands. The father nodded at Number Eleven.

“What’s the difference?” asked Number Eleven. This was a hard one, and the father scratched his foot thoughtfully.

“It is what is left after taking one thing away from another,” he said finally, and hurried on to the next question.

When he had been asked, “Did you ever?” and “How goes it?” and “What’s up?” the baby began to shriek.

The Munchkin mother ran and picked it up. “There, there, my fourteeny one,” she soothed. But the baby kept shrieking.

“Something has frightened her,” the woman said to her husband. “See if someone is at the door.”

Jenny was sitting nearest the door. “I’ll open it,” she said. She got up, reached for the handle, and pulled the door open.

A Voice said, “Is the Man here?”

Jenny looked out in every direction, but said nothing.

Number Nine looked out, too.

“I’ve been looking for him since the last cold spell,” the Voice said. It was a tired, sad voice.

“But who are you?” Jenny asked, for she could see no one.

“I am the Voice That Lost His Man. May I come in? I’m very tired of wandering.”

“I suppose so,” said Jenny, opening the door wider. Two seconds later the Voice said from inside, across the room, “Thank you. This is so comfortable.”

Jenny turned quickly.

“Where are you? I can’t see you,” she said.

“Right here, by the fireplace. The evening was getting chilly, you know.”

The Munchkin family were staring toward the place from where the Voice came.

“Will you have some supper?” the mother asked.

“No, thank you. It’s not I, but my Man who gets hungry. Oh, how I wish I could find him!”

“Where did he go?” asked the farmer.

“If I knew that, wouldn’t I go after him?” asked the Voice sharply. Then it sighed. “He never should have gone fishing in a draft. All he caught was a Cold! Ugh! A nasty creature was that Cold. Slimy and watery as an oyster without a shell. Do you know what that nasty Cold did?”

“What did it do?” Jenny asked curiously.

The Voice rose to an angry shriek.

“It crept into my Man’s throat and filled it so full that I was pushed out. When I fell out, the moon Went behind a cloud and it got too dark to see anything. I tried to follow my Man, hoping for a chance to slip back into his throat. But it was too dark. So I lost him.”

The Voice began to sob, and that started Baby Fourteen sobbing.

“Never mind,” said the mother to the Voice, “we’ll all go to bed now. Perhaps when you have rested, your eyes will be better.”

“My what?” asked the horrified Voice.

“Excuse me. I mean, you’ll find your master.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Jenny guessed that the Voice belonged to a polite person. “I’ll be going soon. I don’t need a long rest. My Man is a singer, and I am trained to go on for hours.”

“Oh, won’t you sing something for the children?” the mother asked. “A lullaby?”

“I know all lullabies of Oz. Which would you like?”

“The Munchkin Blues would be lovely.”

“Ahem!”

There was a silence. Then a soothing lullaby came out of the corner:

“The blue Munchkin babies are nodding their blue heads,

And their eyelids are closing fast;

Oh, soon they’ll be tucked in their little blue beds,

For dreamland to take them at last.”

The Voice sang through seventeen verses and then said happily, “I feel much better. Thank you for asking me to sing. It is like old times. Pray, don’t stay up on my account. Just leave a window open, and I’ll slip out during the night. I must try to find my dear Master.”

By this time the fourteen children and Jenny were fast asleep.

CHAPTER 6

The Magic Turn-Style

In the morning Jenny awoke refreshed and ate a hearty breakfast of blue oatmeal with blue cream. She thanked the farmer and said goodbye to all the family.

As she was going down the lane, she heard Number Nine shouting after her, “Wait for me, Jenny! I’m coming with you.”

She was glad to have his company, for she had grown very fond of the blue boy. They walked through blue fields toward the main highway which led to the Emerald City. Jenny might have jumped on her fairy foot and got there sooner, but she had to let the boy keep up with her. Besides, she was in no hurry to leave this pleasant land with its blue meadows and distant blue hills.

As they were passing the ruins of an old building, she stopped. With her fairy eye she could see that this was not just a plain old ruin, but something more important.

“Why are you stopping?” asked Number Nine.

“Come, we are going to explore,” said Jenny.

But Number Nine hung back. “Better stay away from that,” he said. “That is where a magician used to practice forbidden magic. One day his house blew up, and he was blown to Kingdom Come.”

Jenny’s curiosity became all the greater. “Come on,” she said.

But Number Nine wouldn’t budge. Jenny’s anger began to grow. This was the first time she had been angry in Oz.

“Do as I tell you! Didn’t you say, after I saved you from the sky, that you were my humble servant?”

Number Nine had never seen anyone angry before. He stammered, “All right, Jenny. Whatever you say.”

Jenny led the way toward the ruin. As she came near, she saw many old rusted tools, broken copper pots, and parts of chains half hidden in the grass. The chimney of the house and part of a high wall were still standing. In this wall was a rickety old turnstile. The turnstile served as the gate into what was once the house.

“Come on, we’re going through that stile,” said Jenny, and started forward.

Number Nine was too frightened to obey. Jenny kept on. When she touched the turnstile, it wobbled and almost fell apart. Jenny bent forward to see how safe it was to turn it, and as she did so, her hat fell through the stile.

“Leaping Leprechauns!” said Jenny, staring at her hat that lay on the other side of the stile.

Before falling through the turnstile, it had been a battered old hat without any decoration. Now it was lovely and new, with a soft blue feather curling around the brim.

“Now, what have I done to deserve a feather in my cap?” she asked. “It was the turn-style that did it. It really does turn styles.”

She studied the turn-style that had once belonged to the Munchkin magician. She couldn’t see anything magical about its rusty frame.

“But it changed my hat. What will happen if I go through it?” she thought. “I won’t know until I’ve tried.”

Saying this, Jenny pushed herself through the turn-style.

“Leaping Leprechauns!” She stared down at herself in amazement. This time her hat was a pointed one with little bells around the brim. Her tattered gray cape had become bright blue and new. Her shoes had new shining buckles and turned-up toes. Her old dress had disappeared, and she was wearing an entire blue Munchkin costume.

“Number Nine, Number Nine,” she called excitedly, “do you like my new style?”

The boy came closer. “Why, you’re beautiful, Jenny. How did you do it?”

“This is a magic turn-style,” Jenny said. “I believe it will make my fortune. Run home and fetch a wheelbarrow!”

“You don’t want that old piece of junk!” said Number Nine.

Jenny grew angry again. “Do as you’re told,” she ordered. “Remember, you are my humble servant.”

Number Nine ran off, and Jenny began to take the turn-style apart. It was hard work, but Jenny’s fairy fingers were strong. When she had taken the turn-style to pieces, the boy returned with a wheelbarrow.

Jenny loaded the turn-style pieces on the wheelbarrow and ordered Number Nine to trundle it. When he grew tired, she put her fairy fingers to it and helped push.

“I don’t know what you want this junk for,” Number Nine grumbled.

“I am going to open a Style Shop in the Emerald City. I always wanted to be my own boss. And you shall be my office boy!” said Jenny.

She walked more swiftly. “Hurry, hurry!” she exclaimed. “My fortune is waiting for me.”

CHAPTER 7

The House with the Strawberry Roof

It was high noon when Jenny and Number Nine, trundling the wheelbarrow, approached the great wall of the Emerald City. This wall was built of priceless emeralds, cut and polished. When the sunlight struck them, they reflected a soft green light. Above the wall was the tower from which the Guardian of the Gate watched all who came and went. As Jenny and Number Nine drew near, the old Guardian came down to welcome them.

“Hail and greeting, little lady!” He bowed low to Jenny. “Welcome to the Wonder City of Oz, ruled over by the most gracious fairy, Queen Ozma, supreme Ruler of the North, East, South, and West. Sovereign of all the kings, emperors, and princesses in the land. Resister of evil forces—”

The Guardian would have gone on, but Jenny broke in, “Please, sir, I’m in a hurry. And there is something I want to ask you.”

The Guardian straightened up, then bowed again. “Gracious visitor from the U.S.A., the humble Gate Keeper of the Emerald City begs to inform you that it is his duty, privilege, and pleasure to serve your smallest wish. And—”

“Where can I find a house to live in?” Jenny interrupted.

The Guardian of the Gate put his hand into his pocket, saying, “I have the complete list of all vacant houses” But his hand came out of his pocket empty. He searched all his other pockets and then sighed, “Ahz, yes, I forgot. I gave it to the Soldier with the Green Whiskers to cut paper dolls.”

“I want a house. How am I to get it?” asked Jenny.

“Nothing could be easier,” the Guardian smiled at her. “Just walk up and down the streets and look until you find an empty house that wants you.”

Jenny thanked the Guardian and gave Number Nine a poke to hurry him along. They left the gate behind them and went deeper into the city. Jenny looked around her in delight. She saw many parks with statues in marble and sapphire, trees with delicious fruit hanging from the branches, and cool fountains that gave off a fragrance.

The streets were alive with visitors from the four countries of Oz, dressed in red, yellow, purple, and blue costumes.

At the corner they turned right and came to a row of houses. It was easy to tell the empty houses by their vacant expressions. The faces of some of the houses were not friendly to Jenny. Finally, deciding to try one anyway, she said to Number Nine, “Wait here. I’m going to try this house.” She pointed to a green cottage.

She went up the stairs and put her hand on the knob. The door refused to open. The hinges stiffened themselves. The windows clamped themselves tight. The doorbell would not ring. The gable of the house frowned.

Jenny backed away. This house certainly did not want her. They went on, crossing Pudding Place, Celery Street, and Doughnut Drive. On the corner of Strawberry Street and Banana Boulevard, which was the busiest part of town, Jenny saw a house with a roof made of strawberries. It had a vacant smile on its face, but its window eyes glistened warmly.

So Jenny went toward it.

As she approached the door, the key sprang off the nail and into her hand. The door opened at her first touch.

“I’ll always feel welcome here,” she said as she stepped inside. She looked around the large front room with approval.

“Just the place for a Style Shop,” she thought. “I can live upstairs.”

The walls were papered in a sunny silver, and the floors were green. Every nook was cozy with furniture. There were sitting chairs, sleeping sofas, and staring mirrors. The cupboards were full of cheerful china. There was nothing lacking. All she needed to do was to set up her turn-style and she’d be ready for business.

A moon-shaped clock hung on the front room wall. Jenny looked at it. “It’s time I moved in,” she said. She hurried out of the house and beckoned to Number Nine. “Bring in the turn-style. From now on, you are the office boy, and I am your boss, as well as my own.”

“Yes, Boss,” the boy said meekly, and began to carry the rusty parts of the turn-style into the house.

Jenny and Number Nine put the turn-style together and set it up in the middle of the front room.

As soon as the last bolt had been put in place, and the turn-style stood all in one piece, the rust on it vanished. It shone with blue and yellow enamel, in the most modern design.

Now Jenny saw that its four arms, extending like the spokes of a wheel, were marked SIZE, COLOR, MATERIAL, STYLE. Along each arm was a row of buttons marked with various colors, materials, sizes, and styles.

Jenny touched the walls with her fairy fingers and rows of shelves appeared. Then she named the things she needed and the shelves became loaded with bolts of cloth of every color and material. A counter, equipped with wrapping paper, appeared at one end of the shop.

Jenny jumped with delight. She had a real Style Shop.

But the office boy was fast asleep. Jenny grew angry. She jerked him out of his seat.

“Where are you going to live?” she asked him.

The office boy yawned. “Ah-hum. With my Uncle, I suppose. He is an emerald cutter and has a shop on Pudding Place.”

The boy fell asleep on his feet. Such laziness would never do. Jenny pulled him around and ordered him to make a sign for the shop – the biggest sign there ever was in Oz.

JENNY JUMP
STYLIST

Number Nine shuffled out sleepily and returned a couple of hours later with some painting materials. He was cheerier now, for he had stopped and helped himself to six pineapple ozcream sodas and three banana nut sundaes at the public soda fountain. He was whistling loudly and tunelessly.

All the time that he worked at the sign, he kept whistling. His hands moved so slowly that Jenny lost her patience. Going to the shelf, she took down a bolt of cloth. With her fairy fingers she traced on it, and several yards cut themselves off.

There were no scissors, needle, or thread in the shop. Jenny did not need any. With her fairy fingers she outlined the design of a pair of breeches The cloth cut itself into that design. Then she ran her fairy fingers along the edges, and the cloth joined itself into seams.

Just before the seams were closed, Jenny reached into the air and caught a handful of the loud notes that the boy was whistling. She fastened the notes into the seams of the breeches.

“Through the style you go,” she ordered her office boy. He jumped up willingly, pleased with the idea of owning a new pair of trousers.

No sooner had he gone through the turn-style, than he found himself clothed in the breeches that Jenny had just made. They extended around him like a balloon, with wide green stripes running down the outside seams. In these seams were fastened four shrill whistles – the same sounds he had just been whistling.

“Thanks, Boss. Now I think I’ll sit down and rest awhile,” said the boy.

“Just try resting during working hours,” said Jenny.

When Number Nine lowered himself into his chair, the breeches whistled shrilly. The boy jumped up, slapping at the breeches. They went on whistling. He clapped his hands over two of the whistles, but the other two whistles only shrieked louder.

Jenny nodded with satisfaction. “Those whistlebreeches will remind you not to loaf. Now, hustle out and get yourself a drum and drum up some business.”

Number Nine hung his head and started up the street. Whenever he stopped, the breeches whistled loudly. When he hurried, the breeches were less noisy.

So he hurried!

CHAPTER 8

The Professor Ponders

Professor Wogglebug, T.E., was passing out arithmetic pills to his class in the College of Art and Athletic Perfection. The college was situated in the blue Munchkin country, and the arithmetic pills made the scholars bluer than ever.

“Come, now,” the Professor scolded, “I invented these pills to make arithmetic painless.”

He pointed his antennae, which grew like two long hairs out of his forehead, at his pupils. The Professor was an extraordinary bug who had once escaped from under a magnifying glass. He had forever kept his magnified condition, and was many times bigger than an ordinary bug. Because he had learned a great deal while living under the fireplace in a schoolroom, he had given himself the degree of T.E., or Thoroughly Educated. The Professor was reaching into a bottle of history pills.

“WHOA!” sounded outside the window. There was a clattering of hooves on the college steps. The Professor hastily distributed alphabet blocks.

“Mind your P’s and Q’s while I examine the cause of this unseemly disturbance,” he said in his dignified voice.

Just then through the door clattered the Sawhorse of Oz carrying Jack Pumpkinhead, who had a note in his hand.

The scholars stood up to give the college yell of welcome:

“Nix, nox

Wear your sox;

Take a pill

When your brain is still.

Pumpkinhead, Pumpkinhead-

Rah! Rah! Rah!”

Jack nodded and grinned back at all of them.

“Good morning, Jack Pumpkinhead,” said the Professor when the cheer was ended. “Is that note for me?”

Jack Pumpkinhead kept on smiling. He did not stop smiling, for the smile was carved in his head. “Yes. Queen Ozma sent it to you.” The Professor took the note, and while he was reading it, a scholar held out some leaves from a book for the Sawhorse to eat. But the wooden animal refused, “No, thank you. I’m never hungry.”

The Professor finished the note and said to the class, “I must go immediately to the Royal Palace. My enlightenment is needed on a matter in which Queen Ozma is in the dark. Take a dose of history pills, and then you are free to use the athletic equipment.”

He pointed to a fat little girl with blue pigtails. “You, Alma Mater, will report any backsliding.” The Professor gathered up his papers, his spectacles, and his cane, and mounted the Sawhorse behind Jack Pumpkinhead.

“Giddyup!” ordered Jack, and the Sawhorse galloped out.

They reached the palace, and the Sawhorse dashed directly through the halls to Ozma’s throne room. The walls of this room were of gold, with silver panels, inlaid with precious emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The floor was a soft emerald green, and the throne was a solid carved emerald. On the throne sat Queen Ozma, clothed in shining white, with the green OZ crown as her only ornament. At her feet crouched two magnificent beasts – the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. And close to her throne were her friends, Princess Dorothy, the Scarecrow, King of the Munchkins, the Tin Wood woodman, Emperor of the Winkies, and Glinda the Good Sorceress, Ruler of the Quadlings. As the Professor climbed down, the Sawhorse and Jack Pumpkinhead departed.

“Greetings, Professor Wogglebug,” Ozma said. “I have summoned you and all the rulers of the countries of Oz. I need your advice about an election be held in Oz. The only ruler who cannot be present is JoKing of the Gillikins.”

The Professor put on his spectacles and his most important expression.

“Hum, hum,” he said wisely. Ozma went on, “I have been Queen of Oz a long time. It is only fair to let the people decide whether they want me to continue. Therefore I am holding an election.”

The Wogglebug interrupted. “Your Majesty, according to my latest dictionary, there is no such word. What you undoubtedly mean to hold is an ozlection.”

The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow got to their feet.

“We stand corrected,” they said together.

Ozma continued, “I have invited Jenny Jump to run against me. And now you must help me plan the other details of this ozlection.”

“Ahem, humph!” The Wogglebug again brought attention to himself. “This will be the most important event of Your Majesty’s reign. Only those of man age should vote. I shall be glad to man-age the ozlection for you.”

“Very well, you be my ozlection man-ager,” Ozma said. “But the children must be allowed to vote, also, or they’ll feel bad. They could have little votes.” Dorothy got up from her chair and moved closer to the Cowardly Lion. She began curling his mane as she listened.

“What shall we use for votes?” Ozma said, looking around at everyone.

“Umbrellas,” said the Scarecrow. “They’d keep us safe from an unwelcome reign.”

“No,” objected the Professor, “some people have more than one umbrella, and a person can have only one vote.”

“Well, I’ll have to think harder,” said the Scarecrow, and turned his face to the wall. He thought so hard that the straw bulged out of his head.

“Noses,” the Tin Woodman said. “They’re easy to count.”

Glinda the Good smiled at the Tin Woodman. “We who are made out of flesh cannot take off our noses like you, Nick Chopper,” she said.

The Hungry Tiger looked up, licked his chops, and said, “A pile of meat noses might fill me up for once. But my conscience would not let me spoil the ozlection by eating the votes. So I’d be obliged to remain hungry,” he ended sadly.

“Couldn’t we use wisdom teeth?” asked Princess Dorothy. “They would prevent us from making a foolish choice.”

“No, no!” cried the Professor. “Some people’s teeth are false, and this is to be an honest ozlection.” He thought so hard that his antennae wriggled. Then he said, “We want the people to throw their SOLES into the matter, and to use their RIGHTS. Therefore I conclude that each person’s RIGHT SHOE shall be his vote.”

“Excellent, Professor Wogglebug,” said Ozma, beaming. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow the Town Crier will cry the ozlection through the Emerald City and all the countries of Oz.”

“This is the greatest event that ever ozcurred in our land,” said the Professor solemnly.

Glinda the Good began to unlace her right shoe.

“Ozma, I want to cast my vote for you right now.” Saying this, Glinda placed her dainty red shoe beside the throne. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman took off their right shoes and placed them beside Glinda’s.

“Let me warn you,” the Professor said suddenly, “that living in the Sandy Waste outside Oz is a species of spineless sponges known as Heelers. They feed chiefly on votes. When these creatures learn of the ozlection, they may try to break into the Emerald City and carry off the votes.”

“Jack Pumpkinhead shall keep the votes safe in the ozoplane in which he lives. And the Sawhorse, who never sleeps, shall help Jack to guard the votes,” declared Ozma.

The Wogglebug bowed before Ozma and backed his way to the door.

“If there is no further need of my talents, I shall return to my college. I must write a book about the reign of Ozma the Great up to the ozlection. For afterward, we don’t know who our Ruler will be!”

CHAPTER 9

Whistlebreeches Scraps

“New styles, fresh styles, styles for every taste!”

Number Nine came down Celery Street shouting at the top of his voice.

“Visit Jenny Jump’s Style Shop. Hot styles, cool styles, styles for all the family and the pets!”

The office boy was working well. He had been working since early this morning, and it was time he had a rest. If he returned to his Uncle’s house without letting Jenny see him, he might take a long, sweet nap.

His Uncle’s business of emerald cutting was dull, for there was no place left in all the city to put a single emerald. So his Uncle spent his time walking about the city and admiring the emeralds he had already cut. The house would be empty, and Number Nine thought he could enjoy his sleep undisturbed. He had forgotten that his whistlebreeches wouldn’t let him sleep.

“Ho hum!” he yawned, turning into Pudding Place, where his Uncle’s house stood. As soon as his steps slowed, the breeches began to whistle. The slower he went, the louder they whistled. By the time he reached his Uncle’s house, the breeches sounded like the fire injins’ sirens.

Just as Number Nine turned in at the gate, someone caught him by the shoulder and swung him around. Number Nine saw the Town Crier, a sad-looking, red-nosed man. Tears were dripping off the end of the Crier’s long nose and splashing on his vest. His shoulders were shaking with his sobs.

“Stop that noise! You’re interfering with an officer of the law,” he shouted. “Whistlebreeches, can’t you be quiet so I can do my crying in peace? I have an important message from Ozma to cry to the people.”

“My name isn’t Whistlebreeches, you old tear-jerker!” the boy said rudely. His pants were going full blast.

The Crier’s voice rose to a wail. “Stop it, I say. For 811 years, no one in Oz has made more noise than I. I’ll be blowed if I’ll let your silly whistlebreeches make more noise now!”

He started to whimper, but found it hard work.

“I’m expected to work from eight in the morning until seven at night. I’m not going to lose my job for any clap-trap pair of pants. You don’t seem to understand that you are ruining my business.”

