The Wizard of Oz

‘I don’t mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin into me it doesn’t matter, for I can’t feel it. But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?’

‘No matter how dreary and grey our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.’

‘While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.’

Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret.

‘We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am alive.’

‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ the girl asked, as she breathed in the spicy scent of the flowers.

‘I suppose so,’ answered the Scarecrow. ‘When I have brains I shall probably like them better.’

‘If only I had a heart I should love them,’ added the Tin Woodman.

‘Is there anything we can do,’ it asked, ‘to repay you for saving the life of our Queen?’

‘Nothing that I know of,’ answered the Woodman; but the Scarecrow, who had been trying to think, but could not because his head was stuffed with straw, said, quickly, ‘Oh, yes; you can save our friend, the Cowardly Lion, who is asleep in the poppy bed.’

‘Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them.’

‘Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are,’ she answered earnestly. ‘I don’t like your country, although it is so beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my being away so long.’

When, at last, he walked into Dorothy’s room and thanked her for rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears did not need to be wiped away.

Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought they wanted. ‘How can I help being a humbug,’ he said, ‘when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can’t be done?’

But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another:

‘Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the wise Scarecrow to rule over us.’

Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful Wizard, and would not be comforted.

‘Certainly. If it wasn’t for Dorothy I should never have had brains. She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all.’

‘It seems gloomy,’ said the Scarecrow.

‘Not a bit of it,’ answered the Lion; ‘I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home.’

‘Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,’ replied Glinda. ‘If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.’

She threw her arms around the Lion’s neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.