Now the Crier’s tears came so fast they formed a pool around his feet. The whistlebreeches were going like mad, and a crowd of people had gathered around. The Town Crier, seeing what a large audience he had, couldn’t blubber a blub. His face broke into a broad smile. Then, realizing what a mistake he had made, he burst into a hard fit of sobbing.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” he moaned and wailed. “Her – boo-hoo-hoo – Majesty, Ozma – oh, ahz, woe is me – announces an ozlection. Get out and give your right shoe for the one who shall rule for the next thousand years! Ahzme! Oh, my!” A river of tears was flowing away from the Town Crier. Never before had he wept so well. He had to make up for the forbidden smile.

The Town Crier and the whistlebreeches were making such a racket that Number Nine knew it was hopeless to take a nap. It was better to return to Jenny’s Style Shop and steal a few winks when Jenny wasn’t looking.

The Crier kept crying, and the boy shouted even louder.

“Fresh styles! Cool styles!” As he hurried along, the breeches grew quiet.

Number Nine drew close to the wall of the Public Gardens. In one section of the gardens grew living flowers. In another, the animal-plants were kept chained within an enclosure.

The care of these gardens was one of the great pleasures of the city people. Many of them gave their entire lives to it. Travelers from distant parts of Oz came here to get seeds or slips of the flowers and baby animal-plants, which they carried away to plant in their own gardens. The goose-berries were popular with these travelers. Mountaineers carried away dandy-lions and tiger-lilies. But nobody wanted the pretty skunk-cabbage.

“It would be a lot of fun to walk on top of the wall, instead of in the crowded street,” thought Number Nine. A vine was growing on the wall. The boy seized the vine and began climbing. His breeches whistled in protest.

“This is better,” he said, as he reached the top and looked down into the living flower garden.

Here the dew-berries kept the other plants moist, and the umbrella plants kept them shaded. Toad stools offered rest to drooping violets. Maiden fern smiled and chatted with her friends, the daisies, the roses, and the lilac. The spy-rea peeped through the sham-rocks and reported everything it saw. The blue bells made a soft music that kept the gardeners dozing.

This garden was peaceful and enchanted compared with the noisy plot where the animal-plants were kept. Number Nine got more fun out of watching the animal-plants. He walked along the wall until he could see these strange creatures.

He could see the tiger-lilies pulling at their flower chains, and he heard the snap-dragons snapping at the cow-slips, who paid no attention, but went on grazing. The goose-berries were honking and hissing. The bull-rushes were charging at the horse-radishes, and the dandy-lions, having beautified themselves with cocks-combs, were strutting before the pussy-willows. Dogtooth violets and larkspur were fighting a bloody battle.

When the animal-plants heard the whistlebreeches they roared, shrieked, and spat in anger. Number Nine, fearing that they would snap their chains and come at him, began to run.

“Whistlebreeches, Whistlebreeches,

Runs as though he had the itches!”

Number Nine stopped and looked around. “who said that?” he demanded.

“I was the one to shout it,

What’ll you do about it?”

The boy looked up. A tree grew beside the wall, and out of the branches peeped Scraps, the Patchwork Girl. Her shoebutton eyes were gleaming merrily, and her red velvet tongue stuck out at the boy.

“Want to fight?

I say, all right!”

she taunted.

Number Nine did not feel like fighting Scraps. He knew what a good boxer she was. He drew himself up with dignity and said, “I’m a business man. I must get back to work.”

The breeches gave a loud blast. Number Nine slid down the vine. He watched Scraps to see what she would do. Scraps dropped from the tree to the wall. She found a shadow and began boxing with it.

“Oh, oh,” said Number Nine, “she’ll come after me next.”

He turned and began running.

“What makes him run away from me?

Perhaps he doubts my sanity!”

chanted Scraps from above. Turning a few cartwheels on the high wall, she leaped lightly to the ground and was after the boy, shouting gayly at him,

“He flies like a thistle,

Hey, gimme a whistle!”

Number Nine could see her somersaulting after him. Jenny’s Style Shop now seemed the safest place in Oz. He ran harder, dodging the crowd, bumping into baby carriages, and starting the dogs chasing after him. But Scraps kept tumbling close behind him. Her many-colored patches of silk, velvet, gingham, and calico flashed like a pinwheel.

“Whistlebreeches, stay and play,

You can work another day!”

she called after him.

Whistlebreeches came running around the corner of Strawberry Street and dashed into the shelter of Jenny’s Style Shop.

“Whew!” he exclaimed, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I finally got away from that patchwork tomboy!”

“Look out! Here she comes!” called Jenny.

Number Nine jumped just in time. Scraps came tumbling into the shop, and somersaulted right through the turn-style!

When the Patchwork Girl arose, she looked at herself in surprise. The turn-style had dressed her in an eight-year-old boy’s bathing suit! Scraps threw out her arms to Jenny and wailed,

“Please take this horrid suit away,

And hang it on a rack;

Your office boy I’ll not delay,

If you’ll give my patches back.”

Number Nine felt sorry for the Patchwork Girl.

“Scraps can’t go out in this bathing suit,” he said to Jenny. “Everyone will laugh at her. Please give her back her patches.”

But Jenny said in a peppery tone, “This wouldn’t have happened, Whistlebreeches, if you had been minding my business!”

Poor Scraps clutched the door with her cotton fingers and closed her button eyes and moaned. Her costume was too much even for her own sense of humor. Not one second did she waste, but shot out of the door even faster than she had entered. She headed straight for Jack Pumpkinhed’s ozoplane.

Chapter 10

The Battle of the Houses

No sooner has the town crier’s wails gone over the first doorsteps of the Emerald City, than the news of the ozlection was passed from house to house.

The people in the streets and in the houses ran about talking excitedly.

“Isn’t Ozma going to be Queen any more?”

“Who is this Jenny Jump?”

“Why, she’s just an upstart!”

The questions flew back and forth like swallows, and finally nested in the chimneys. The houses dropped their eaves, listening, and then caught the excitement themselves. Their gables puckered into frowns, their windows showed their panes, and their sills curled like snarling lips.

It made the houses angry to think that Ozma might not be Queen after the ozlection. But there was one house on Strawberry Street that was smiling with delight. That was Jenny’s house. Proudly tilting its cupola, it fluttered its window shades at the other houses, as if to say, “My tenant may some day be Queen!”

This made the other houses so angry that they would have shouted, if there hadn’t been a law forbidding them to do so.

“Crack!” The house next door had slammed its chimney down on Jenny’s house. Promptly, Jenny’s house caught up its stoop and hurled it at the other’s attic. The shingles on the roof of the first house bristled. Bending over, it hurled its lightning rod, like a spear, through the roof of Jenny’s house, which shuddered and pulled out the spear.

The other houses on the street began to bounce up and down on their foundations, eager to get into the fight.

Then a house far down the street threw a piano. All the people went scampering into the cellars. They knew enough to stay out of sight when the houses were quarreling.

Jenny’s house threw the piano back and pulled up a tree and pounded the house next door. Water pipes, sinks, garden statues, and flower pots rained on Jenny’s house. Jenny’s house fought back furiously and bravely.

Inside the shop, the walls were swaying, the ceiling was cracking, the floor was pitching like a boat in a storm, and the turn-style was whirling around like a windmill.

“What is happening?” Jenny exclaimed. Number Nine was running around the shop looking for a place to hide.

“The houses are fighting! Hide yourself, quick!” the boy cried. Number Nine crawled under the counter, but Jenny ran fearlessly to the door. Going out was impossible. The air was filled with flying rafters, beams, bricks, and glass.

“My shop will be in ruins!” Jenny exclaimed, and her temper began to grow hot. “Stop it! Stop it!” she shrieked at the houses. But they paid no attention to her.

“Come out, Number Nine, and help me stop this fight!”

But the office boy refused to show his head.

“I’ll get you!” she said, and dashing to the counter she pulled him out by the seat of his whistlebreeches. The house shook violently again. A slab of plaster crashed down. The turn-style whirled more furiously than ever.

“Go out and order those houses to stop fighting!” Jenny commanded.

She shoved Number Nine out the door. Instead of obeying, the boy ducked under her arm and ran back into the shop. He went so fast, he was pitched straight into the turn-style that kept whirling around. Around and around went the office boy, caught in the arms of the turn-style. His clothes changed from whistlebreeches to overalls, to evening gown, to play suit, to zebra skin, to clown suit.

“Help, help!” he shouted. But Jenny was too busy and too angry to help him now. She wasn’t afraid of houses, or anything else. She ran out into the street. Whang! A bathtub sailed over her head. Squash! A brick fell in front of her.

“Ouch!” A doorknob hit her foot. Jenny’s temper went up. She got hotter and hotter with anger. She had not been so angry since the Leprechaun had stolen her pepper-cheese.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed. With every word she was spitting fire, fast and far. The house at which she was screaming caught fire. In a minute, flames were running up the steps and into the house. The people came leaping out of the cellars.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” they shouted. Down the street came clanging the fire injins, drawing a long green hose. They turned the hose into the burning house and put out the flames.

Fortunately somebody had notified the Town Crier. He took up a collection of handkerchiefs and then went seriously to work. He moaned and sobbed, shrieked and howled, while he mopped at the tears that ran down his face. He didn’t miss a single groan.

Once he stopped and began to weep all over again in a different key, wringing his hands.

The houses fought less and less furiously. Finally a soft forbidden sob came from one of them and then a half-smothered whimper. There was a deep sigh and then the piles of broken buildings began to pull themselves together bit by bit. Each one picked his own parts out of the litter. They set back their chimneys, straightened their railings and fences, stood up their stoops, and returned every last brick and flower-pot to its place. At last the street looked as neat and pretty as ever.

A crowd gathered curiously before the Style Shop, to stare at the girl who was running against Ozma in the ozlection and had caused the houses to grow so angry. Jenny didn’t know why they were looking at her.

She returned to her shop. There was Number Nine, still whirling on the turn-style. Jenny pressed some buttons and stopped it. The boy stood up, clothed once more in his whistlebreeches.

“There is a crowd outside. Hurry, and take out some of the latest styles and hang them on the trees for the people to see,” Jenny ordered briskly. “We can’t miss such a good chance for a Grand Opening.”

CHAPTER 11

Jellia Casts Her Vote

The first person to step into the shop was Jellia Jamb, Ozma’s maid-in-waiting.

“I have a message for you from Queen Ozma,” Jellia said. Her words were coming out of her ear. “The ozlection has started, and right shoes are to be the votes.”

Jenny was so startled to hear Jellia talking out of her ear, that she hardly paid attention to what Jellia was saying.

“You poor dear, what has sealed your lips?” Jenny exclaimed.

“They are sewed with magic thread and cannot be undone until Ozma’s new birthday dress of cobwebs is finished.” Jellia’s ear spoke sadly. “That won’t be until next year. The spiders are weaving the thread for it now.”

Number Nine came forward curiously. “How can you tell your earaches from your toothaches?” he asked.

Jenny waved him aside.

“Nonsense! What an old-fashioned idea. You don’t have to wait until next year,” said Jenny to Jellia. “Just bring me Ozma’s last birthday dress, and we’ll see what can be done.”

Jellia’s eyes opened wide. “Do you think you can undo the magic threads?” she asked disbelievingly.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny, “but I can try. Hurry along.”

Jellia departed and was back in a few minutes, carrying the silver and gold birthday dress that Ozma had worn in the parade. Jenny carried the dress to the turn-style and laid it across the spokes. She pressed a dozen different buttons and spun the style.

Flash! The silver and gold dress was gone, and in its place was a most delightful dream-dress of cobwebs and bubbles.

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Jellia. “Isn’t it a beauty!” Quickly she put her hand to her mouth with a cry of delight. “Cake’s sake! It worked! I’m talking through my mouth!”

Jenny came close to examine Jellia’s lips. The turn-style had truly freed Jellia from the enchantment. There was not a trace of the silver thread or golden needles in the maid’s mouth.

“What is that wonderful machine?” asked Jellia, going close to the turn-style.

Jenny stepped before the turn-style. “Never mind,” she said. “You may take Ozma’s new birthday dress to her. I hope she likes it. Give her my thanks for the news of the ozlection.”

“How can I repay you for what you have done?” Jellia asked.

“You can leave your vote,” said Jenny promptly. Jellia looked unwilling, but she slipped off her shoe and hurried away.

“There! I have my first vote,” said Jenny triumphantly. She looked at the office boy. “And yours can be the second. Off with your shoe!”

“First you must do me a favor,” said Number Nine. “Give me the day off.”

“I cannot spare you on the day of the Grand Opening. But you shall have tomorrow,” Jenny promised.

Number Nine took off his right shoe and placed it beside Jellia’s in the corner. Then three women came into the shop – a tall red Quadling, a short purple Gillikin, and a fat yellow Winkie.

“What are these new styles?” they asked. “We have never had new styles in Oz before. When clothes wear out, we make others just like them.”

“That’s a great pity, ladies,” said Jenny in her best sales manner. “Clothes make the man, but man doesn’t have to make his clothes. Step through the magic turn-style. A new hair-set is given with each costume today.”

The first to go through the turn-style was the tall red Quadling.

“I’ve always wanted a sea-spray dress,” she said. Jenny pressed some buttons, and zoom! The lady came out dressed in a dazzling dress made of sea-spray. Her hair, that had been pinned in a thick red biscuit, was bobbed and bent in the latest style.

“My, oh, my!” squealed the Winkle and the Gillikin. “Make us look like that!”

Jenny put them through the turn-style, and in a few minutes the tall red woman, the short purple one, and the fat yellow one were standing side by side before the mirror. They were dressed in three different styles of beautiful sea-spray dresses.

“We’ll run out and be the first ones to show the latest style!”

The tall lady, the short one, and the fat one started from the shop.

“Wait!” said Jenny. “Your votes, please. For each dress, a shoe should be left.”

The three stopped long enough to take off their shoes, and then they departed.

After them a constant stream of women, men, and children came pouring into the Style Shop. Everyone who went out told a friend about the magical turn-style, and people from all over the city kept coming to be re-styled.

Each time, Jenny said, “In return for a style, a shoe should be left.”

The turn-style was kept busily whirling. The votes kept piling up until there were so many that Number Nine had to move them to the basement.

Jenny was happier than she had ever been in her life. She was the most important person in the Emerald City today. And, if the votes kept coming so fast, Miss Jenny Jump might be the next Ruler of Oz!

At the end of the day, when the shop was closed, Jenny and the office boy went down to the basement with a lighted candle to count the votes. When Jenny had counted to 621, she suddenly cried out, “Whistlebreeches, we’ve made a terrible mistake! All these shoes are left shoes. We don’t have the right ones! They can’t count as votes.”

“I knew it all the time,” the boy said. “You kept telling the people that the shoe must be left.”

“Why didn’t you correct me?” said Jenny angrily.

“I didn’t dare, Boss. I’m afraid of your temper.” Then the office boy ran for his life, for Jenny began throwing 621 shoes after him.

CHAPTER 12

Jack Pumpkinhead’s Concert

It was early evening in the Emerald City. At the palace, Queen Ozma and Princess Dorothy were getting ready for the concert.

Dorothy came out of her private rooms and went into Ozma’s dressing room.

“All ready so soon?” asked Ozma, turning with a smile.

“I hurried as fast as I could,” said Dorothy. “I am so eager to hear Jack Pumpkinhead’s Glee Club and Orchestra. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are waiting for us on the palace stairs.”

Dorothy looked at Ozma’s gown. Then she said, “Isn’t that a new dress, Ozma dear? I’ve never seen it before.”

Ozma was wearing a green and purple dress of spun glass. With every move, it glittered as if moonlight had been woven into it.

“Jellia and I visited Jenny Jump’s new Style Shop this afternoon,” she said. “Jenny imagined this dress for me. I like it very much. I am glad that I allowed Jenny to use her mild form of magic.”

Ozma smoothed her skirt. Jellia fastened the last button on the gown. Then she stepped back and looked at Ozma, holding her head on one side.

The three girls went out. When they reached the palace stairs, they were joined by Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. All five proceeded to Ozma’s waiting carriage. The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger were harnessed to this green carriage with golden wheels. The Cowardly Lion was wearing a white satin ribbon in his mane, and the Hungry Tiger had a black satin bow around his tail. Tik-Tok, the coachman, shone with a new copper polish.

Clusters of red, yellow, purple, and blue people were coming along the street toward the palace. These were some of the visitors who had come in from the four countries of Oz. They had come into town to attend Jack Pumpkinhead’s concert, and to vote in the ozlection.

As each group reached the palace, they untied their right shoes and cast them into a large moving van standing near the palace stairs. Kabumpo the Elephant was harnessed to this van. The van and Kabumpo were gaily decorated with green and gold streamers. Kabumpo looked a little tired. Today he had pulled twenty-two loads of Ozma’s votes from the palace to Jack Pumpkinhead’s ozoplane.

Professor Wogglebug came along the street, carrying a book under his arm and swinging an empty gallon can. When he came to Ozma’s carriage, he stopped and swept off his hat in a bow.

“Good evening, Professor,” said Ozma.

“Pardon me for differing with you but it’s not a good evening at all,” said the Wogglebug.

“Looks like a good evening to me,” Uncle Henry spoke up. “Fine corn-growing weather, in Kansas.”

Aunt Em nudged Uncle Henry. “Henry! You know better than to correct a professor. You forgot, this isn’t Kansas.”

The Professor bowed to Aunt Em. “I take you to be a sensible woman, madam, who understands the dignity of the learned professions.”

Aunt Em straightened her hat and smiled proudly.

Ozma said, “Won’t you get into the carriage and come to the concert with us, Professor?”

“Hum, humph! Would love to, but can’t.” He held up the empty gallon can. “I am on my way to a gas station to get this filled with midnight oil. Then I shall go to the Ivory Tower in the library to continue my research on the Heelers. You remember I told you they feed on votes and may try to rob us. This afternoon I discovered some startling new information in a book I wrote last week. If Your Majesty will permit me, I shall read from page one million and six.”

Without waiting for an answer, the Professor put down the can and opened his book. He leafed through a million and five pages and then began to read.

“The Heeler is such a mean animal, that he is hated by his own shadow. Whenever it gets a chance, the shadow bites, kicks, or pulls the Heeler’s tail. Consequently the Heeler is afraid of his own shadow. Therefore he comes out only in the dark, when his shadow won’t be following him. On moonless nights, Heelers attack. BEWARE OF THE HEELERS!” The Professor shut his book with a snap. “Tonight there will be no moon. And the Heelers are so slippery that I fear they may slip through the barrier around Oz. Therefore, Your Majesty, it is NOT a good evening! I advise you to return to the palace and lock all the doors. The Heeler is a slippery sneak and no magic has the slightest effect on him!”

Ozma said, “But poor Jack Pumpkinhead would be too disappointed if we didn’t come to his concert. It has been a dull week for him, staying in his ozoplane to guard the votes. To pass the time, he trained the shoes to perform as a Glee Club and Orchestra. Tonight he is giving his first concert.”

“Be warned, Your Majesty!” The Wogglebug stood on the tips of his toes, and his antennae quivered.

Tik-Tok turned around. “It-is-getting-late,” he tocked.

“Good-night, Professor! Don’t forget your can of midnight-oil,” said Ozma.

Tik-Tok flapped the reins over the backs of the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, but the Cowardly Lion refused to move. He was crouching with his tail over his eyes.

“I am afraid,” said the Cowardly Lion. “I am terribly afraid of the Heelers. If I should see one, I’d faint!”

“If we blindfold you, you won’t see anything to be afraid of,” suggested Dorothy.

She got down from the carriage and tied her handkerchief across his eyes.

“That’s better,” said the Cowardly Lion.

“Can these Heelers be eaten?” the Hungry Tiger wanted to know.

Ozma replied, “The Professor once said that they are only sponges.”

“Ugh! I would rather go hungry,” said the Tiger. The team trotted off, drawing the carriage. Soon they arrived at a large pumpkin field at the edge of the city, where the concert was to be held. It was to be an open-air concert. In the soft green twilight, the people could be seen sitting on hundreds of pumpkins that grew in the field. Beside each person sat a cat, held by a leash. The cats had been brought because they could see in the dark and were to lead their masters home after the concert.

In one corner of the pumpkin field stood Jack Pumpkinhead’s ozoplane. It was being used as the stage for the concert. This ozoplane was last year’s model. It had been invented and built by the Wizard of Oz, who gave it to Ozma. When the new year’s model was made, the old ozoplane was given to Jack Pumpkinhead.

The shoes were gathered in a half-circle near the ozoplane. The Sawhorse stood patiently near the door of the ozoplane, guarding the rest of the shoes inside. The musical shoes were tuning up for the concert. Jack Pumpkinhead stood before them, holding a soundproof bag filled with their squeaks and broken chords. As any last-minute squeak came from a shoe, Jack caught it and stuffed it into the bag.

When Ozma, Dorothy, Jellia, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry had seated themselves on pumpkins in the front row, Jack Pumpkinhead waved a golden-rod and announced, “The first number by our Orchestra and Glee Club is Shoeman’s Sonata. I hope you will not find our work slip-shod.”

From the shoe horns came the opening notes. The shoe strings soon joined in, strumming solefully.

Then the Glee Club waggled their tongues and began to sing. As the first number ended, applause broke out over the pumpkin field.

Next was Shoebert’s Serenade. Then a riding boot played a solo, “A-hunting We Will Go.” The Glee Club offered “O Dem Golden Slippers,” and it was so well liked that the audience clapped and whistled. Out in the pumpkin field it was growing so dark that the colors of the people could no longer be seen. The hundreds of cat eyes glowed like emeralds.

Ozma bent toward Dorothy and whispered, “It’s getting so dark, I can’t help thinking of the Professor’s warning.”

Just then a terrific screaming came from the opposite end of the city. The audience jumped up and began to run about in fright.

“What is happening in the city?” they cried.

“Run, everyone!” called Ozma. “It’s the Heelers. They’ve broken through the city gate!”

CHAPTER 13

“Beware of the Heelers!”

While Ozma and hundreds of her people were at the concert, the Guardian of the Gate was dozing in his tower above the city wall. It had been a busy day. Many people in the city had not cast their votes. They would wait until the last day. But those who lived outside the city had wanted to vote early, lest they lose their chance. Their right shoes were piled in the ozoplane, guarded by the Sawhorse. Most of the city people still had both shoes. The old Guardian was tired. “No more voters will come this late,” he said to himself, “so I think I’ll take a little snooze.”

He closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep. At this very hour, from the Shifting Sands beyond the Munchkin country, was coming a procession of slinking creatures. They were the Heelers! They had got wind of the ozlection. Right shoes, they had heard, would be votes. There would be plenty of votes for their greedy snouts. As soon as it was dark, they had set out for the Emerald City. Already they had crossed the Munchkin country, where, pushing their ugly snouts through every window, they searched for the shoes. Those Munchkins who were not at the concert were asleep in their beds, and did not hear soft movements of the thieves. Onward toward the Emerald City the procession was creeping. It was so dark that there were shadows, and the Heelers felt brave. Nevertheless they walked with a cringing stoop. They walked on their heels, with their toes sticking up and their snouts feeling along the ground. Their snouts had funnel openings for sucking in votes, on which these monsters lived. The heels of their four feet were so run over that their legs were bowed. Their eyes were oily and shifting. Their bodies were shapeless and sodden sponges, with short tails. They were colorless, except for their leader, who had a green back. The rest of the Heelers kept after this green back, as if it were a magnet, drawing them. When the Heelers reached the gate of the Emerald City, their leader ordered a dozen of them to form a living ladder against the wall. This was done by one Heeler getting on the shoulders of another, a third standing on the second, a fourth standing on him, and so on, until the top of the wall was reached. The highest Heeler climbed onto the wall, and, dragging himself on his worn-down heels, he came to the tower. The Guardian of the Gate was peacefully snoring. The Heeler poked his wet snout through the window of the tower. He wriggled it along the floor until he found the Guardian’s right foot. Fastening down the funnel end of his snout, he sucked: SHLUSH! SHLUSH! The shoe slid off the Guardian’s foot and into the Heeler’s stomach. The Guardian kept on snoring! Then the Heeler slunk down the tower steps inside the city and opened the gate for the others. There was a rush of dark shapes into the Emerald City. Their bodies slithered along every street, and their snouts poked into every open window, sucking in the shoes. The houses had been sleeping quietly. They awakened, drew back in disgust, and slammed their windows shut; but it was too late. The Heelers had already stolen the votes!

Sir Hokus, the armor-clad knight of Oz, had left the concert early and he was being led home by his cat. He was taking a short cut through Pancake Park, when suddenly he saw something move before him. The cat arched its back and began to spit. Then the terrified animal broke its leash and sprang up a tree. Sir Hokus reached for his sword and cried out, “Oz bodkins! Who goes there? Friend or foe?”

The shape at which he had shouted moved closer. Sir Hokus could hear a slobbery breathing in the grass around his feet. The good knight struck out with his sword.

“Have at you!” he cried. “Are you a dragon? ’Tis a long time since I’ve fought one!”

Slash, slash, went his sword through the air. Suddenly Sir Hokus went sprawling on his back Something funnel-like had knocked him over.

“Help! Ho!” cried the knight, as he felt the funnel close around his right foot and begin to suck at it. He felt the rivets that held the iron shoe to his armor begin to break. “The Heelers! The Heelers!” he cried.

From every side the cry was taken up. “The Heelers! The Heelers!” screamed the people, running to find safety where they could.

The Heelers sprang at them, knocking them down and sucking off their right shoes! No one was really hurt, but everyone was frightened. The air was filled with screams, barking, babies’ cries, and the hoggish SHLUSH! SHLUSH! of wet snouts.

People, running in the darkness, bumped together and fell, rolling in the street. When they picked themselves up, they were unharmed, except for the loss of one shoe. But they kept running and screaming.

In Pancake Park, the Heeler that had attacked Sir Hokus was coughing and choking on the knight’s iron shoe. It had caught in his throat, where it rasped like a file. Sir Hokus got to his feet shouting, “I’ll pinion thee beneath my blade!”

He thrust his sword at the choking shape, but the Heeler slithered away in the darkness. Sir Hokus hopped after him, in his one shoe. Down on Strawberry Street, Jenny and Whistlebreeches were just finishing counting the day’s votes in the basement.

“If we hurry, we can get to the concert before it is over,” Jenny was saying to Whistlebreeches. “Ho, hum!” yawned the office boy. “This overtime work is wearing me out. Music hath charms, but give me my sleep. Ho, hah, hum!” He yawned and stretched his arms.

Jenny stopped counting and held up her head. “Do you hear some screaming?” she said. The sleepy boy jumped up, instantly wide awake. “I certainly do! Something terrible is happening. Let’s hide in the coal bin!”

“Who’s afraid?” asked Jenny, starting up the basement stairs. “I’m going out and see what’s the – YEEOW! WHAT’S THAT?”

A dozen Heelers were sliding down the stairs. Number Nine jumped into the coal bin and covered himself with coal.

“Get out of here!” Jenny yelled. A long snout was reaching for her right foot. She gave the snout a kick, but her right foot was caught. Jenny pulled and pulled. “Let go!” she screamed. But her foot was held fast in the snout. When at last she pulled it free, the shoe was gone.

The Heelers rushed past her and with disgusting grunts and snorts fell to eating the pile of votes.

SHLUSH!  SHLUSH!  SHLUSH!

“I must go and warn Ozma,” thought Jenny. Stealing around the busy Heelers, she ran up the stairs and out to the street. It was completely dark, and hundreds of shapes seemed to be rolling around her. Several Heelers sniffed at her shoeless right foot and slunk away. Jenny ran, pushing her way through the crowd, toward the pumpkin field, where she knew Ozma was.

The Heelers had now eaten all the right shoes in the city and were poking their snouts in all the corners and vacant lots. They were coming closer to the pumpkin field. Jenny was running as hard as she could, but it seemed that she would never get there. Then she remembered her fairy foot.

“Leaping Leprechauns! I can be there in a bounce!” She stopped running and stamped down on her fairy foot, and went sailing through the darkness, right into the pumpkin field.

She came down close to Ozma, just in time to hear the Queen say, “Dorothy, Jellia, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry, jump into the carriage, quickly! We must dash back and ask Professor Wogglebug how to handle the Heelers, since our magic will have no effect on them.”

“Your Highness, it’s too late!” Jenny cried. “The Heelers are right on the edge of the pumpkin field now!”

“Mercy sakes! What shall we do?” exclaimed Aunt Em.

The people around Ozma were crying, “Save us! Save us, gracious Queen!” And the clatter of Sawhorse’s hooves could be heard as the wooden animal began galloping around in excitement an calling, “Help! Thieves!”

Ozma was close to tears. “If only there were some light,” she said. “Then the Heelers’ shadows would come out. The professor said that Heelers are afraid of their shadows.”

From the far edge of the pumpkin field a few screams came.

“They are already attacking the audience!” cried Dorothy. “Quick, Ozma, think of something!”

“I shall command the Cowardly Lion to roar. That ought to hold them off for a few minutes,” Ozma said. Stepping forward to where the carriage stood, Ozma placed her hand on the head of the blindfolded Cowardly Lion.

“Dear friend, roar as you have never roared before!”

“What’s the matter?” asked the Cowardly Lion, beginning to shake with fear.

“Don’t worry. Just roar as loudly as you can.” The Cowardly Lion opened his mouth and gave a tremendous roar. It was heard in the farthest corners of the city. The cries and screams stopped.

Ozma turned to Jenny. “Could you jump to the palace gardens?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jenny.

“Then you can save us,” said Ozma. “Jump to the gardens, wake the firefly fairies, and tell them to light up the whole city as brightly as in the afternoon, when the shadows are long.”

With a bounce of her magic foot, Jenny was off. The Cowardly Lion kept roaring, but the screams had begun again. The cunning Heelers had seen that no harm came from these roars.

“Can’t you roar louder?” Ozma said to the Cowardly Lion.

“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” asked the Cowardly Lion. “If I thought there was danger close by, I would faint!”

“Don’t think of danger. Just roar as loudly as you can,” replied Ozma.

“Oh, look! There, by the palace!” exclaimed Jellia. Everyone looked upward. Far off, a path of light was rising from the ground and streaming over the city. The air became bright with the lanterns of a million trillion firefly fairies. There was a constant stream coming from the palace garden. The river of light came toward the pumpkin field. The field became as bright as dawn.

In the new light, Ozma, Dorothy, and the rest saw the horde of Heelers stop in their hunt and look behind them. Their shadows were growing! The Heelers began to shiver and whine with fright. The firefly fairies kept flying about, lighting up the air, and the shadows kept growing larger and larger. Soon they were larger than the Heelers! Then the shadows flung themselves upon the Heelers, biting them, yanking their tails, chewing their ears and snouts. The Heelers bellowed with pain and fright. They turned and went racing toward the city gate. Their shadows, in hot pursuit, drove them forward and through the gate.

Not a single Heeler was left in the Emerald City! Then through the air came Jenny, returning to the pumpkin patch.

“Well done!” cried Ozma, putting her arms around Jenny.

Jenny smiled with pleasure at this embrace, and then suddenly she began to weep.

“They ate up all my votes!”

“Never mind,” said Ozma. “Professor Wogglebug will think of some other way to vote. Shoes won’t count after this. I’ll let Jack Pumpkinhead keep my votes for his Glee Club.”

Jenny felt better. She smiled. “That’s good of you, Ozma. You have enough votes now to win this ozlection.”

“Oh, no,” said Ozma. “If I won now, the ozlection would be ended. And the people are enjoying it so much!”

The shoes that had run in fright and hidden in the ozoplane now came out and gathered up their pieces and instruments. The Sawhorse once more stationed itself near the ozoplane door. From all parts of the pumpkin field, the audience were leading their cats homeward. Jack Pumpkinhead took a bow before the empty seats.

Ozma said, “Jenny, you must ride home with us in the carriage.”

Jenny and the royal party got into the carriage, and Tik-Tok drove them to the palace. When all dismounted, Dorothy took her handkerchief from the eyes of the Cowardly Lion.

“Now,” she said, “we want to thank you for your brave deed.”

“What brave deed?” asked the Cowardly Lion in surprise.

“Your splendid roars frightened back the Heelers, who were ready to jump upon us.”

“What! Were the Heelers there all the time I was roaring?”

“Right next to us!” said Dorothy.

There was a thud. The Cowardly Lion had fainted!

Now the firefly fairies were returning to the palace gardens. The city was darkening once more. As the last person went through the city gate, the old Guardian awoke, looked out on the Land of Oz, and said to himself, “My, what a peaceful night this has been!”

CHAPTER 14

An Unexpected Visitor

Number Nine’s Uncle, the emerald cutter, was sitting before his window and admiring an emerald that he had cut four months ago. There was nothing more for him to do. He had inlaid every walk and gatepost in the city with emeralds. Since there was no more work, he sat around and got very lazy.

He no longer even prepared the meals, and Number Nine was late for work many mornings because he had to fix breakfast for himself and his uncle. This morning, Number Nine stood before the stove, turning the pecan pancakes. His eyes were half open, and he was yawning as he worked. Finally he said, “Breakfast – ready!”

He brought the coffee pot to the table and began pouring his Uncle’s coffee. Only water came from the pot.

“You forgot to put in the coffee grounds,” his Uncle said. “But it’s too much bother to do that. We’ll just drink hot water this morning.”

At last Number Nine started for Jenny’s Style Shop. “Goodbye, Uncle!” He was already twenty minutes late. His breeches had begun to whistle. He would have to run all the way, or Jenny’s temper would boil.

“If only Jenny were younger,” thought Number Nine, “she would think more about playing and less about working.”

As he was walking up Pudding Place, he saw a street magician pulling rabbits out of his hat. Number Nine stopped. The magician was a dapper little man with ruddy cheeks and twinkling eyes. He wore a high checkered silk hat. When he saw Number Nine, he pulled a fruit cake out of his hat, broke it in two, and offered half to the boy, saying, “Just a little magic snack between friends. What do you say?” As he spoke, the magician examined the boy’s whistlebreeches. “These breeches of yours look like real hand-made magic. I ought to know. I’m a bit of an expert in that line, myself!”

“I don’t know much about magic,” answered Number Nine. “But I can take you to my Boss. She knows a lot. I can’t see how she does it. She is from New Jersey, U.S.A.”

“Well, well, well! New Jersey, eh? My, my! U.S.A.!” exclaimed the magician. “Not long ago I smelled some trouble coming from New Jersey. I’d like to meet your Boss, and get just such a pair of whistlebreeches as yours – for mornings, you understand. In fact, for such a morning as this. Come along!”

Off they went, toward the Style Shop. The boy was thankful that his breeches simmered down while they walked, for he noticed that many people bowed low to his new friend.

Meanwhile, in the Style Shop, Jenny was pacing back and forth. She was dressed in a shining peach-colored creation she had designed herself. “That boy! An hour late!” she exclaimed in a huff. She glanced at the moon-faced clock. The clock was friendly to the office boy and always did its best to help him escape Jenny’s temper.

When Jenny looked away, the clock began pushing its hands backward, until it had gone back to the time when Number Nine was due to arrive each morning.

Jenny set to work making more display styles to hang on the trees outside. She unrolled a bolt of sunset cloth and ran her fairy finger over it this way and that, watching the material fall apart in the pattern of an evening gown. As she was working, she looked up at the clock and said, “Well, how late is he now?”

It was an hour earlier than it had been before!

“What!” exclaimed Jenny to the clock. “Are you trying to cover up that lazy boy’s lateness again? I’ve been put out enough! Now you are going to be put out!”

Jenny pointed her finger toward the door.

“Get down from that wall. Go and run somewhere else!”

The kindly clock slid off the wall and marched out of the door. It stopped long enough for its gong to sound a loud BONG! Then it crossed the street to the bakery, climbed up a wall there, and hung itself on a friendly nail. It then set its hands to the correct time and continued to tick away as if nothing had happened.

Into the Style Shop trotted Number Nine, with the magician behind him. Snatching a dust cloth, the boy began to whistle and work, keeping his face turned away from Jenny’s angry eyes. The magician began poking around the shop, examining everything. Jenny looked away from the office boy and watched to see what this little man would do. He was too inquisitive for her liking. “I am busy,” she said snappishly. “If you don’t want any new styles, please don’t take up my time.”

The magician spun around on his toe. “Ho, ho, what a temper!” he said. “I’ve come for some whistlebreeches.” He pointed to Number Nine’s. “Like those.”

“We’re out of that pattern. It’s last week’s style. We don’t make them any more,” Jenny said crossly.

“My, my, isn’t that too bad! I guess I’ll have to make a pair for myself!” With this, the mysterious little man slipped past Jenny, made a few magic passes in the air before the turn-style, and walked calmly into it.

Jenny’s face got redder and redder. She was almost boiling with anger. The boy watched his Boss and edged closer and closer to the door. When the little man came through the turn-style, sure enough, he had on a pair of loud whistlebreeches. But his had improvements. This pair had eight notes instead of four, and cute little shut-off stops like mufflers on each whistle.

“A later model,” the little man said quietly to Jenny, as he took Number Nine by the arm. “I want to have a talk with your office boy. I’ll send him back in a little while.”

Saying this, the magician led Number Nine out of the shop and up the street toward the palace. As they walked, the two pairs of whistlebreeches played a harmonious tune. This greatly amused the magician.

“Rather an interesting Boss you have. If her face weren’t so cross, it would be nice looking.”

“Yes,” said the boy. “And if she were younger, she would think more of playing and less of working.”

“Do you want her to be your age – about twelve?” asked the magician.

Number Nine said eagerly, “Yes, indeed!”

“Well, I’ll see what can be done about it when I have the time. Leave everything to me! Goodbye.”

They had reached the grand entrance of the palace. “Goodbye,” said Whistlebreeches, and he turned back toward the Style Shop.

The little man entered the palace and ran nimbly up the first flight of stairs. Then he stopped, made a few passes in the air, and next moment he was standing in the middle of his own laboratory at the top of the palace.

“Now, let me see. Jenny has a godfather, and I think he should be summoned at a time like this.”

Going to a table, the little man laid down his high checkered hat and picked up a piece of paper and a pencil. On the paper he wrote in large letters:

SIKO POMPUS

Then he made more magic passes in the air over the paper.

“Now, I shall call the roll,” he said, and he proceeded to roll up the paper. Holding it to his mouth, he called through it, “Hi, Siko Pompus!”

“Present!” answered a voice.

Standing in the open window was the Leprechaun. His blue eyes danced merrily, and his bushy beard shone red. “Hello, Wizard, I heard ye callin’.”

He thrust his foot and a hairy hand downward and leaped lightly to the ground. Then he stood, even smaller than a gnome, but quick and good-natured.

“Hello, Siko,” the Wizard greeted him gladly. “I called you because I want to talk to you about Jenny Jump, your godchild.”

“Oh, shure!” said the Leprechaun in his Irish brogue. “’Twas her I gave fairy eyes and fingers, and ears and a foot. For she let me have all her pepper-cheese. But I know it’s disgracin’ me she is.” The tiny man shook his head and sighed. “Her temper, now, is a wonder! To tell ye the real truth, she got beyond me control!”

“How would it be,” asked the Wizard, “if I turned her age back a few years, and made her about eleven?”

“Go ahead! It’s a good thing to do. Shure, an’ she’ll lose her fairy gifts, though, for I hadn’t given ’em to her when she was eleven. She’ll be better off without ’em. I’ll keep ’em and give ’em back to her when she’s afther learnin’ to hold in her temper,” said the Leprechaun.

“All right, Siko. Now she is too nasty tempered to be even a part-fairy.”

“Shure, an’ it’s right ye are, Wizard,” said Siko Pompus. “Will that be all you’ll be wantin’ today?”

“Yes. And now I have much to do,” said the Wizard. “Come again, sometime!”

“That I will. Goodbye to ye!” The Leprechaun jumped to the window and, leaping into the air, vanished.

CHAPTER 15

The Ozoplane Soars

“Well, Jenny, aren’t you ever going to give me a day off, as you promised in return for my vote?” Number Nine asked Jenny.

“I don’t see why I should,” said Jenny crossly “The votes no longer count.”

“Nevertheless,” argued the boy, “you must keep your promise. I want to take the day off and go gold-fishing.”

“Oh, very well! Since I promised, I suppose I shall have to let you go,” said Jenny. The boy skipped happily out of the Style Shop. When he was gone, Jenny said, “I think it’s time Ozma declared another way to vote. If we are going to have an ozlection, there is no need to waste time.”

Since she was alone in the shop, she decided to make herself a new dress. She went to the turn-style, studied the buttons with care, and slowly pressed several. When she went through, she came out wearing a dahlia print with long, slender petals.

“I wonder if it’s becoming,” thought Jenny, and she stepped up to a mirror. When she saw herself, she gave an exclamation of surprise.

“Is the mirror playing tricks on me, like that clock? Or is it my imagination? For I certainly look younger!”

She ran to another mirror, and then to a third. Every mirror showed her the same younger-looking girl. She studied herself for a long time. The freckles were coming back to her face, her cheeks were growing rounder, and her dress, that would have fitted perfectly before the Wizard’s visit, was now two sizes too big.

“I must make myself another dress,” she thought, and went to the turn-style. “I think I’ll make it a cool dress, and go find Whistlebreeches and spend the afternoon fishing with him. I don’t feel too old for that, now.”

Jenny went through the turn-style and came out dressed in a dress of silver fish scales. In her hand was a rod and reel.

Someone was coming through the door. “Oh, dear – a customer, just when I feel that pleasure comes before business,” thought Jenny.

A red Quadling man, square bodied, with a box-shaped head and box-shaped hands and feet, came up to Jenny. His square shoes were covered with bright red mud, and he was spattered all over with red smears. As he walked, he left square tracks of mud on Jenny’s clean floor.

“I am a Boxer,” he began. “I am looking for a job. Do you need any help?”

“You have come to the wrong place,” said Jenny huffily. “This is no gymnasium! And anyway, who would hire you, looking like a mud-lark? Better get yourself some new clothes.”

Jenny took the Boxer’s square red arm and pulled him toward the turn-style. He giggled as he stepped through it. He giggled even more when he saw himself wrapped in a slick, dazzling suit of cellophane. Each of his box parts was neatly wrapped. The Boxer stepped up to the mirror.

“Say,” he said, “I look flashy enough to put on a public boxing match. Do you know where I can get someone to fight me? I fight very squarely.”

“A boxing match? Better find someone made of match boxes. The only boxer I know is Scraps, and she’s made of patches,” said Jenny.

“Where can I find her?”

“She is usually over in the pumpkin patch with Jack Pumpkinhead. I was just going to the river That is beyond the pumpkin patch. You may walk along with me.”

The Boxer backed slowly from the mirror. “I guess nobody could call me a mud-lark now, eh?” he said, admiring himself as long as Jenny’s patience held out.

Jenny said, “There won’t be anything left of that beautiful suit when Scraps pitches into you! Now, come along.”

She hurried out to Strawberry Street, the Quadling Boxer walking beside her. They crossed Banana Boulevard and passed the Great Crystal Banquet Hall. A sign in the window read:

HEAD WAITER WANTED

“There’s a job!” the Boxer said eagerly. He stopped, looked down at his cellophane suit, and added, “Did you say that Scraps girl would spoil my new clothes?”

“She’ll punch them full of holes!” said Jenny.

“Then goodbye!” said the Boxer. “A cellophane suit will get me the job of Head Waiter in the Crystal Banquet Hall.”

The Boxer giggled and pranced lightly into the banquet hall. Jenny went on. Before she came to the river, she had to cross the pumpkin patch. As she came near to Jack Pumpkinhead’s ozoplane, she saw that it had been decorated with pumpkins. She could hear voices singing in the ozoplane.

“Maybe Number Nine stopped to hear the Shoe Glee Club,” she thought. “I’ll look in.”

She put her fishing rod against the ozoplane. Then, without hesitating, Jenny marched up to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. The singing stopped. At first everything seemed dark. Jenny realized that she no longer had her fairy eye for she could not see clearly in the half-darkness of the ozoplane. Then she heard a voice,

“A grinner, a smiler,

Here’s the turn-styler!”

A figure sprang out of the darkness. “Put up your fists!” it challenged. At the same moment, Jenny felt a soft punch in her eye.

“Round one,

You’re done!”

Then the soft punches began to fall all over Jenny’s body.

“Stop tickling me,” said Jenny, beginning to laugh.

“Jenny gets fussed

When a little mussed!”

the voice went on, as cotton hands kept tapping her.

“Must you do that?” laughed Jenny. Her eyes were growing used to the darkness. She could now see Scraps dancing around and throwing out her fists. Jenny gave the patchwork girl a push that sent her across the ozoplane. She was as light as a feather pillow.

“I’m sorry, but I had to do that,” Jenny apologized.

“When I’m scrappy,

I’m happy,”

replied Scraps and she kept slamming and punching wildly in all directions.

“I’m happy, too,” said Jenny. “Really, it’s oztonishing how much fun this is. You are like a punching bag.” She reached and pulled a handful of yarn from Scrap’s head. “A living punching bag, with fringe!” Jenny laughed.

This made Scraps come back at her with a fury of blows. Then her long cotton fingers caught around Jenny’s neck and would not let go. At this point, a door opened, letting in more light. Jack Pumpkinhead’s face grinned at Jenny and Scraps.

Scraps tightened her fingers on Jenny’s neck, and Jenny’s anger flared up. She caught Scraps and shook her until the stitches in her side opened and some padding fell over the floor.

“I just had to knock the stuffing out of you,” said Jenny.

Scraps sagged a little and stuck out her red velvet tongue.

“Time out for repairs,

I must mend my tears,”

she panted. She picked up a handful of cotton batting and pushed it into herself. Then she patted herself into shape.

Jack Pumpkinhead came forward.

“Scraps, will you introduce me to your lady friend?” he said.

“The ’fraidy cat?

No lady, that!

Who makes me mend,

Is not a friend,”

said Scraps, fastening herself together with pins.

“Now, Scraps, that’s no way to talk,” Jack Pumpkinhead said, turning his triangular eyes to Jenny.

“I am Jenny Jump, the new stylist,” she said.

“Welcome to my house,” said Jack Pumpkinhead. “I’ll show you my Glee Club.” During the boxing match, the shoes had scattered all over the ozoplane. Jack Pumpkinhead gathered them into rows, talking to Jenny.

“Poor, downtrodden soles,” he said. “I am trying to break them into a noteworthy life. This fellow here,” Jack held up a broad-toed shoe, “sings with a brogue.”

When the shoes were in order, Jack Pumpkinhead said, “Would you like to hear some music?”

“I don’t have much time,” said Jenny. “I am on my way to fish. But I should like to take a few minutes to explore the ozoplane.”

“I’d be delighted to show it to you.” Jack Pumpkinhead sounded pleased. He gave Jenny a light pat on the head.

Jenny followed him into the engine room. It was filled with all sorts of machinery and pipes.

“I’ve started to build a pipe organ,” Jack Pumpkinhead explained. “But I can put all the parts back into the engine whenever I want to.”

“Can you really?” exclaimed Jenny. “Why, you are bright! Let me see you do it.”

At this praise, Jack Pumpkinhead quickly began to re-assemble the engine. Jenny watched it taking shape under his hands. At last he said, bolting a lever in place, “There it is! I like levers better than buttons, don’t you?”

He backed away. Jenny caught hold of the lever and pulled it down.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“Don’t touch that!” he yelled. “It’s the starter!” At that moment, the crackling thunder of the engine ripped the air. The old ozoplane soared up into the sky!

CHAPTER 16

Shoes Desert a Soaring Ship

“Now, what did I tell you?” pleaded Jack.

“Flying is more fun than fishing!” said Jenny and sat down in the pilot’s seat. Taking the control lever in her hand, she guided the ozoplane in a wide circle above the pumpkin field.

The shoes seemed nervous and hopped up to look out of the window. They lolled their tongues in fear, and their eyelets blinked when they saw how far away the Land of Oz now was. They swarmed around Jenny, and she shooed them away.

“What’s up? What’s up?” they asked excitedly. “We are!” she said and sent the plane soaring even higher.

Scraps was walking around with her hand to her ripped side, singing,

“Let’s find a first-aid station,

Where I can have my operation.

Don’t let it fall, don’t let it tip,

Till I find a way to stop this ship.”

She began turning every valve that she could get her cotton fingers on, trying to stop the ozoplane. But the engine kept on as powerfully as ever.

“It’s disgusting how well this engine works!” said Jack Pumpkinhead.

Scraps turned a wheel. The ozoplane went into a tail-spin.

There was a lot of activity going on around it. The cloud pushers and the sky sweepers were hard at work. The sky sweepers had feather brooms growing where their hands should be. They worked in a long line, stooping as they brushed the trash from the sky. This trash was mostly star dust, thunder scum, and loose links of chain lightning.

“Hey, there!” Jack Pumpkinhead cried, as he was pitched against the ceiling and then tossed against the wall, where his coat caught on a hook. He was left hanging there. He became so excited, he lost his head. The ship lurched again, and the head went sailing out of the window!

“Catch me!” cried the Head, as the wind carried it away. It struck a little cloud and bounced to another and went rolling down a field of sky.

“Look where you are going!” cried a voice. It came from a cloud pusher, which looked like a windbag shaped like a man. It was almost transparent.

“No wonder I didn’t see you. I was looking right through you!” said the Pumpkin Head.

The sweepers were hurrying toward Jack’s Head. The Head tried to roll out of their way, but it was not fast enough. A feather-broom hand sent Jack’s head rolling into a pile of sky trash. The whole pile was pushed onto a dump star. Jack’s Head lay smothering in the dust.

“Oh, it feels like pepper in my eyes,” said the Head. “I’ve got to get out of here!”

When the sky sweepers had passed on, Jack’s Head carefully rolled out of the pile and kept rolling along a point of the dump star, until it came to the end. There it hung itself over the end.

Far below it, squads of skyscrapers were busily clearing up the weather. They kept scraping rain, hail, and dirty mist into piles beyond the horizon. The Pumpkin Head kept turning on the star point, looking for some sign of the ozoplane.

“There is something!” it said, seeing a black particle, no bigger than a marble, high above itself.

The particle grew bigger. It seemed to be floating aimlessly to the left and to the right, yet drawing nearer. At last the Pumpkin Head saw that it was covered with pumpkins. It was its own house, the ozoplane.

“I hope no one has carved another pumpkin head for Jack. I am still as good as new,” thought the Head.

The ozoplane came on, and sailed directly over the Pumpkin Head. The Head could see Scraps and Jenny looking out of the window. The plane slowly described a circle, while an anchor, fastened to a long mooring line, plunged down. The anchor hit the heap of sky rubbish and sank into it, making the ozoplane fast to the dump star.

“Hurrah!” shouted the Pumpkin Head. “I’m saved.”

Down the mooring line slid Scraps. Clinging to the line, she reached over and unhooked Jack’s Head from the star point. Then, holding it under her arm, she worked herself up the line and into the cabin of the plane. As soon as Scraps was safely back with the Head, Jenny unhooked Jack’s wooden body from the wall and fastened the Head onto it.

“Thank my lucky dump star, I’m all in one piece,” exclaimed Jack. His Pumpkin Head looked around.

“Thanks for saving me, Scraps. It’s good to be back. You’re all looking fine. Jenny, I believe you are younger than when I left.”

“I am younger,” said Jenny, looking down at her dress. Again it was a size too large for her. “We’ll have to go back to the Emerald City soon, so I can turn myself out another style.”

Jenny sat down at the controls while Jack Pumpkinhead hauled up the mooring line; The ozoplane roared ahead. Scraps held her hand to her side.

“There’s a stitch in my side

That I can’t abide.

I don’t know when

I can scrap again.”

Scraps looked at Jenny and stuck out her red velvet tongue. But Jenny was looking at a book.

“The skyscape looks different,” Jenny said. “I’m afraid we’re lost.”

Jack Pumpkinhead rushed anxiously to the window and looked out. The air was no longer clear and blue, but brown and thick, with a slightly sweet smell.

“We must have crossed the horizon,” said Jack. “We certainly are lost! Dog-gone!”

When the shoes heard this, they broke into a soleful lament, “Where, oh, where, has my little dog gone?”

“Where, oh, where can we be?” continued Jenny. As the shoes finished their song, they jumped despairingly to the window of the speeding plane and leaped out.

“It’s a bad sign,” Jack Pumpkinhead said, “when shoes desert a soaring air-ship.”

Through the window, Jenny could see a large brown mountain directly in front of her. The plane was heading right for it, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Jack grabbed hold of his head. “I won’t lose this again, no matter what happens,” he said.

The ozoplane plunged down. Down, down, down, through the brown air it fell.

“Look out, everyone!” cried Jenny. “We’re going to crash!”

CHAPTER 17

The Attack
of the Chocolate Soldiers

Crash! Splash! The ozoplane had landed in a field of soft brown mush. The mush was splattered up through the windows, spotting Jenny’s dress.

“I smell chocolate,” she said. She looked down at her dress and picked off one of the spots. She smelled it and then tasted it.

“It is chocolate! Where on Oz can we be?”

“We must have crashed into a chocolate star,” said Jack Pumpkinhead. He straightened his head which had been jarred sidewise in the crash.

“It looks like fudge,” said Jenny. “And it smells and tastes like it, too.”

Jack answered, “Scraps and I have never tasted or smelled anything, and never intend to. We go entirely by looks. Let’s go out and look things over.”

The three climbed out of the ozoplane. As soon as Jenny’s feet touched the surface, she began to sink into the chocolate bog. She saw Jack sinking, too. Scraps remained on top, for she weighed only nine pounds.

Jenny looked around. They were in a valley of cream chocolate, surrounded by towering cliffs of hard chocolate with white sugar tops.

“We are trapped,” said Jenny. “What could be sweeter?”

Just then she heard, PLOP, PLOP! Something hard was raining out of the sky into the brown ooze.

“Why, Jack, it’s the shoes! Our plane fell faster than they!” exclaimed Jenny.

Scraps darted here and there over the chocolate, gathering up the members of Jack’s Glee Club.

“It’s plain to be seen

You’re no longer clean,”

said Scraps, as she tossed the shoes into the ozoplane. The shoes at once began polishing themselves.

Jenny had sunk deeper. “It’s lucky I have grown younger,” she thought, “or I’d be so heavy I’d go in over my head.”

“A dry moon or a dusty star would be better than this sickening stuff,” sniffed Jack, with a glitter in the hollow of his eye.

“I agree,” said Jenny. “Chocolate is all right in small amounts. But this is too much of a good thing!”

Far off, Jenny saw something moving down from the sugary tops of the mountains. Some creatures were coming with alarming speed. They leaped over piles of broken chocolate and came racing into the valley.

“Now we’re in hot chocolate!” said Jenny. “As I smell it, those are giant chocolate soldiers!”

She began to struggle to get out of the slush, but she was held fast.

“My fairy foot no longer has any power!” she said in dismay.

The chocolate army loomed around them, so close now that Jenny could see how the soldiers were made. They all looked alike, as if they had been taken from the same mold. Each had a bulge on the left of his nose, and a wiggly line running down his side. Their feet could not be seen, for they were sliding under the surface of the mush.

“Why, they look de-feeted already!” Jenny said.

They all moved together. They all acted as one man. When one head turned, all heads turned. When one spoke, all spoke together, “Halt! Aim! Fire!” The soldiers stopped and raised their chocolate guns. Ping! Ping! Ping!

Chocolate drops began spattering the three prisoners.

Jack Pumpkinhead, wiping the chocolate out of his eyes, said, “What are they so all-fired mad about?”

Jenny was trying hard to keep her temper down, but in spite of herself it was rising.

“They’re making a mess of things!” she said.

Scraps was the only one who was delighted with the battle. She was so excited that she forgot to rhyme. She crouched and then leaped up, throwing herself and swinging her fists at the nearest chocolate soldier, who had been firing at Jenny. “Monkey face!” she cried at him. She pushed him. He toppled sidewise, throwing his neighbor off balance. He in turn bumped over the next, and he the next, until all the soldiers were lying in the chocolate mud.

With a great effort, the first soldier righted himself, and, as he came up, the rest also rose.

The first soldier fired at Scraps and then knocked her down with the butt of his gun. Scraps was gripped in the chocolate bog, held by her knee and elbow. Jenny tried to pull herself out of the mire and help Scraps. But the ooze held her fast. Jack Pumpkinhead was sinking deeper all the time.

The soldiers ordered themselves, “Cease firing! Advance!” They shouldered their guns and marched up to Jenny, Scraps, and Jack Pumpkinhead. They raised their hands and all pointed to the ozoplane.

“No trespassing!” they all said together.

“Is that why you are so black in the face? We meant no harm,” said Jenny.

The hands all swung as one hand, pointing at her: “No parking on this star!”

“We had engine trouble,” said Jenny.

“Get out! The kit and kaboodle of you!” chorused the soldiers.

“We can’t, you thick-heads! The plane is stuck fast.”

“You are under arrest!” spoke the soldiers. And then they ordered themselves, “Throw them in prison!”

They all marched closer and pulled Scraps, Jenny, and Jack Pumpkinhead out of the soft chocolate.

“Forward march!” said the soldiers together and dragged their prisoners across the valley.

When they reached the higher chocolate soil, the footing became firmer. The prisoners could walk by themselves. But the guard kept in close formation around them.

Jack, Scraps, and Jenny kept near each other. Jack took Jenny’s hand and patted it. His deep eyes showed his anxiety.

“This is a pretty kettle of fudge,” he spoke sadly. “If I could eat, I’d make a meal of all these soldiers.”

“There are too many of them for me to eat,” Jenny replied. “I’d get indigestion eating just a leg of one of those giants.”

Scraps kept sticking out her velvet tongue at the soldiers. Her shoebutton eyes glinted. She kept daring them to box with her, but the soldiers ignored her, except to push her with a gun butt when she got too wild.

“I suppose their prison is made of bitter chocolate,” said Jenny. “It will be bitter for me if they keep me locked up here. I won’t be able to get any votes and I’ll lose the ozlection.”

From below, in the valley, came a sad song. It was the shoes, singing in the ozoplane.

“How canst thou leave us?

How canst thou from us part?”

The prisoners and the soldiers climbed up the chocolate cliffs to the top of a sugar-coated peak. Here was a large encampment. The barracks were made of chocolate blocks, roofed with sugar frosting. The three prisoners were marched into a tent where a moody-looking chocolate General sat on a large chocolate cake.

There wasn’t enough room in the tent for all the soldiers. Since none of them would go in without the others, they all waited outside. Jenny, Jack, and Scraps were pushed into the tent. They stopped before the giant chocolate General.

“Please let us go,” said Jenny. “We meant no harm.”

The chocolate General frowned darkly. “Your flying machine has spoiled a valley of good chocolate sauce. It was to have made me a thousand soldiers that I need for my attack on Oz.”

“What!” exclaimed Jenny. “Are you going to attack Oz?”

“Certainly. The hour of the attack is set. Tomorrow my soldiers, dressed in tinfoil armor, will ride a silver cloud to the very gate of the Emerald City!”

“Oh, oh,” cried Jenny, “someone must warn Ozma.”

The General started up wrathfully. “No one is going to warn Ozma! The three of you will be thrown behind chocolate bars for the rest of your lives!”

Jack Pumpkinhead, Scraps, and Jenny exchanged looks of dismay. Jack cried out, “The rest of our lives? Why, the people of Oz live forever!”

“Then you shall be my captives forever! HA! HA! HA!” laughed the General. He called to the soldiers outside.

“Put the Pumpkinhead and the Rags Creature in one prison, and that real girl in a prison by herself. Guard them well!”

The three prisoners went unhappily from the tent. Outside, the soldiers led them off to the prisons.

CHAPTER 18

Number Nine Runs the Shop

Meanwhile, back in the Emerald City, the house on Strawberry Street waited for Jenny to return. But all that night it was empty. Wishing to surprise Jenny when she returned, it set about preparing breakfast. The forks, knives, and plates set themselves on the table. The ladle battered some oriole eggs and strawberry juice in a bowl and thickened it with rose flour. The waffle iron connected itself, and when it was warm the mixing bowl poured its batter onto it. When the waffle was finished, it turned itself out onto a plate, and the plate slipped into the oven, keeping warm until Jenny’s return.

Then the kitchen swept itself with the broom, and the sink set about cleaning the pans. Reaching into the garden, the house picked a nosegay of dewy morning flowers and set it in a vase on the table.

It was the most inviting breakfast scene. But no Jenny appeared to enjoy it. Instead, coming up the stairs of the shop was Number Nine. He was earlier than usual, for he was lonely for Jenny. Yesterday he had missed his Boss while he fished alone at the river.

“Maybe she will grow young enough to enjoy fishing soon,” he thought, as he walked into the Style Shop. He looked around at the empty shop. Where was Jenny? Going into the other rooms, he saw that she had not slept in her bed.

“Maybe she’ll come back soon. I’ll run the shop for her while she is gone,” he thought.

Number Nine got a dust cloth and polished the turn-style until it shone. As he finished this task, he heard a clatter of hooves, and many voices. He ran to the door, and there he saw his mother and father and thirteen sisters and brothers sitting in the farm wagon. Hitched to the wagon were his father’s four blue mules, whose ears were so long that they reached to the second story of the house. The children were all dressed in dainty blue clothing. They looked very happy.

When the family saw Number Nine at the door of the Style Shop, they waved, jumped down from the wagon, and ran in to kiss him.

The mules hee-hawed their greeting.

“We have come to town to get four blue-blooded horses and to see how our dear Number Nine is getting along,” said the father. “We are going to stay at Uncle’s house for a few days. He will be glad to have company.”

Number Nine’s mother put her arm around him, “City life agrees with you, son. You are looking such a nice deep blue. Those breeches aren’t the same that I made for you, are they?” She pointed to the whistlebreeches.

Number Nine felt very important.

“My Boss made them with the magic turn-style,” he said. “I can make them play. Listen.”

Number Nine sat down, put his feet up on the counter, and lazily crossed his arms. Immediately the four whistles struck up a tune.

“Well, bless my nose!” said his father.

Number Nine got out of his chair. “I’m in charge here today,” he said importantly. “I can’t loaf.”

He led his mother around the shop, showing her the patterns and styles. She kept saying, “oh,” and “ahz,” and “most oztonishing!”

The children were running here and there, while their father examined the turn-style. “Is this the magic contraption?” he asked.

“Yes. Would you like a new suit, father?”

“Sure you can suit me? I want something practical, for the farm work.”

“Just go through the turn-style,” urged Number Nine, “and I’ll push the buttons.”

The father hesitated awhile, stroking his chin and gazing at the turn-style. At last he went through. Number Nine pushed many buttons, and the farmer came out dressed in a suit of blue cloth. It was mostly wool, mixed with rubber, twisted through with silk, and woven around with fine wire. It was the stoutest ozwoven product.

“That’s just what I want,” said the farmer. “My goat can’t chew this up!”

All the children began clamoring to go through the turn-style. “Mother comes first,” said Number Nine. “Come on, mother. Tell me what style you want—”

Mother was all aflutter. She hung back, saying, “Why, my dress is good enough. I worked on it a long time. Guess I’ll go through the turn-style some other day.”

“Oh, mother! Now, mother!” cried all the children. “We want to see how pretty you can be.”

They got behind her and pushed her against the turn-style. Sister Six, a bright blue-faced girl, said, “Let me work the buttons, Number Nine. I know what’s becoming to mother better than you do.”

Sister Six pushed the buttons, and the mother went through the turn-style. When she came out, the shop was filled with the children’s exclamations of delight. Her dress was of two interchanging colors. First it was blue, then the blue disappeared and it was violet, then it changed back to blue. When she moved, the skirt rustled like flowers in the gentle breeze of a garden.

“You look just like a princess!” the girls cried.

“I’m thrilled,” said the mother. “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

Now it was the children’s turn. They lined up. There were so many of them, that Numbers Twelve, Thirteen, and Fourteen, who were at the end of the line, had to stand outside.

Number Nine took charge of the turn-style. His family admired him greatly, and he felt very proud of himself. First he sent them through and gave each a pair of pajamas. Then he said: “You can have any kind of clothes you want.”

The line of children started through the turn-style, and Number Nine was busy pushing the buttons for COLOR, SIZE, MATERIAL, and STYLE. The older children came out dressed in the costumes they had asked for. When the smallest girls came out, they were wearing long dresses, long gloves, high-heeled shoes, and plumed hats, and were carrying vanity bags. The little boys came out wearing long trousers, high silk hats, white bow ties. They were carrying canes and wearing big watches in their vest pockets.

The Style Shop was filled with squeals.

The father went off to get the blue-blooded horses for his farm. The boys and girls played in the attic. The smallest children, all wearing their grown-up clothes, paraded to the public fountain for ozcream sodas.

When the other children in the Emerald City saw these little Munchkins dressed in long dresses, plumed hats, and men’s suits, they ran to the Style Shop and begged Number Nine to let them go through the turn-style, too. Number Nine became so busy serving these little customers that his mother and Sister Six had to help.

As soon as the children had new clothes, they ran out again. Soon the city was full of children dressed like grown-ups, drinking sodas at the public fountain.

At noon the shop was empty of customers. All the children went to their homes for lunch. Number Nine’s family gathered in Jenny’s kitchen and watched the utensils make the meal. The mixmaster wanted to take charge of the cooking.

The carving knife whittled the potatoes. The chopping knife went after the meat and made a fine hash of it. The oven opened its door and pushed out Jenny’s breakfast waffle for the Munchkin children to enjoy. The stove sizzled merrily, the tea kettle hummed. Every so often, the pan covers danced together like cymbals. Each part of the kitchen did its best to entertain the family while the lunch was getting itself ready.

The salt and pepper holders were shaking with mirth. The table jigged on its four legs. Number Nine joined his family and sat laughing with them, forgetting the shop. When the meal was ready, the whole family went into the dining-room to eat it.

But in the shop something was happening. Two bowlegged gnomes had just entered on pointed tiptoe. Seeing nobody about, they were sniffing to see what mischief they could do. They were short and earth colored, with pointed ears, hands, and feet. One was dressed in a green waistcoat and red pantaloons, the other had a red waistcoat and green pantaloons.

“Say, Umph,” said the one in red pantaloons, “what’s this shiny doo-dad with the four arms and buttons?”

Umph had climbed onto the third shelf with a monkey wrench and was trying to unbolt the metal cloth. He looked down at the turn-style, to which the other gnome was pointing.

“Put a yard of distance between you and it, Grumph,” warned the gnome on the shelf. “Those arms might box your ears.”

“Pooh! The only thing I’m afraid of is eggs. And there aren’t any eggs in this shop.”

Grumph went closer to the turn-style and began poking at the buttons. “See, Umph? It can’t hurt a body,” he said. He leaned against one of the spokes and accidentally pushed himself through. Then he danced with delight.

“Snakes and snorts!” he cried. “Look, Umph, I’m covered with warts! Big, black ones. Now I’ll be the handsomest gnome in the gnome kingdom!”

From head to foot, Grumph was covered with warts. They were so large that they pushed out his clothes. Umph looked down enviously.

He slid down from the shelf. “You’re right,” he said. “And won’t it be good to get back to the damp, dark underworld! All this sunshine in Oz is making my complexion too clear. I think I’ll go through that thing and get some warts, too.”

Umph went through the turn-style and came out as warty as Grumph. The two gnomes looked at each other and scowled.

Said Umph, “Now I am the handsomest gnome in the gnome kingdom!”

“No, I am,” declared Grumph.

“You are not! I am,” shouted Umph, and shook his fist in the other’s face.

“No, I am!”

“No, I am!”

“No, I am!” Grumph screamed in rage, and kicked Umph on his biggest wart.

“My warts are the ugliest!” cried Umph, and he pulled Grumph’s whiskers.

“But mine are bigger,” yelled Grumph.

“They are not!”

“Yes, they are!”

Suddenly Umph let go Grumph’s beard. “What’s that?” he said. A whoop and a laugh had come from Jenny’s dining-room, where the meal had just set itself upon the table.

“Whisk! Scamper!” warned Umph.

“First we take the wart machine,” said Grumph. The two gnomes seized the turn-style and jerked it so hard that its screws and bolts were torn loose from the floor. As soon as it was no longer screwed down, its lovely new enamel turned to rust. The gnomes were delighted at this change. Carrying the turn-style between them, they hustled toward the fireplace and pushed it up into the chimney. Then they crawled in after it.

“Isn’t it wonderfully dark in here?” Umph asked.

“Yes, and this soot is filling my nostrils as pleasantly as burning sulphur perfume,” said Grumph.

“Tonight, when the Oz people are sleeping, we’ll creep out and take the machine away with us,” whispered Grumph in the dark chimney.

CHAPTER 19

The Turn-Style Is Rescued

Number Nine and his family were eating their third dessert, when the whistlebreeches began whistling, reminding the boy that his lunch hour was over.

“I must get back to the shop,” he said, rising from the table.

“May I come and help work the turn-style?” asked Sister Six.

“Come along.”

The girl ran ahead of Number Nine, and as the boy was stepping into the shop, he heard her cry, “It’s gone!”

“What is gone?” he asked.

“The turn-style. Look!”

Number Nine ran forward. His heart sank with despair. The turn-style was no longer in its place!

“Help! Thieves! The turn-style has been stolen!” they both shouted.

The Munchkin family came running in from the dining-room. When they learned what had happened, they began shouting, too. Number Nine was almost weeping.

“What will Jenny say? This is the first time I’ve been in charge of the shop, and this had to happen!”

While the Munchkins were running through all the rooms, looking for the turn-style, in the chimney Umph whispered to Grumph, “Suppose they look up the chimney?”

“We could drop some red-hot coals on them – if we had any red-hot coals,” answered Grumph.

“But we haven’t any. We had better climb to the roof and hide there.”

Together the two gnomes began to climb. Their shoes, scraping the inside of the chimney, tickled the house. The house began to shake and cough and sneeze. Umph and Grumph reached the top and pulled themselves over onto the roof. They rubbed the warts on their hands together and laughed, “They won’t catch us now. After dark, we’ll steal the turn-style, and – OUCH! OH, OUCH! OUCH!”

The chimney had reached down and caught one of them by his waistcoat. A chimney close by caught the second. Then they straightened up, holding the two gnomes high in the air. Their screams filled the street.

Inside the shop, the Munchkins heard the noise and ran outside. The blue mules were rolling their lips at the gnomes. Number Nine was the first to see them kicking their bowlegs in the air.

“Good work!” he called to the chimneys. “Those must be the thieves. Give them a good shaking, until they tell where they’ve hidden the turn-style.”

The chimneys began to sway, rattling the teeth of the gnomes.

“YEEOW! Sulphur and brimstone!” they yelled. They were shaken so hard that their buttons broke, and they fell out of their waistcoats, sprawling on the roof.

“Get back into the chimney!” whispered Umph to Grumph. “It’s safer there.”

Before the chimneys could catch them again, they leaped down a flue and slid down as far as the hidden turn-style.

Number Nine was in despair. “How can we make them come out?” he asked his mother. “Shall we throw hot water down on them?”

“No, for the hotter it is, the better they like it,” said his mother. Her blue eyes filled with perplexity.

All the Munchkin family remained outside, looking up and down the street for help. Just then, around the corner, came galloping on its eight short legs, a dragonette. This little dragon was purple, and it had two heads. Both its mouths were panting quick, fiery breaths. Close behind its spiky tail came clanking Sir Hokus, in full armor, waving his short sword and shouting, “Stop, stop, and let me have at thee!”

The dragonette dashed past the Munchkin family, and when Sir Hokus came by, Number Nine caught his iron sleeve, stopping him.

“Good knight, could you lend us your stout right arm?” asked Number Nine.

Sir Hokus came to such a sudden stop that his iron heels sparked. He held his sword high in the air, crying, “Hail! This blade is at the service of all who seek me!”

“Two bowlegged gnomes are hiding in our chimney,” explained the boy. “I think they have stolen our turn-style.”

The knight thrust his sword forward. “A challenge! I accept! Lead on to danger!” he cried.

As Sir Hokus leaped into the shop, the dragonette looked over her shoulder, and, seeing that the knight was no longer chasing her, turned back to learn the reason. Her curiosity led her right to the door of the Style Shop. She poked her two heads in, and saw Sir Hokus waving his sword at the chimney and shouting, “Come out, knaves, and joust fairly!”

“Sir Hokus, aren’t you going to chase me?” she called.

The knight kept waving his sword and throwing challenges to the gnomes, until the dragonette said in her high, thin voice, “All this higgledy-piggledy over a couple of insignificant gnomes! Why, I could catch them in a minute!”

Number Nine turned to her. “Oh, would you?”

“Why, yes,” she replied. “I’ll climb onto the roof and get them through the chimney.”

But when she started to climb, the house drew back from her fiery breath.

“Could you please hold your breath until you reach the top?” asked Number Nine.

The dragonette held her breath, but even then the house shut its eyes while she scaled its wall and slid along its roof.

“I’ll drag-on to the chimney,” said the dragonette. Reaching it, she poked her spiky, saw-toothed tail into the flue. The house wriggled with all this tickling. In the darkness of the chimney, Umph and Grumph saw the spiky tail reaching for them.

“We’re done for,” said Grumph. “That tail will cut us to pieces.”

The tail pricked Umph’s ear. “Ouch! Get down, quick!” he bellowed at Grumph and pushed him with his foot.

“This wart machine is blocking the way,” growled Grumph. “Stop kicking.”

“Then push it down! Ouch! My other ear!” shrieked Umph.

The turn-style came tumbling down. After it dropped the two gnomes.

“Run for it!” cried Umph. But before they could get to their feet, the two fire dogs, that hold the burning logs in winter, caught them by their bandy legs and held on with their teeth.

Number Nine shouted with joy when he saw the turn-style. “Now Jenny won’t be angry with me,” he exclaimed.

Sir Hokus sheathed his sword. “I would not stain my noble blade with the blood of such rodents. Pray, call the rat catcher!”

“Thank you for all you’ve done, Sir Hokus,” said Number Nine.

The knight stalked out and beckoned with his iron fist to the dragonette, who was still on the roof.

“Thou has done well to drive the gnomes from their lair,” he called to her. “For thy nobleness and courage, I shall grant thee two blocks’ head start in the chase.”

The dragonette peered over the roof. “I must have time to let the Munchkin boy thank me.” She slid down the wall and walked into the shop. Number Nine and the other children crowded around her with thanks and praise. She was overcome with bashfulness at so much attention. She could only put her paws over her mouths and cough timidly. The children came closer and scratched her heads.

“Good dragonette,” they said. The dragonette curled up on the floor like a family pet and lay there until Sir Hokus reminded her that he was waiting to resume the chase.

The dragonette jumped up, ran out into the street, and galloped merrily for two blocks. Then she stopped and looked back to see whether Sir Hokus had begun his pursuit. He started after her. She grinned with her two faces, flipped her tail, and was off again.

Within the shop, the gnomes were still held fast by the fire dogs. The Munchkin children were standing before the fireplace and staring with great curiosity at the little earth-colored creatures. They had heard much about the gnomes who lived in a kingdom underneath Oz. But this was the first time they had seen gnomes with their own eyes.

“Ugh! How ugly they are,” said Sister Six.

“And as bad as they are ugly,” said the mother.

The gnomes screamed and shook their fists in anger. The fire dogs held them tighter.

“What are we to do with them?” asked Number Nine. “If we let them go, they’ll run somewhere else and steal again.”

His mother had an idea. “Now I remember that I once heard how to rid the house of gnomes. Just wait a minute.”

She went quickly to the kitchen and returned carrying a couple of eggs.

“Yeeow! Yeeow!” screamed the gnomes at the sight of the eggs.

“I have been told that eggs knock gnomes unconscious instantly,” said the mother, and she pitched an egg at each gnome’s head. They slumped senseless to the floor. The fire dogs unclamped their teeth.

“Now carry them out,” said the mother to Number Nine. “Throw them into the river, and ask the river to take them back where they belong.”

CHAPTER 20

Jenny Escapes

Jenny paced up and down in her chocolate prison cell. The cell was like a cage, with no walls, but with chocolate bars on all four sides. Tears kept dropping from her eyes and freezing on her cheeks as she said over and over to herself, “How can I possibly win the ozlection when I’m locked up in a chocolate prison?”

Every move that Jenny made could be seen by the giant chocolate guard who had been ordered to watch her. He paced back and forth with upraised gun. Jenny was shivering, for the mountain night was very cold, and no one had given her a blanket. She did not know what had happened to Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead. Going to the bars, she called to the guard.

“Can you tell me where my two friends are locked up?”

The guard halted and pointed his gun at her. “Prisoners are not allowed to speak,” he said sternly.

“Well, I’m cold,” said Jenny angrily.

“So am I,” the guard said. “There’s nothing to do except wait until morning to thaw out.”

“But I’m not made of chocolate. I can freeze, but I can’t thaw!” spoke Jenny sharply.

“I can’t talk to you any more. It is forbidden,” said the guard.

He began pacing again, but he went more slowly, as if the cold were in his joints. Jenny felt colder than ever.

“Eating something will make me feel warmer,” she thought. She looked around her cell. There was nothing but chocolate bars, a chocolate stool, and a chocolate cot.

“The sight of so much chocolate makes me sick,” she said to herself. “But I’ll eat some of it, to get some strength. I must escape somehow and warn Ozma that the chocolate soldiers are going to attack the Emerald City tomorrow.”

Reaching toward the bars, Jenny tried to break them with her hands. But they were thick, and, besides, they were frozen hard. The chocolate guard was pacing more slowly, his legs stiffening with the cold. Jenny waited for him to pass. He went very slowly.

“If it gets any colder, he will come to a standstill and will not be able to move till morning. That will give me a chance to escape, if I can get out of this cell,” thought Jenny.

She seized a bar and pulled at it, but it would not yield.

“I guess I’ll have to eat through it.”

Putting her face close to a bar, Jenny bit at it and quickly spat. “Bah! It’s bitter chocolate!” she exclaimed.

Once again the guard passed. His feet barely rose from the ground. He did not turn his head to look at her.

“He is almost stone-stiff,” Jenny thought, as she took another bite out of the chocolate bar. No matter how bitter it was, she must eat away the bar before she could escape. She took another bite, and another, spitting out the pieces.

“I’d rather remain here the rest of my life than take another bite,” she said. “But I have not only myself to think of. There are Ozma and the Emerald City to be saved.”

Jenny kept eating. The bar was almost gone, and if she squeezed hard she might get through the hole that she had made. But now the guard was coming back, dragging his feet, his gun motionless on his shoulder. Jenny drew back into her cell. If he should turn and see the bar missing, he would sound an alarm and bring warmer, quicker soldiers to the scene.

The soldier came before her cell. His feet slowed to a complete stop, and he stood rigid. Jenny waited for him to pass, but he remained directly in front of her, like a post.

“Is he watching me, or has he frozen stiff?” Jenny thought. She waited, but he did not move. “I believe he has frozen stiff and won’t move until the Sun comes up. If I wait any longer, a warmer soldier may come to change the guard. I must try to escape now!”

Carefully, Jenny crawled through the opening had made and stepped upon the ground. The frozen earth creaked under her, and she stopped, waiting breathlessly to see if the soldier would turn around He remained stiff and staring ahead.

“I must try to find Scraps and Pumpkinhead,” thought Jenny. “They are somewhere in the camp.”

The guard stood in the way. She could not get to the camp, except by crawling under his very nose. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crept as quietly as she could. As she passed the soldier, she could feel a slight movement in his legs, as if he were trying to take a step. But he was too cold, and he remained where he was, while Jenny crept on toward the camp.

She stood up and tiptoed around the corner of the cliff. There, on the ground before the General’s tent, she saw a small bonfire with a dozen soldiers sitting around it and keeping soft. Beyond them, plainly seen by the firelight, was a cage like the one she had been in. Jack Pumpkinhead was staring out, and Scraps was standing on her head. Before the cell was a slow-moving guard.

Jenny heard the soldiers around the fire in unison, “Time to change the guard!”

Two soldiers got up. One of them exchanged places with the soldier who had been guarding Scraps and Jack. Jenny saw the second soldier come toward her. She drew back and ran as hard as she could, around the cliff and down the mountainside. Before she reached the valley, she heard cries announcing her escape. Then she heard chocolate bullets zinging over her head. Down the mountain and into the valley she ran, onto the field of frozen cream chocolate. It was no longer soft, but hard as the mountain.

The night was chocolate-dark. There were stars, but they were all chocolate stars and gave no light. Jenny ran over the hard cream-chocolate field, trying to find the ozoplane. But she could not see it. Behind her she heard soldiers running.

“I am lost!” she cried. “I shall never be able to warn Ozma.”

Then from a spot in the darkness she heard voices. It was Jack Pumpkinhead’s Glee Club, singing, “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes.” Jenny ran toward the sounds. She bumped into something soft and round. It was one of the Pumpkins that decorated the ozoplane. The plane was stuck fast in the hardened cream chocolate.

Jenny opened the door of the ozoplane and called to the shoes, “Everybody help! The soldiers are at our heels. We must get the plane wheels loose.”

The shoes tumbled out and wedged themselves under the plane. Then they arched themselves, slowly raising the plane on their uppers. The chocolate cracked loudly as it broke.

“Hurrah!” cried Jenny. “The plane is free. Now, into it, everyone!”

The soldiers were on the field of hardened cream-chocolate. Bullets were smashing against the sides of the plane. The shoes scrambled in, and Jenny jumped in after them. Running to the engine room, she pulled the starter lever and felt the plane rising. A volley of chocolate bullets splattered on its under side.

“Leaping Leprechauns!” Jenny panted. “That was close. I’ll have to warn Ozma and get help back to Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead.”

As the plane rose higher than the chocolate mountain, she saw a white, shining star.

“That’s the morning star. I’ll steer toward that. By its light, I shall be able to see the Land of Oz.”

CHAPTER 21

Number Nine Searches for Jenny

Number Nine was worried. Although the turn-style was back in its place and was bright and shiny again, there was no Boss to run the shop. And how could she win an ozlection when nobody could even find her? He asked everyone who came into the Style Shop, “Have you seen Jenny Jump?”

But no one had seen her. Number Nine said to himself, “Jenny is the best friend I ever had. She’s perky and bright, too. There aren’t many girls like my Boss!” The light in the boy’s eyes shone warmly. The first day passed, and Jenny did not return. Number Nine was so worried that his Sister Six said, “I’ll take care of the Style Shop if you want to go out and look for your Boss.”

It was early evening in the Emerald City when Number Nine started his search. He wandered up and down asking, “Have you seen Jenny Jump?”

But no one could help him.

“If none of the people know where she is, maybe the animals do,” he thought. Then his heart turned over with fright. “Maybe a lion or a tiger has swallowed her!”

His legs were shaking as he ran toward the enclosure where the animals were chained. Reaching the wall, he climbed onto it and then looked carefully at each lion and tiger. His heart grew lighter. Every animal was sleek and thin and could not possibly contain Jenny in its stomach.

Number Nine looked about the enclosure. Everything was peaceful. He saw Ojo, the elephant boy, sitting on Kabumpo’s head.

“Jenny isn’t here. You had better search somewhere else,” Ojo replied when Number Nine asked if he or Kabumpo had seen her.

He walked quickly up Doughnut Drive, searching for some glimpse of Jenny. When he came close to the Banquet Hall, the door opened and the square-bodied Head Waiter came out and started down the street. Number Nine hurried after him.

“Hey, Head Waiter! Have you seen Jenny Jump?”

“Jump what?” asked the Head Waiter, stopping and flipping a speck of dust from his square cellophane jacket.

“I mean Jenny Jump, the stylist.”

“Oh, yes, she is the one who gave me this slick suit that got me my job. I saw her yesterday.”

“Where is she now?” the boy asked eagerly.

“I don’t know.” The red Quadling Head Waiter shrugged his box shoulder, making his cellophane suit twinkle in the sunset. “When I left her, she was on her way to the river to fish. She said she was going through the pumpkin patch.”

“Thank you!” cried Number Nine and, turning, he ran in the direction of the pumpkin patch. Coming into it, he saw that the familiar ozoplane was no longer there. The only thing in sight, besides the pumpkins, was the Sawhorse, standing quietly where the ozoplane had been.

Number Nine ran up to it. “Did you see Jenny Jump, my Boss, pass along this way yesterday?”

The Sawhorse shook itself from side to side, saying, “No, she did not pass by.”

Number Nine turned away in disappointment. But the Sawhorse went on, “She did not pass by, but passed in. After she got in, it flew away, and they vanished.”

“Who? What? When? Where?” Number Nine asked in bewilderment.

“Why, the ozoplane, of course,” said the Sawhorse impatiently. “With Jenny, Scraps, and Jack Pumpkinhead and the Glee Club. And here I’ve been standing without any company for many hours.”

“Oh, if they have gone up in the plane, maybe they crashed somewhere,” wailed Number Nine. “Jenny Jump might be hurt. I must find her now, more than ever. I won’t stop searching until I’ve looked over the four lands of Oz.”

“Get on my back, and I’ll take you,” said the Sawhorse. “I can go fast, and I never grow tired.”

Number Nine mounted. “First, to the red Quadling country,” said the boy. “Red stands for danger, and I fear Jenny is in danger.” The Sawhorse galloped toward the south.

The sun sank, and darkness came over all the lands of Oz. The wooden Sawhorse ran through the valleys and rumbled slowly up the red mountains of the Quadling country. Number Nine looked up every highroad and byroad. Nowhere did he see any sign of Jenny. All night he rode, until the morning star showed its bright face in the east. A little light spread over the red country. The Quadling farmers came out of their red houses and drove their red cattle toward the red rivers for their morning drink.

Number Nine now steered the Sawhorse across country, thinking, “I have not seen the ozoplane on any of the roads. Maybe it has fallen into one of the forests or Quadling quagmires.”

Suddenly he heard a voice beside him, “Hello, my boy. How are your parents and your thirteen sisters and brothers?”

“Fine, thanks,” replied Number Nine, turning around. He could see nobody. “Hullo! Are you the Voice That Lost His Man? Haven’t you found him yet?” asked Number Nine.

“The same,” said the Voice. “I have searched through every corner of the land, and the deadly deserts beyond. No trace of my Man have I found. But I like this wandering life, and I am no longer sad.” The Voice sounded very cheerful.

“Have you seen anything of an ozoplane?” asked Number Nine.

“No, that I haven’t. But if you’re looking for it, I’ll be glad to come along and have you keep me company.”

While Number Nine rode on, the Voice kept beside him, talking.

“This is great fun,” the Voice said. But Number Nine could not agree. He was too worried about Jenny. When they had gone on for another hour, they came to a red stream, beside which grew a red oak. Number Nine halted the Sawhorse in the red shade of this tree. At this instant the whistlebreeches began to play. It was the hour when the office boy was due at the Style Shop. Number Nine clapped his hands angrily to his breeches.

“I should think they’d keep quiet while I am trying to find my Boss,” he said. “I’ve only stopped for a drink of water.”

Number Nine dismounted, knelt by the water, and took a long drink. The water was the color of cherry soda. When Number Nine raised his head, his eye caught a shadow in the river.

“What can that be?” he thought. “That’s the reflection of something in the sky.”

Jerking his head up, the boy saw a large, winged object, partly covered with pumpkins, plunging toward the earth. Its tail was whirling like a top. Number Nine jumped up, shouting, “There’s the ozoplane! It’s in a tail-spin! It’s going to smash!”

CHAPTER 22

The Attack on the Emerald City

“Goodbye! Goodbye! This is the end of Jenny Jump!” Jenny cried wildly to the shoes. She clutched the controls, but she could not stop the ozoplane. The earth seemed to be flying up to meet her.

ZONG! Red thunder filled Jenny’s head. She lay stunned. “Oh, oh,” she groaned, “my head – But – I’m still alive!” She got up slowly and felt herself. “And unhurt.”

“Leaping Leprechauns, I must have nine lives!” she exclaimed and she climbed out of the ozoplane. “Where am I? Everything is red. This must be the Quadling country. I must warn Ozma by nightfall. How shall I ever get to her in time?”

From the other side of the plane came the sound of galloping hooves. Then, from under the broken wing, came the Sawhorse with Number Nine on its back.

“Whistlebreeches!” Jenny sprang toward him. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. “Oh, dear Whistlebreeches!”

Number Nine’s face was shining a neon blue, he was so pleased. His dear Boss was back, and unhurt!

Jenny said, “Tonight the giant chocolate soldiers will attack the Emerald City. The ozoplane is broken. How can I get to Ozma to warn her in time?”

The Sawhorse began prancing up and down. “Why are we standing here talking?” it asked impatiently. “Get on my back, both of you!”

Jenny mounted behind Number Nine.

“I’ll come later,” said the Voice That Lost His Man, “seeing that I’m not in a great hurry.”

Jenny cried, “Why, hello, I didn’t know you were here, Voice That Lost His Man.”

“Hello and goodbye, Jenny,” said the Voice.

Jenny turned and waved at the ozoplane, where all the shoes were standing in the windows.

“I’ll send someone to rescue you. Just wait patiently for a few days,” she called to them. “Or perhaps you can have someone hitch you together and hitch-hike home.”

Next moment the Sawhorse was galloping across the red country with Number Nine and Jenny on its back. It dashed through forests, and leaped over brooks. Running up a mountainside, it went somewhat slower.

“Hurry, hurry!” Jenny cried.

“We have a long way to go,” Number Nine added. At the top of the mountain, Jenny saw a strange silver mass sailing up from the horizon into the sky.

“Look, whistlebreeches,” she pointed, “what’s that?”

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “It looks like a silver cloud with a dark lining.”

“Oh, that is the chocolate army coming to attack the Emerald City. Faster, faster, Sawhorse!” cried Jenny.

The wooden animal plunged down the mountainside, racing so fast that the wind sounded like a fifth whistle in Number Nine’s breeches. In the valley the Sawhorse leaped over the red boulders, its four stiff legs throwing up banners of red dust.

Jenny watched the silver cloud with the dark lining. It was coming closer! It now seemed to be of such size that a fourth of the sky was covered. Now it was over the Land of Oz!

“Will we reach the Emerald City before it does?” Jenny cried. “Faster, faster, good Sawhorse!”

The animal’s hooves hardly touched the ground. It sped out of the Quadling wilderness and into the farmlands. The red farmers ran out to the road to see what was speeding like unbolted lightning.

Closer and closer to the Emerald City sailed the cloud. “We are lost!” thought Jenny. “They will get there before us.”

Number Nine dug his heels hard against the sides of the Sawhorse. The Sawhorse galloped faster, and got ahead of the cloud. On and on it galloped through the day. At times the cloud would sail ahead, and at times the Sawhorse gained on it.

Toward evening, Jenny and Number Nine saw the green wall of the Emerald City in the distance. The silver cloud with the dark lining was directly above them.

“We must reach the gate of the Emerald City before the chocolate soldiers steer that cloud down to earth,” cried Jenny.

The Sawhorse doubled its speed in a final effort. It could go no faster. But the cloud sailed ahead, and began to drop to the field outside the city gate.

“Too late!” groaned Jenny, as she saw the chocolate soldiers leap from the cloud and begin to form their ranks.

Number Nine cried hopefully, “It will take them a few minutes to get in battle formation. We may still make it!”

The Sawhorse dashed straight on, and then around the soldiers, who were blocking the way. Cries of “Halt!” came from a thousand chocolate throats, and a volley of chocolate bullets came after the speeding three. When they reached the city gate, it opened before them, for the Guardian had seen everything. The gate slammed shut behind them.

“To the palace!” Jenny ordered the Sawhorse. It galloped through the streets and parks, while the people scattered out of its way. The trees drew up their lowest branches, and the houses lifted their stoops out of the way.

“It must be Choose Day,” said Jenny, “for the city is full of visitors.”

At the palace stairs the Sawhorse stopped so suddenly that Number Nine and Jenny were pitched over its head.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Em were rocking peacefully in the palace pavilion.

“What’s the rush?” asked Uncle Henry, as Jenny and Number Nine picked themselves up from the grass.

“Land sakes, children, are you hurt?” asked Aunt Em.

“Where is Ozma?” cried Jenny as soon as she was on her feet. “The city is about to be attacked!”

Aunt Em stopped her rocking. “Why, Ozma and Dorothy went off in the carriage to visit Glinda the Good. What’s that you said about a tack?”

“No time now!” cried Jenny, leaping back upon the Sawhorse. “Come on, Whistlebreeches!” Scores of people scurried out of the path of the racing Sawhorse.

In another minute they were at the Style Shop. Jenny and Number Nine ran inside. The shop was filled with Choose Day shoppers, but Jenny and Number Nine pulled the turn-style loose from the floor, and ran out without speaking to the amazed Sister Six, or the shoppers waiting to be served.

Holding the turn-style, the two remounted the Sawhorse and sent it dashing to the city gate. When they came up, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, who was the Army of Oz, was hiding under the tower stairs. He peeped out fearfully. He was trembling so hard that his long green whiskers fluttered like a flag. The Guardian of the Gate was running down from the tower, carrying an extra key and lock with which to fortify the city.

“That won’t do any good,” cried Jenny, dragging the turn-style up to the gate. “The chocolate army has a cloud and can sail right over the wall if it has to. Open the gate a little way, so that only one chocolate soldier can get through at a time.”

“No, no, no!” screamed the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. “Opening the gate to an enemy is not in the Army Rule Book.”

“I don’t care a chocolate drop about the Army Rule Book,” retorted Jenny. “The city must be saved!”

On the other side of the wall the thunder of marching feet could be heard.

“There is no time to waste! Open the gate!” cried Jenny to the Guardian.

The old Guardian, with bones and keys rattling, hastened to obey. As he opened the gate a short way, Jenny set the turn-style in the opening and quickly pressed some buttons.

From outside the gate came an order, out of a thousand throats.

“Forward march! Through that gate!”

The first chocolate giant appeared in the opening and pushed into the turn-style.

Plink! A tiny tin soldier, no bigger than a thumb, marched out of the turn-style!

Another soldier appeared in the opening. Plink! He had become a toy man, as small as a thumb. He marched after the first.

Plink! Plink! Plink! The chocolate giants kept pushing themselves into the turn-style and coming out no bigger than thumbs, and turned to tin.

Number Nine gave a shout. “Oh, Jenny, how clever you are!”

Some children, who had run after the Sawhorse, seeing the little tin soldiers marching, pounced upon them, crying, “Toys! Tin soldiers to play with!” They carried them off to the park, where they set them up in formation and laughed to see the tiny things marching and shouldering arms.

As the giants on the other side of the gate did not suspect what was happening to their comrades, they kept coming on, with fierce steps, prepared to capture the Emerald City for their moody-faced General. When they were changed to toy tin soldiers, they no longer remembered anything, and were as pleased as the children to play games in the park.

When the last chocolate giant had been changed like the others, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers crept out from behind the steps.

“We have saved the city!” he said, and saluted. “I shall go to the supply room and get myself a medal.” He marched away.

The Guardian locked the gate. Jenny and Number Nine took the turn-style, mounted the Sawhorse, and rode triumphantly back to the Style Shop.

CHAPTER 23

The Slide to Freedom

“But what of poor Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead?” exclaimed Jenny as soon as they reached the Style Shop. “I had nearly forgotten that they are in prison, waiting to be rescued.”

“Must we do that now? Choose Day is the most important shopping day in the week, and the shop is filled with out-of-town visitors. We have a busy day ahead of us,” said the boy. “Besides, we ought to celebrate our victory.”

“No time to celebrate when two friends are in prison!” Jenny said sternly. “We will set up the turn-style, and then Sister Six and I will get down to serving customers. I don’t want to disappoint them. But you must go to the palace and find the Wizard of Oz. He will help you rescue Jack and Scraps. When the chocolate General learns that his army has been captured, he may revenge himself on our two friends.”

The turn-style was soon set up. “Perhaps you had better not wear the whistlebreeches in the palace. They might disturb the Wizard. Step through the turn-style, and I’ll change your suit for today,” said Jenny.

Number Nine stepped through the turn-style, while Jenny pushed some buttons. He came out wearing a neat cutaway jacket and well-fitting trousers of green velvet. He was delighted and hastened to mount the Sawhorse to start for the palace.

“Hurry!” called Jenny. “Every minute means danger for Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead.” The boy tried to urge the wooden animal to go fast, but the visitors had become so numerous that the streets were crowded, and the Sawhorse moved slowly through the throng.

“Try to go faster!” said the boy. “Something may happen to our friends while we are dallying.” Just then a soft voice close to the boy said, “Hello, Master Number Nine!” The boy turned and saw a lovely young girl, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, dancing beside him.

“Why, Miss Polychrome!” he said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve played together in the rain. How is your parent, the Rainbow?”

“As beautiful as ever,” said the girl, dancing along. “Must you hurry so, or can you stay and play now?”

“I am on my way to find the Wizard and ask him to rescue two friends from the wrath of an angry General.”

“Goodbye, then, till a rainy day.” The girl danced away.

Number Nine looked after her, thinking, “Now, I hope no one else slows me up.” Just then his path was blocked by the round, copper figure of Tik-Tok, the clock man, walking arm in arm with a fierce-looking Pirate. “I wish they’d get out of my way,” thought the boy. But he dared not say anything. The Pirate was talking in a loud, swaggering voice that frightened Number Nine.

“You shine like the sun, my friend Tik-Tok. But look at me. Never before has Captain Salt appeared in public with such muddy sea boots. Where can I get a shine?”

“At-the-zoo-you-can-get-a mon-key-shine,” tocked the clock man, not in the least frightened by the loud voice. The two turned in the direction of the animal enclosure.

“Come on, Sawhorse, run a bit!” urged the boy. But another obstacle arose. This was the public soda fountain, crowded with thirsty visitors. The Sawhorse went around it. Number Nine saw many of his brothers and sisters, who waved to him as he went by.

“Poor Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead. Will I reach the Wizard before something happens to them?” the boy thought. At last he arrived at the palace. “I hope I am not too late!” he cried, as he sprang down and ran into the palace.

He could see no one about. He glanced timidly around him, for he had never been in such splendor. Then he walked briskly, hoping to meet someone who would lead him to the Wizard. He crossed the green glass floor of the reception hall and mounted a flight of spiral stairs built of black mirrors. Turning at the top into a long corridor, he entered a passage that led into a Grand Reception Hall, with a high, vaulted roof of green crystal. The palace seemed deserted.

He walked through many passages, and past hundreds of doors. The doors had name plates on them, but none of them said WIZARD. Number Nine was becoming discouraged. “So much time going to waste! I wish Jenny had come with me,” he thought He passed through room after room, both large and small. Then he mounted endless stairs and finally went up the highest flight in the palace. These were narrow stone steps that wound around and around, up to the very top of the highest spire. When he reached the top, he saw nothing but another closed door.

“All that climbing for nothing!” he exclaimed in disappointment.

Just then the door opened, and out stepped a little man with a shiny bald head and a ruddy complexion, carrying a broom and wearing a dressing gown. The man began to sweep the dust from the floor. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

Number Nine said, “Can you tell me where the Wizard is?”

“He is somewhere; with someone you may be sure,” said the man with a chuckle. “That is the sum of it.”

“That isn’t some of it, but all of it,” snapped Number Nine. “I’ve come all the way up here looking for him. Please hurry and tell me where he is!”

“Let’s start at the bottom of the matter,” said man with the broom. “Maybe I can help you.”

“No, no!” the boy said impatiently. “I can’t stop to tell you. Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead are prisoners on a chocolate star. Only the great Wizard of Oz can bring them back.”

“Come inside,” said the short man, with a crackle of a laugh. “I am pretty good at finding lost people myself.”

Number Nine stepped into the room. It was the smallest and dingiest of any room in the palace. In each of the four walls was a battered old door. The man looked too small and insignificant to belong in the palace.

“He’s just a lunatic who lives in the tower. Can’t help me,” thought Number Nine.

The man sat down and motioned Number Nine to another chair. “Hungry? I’ll whistle up a meal for you.”

The man whistled, and immediately one of the doors opened and a tray of food walked in on four silver legs. It was the most elaborate meal that Number Nine had ever seen.

“Help yourself. Go ahead,” said the man. “All I want is a cookie.”

“We mustn’t lose any time! Think of the two prisoners,” cried the boy.

“Come, now, have a bit of food,” coaxed the man.

Number Nine thought he could get away sooner by obeying, so he helped himself to some food.

“He’s completely cracked,” thought the boy.

The little man nibbled his cookie. Suddenly he shot a question at the boy. “How would you like a new job, working for me? I need a lazy boy.”

Number Nine stopped eating and said, “No, thank you! I have a good job. And I’m not as lazy as you think.”

“That’s too bad. Then I can’t hire you. As soon as you are through eating, we’ll try to locate your missing friends.”

Number Nine jumped up. “I’m all through now.”

“Follow me,” roared the little man, holding his broom in both hands in front of him. As Number Nine stood up, the east door opened by itself, and they went through it.

“This east room is my laboratory,” said the little man. Number Nine’s blue mouth opened in astonishment at what he saw.

The room was large and filled with all kinds of machinery, bottles, retorts, and tubes. The tubes were filled with bright-colored powders and bubbling liquids that filled the room with fragrant odors. There were also queer mirrors, and telescopes with automatic hands that focused and adjusted themselves, and endless gears and wheels, and enormous pendulums that swung rhythmically from the ceiling.

“First, we’ll consult the Bureau of Missing Persons.” The little man went to a bureau at the wall, pulled open a drawer, and took out a little black notebook. “As soon as anything is missing in Oz, its name writes itself in this book,” he explained. “Some of these things have been missing for hundreds of years. Here is a Munchkin baker boy who has missing for 984 years, 5 days, and 6 hours. My, my! I am certainly behind in my work!” The little man kept turning the pages of the notebook. He read, as if talking to himself, “2 walking lamp posts, 1 pink kitten, 20 solid-gold fish, 1 greedy cow, and yes, yes, here they are! 1 Jack Pumpkinhead and 1 Scraps, a patchwork girl.”

The man looked up. “You are right. They are missing.”

“I know it,” said Number Nine, jumping at the little man with anger. “You are just wasting time. I don’t believe you can find them!”

The little man chuckled. “Just step this way, to the west room, please.” He led the way through another door.

They passed down a hall, and Number Nine stared at the crowded hooks and shelves there. He saw many wigs and masks, false faces, and false legs and arms, noses, and eyes of every color and size. And there were animal skins, and the wings of birds, bats, butterflies, and insects. Besides these, there were dozens of men’s suits, frock coats in red, green, blue, purple, and yellow, and canes and high silk hats.

“The man must be terribly loony,” thought the boy. “Who can he be?”

Next minute Number Nine found himself standing in the west room. It was empty, except for a large and strange machine in the center.

“This is the teletable. It locates missing things and people.” The little man began to turn some dials.

Number Nine watched him closely. The man went on explaining, “The two main parts of this machine are the Compound Gazabo and the Goggle-optics. With these, one can see and hear to the farthest star.”

He pointed to another part, saying, “And here is the Trumpet Eye. You put your eye to it and listen. You put your ear to it and look. Is it all clear?”

“As clear as chocolate,” said the boy.

“It’s such an intelligent machine, the most stupid person can run it. Here, you locate your friends yourself. And if you find anything else, make a note of it.” The man handed the boy some ruled music paper. “I’ll just sit down and take a little nap.”

Taking a seat in the corner, the man covered his head with a napkin.

Number Nine sat down before the machine and put his ear to the Trumpet Eye. At the same time, he watched an oblong mirror attached to it, and his fingers turned some dials. Soon a formless mass appeared in the mirror.

“I’m finding something!” exclaimed Number Nine. He carefully turned the dials, and the mass in the mirror came closer and took shape. It was a pink kitten, combing itself with a black comb and mewing forlornly.

“Ahz!” said Number Nine in disappointment. “It’s only that lost kitten, in the catacombs under the city.” He made some notes and turned the dials again. “I hope I find the prisoners soon.” The mirror cleared, and then another picture took shape. This time Number Nine saw an old man with a long blue beard, wearing a baker’s cap and a short, Munchkin boy’s suit, fishing by a blue river. A string of five solid-gold fish lay beside him.

“That must be the Munchkin baker boy who has been missing over 984 years. He has caught only 5 of the 20 missing solid-gold fish! His beard has grown quite long, but he hasn’t changed his clothes all the time,” thought Number Nine.

“Ho, hum!” The baker’s yawn came through teletable.

“The loafer! I suppose it would take a cake of yeast to raise him from that soft spot,” declared Number Nine.

Once again he made some notes and turned dials. This time stars and clouds flashed across mirror. Then a chocolate-colored speck came view. “I’m getting it!” exclaimed the boy. He spun the dials slowly, watching the speck grow bigger and take the shape of a star. Then its entire shape was no longer in the mirror, but only a part of it. He saw a chocolate mountain-top.

“There they are!” he shouted, catching sight of Jack and then of Scraps in their prison cells. Marching back and forth before the prison was the moody-faced General.

“That blackguard stayed home himself and sent his soldiers to capture the Emerald City,” thought Number Nine. He heard Scraps calling to the General,

“Hi, you fat fox,

Why won’t you box?”

Number Nine saw the General stop and glare at Scraps, saying, “Listen, Rags, for the last time, I tell you I’ll never be boxed chocolate!”

At these words Jack Pumpkinhead shook the bars and shouted, “When Jenny comes back, she’ll make it so hot for you, you’ll run!”

“She is never coming back,” boasted the General with a terrible scowl. “By this time, my army has captured the Emerald City. I am awaiting word at any moment.”

Number Nine became so excited, he shook his fist at the picture in the mirror and yelled, forgetting that the instrument could not carry his voice, “Ho, ho, is that so, you thick chocolate ninny? You ought to see your brave soldiers playing with the children in the park!”

The little man woke from his nap and took the napkin from his head.

“Well,” he smiled pleasantly, “have you picked up anything of interest?”

“I have found them!” exclaimed Number Nine Proudly. “At least, they’re in the teletable. Now, how do we bring them home?”

The little man nodded. “I told you that was a smart machine. Now, to the cosmic with my Ozmic Ray!”

The man went to a closet and came back carrying a long tube. He connected this to the side of the teletable.

“Keep the picture and the sound clear,” he said to Number Nine. “Wish them back intensely, while I adjust the intensifier.”

The boy closed his eyes and wished hard. When he opened his eyes, he saw a golden beam of light shooting from the end of the tube through the open window, and toward the sky. The machine was sputtering electrically. Number Nine looked into mirror. It showed him the other end of the golden beam speeding toward the chocolate mountain. A shower of sparks fell over the General and the prison.

“Ouch! I’m melting!” came the General’s voice. The General and the chocolate prison were melting down and running in liquid trickles over the mountain rocks.

“We’re free! We’re free!” Jack Pumpkinhead shouted to Scraps. Then the two leaped over liquid chocolate and ran toward the golden ray. “Look!” Scraps was so excited she forgot rhyme. “It tips down from the mountain like a banister. Shall we slide down it?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “Oh, I hope it leads to Emerald City!”

Scraps climbed onto the Ozmic Ray, face downward, hugging it like a banister.

“Here I go!

Toward friend or foe!”

She shot downward. Jack Pumpkinhead moved stiffly, saying, “I hope my head doesn’t fly off on the way down.” Then he slid after her.

“Here we are, from the star!” came a merry voice in the laboratory. Jerking around, Number Nine saw Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead sliding down the Ozmic Ray, through the window, and toward the teletable!

Boom! boom! They came to a stop and jumped to the floor.

“Yippee!” cried Scraps, and began turning back-flips through the room.

“Thank Ozness, we’re saved,” cried Jack, his yellow face beaming.

Number Nine pointed to the little bald-headed man. “Thank him. He saved you. And I don’t even know his name.”

“Never mind,” said the little man hastily. “Ozma has just returned, and I must present myself to her. I’ll have to change my clothes, so you three had better go.”

The thought of going down those hundreds of stairs made Number Nine sigh. “My legs ache at the thought of that long climb down,” he said.

“Then you may use the Ambassa-door,” said the little man, pointing to the south door. “The three of you just stand before it and wish yourselves at the foot of the stairs.”

“I didn’t get to see the Wizard,” said Number Nine in disappointment, as he and Jack, and Scraps walked to the door. It looked like any old battered door, without magical powers. But no sooner had Number Nine made the wish, than the Ambassa-door whisked him out, and he found himself, along with Jack Pumpkinhead and Scraps, in the Grand Hallway on the first floor of the palace.

The three looked around and saw that the Grand Hallway was crowded with people and other creatures from all the lands of Oz. Among these were the celebrated Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Professor Wogglebug, Glinda the Good, Princess Dorothy, and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

Rows of footmen in green uniforms with gold tassels stood erect along the walls. At the foot of the stairs stood the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. Raising his trumpet to his lips, the Soldier blew four notes: TA-RA-TA-TA!

All heads turned toward the Grand Stairway. Number Nine, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Scraps stood looking up the stairway. After a few minutes a little man in a bright red frock coat, high-heeled boots, a shirt with a starched collar appeared on the stairs. He carried a brilliant red cane and a high silk hat. He came slowly down the stairs, bearing himself with great dignity.

“Why, that’s the little man I was with all the afternoon!” thought Number Nine. “Can he be as important as all this?”

At the moment the Soldier with the Green Whiskers sang out, “MAKE WAY FOR HIS EXCELLENCY, THE GREAT WIZARD OF OZ!”

“Well!” declared Number Nine in astonishment “I guess I was the loony one all the time!”

The guests now went into the great Banquet Hall of the palace, and Number Nine hurried to tell Jenny his adventures.

“Your Sawhorse is outside the palace, waiting to take you back to the pumpkin field,” said Number Nine to Jack Pumpkinhead. “As for you, Scraps, come with me to the Style Shop and Jenny will change you from that funny-looking boy’s bathing suit to your own precious patches.”

Scraps somersaulted happily after him.

CHAPTER 24

The Midnight Oil Burns Low

It was almost evening when Jenny closed the shop. It had been a busy day, and she was tired. But she felt happy to know that the prisoners had returned to the Emerald City. Number Nine had come and gone and now Jenny went upstairs to get ready for bed.

“Perhaps Ozma will hold the ozlection now that I’m back,” thought Jenny.

Before she could undress, there was a knock at the shop door. She hurried downstairs. Outside the door of the shop, she saw Jellia Jamb, Ozma’s maid-in-waiting.

“Come in, Jellia,” said Jenny, opening the door wide.

“I can’t stay. Ozma sent me to ask you to come to the meeting in the Ivory Tower, at the top of the Ploz.”

“Ploz?” said Jenny. “What’s that?”

“P.L.Oz – Public Library of Oz,” explained Jellia. “The meeting is important. It’s about the ozlection,” she said, and hurried away.

Jenny put on her newest dress, a pink trimmed with soap bubbles. As she looked into her mirror she thought, “I look as young as Number Nine. But he doesn’t seem as young to me as he used to.” Smiling, she stepped out into the twilight, drawing the door shut behind her. The entire house immediately shuttered itself, except Jenny’s bedroom, which remained waiting up for her.

Jenny hurried toward the library building which was darkening with the evening. The only light came from a small window in the tower.

“That’s a strange place for a meeting,” Jenny said to herself. “I wonder why they chose that. But Ozma acts wisely. I’ll know soon enough.”

There was nobody in the street, for the people and the houses retire early, and Jenny felt lonesome running along by herself. She talked aloud, to keep herself company.

When she came up to the library building, she was no longer alone. For at that moment, there arrived Ozma’s carriage, drawn by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. It stopped at the door, and from it dismounted Ozma, Dorothy, Glinda, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Uncle Henry, and Aunt Em. Now that she saw the royal party, she felt honored to be present. It was indeed an important occasion, and tomorrow she would tell Number Nine all about it.

“Hello, Jenny dear,” called Ozma. “It was nice of you to come. I was at Glinda’s castle when you saved the city with your turn-style. If you and your office boy had not acted so promptly, the city might have been submerged in chocolate when I returned. I thank you with all my heart and shall reward you in good time.”

“Oh, it was nothing at all, Your Majesty,” said Jenny.

The Scarecrow opened the door for Queen Ozma, sweeping off his hat and bowing low as she passed. Ozma smiled and paused a moment before going in. “Professor Wogglebug isn’t expecting us,” she said. “But I know he’ll welcome a surprise.”

At this moment the Cowardly Lion spoke up. “Isn’t this a rather dark part of town?”

“The books in this library are full of illumination,” laughed the Scarecrow.

“Books have never been known to shed light on animals,” said the Cowardly Lion dolefully.

“Don’t fear,” said Ozma. “You and the Hungry Tiger may come with us.”

Uncle Henry unharnessed the animals, and the two bounded into the building.

“Hm!” said the Hungry Tiger, sniffing the air and looking around at the thousands of books that covered the walls, “not a juicy bone in all this dry stuff.”

The Cowardly Lion replied, “During the day there are some boneheads here. But at night only the bookworms remain.”

“What’s a little bookworm to an appetite like mine? No, I’ll just stay hungry,” said the Tiger.

The rest of the party came into the library and went toward the reversible chute. This was a slide that carried one up to the top floor of the building. This chute was very useful, although it was the result of an accident. Professor Wogglebug, who had prepared the design for the builder, had accidentally copied the specifications backward, reversing the action of the slide. The atoms and molecules, all being reversed, slid everything up instead of down.

One by one, the party sat down on the bottom of the chute and were slid up, coming to a stop before the door of the Ivory Tower. On this door hung a sign:

THE PROFESSOR IS IN

When they were all assembled at the door, Ozma tapped on it. There was no answer. She knocked again, more loudly. Still there was no sound from inside the room.

Ozma knocked a third time, so hard that her knuckles hurt. But only silence came from within.

“He must be wrapped in his work over his ears,” said the Scarecrow. “I think we must all pound on the door.”

They all knocked to help arouse the Wogglebug. The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger thumped on the door with their tails, the Scarecrow beat with his kingly scepter, the Tin Woodman pounded with his funnel hat, and the others used their knuckles.

They kept up the pounding and knocking until Aunt Em said, “I declare, the Professor’s mind must be wandering.”

“If ’twas a hog wandering, I’d give the hog call. That would bring it back,” said Uncle Henry. “But I suppose you can’t use a hog call on a professor!”

“He’s a hog for learning,” said Dorothy. “And besides, I don’t think he’d mind. Go ahead, Uncle Henry, and give your best hog call.”

“Hold on, everybody. Here I go!” said Uncle Henry, and he cupped his hands around his mouth and emitted the loudest, strangest cry that Jenny had ever heard. It was a yodel and a whoop and a siren scream all in one. It echoed through the empty floors below and was carried up again on the reversible chute.

“Sakes alive!” said Aunt Em admiringly. “Too bad our old neighbors back in Kansas couldn’t hear that! I’m proud of you, Henry.”

They heard the key turn in the door, and, as the door opened, they saw Professor Wogglebug standing there, yawning and stretching.

“Haz, hum!” he said. “I trust this interruption is due to no trivial cause.”

The Professor opened his eyes wider. “Our Queen herself! Then I know this disturbance is for a worthy reason. I was lost in thought, and for three days I’ve been trying to find my way back. Then I heard a sound and guided myself back by it.”

“That was Uncle Henry’s hog call,” said Dorothy. “No matter.” The Professor waved his antennae with dignity. “Pray enter, and break the solitude of my sanctum.”

The Wogglebug stood aside, and the royal party entered, walking carefully so as not to stumble over the books and papers that overflowed the table and the chairs and lay in piles on the floor.

“I must ask you to leave everything in exactly the disorder in which you see it,” said the Professor. “Please seat yourselves as best you can. You, gracious Queen, may have my chair.”

While Ozma occupied the only vacant chair, the others sat on piles of books. The two beasts crouched quietly in two corners.

“We are sorry to disturb you, Professor,” said Ozma, “but we want to discuss the ozlection. This was the best place to meet.”

“Meat? Did someone say meat?” the Hungry Tiger leaped up.

Everyone smiled at the beast, and the Tin Woodman said kindly, “Here you will find only food for thought.” The Tiger sank back in his corner.

“A-humph!” said the Professor. “The first thing to decide on is a new method of voting. Has anyone thought of a way?”

The others were silent and shook their heads. The Professor took off his spectacles, breathed on them, and polished them with his handkerchief.

Ozma said, “We have come here to get your advice. This time nothing must happen to the votes.”

Princess Dorothy spoke up, “We must hold the ozlection soon.”

The Professor said, “This is a matter of great weight. But the wait need not be great.”

“But what will be the way to vote?”

The Professor smiled wisely. “The way is to weigh.”

“My, he sure talks like a professor,” said Aunt Em, looking blank.

“Humph! Thank you, madam.” The Wogglebug bowed, upsetting the pile of books on which he was sitting. With undisturbed dignity, he seated himself on another pile.

Uncle Henry said, “It sounds mighty learned, but for my part, I don’t know what it means.”

“Neither do I,” said Glinda.

“Wait!” said the Wogglebug. “You’ll soon understand that we’re discussing weight.”

Aunt Em looked blanker than ever. Jenny spoke up, “The Professor means that the voters will step on a scale and be weighed!”

“Excellent, dear child!” said the Professor. He went on, looking from one to the other, “In spite of the good things that Jenny has done for our people, and her being well liked, there is no doubt that Ozma will get most of the votes. When a candidate gets almost all the votes in an ozlection, there occurs a landslide. And a landslide in such a well-laid city as ours would be nothing short of a Catastrophe!”

“That would be dreadful!” said Glinda the Good, shuddering.

“To prevent a landslide,” the Professor went on, “we must see that the candidates’ votes are almost evenly balanced.”

“But how can we do that?” asked the Scarecrow, whose straw brains were poking out of his head from the effort to understand the Professor.

The Tin Woodman added, “You just said yourself that most of the people will vote for Ozma.”

“I think what the Professor means,” said Jenny, “is that we must leave the ozlection to CHANCE.”

The Professor beamed and bowed toward Jenny. “Exceedingly bright! If Ozma were not such a beloved Queen, I might wish that you could take her place. But of course that is unthinkable.”

“Unthinkable!” said everybody else in a chorus, except Jenny.

“I am more in the dark than ever,” said Uncle Henry.

“That is not surprising,” said Aunt Em. “The lamp is burning low.”

“Dear me,” said the Professor, “I’m all out of midnight oil. We’ll have to adjourn the meeting. Leave everything to me. You, Queen Ozma, order the Town Crier to cry to every household that the people must find their way to the Public Square next Choose Day early, when the weighing will get under way. Each in his way will weigh himself. There will be entertainment for those who must wait to leave their weight.”

Dorothy clapped her hands and cried, “I can’t wait till next Choose Day. This ozlection is going to be a lot of fun,”

CHAPTER 25

The Great Ozlection

All roads running toward the Emerald City from the four countries of Oz were filled with traffic. Everyone was coming to vote and shop. Every kind and color of wagon was rolling along. On the Gillikin high road there were odd little carts drawn by purple goats and spotted dogs covered with bells and tassels.

On the main Quadling thoroughfare a farmer who was very red in the face rode a roan horse with his wife and three children in a single saddle. There was a jostle and a clatter of happy family parties. When these travelers reached the top of a hill from which they could get a clear view of the Emerald City, they all stopped to admire the sight.

The towers and spires were sparkling in the sun. Colored banners snapped and rolled in the morning breeze. The green, yellow, red, purple, and blue visitors in the streets looked like moving flowers. In the center of the city, the palace and its lawns looked like a jewel set on green velvet.

After the travelers had passed the Guardian of the Gate, they saw the city houses smiling with welcome. Flowers of gay colors showed from every yard and house. The trees were fussing and primping and arranging their fruit and branches to look more attractive.

The Town Crier kept wandering around the city, wailing, “Weigh in at the Public Square! All out for the ozlection!”

A few people were still asleep. But the houses, hearing his sobs, shook them out of their beds. The visiting voters left their carts in the pumpkin field and proceeded on foot toward the Public Square, close to the palace.

A broad path led to the heart of the Square, where there were two platforms. On one platform sat Queen Ozma, and on the other, Jenny. Both girls were dressed alike in gold-spangled dresses covered with small question marks and X’s in honor of the ozlection. The dresses had just been turned out of the turn-style.

Beside each girl stood a large weighing scale of pure silver, inlaid with emeralds, in the best Oz-ish manner. Between the two platforms stood Professor Wogglebug. In one hand he held a speaking-tube.

“Humph!” he cleared his throat, and raised the speaking-tube to his lips. “ATTENTION, EVERYBODY!”

The laughter and talk in the Public Square ended, and the people listened to the Wogglebug. The Professor bowed in appreciation of the silence. Then he raised his speaking-tube again.

“With full use of my wisdom and forethought, I have arranged this ozlection. The candidates are our gracious Queen, Ozma, and Miss Jenny Jump, Stylist. To avoid any mistake, I have decided that Chance alone will rule. You good people from our fair lands will form a single line. The first person in the line will step onto Ozma’s platform scale and weigh himself. The second person will step on Miss Jenny Jump’s scale. The third will go to Ozma’s, the fourth, to Miss Jenny Jump’s, and so forth.

“I shall keep a record of the weights. The candidate who has in her favor the most poundage of our noble citizenry will be our future Ruler. Now, will a line please form?”

The Wogglebug ran among the people, directing them to take their places. Then, looking at his watch, he said, “It is now seven fifteen, a.m. The time for voting has come. You, Winkie girl” —he pointed to the first person in the line— “proceed to Ozma’s scale.”

Professor Wogglebug hurried after the Winkie girl. As she stepped onto the scale, the Professor took out his notebook and said, “Sixty-seven pounds. Sixty-seven votes for Ozma.” He wrote “67” in his notebook under the name of Ozma.

“Next, you Gillikin boy. Don’t be bashful. Step right up to Miss Jenny Jump’s scale. It is not only your right, but your duty, to vote!”

The boy timidly approached Jenny Jump’s platform and stepped on the scale. “Ahz,” cried the Professor. “Eighty-seven pounds.” He wrote the number in his notebook under the name of Jenny.

“Let me see – sixty-seven subtracted from eighty-seven leaves twenty-that’s twenty votes in Miss Jenny Jump’s favor!”

But after two more people had been weighed, the Professor cried out, “Our Queen is now leading by nine votes!”

Jenny felt strange, there before so many people. Now she knew exactly how a queen must feel.

“It’s not all fun,” she said to herself. “But just the same, I want to be Queen. If I win, I intend to move into the royal palace. But I’ll hate to give up the Style Shop.”

There were many faces in the crowd that gave Jenny a friendly smile. She could see many of her styles on the people. At this point, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers was directed by the Wogglebug to Jenny’s scale. A huge gold medal covered half the Soldier’s chest. He stepped on Jenny’s scale, and the Wogglebug shouted, “One hundred fifty-five pounds of Army vote.”

The Soldier turned indignantly. “I beg your pardon, Professor Wogglebug, T.E. But according to the Records of the Army, my weight has always been one hundred twenty-five. There is no reason why I should be twenty-five pounds overweight today!” The Soldier was still standing on the scale, and the pointer touched 155. The Professor put his hand on the scale.

“Do you dispute the accuracy of this instrument?” he said.

The Soldier turned greener with anger. “Are you calling the Army Records false?” he shouted.

The Wogglebug drew back, studying the Soldier. His eyes fell on the large medal.

“Ah, haz!” he said, pointing at the Soldier’s chest. “That explains everything!” The Soldier’s eyes fell on the medal, and his face broke into a smile. “Ahz, yes, I had forgotten. My decoration for saving the city from the chocolate army.”

He marched away from the scale, and Ozma leaned toward Jenny’s platform.

“I have been thinking of—” said Ozma, when the Wogglebug stepped between the two platforms. “Ladies, ladies! I beg to remind you that you are holding up the line!”

“I beg your pardon, Professor,” said Jenny and Ozma.

The Wogglebug called, “Next, please. Keep the line moving.”

The weighing-in continued. The votes kept closely balanced. First Ozma would be ahead, then Jenny would overtake her, or pass her. The people were in a state of great excitement, not knowing how the ozlection would turn out at the end.

As noon approached, the footmen from the palace set up picnic tables in the Public Square. Someone said to Jenny, “Could you tell me what the score is now?” But Jenny could not see anyone speaking to her.

“It is 15,009 votes for Ozma, and 15,010 for myself.” She looked around, “Are you the Voice That Lost His Man?”

“The same. Has my Man been weighed in yet?” asked the Voice.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny.

“Oh, here he comes. My vacation is over!” The Voice had both disappointment and pleasure in its tone.

Coming from the front of the line and stepping around the Wogglebug, Jenny saw a stout, dark man with pointed, waxed mustaches. He waved his hands as he walked, and when he stepped on the platform he wiggled his fingers, as if he were trying to shape words with them.

“I don’t know what you are trying to say,” said Jenny. Then she heard the Voice, “Here I am, Master! Is that horrid Cold out of your throat?” The dark, round man rolled his eyes and exposed his even rows of teeth in a grin. He waved his arms and danced, his face radiant with joy. But not a sound did he utter.

“Oh, Master! I know what you would sing if you had me inside you.” The Voice burst into song beside the singer’s head, “O, Sole Mio!”

The man clapped his hands and seemed speechless with delight. Then the Voice said, “Farewell, freedom! Farewell, the open road!” The next time it spoke, it came from the throat of the man.

“Ahz!” cried the man. “At last my golden voice is with me again! Never, never do I fish in the drafts again! To you, Miss Jenny Jump, I am so happy, I give my weight and my heart!”

The Professor said, “Just the weight, if you please.”

The singer bounded on the scale. The pointer went swinging to three hundred pounds!

“Thank you,” cried Jenny. “If all my voters weighed as much as you, I’d be sure to win the ozlection.”

As the singer was departing, his mouth wide open in song, a midget came up. While the fattest woman in Oz stepped on Ozma’s scale, the midget weighed in on Jenny’s.

Jenny was ready to cry. For Ozma was now in the lead. A few minutes later the Wogglebug announced that lunch was ready for everyone. After lunch the voting was resumed. The score kept teetering between Ozma and Jenny. Everyone known to the people of Oz was weighed in – Sir Hokus, Princess Dorothy, Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, Jellia Jamb, Polychrome, and many others. At night a full moon lighted the Public Square. All over the city, fireworks and entertainments were going on. No one thought of sleeping. The houses remained wide awake, sharing the excitement. There was only a small line of voters remaining unweighed. The score still was so close that it looked as if the ozlection would be decided with the last votes. Number Nine and his family stood patiently near the end of the line. When the office boy stepped on Jenny’s scale, he grinned and leaned close to Jenny, saying, “I’m glad I’m voting for you, Boss.”

“If I become Queen,” said Jenny, “you shall be my front page boy.”

“Thanks, Boss. I’d like that. But if you don’t get to be Queen, don’t feel bad.”

Jenny tossed her head. “I guess my chance is as good as Ozma’s.”

Each member of Number Nine’s family was weighed in and then vanished into the crowd. As the last people in the line drew closer, word began to spread over the city that the ozlection was soon to be decided. The people left their fireworks and games and massed in the Public Square.

“A-humph! Attention, everybody!” The Professor stepped to the front of Ozma’s platform. He held up his notebook, reading aloud. “The score between the candidates is now: Queen Ozma, one million, six hundred thousand and seven pounds. Miss Jenny Jump, one million, six hundred thousand and twelve pounds. Miss Jenny Jump is leading by five pounds. And there are only two voters left to cast their weight!”

The crowd burst into a tremendous shout. The Wogglebug held up his hand.

“Please, please! Save your shouting for the ozlected Ruler of our fair land. Voter, step up to Queen Ozma’s scale.”

Jenny’s heart was beating fast. Two more votes, and the ozlection would be decided! She might be Queen!

The next to the last voter stepped onto Ozma’s scale. A tense silence hung over the Public Square. When the Wogglebug spoke, his voice trembled with excitement.

“This voter weighs eighty-three pounds, bringing Ozma’s total votes to one million, six hundred thousand and ninety pounds. And now, the last voter, who will decide the future destiny of Oz!” Jenny was so excited, her feet kept twitching.

“Am I to be Queen of Oz?” she whispered to herself. A weary old man stepped on Jenny’s scale. “Seventy-eight pounds!” announced the Wogglebug. “Bringing Jenny Jump’s total to one million, six hundred thousand and ninety pounds. Great Socrates’ socks! IT’S A TIE!”

The people went wild. “A tie, a tie,” they cried, and many took off their neckties and waved them in the air.

Jenny jumped from her chair. “What are we to do?” she cried.

The Wogglebug shook his head. “The same number of people voted for Ozma as for Jenny. And there is no one left to vote.”

“Does that mean we are both to be Queen?” asked Jenny, her heart bobbing in her throat.

“Not an ant’s chance! Only one person can be Queen in Oz. That is the unwritten law of the land!” declared the Wogglebug.

“Must we have another ozlection?” asked Ozma, sounding a little tired.

The Professor joined his hands behind him and paced up and down. “Your Majesty, I am confounded and dumfounded! We have the problem – but where is the answer?”

“Here!” came a cheery voice. Jenny, Ozma, and the Wogglebug stared toward the place from which the voice had come. There, walking down the moon path on Ozma’s platform, came a tiny man with a beard as bushy as a porcupine and a battered old hat with an owl’s feather.

“It’s Siko Pompus!” cried Jenny. “He can decide the ozlection.”

“And that I am meanin’ to do, my dear,” said the Leprechaun. “It’s glad I am to see ye all!” He spun around on his toe, nodding to everyone. The people crowded closer to see the queer little man, and to learn how he would determine the outcome of the ozlection.

The Wogglebug hurried near to the Leprechaun. “Sir, you’ve come just in time. Both candidates have had an equal number of voters. If you step on one scale, there should be someone else to step on the other scale. But since you are a visitor to the city, you must choose which scale you prefer, and decide the ozlection.”

Jenny ran to the Leprechaun. She felt lighthearted with confidence. “Dear Siko Pompus, vote for me! You are my friend!”

The Leprechaun took Jenny’s hand, saying, “Yes, Jenny, it’s your friend I am. That’s why I’m wantin’ to save ye a heap of responsibility. Stay a simple girl!”

Before Jenny could understand him, he had dropped her hand and jumped on Ozma’s scale.

“QUEEN OZMA IS QUEEN!” Professor Wogglebug cried.

The people’s shouts rocked the city. “Ozma, our beloved Queen!” they shouted.

Jenny stamped her foot. “He made me lose the ozlection!” she cried furiously. She felt her temper rising until it seemed to be boiling in her blood. “I’ll get you, you old Leprechaun!” she shouted and rushed at the little man.

CHAPTER 26

Jenny’s Last Flare-Up

Jenny rushed at the little man, her temper beyond her control. But just as she was about to grab him, he ran up a moonbeam, out of her reach. “I’ll get you!” Jenny cried again and tried to run up the moonbeam. But she fell through to the ground. The Leprechaun went higher and higher until he was out of sight.

“I’ll get somebody!” Jenny cried, and she dashed at the Wogglebug. The Professor scampered under the platform.

Ozma went to Jenny. “Please, Jenny, keep calm. Everything will be all right.”

“Everything is all wrong!” Jenny said. “And I’m going to get even!”

She ran toward the people, and they parted before her as if she were a ferocious animal. Jenny ran on through the streets.

“I’m going to do something to make them sorry that I’m not Queen!” she cried to herself. She ran on, not knowing where she was going or what she would do. She ran until she came to the gate of the animal-plant enclosure. Her temper gave her extra strength, and she threw open the gate and ran into the enclosure.

All around her the animal-plants were peacefully sleeping. “I’ll set them free!” she stormed. “They’ll run loose, smashing everything, and the wild animal plants will knock over all the people!”

Jerking a forked branch from a tree, she prodded a dandy-lion. The dandy-lion reared up and went rushing through the enclosure and out of the gate Jenny wrenched open the doors of the fox-glove kennels. The blue, gray, silver, and red foxes ran out, so excited that they began nipping at the legs of other animals.

Cries, bellows, and yowls began coming up from the enclosure. All the animal-plants were awake and pulling at their flower chains. Jenny prodded the tiger-lilies. The tigers leaped from the plants, ran wildly round and round, then burst through the gate.

From the city came cries, “The animal-plants are loose!”

“Yes,” Jenny shouted, “the animal-plants are loose, and more will be loose.” Her temper was so high and so hot, it seemed it would burn the top of her head off. She freed the holly-hawks, catnip cats, dogwood dogs, and the snap-dragons.

She ran, kicking and striking at everything that got in her way, toward another corner of the enclosure. A dark shape rushed toward her. There was a threatening cry.

“Look out Bullhead!”

“Who’s a bullhead!” Jenny shouted. “I’ll get you!”

“You’re in the bull-rush pen now,” said the heavy voice, closer. It gave a long bellow.

“I’m not afraid of bulls!” Jenny said. Just then she was tripped by a horn and fell flat on her face.

“Who made you stum-bull?” said the animal.

Jenny gasped, trying to get back enough breath to answer. Other bulls came running up, and Jenny saw that she was in a bull ring. Heads were lowered, silver horns flashed in the moonlight. In the face of danger, Jenny’s temper was cooling rapidly.

“Who are you, anyway?” she cried to the circle of bulls. They answered, one by one.

“I’m Tum-bull.”

“I’m Fum-bull.”

“I’m Gum-bull.”

“I’m Mum-bull.”

“I’m Gob-bull.”

“I’m Hum-bull,” said a mild and pathetic voice.

A heavy black shape lumbered close and blew its heavy breath in her face. “You’ll never get away from me. I’m Trou-bull!”

“Go away, or I’ll fix you,” Jenny said, her temper beginning to boil again. She jumped up, and, in a sudden spasm of fury, threw herself at Trou-bull’s head, catching hold of the horns. The great, shaggy beast swung around, lowered its head, jerked her up, and sent her sailing through the air.

Crack! Jenny hit against the fence of the enclosure and fell into the grass. The fence awoke and promptly loosened one of its rails. The rail hit Jenny over the head.

“Oh, oh, what happened?” she said, her eyes closing. “Why did I have to get angry?”

Then she didn’t know any more, for she had fainted.

CHAPTER 27

The Animals Run Wild

The city was filled with confusion. The people were running away from the animals who had escaped from their plants. Many of them pursued people into the houses and cellars. Others ran wildly, trying to find shelter. Foxes, lions, and tigers sniffed at the houses. The houses passed the alarm from door to door. When the animals came too close, the houses began fighting them.

One old house had been lazily scratching its back with its chimney, when it felt a dragon sniffing at the foot of its stairs. The house was so startled that its eyes bulged out, cracking three panes of glass. It began to tremble, and it looked so sick with fright that its dark green paint began to pale. When the dragon passed on, the house recovered its color.

The dragon passed to another dwelling. This house became so enraged that it walloped the beast with its chimney. But in the meantime, a catnip slipped into the house, crawled into a bed, and fell asleep.

The merrymaking was over in the Emerald City. Everywhere people were trying to get to their homes and put the frightened children to bed. Queen Ozma sent the Town Crier to cry the animals back to their enclosure and to quiet the people. But the Town Crier took one look at the animals fighting the houses, and turned and ran.

Number Nine and his father had succeeded in getting their family safe within the Uncle’s house. Then Number Nine began to worry about Jenny.

“I’m going out to see what has happened to my Boss.”

“I’ll go with you, son. Maybe I can do some good. If not that, maybe I can find the blue-blooded horses I’ve been trying to get.”

Soon after they set out, the father saw a bull caught halfway in a window. The window had shut itself on the bull, squeezing with all its might. The clothesline had tied itself around its tail and was trying to pull the animal out.

The Munchkin father grasped the clothesline and helped pull the bull into the street. When he had got the animal out, he said to it, “What were you trying to do?”

“I was just getting away from all this dreadful noise,” answered the bull. “And I want to find a friend.” A large tear rolled down the bull’s nose. “You’re the first person who hasn’t chased me this night.”

“Would you like me to be your friend?” asked the father.

“But you pulled my tail!” said the bull.

“I won’t do that again,” promised the father.

“All right, then I’ll let you own me,” said the bull. When the father proceeded down the street, the bull followed quietly.

Number Nine and his father went on, and soon they came to the dragon that had been having trouble with the houses. The dragon was lying in the middle of the road, panting hard. It had just been knocked down by a sturdy Banana Boulevard mansion. It raised its heads as Number Nine and his father passed.

“Will you help me to my feet?”

“If you want my help, dragon, just blow your breath the other way,” said the father. “This is my new suit of clothes.” He pinched out a few burning spots in his sleeves. Then he helped the dragon to its feet, saying, “Go and lie under a tree.”

“I tried that,” said the dragon. “But the trees and bushes stuck twigs and briars into my tender skin. I’ll just limp along after you.”

The dragon and the bull were now following Number Nine and his father. His father’s four blue mules were straying about. Seeing this small procession, they joined it. Other animals slipped into line. A catnip wildcat with saucy eyes stood in the middle of the road, blocking the way.

“Will you please step aside?” said Number Nine’s father.

“Why should I?” retorted the snippy wildcat, her hair bristling.

“Can’t you see you’re in the way?” the father replied patiently.

“Let me join your parade,” said the wildcat.

The father looked around and was surprised to see a string of animals two blocks long following him.

“Well, if this keeps on, I’ll have all the animals with me, and I can take them to the enclosure,” he said.

Number Nine felt important at the head of this parade. “I wish Jenny could see me,” he thought.

The bull was walking directly behind Number Nine’s father. It rubbed its nose on his neck and asked, “Where can I get two or three buckets of water to drink?”

“We’ll stop at the elephant fountain and water all the animals,” said the father.

They marched to the corner of Pancake Park, where an enormous statue of an elephant sprayed green water out of its stone trunk into a basin. The animals crowded around the basin and began drinking. Other animals kept coming from other parts of the city.

Many hours had passed since the ozlection. A green dawn was beginning to show in the east.

“Here are the blue-blooded horses I’ve been looking for!” exclaimed the father. Number Nine looked across the park and saw, in the first rays of morning, four blue horses trotting abreast. They came close to the bull and stood whispering to it. Then they turned and trotted up to the father.

“The bull says that you are the animals’ friend. We want to come with you,” said one of the horses.

“That will be fine. I have a snug, clean barn on my farm in the Munchkin country,” said the father. “I have been hunting for you many days.”

When the animals had drunk all they wanted, they formed in a procession. Just as the farmer was going to lead them off, up came a large girl dressed in a suit of brilliant green spangles, with a belt of gold and a bright gold sword hanging jauntily at her side.

She marched up to the farmer and saluted. “I am General Jinjur,” she announced.

“What I need is not a general, but a Field Marshal, to marshal these animals back to their field,” said the father.

General Jinjur gave him a haughty stare and replied, “In private life, I, too, am a farmer. I can handle animals very well.”

“Good!” said Number Nine’s father. “You can lead these back to the enclosure and see that they are safely locked up. I’ll take my four blue-blooded horses and this bull that wants me for a friend. I’ll gather my family and start back for the Munchkin country. We’ve had lots of fun and excitement on our vacation in the Emerald City. But it’s time we all got back to the farm.”

Number Nine looked sorry to hear his father’s words. He said, “Then I must say goodbye, father. For I must find Jenny Jump and return with her to the Style Shop.”

Number Nine and General Jinjur started toward the animal-plant enclosure. General Jinjur walked with a spunky strut.

The animals paraded after them, and in the growing daylight the remaining ones who had been loosened by Jenny the night before came from the houses and other hiding-places and joined the parade.

The animals quickly went to their places in the enclosure. Some lay rubbing their bumps and cuts where they had been hit by the houses.

“Poor animals,” said Number Nine, “they need a doctor.”

“That looks like one coming,” said General Jinjur. Looking toward the gate, Number Nine saw a short man, dressed in a high black hat and a dark frock coat, wearing spectacles, with a stethoscope around his neck, and carrying a black bag. Under his arm he held a tiny door.

The little man came bustling by, passing up the hurt animals. Number Nine called out, “Say, Doc, aren’t you going to help these poor creatures?”

The man in the frock coat stopped. “Later in the morning,” he said, “I shall pay them a call. Just now I have a more urgent case.”

“A ease of what?” asked General Jinjur.

“The Consequences of Bad Temper,” said the doctor. “This disease is very rare in Oz. The patient is a nice little girl, otherwise.”

“Why, you must be talking about Jenny Jump!” said Number Nine. “Where is she?”

“Over there, against the wall of the bull pen. Unconscious from a bad bump on her head,” said the doctor. General Jinjur pointed her finger at him.

“I know who you are,” she said. “You’re the Wizard of Oz!”

“Hush! You know better than to mention my name in public!” The little man waved his hand before General Jinjur. “Back to your farm!” he said.

Number Nine’s eyes popped. General Jinjur had vanished!

“Where is she?” cried the boy.

The doctor chuckled. “Didn’t you hear me send her home? Right now she is getting ready to milk the cow. Jinjur is a good girl, but she has to be kept in her place. Now to Jenny Jump.”

The Wizard and Number Nine hurried toward the wall of the bull pen. “A bull pen is not a suitable place for a doctor to work,” said the Wizard. He tapped the little door that he was carrying under his arm. “Do you remember the Ambassa-door that transported you from my laboratory to the first floor of the palace? This is Ambassa-door, Junior. It is going to take Jenny, you, and me to the palace. And when Jenny wakes up, she is going to find herself a mightily changed girl!”

CHAPTER 28

“How Grand I Feel!”

Jenny lay in the Sapphire Guest Room of the palace. Queen Ozma stood at the foot of the bed. A scepter hung like an ornament at the side of her dress. Her usually smooth forehead was drawn with worry. Number Nine sat on a stool in a corner of the room. The Wizard of Oz leaned over the bed where Jenny lay.

The Wizard straightened up. “That bump on her forehead is not serious,” he said.

“Why doesn’t she waken?” asked Ozma.

“I’m keeping her under a spell. While she can feel nothing, I am going to remove that bad temper.” The Wizard looked around at Number Nine. “Will you please hand me my bag, there on the table?” Number Nine picked up the common looking black bag and took it to the Wizard.

“Open it, young man.”

Number Nine obeyed. The bag was crammed full of vials, bottles, thermometers, and an object that looked like a dunce cap made of fine screen wire.

“The cap, please,” said the Wizard. There was a light rap at the door. Ozma tiptoed over and admitted Princess Dorothy with the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman.

“How is Jenny?” they whispered.

“I don’t know yet. The Wizard is going to perform the operation,” said Ozma as she led the three toward the bed.

While the two girls and Number Nine looked on, the Wizard put the conical screen cap on Jenny’s head. “This extractor has never failed me,” he said. Jenny slept on, and as Number Nine watched, he saw a slight smile forming on her lips.

“She looks as if she is having a pleasant dream,” said the boy.

“She is feeling better already,” said Ozma, “for her temper just passed into that extractor she is wearing.”

Number Nine leaned over to examine the cap. He could see nothing inside it. But he did not say anything.

The Wizard turned to the boy with a smile. “You will hardly recognize your Boss after today. There will be no sweeter-tempered girl in the land.” He looked closely at the mesh cap. “Every bit of ill temper is out now.”

Then the Wizard turned to Ozma. “While Jenny is wearing the extractor, is there anything else that ought to come out?”

Ozma thought a moment and then said, “She has a little too much envy, and that makes her unhappy. And perhaps too much ambition.”

“You are right,” said the Wizard. “They must come out. Envy first.” He turned a small screw at the side of the cap. He waited a minute and said, “There, that’s done.”

Number Nine again leaned close to the conical cap, but he still saw nothing inside it.

“Now for the ambition that had Jenny’s head turned.” This time the Wizard not only adjusted the screw, but turned the cap. He was smiling at Jenny.

Number Nine was amazed at the change that now came to Jenny’s face. Not only was she looking milder, happier, and younger; she was actually twice as pretty as she had been. Number Nine’s blue face shone with affection. He could hardly wait for Jenny to awaken.

The Wizard took off the conical cap and held it up like a wire cage.

“Do you see what we have here, Ozma?” he said, turning the cap.

“Yes, I see. She will be so much happier without those,” said Ozma.

The Wizard looked at Number Nine and Dorothy. “Interesting specimens, aren’t they?” he remarked, twirling the cap.

Number Nine shook his head. The wire hat looked empty to him. “Gee, Wiz, I don’t see anything,” he said.

Princess Dorothy said, “You forget, Wizard, that we don’t have magical eyes like you and Ozma.”

The Wizard laughed. “I can remedy that.” He reached into his black bag and took out a small can labeled “Visibility Powder.” Holding the cap high, he said, “The bad temper, the envy, and ambition have no shape or substance except to magical eyes. When I sprinkle some Visibility Powder into the cap, those three will take shapes which your eyes will see.”

At this moment the door opened, and Jellia Jamb with Glinda the Good peeped into the room. Ozma beckoned to them to enter. They came on tiptoe to the foot of the bed. In her hands Jellia was holding something that was covered with a gold cloth. Glinda the Good was dressed in a long red robe of flamingo feathers, sewn about with rubies. Her beautiful hair flowed down to her shoulders.

The Wizard waved the can of Visibility Powder. “Now, watch,” he said and turned the can over the conical cap, sprinkling the powder downward. Immediately Number Nine saw an object moving within the fine mesh of the cap. Looking closer, he saw a black wasp buzzing angrily about and darting at the mesh as if it wanted to get out and sting someone.

“That is bad temper,” said the Wizard, and shook more powder over the cage-like cap. At once, a small green snake was wriggling there. “That’s envy,” spoke the Wizard, and for the third time he sprinkled some powder.

Number Nine saw a fat red toad, with a spotted back, hopping about. “And that,” said the Wizard, “is ambition. Now Jenny is free of all these three. Interesting specimens, don’t you think?”

“What are you going to do with them, Wizard?” asked Glinda the Good.

“I’ll keep them in my laboratory for experiments, and later I’ll give them to Professor Wogglebug for his zoology classes at his College of Art and Athletic Perfection.”

The Wizard placed the cap with its three captives in his black bag and replaced the can of Visibility Powder. He turned to Ozma. “I turn the patient over to you.”

Ozma took Jenny’s hand, leaned over the sleeping girl, and blew softly on both her eyes. Jenny’s eyes opened. She stared around her and said, “Why, I am in the palace!” Then she sat upright, smiling and stretching her arms. “How grand I feel!” she exclaimed. “Like a new person!”

Ozma smiled. “You are a new person, Jenny. You will always be sweet tempered, modest, and kind. All the people of Oz shall love you, and this boy” – turning her eyes to Number Nine – “shall love you most of all.” Number Nine blushed a furious blue.

Glinda the Good smiled at Jenny. “Ozma has a lovely surprise for you.”

Princess Dorothy and Jellia Jamb nodded their heads, smiling at Jenny.

“For me?” said Jenny. Her voice was a young girl’s voice, and her eyes had a childish wonder in them.

Ozma said, “Since the day you landed in my carriage at my Birthday Parade, Jenny, you have done many good things for my people. For this you deserve a reward.”

Ozma’s hand went to the jeweled scepter that hung from her belt. She held it over Jenny’s head.

“Jenny Jump, I bestow upon you the title of First Duchess of the Realm.”

“A Duchess!” cried Jenny. “Oh, thank you so much!”

Ozma lowered her scepter and went on, “You shall have the Sapphire Suite in the palace, right next to Princess Dorothy’s suite. You shall sit at High Councils of State. You shall appear, with Dorothy, at my side at public entertainments. And, in addition, you shall be Chief Stylist of the Land of Oz.”

Jenny was glowing with happiness. “Oh, Ozma, how good you are!” she said.

Number Nine unexpectedly spoke up, his voice heavy with unhappiness, “Isn’t Jenny going to live in her cottage on Strawberry Street any more?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Ozma. “She will live at the palace only when she wishes to.”

Ozma turned to Jellia and uncovered the object that Jellia had been holding. It was a dainty coronet of silver and sapphires. Taking it between her hands, Ozma placed it on Jenny’s head.

“There! You make a very sweet Duchess indeed,” said Ozma.

They all gathered at the banquet table and had a party in honor of Jenny. Suddenly she realized she had not changed her clothes.

Jenny looked down at the dress she was wearing. It was crushed and spattered with mud from the bull pen. “Oh, dear! If I am a Duchess, I had better hurry back to my Style Shop and turn out some suitable clothing.”

She slipped from the table. The other girls formed a half-circle around her and walked with her to the front stairs of the palace. Number Nine, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman came behind them.

“Goodbye, good friends!” said Jenny, and Number Nine echoed, “Goodbye!”

“Goodbye, Duchess Jenny,” called the others on the palace stairs. They turned back into the palace, and Jenny went on with Number Nine.

Jenny held her head high, as she thought a Duchess ought to. The sapphires of her coronet flashed in the sun. Number Nine’s admiring blue eyes never left her.

As they walked, Jenny was thinking. Finally she said, “I believe that I shall keep the Style Shop half days, Number Nine. And I shall send for your bright Sister Six to become my assistant and keep the shop the rest of the time. From now on, you and I are going to spend half our time at the playground! Too much work isn’t good for anyone, do you think?”

“Whoopee!” cried Number Nine, throwing his cap into the air. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to hear you say, Jenny!”

Number Nine and Jenny felt so good, they broke into a run and did not stop until they reached the shop. The Strawberry Street house looked glad to see Jenny back.

As she came to the door, she said to Number Nine, “There is a customer in the shop.”

A little bearded man was sitting on top of the turn-style.

“Leaping Leprechauns! It’s Siko Pompus!” Jenny cried in her friendliest voice. She had completely lost her anger toward him. “Hello, Siko Pompus! Do you want a new suit?”

“No, Duchess Jenny. It’s leavin’ Oz, I am. Goin’ back to New Jersey, U.S.A., to get meself a foine piece of pepper-cheese. I’ve stopped in to be sayin’ goodbye to ye an’ to be leavin’ ye a little gift.”

“How nice of you! I am sorry to hear that you’re going,” said Jenny.

Siko Pompus took a small box out of his pocket and gave it to her. Then he hopped down from the turn-style and skipped through the door.

“Goodbye, Siko Pompus!” called Jenny and Number Nine.

When the Leprechaun was gone, Number Nine turned to Jenny. “Why don’t you open your gift box, Jenny?”

“I wonder what it can be,” Jenny said, as she lifted off the cover. “Oh, it’s only odds and ends of junk,” she exclaimed in disappointment.

She began taking the objects out of the box. They included an ivory-handled eyeglass for one eye, a pair of rose-colored gloves with only eight fingers, a gold slipper for her left foot, and a pair of thistledown ear-muffs.

“Now, what do you suppose I can do with this stuff?” Jenny said.

“Why don’t you try them on, Jenny, to see what happens?” suggested Number Nine.

“Just to please you,” said Jenny with a little laugh. She put on the eyeglass, the gloves, the slipper, and the ear-muffs. “Why!” she exclaimed, “They are my fairy gifts! I can see more brightly, hear more keenly, feel a tingling in my fingers, and – look!” She stamped her fairy foot down and, in one leap, bounded across the room!

“You see?” she said. “I am part fairy again!”

Number Nine said in a pleading tone, “Won’t you please put those things away and use them only on special occasions? I don’t want you to be too different.”

Quickly Jenny took off the gifts and dropped them into the box. Going to the shelf, she hid the box behind a large bolt of cloth. “My, I’ve been made Duchess and part fairy, all in one day!”

“Aren’t you going to be my Boss any more?”

“I simply couldn’t” – Jenny hesitated, then burst out laughing – “be ANYTHING ELSE!”

Number Nine seized Jenny’s hands, and together they danced around the turn-style.

THE END