The Magic Art of the Great Humbug

Chapter XVI The Magic Art of the Great Humbug

Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends:

“Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I
return I shall be as other men are.”

“I have always liked you as you were,” said Dorothy simply.

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Transcript

Chapter XVI The Magic Art of the Great Humbug

Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends:

“Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I
return I shall be as other men are.”

“I have always liked you as you were,” said Dorothy simply.

“It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow,” he replied. “But surely you
will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain
is going to turn out.” Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful
voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door.

“Come in,” said Oz.  
The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the
window, engaged in deep thought.

“I have come for my brains,” remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily.

“Oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please,” replied Oz. “You must excuse
me for taking your head off, but I shall have to do it in order to put
your brains in their proper place.”

“That’s all right,” said the Scarecrow. “You are quite welcome to take
my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on
again.”

So the Wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. Then he
entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed
with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together
thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow’s head with the mixture
and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place.

When he had fastened the Scarecrow’s head on his body again he said to
him, “Hereafter you will be a great man, for I have given you a lot of
bran-new brains.”
The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his
greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his friends.

Dorothy looked at him curiously. His head was quite bulged out at the
top with brains.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I feel wise indeed,” he answered earnestly. “When I get used to my
brains I shall know everything.”

“Why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?” asked the
Tin Woodman.

“That is proof that he is sharp,” remarked the Lion.

“Well, I must go to Oz and get my heart,” said the Woodman. So he
walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door.

“Come in,” called Oz, and the Woodman entered and said, “I have come
for my heart.”

“Very well,” answered the little man. “But I shall have to cut a hole
in your breast, so I can put your heart in the right place. I hope it
won’t hurt you.”

“Oh, no,” answered the Woodman. “I shall not feel it at all.”

So Oz brought a pair of tinsmith’s shears and cut a small, square hole
in the left side of the Tin Woodman’s breast. Then, going to a chest of
drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed
with sawdust.

“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked.

“It is, indeed!” replied the Woodman, who was greatly pleased. “But is
it a kind heart?”

“Oh, very!” answered Oz. He put the heart in the Woodman’s breast and
then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it
had been cut.

“There,” said he; “now you have a heart that any man might be proud of.
I’m sorry I had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn’t
be helped.”

“Never mind the patch,” exclaimed the happy Woodman. “I am very
grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness.”

“Don’t speak of it,” replied Oz.

Then the Tin Woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy
on account of his good fortune.

The Lion now walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said Oz.

“I have come for my courage,” announced the Lion, entering the room.

“Very well,” answered the little man; “I will get it for you.”

He went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a
square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold
dish, beautifully carved. Placing this before the Cowardly Lion, who
sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the Wizard said:

“Drink.”

“What is it?” asked the Lion.

“Well,” answered Oz, “if it were inside of you, it would be courage.
You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this
really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore
I advise you to drink it as soon as possible.”

The Lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty.

“How do you feel now?” asked Oz.

“Full of courage,” replied the Lion, who went joyfully back to his
friends to tell them of his good fortune.

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? It was
easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman happy, because they imagined I could do anything. But it will take more than
imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I’m sure I don’t know
how it can be done.”

Chapter XVII How the Balloon Was Launched

For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for
the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and
contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his
head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could
understand them but himself. When the Tin Woodman walked about he felt
his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told Dorothy he had
discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had
owned when he was made of flesh. The Lion declared he was afraid of
nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army or a dozen of the
fierce Kalidahs.

Thus each of the little party was satisfied except Dorothy, who longed
more than ever to get back to Kansas.

On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she
entered the Throne Room he greeted her pleasantly:

“Sit down, my dear; I think I have found the way to get you out of this
country.”

“And back to Kansas?” she asked eagerly.

“Well, I’m not sure about Kansas,” said Oz, “for I haven’t the faintest
notion which way it lies. But the first thing to do is to cross the
desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home.”

“How can I cross the desert?” she inquired.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” said the little man. “You see, when
I came to this country it was in a balloon. You also came through the
air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe the best way to get
across the desert will be through the air. Now, it is quite beyond my
powers to make a cyclone; but I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I
believe I can make a balloon.”

“How?” asked Dorothy.

“A balloon,” said Oz, “is made of silk, which is coated with glue to
keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace, so it will be
no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this country there is no gas
to fill the balloon with, to make it float.”

“If it won’t float,” remarked Dorothy, “it will be of no use to us.”

“True,” answered Oz. “But there is another way to make it float, which
is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn’t as good as gas, for if the
air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we
should be lost.”

“We!” exclaimed the girl. “Are you going with me?”

“Yes, of course,” replied Oz. “I am tired of being such a humbug. If I
should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a
Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them.
So I have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome.
I’d much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again.”

“I shall be glad to have your company,” said Dorothy.

“Thank you,” he answered. “Now, if you will help me sew the silk
together, we will begin to work on our balloon.”

So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips
of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First
there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and
then a strip of emerald green; for Oz had a fancy to make the balloon
in different shades of the color about them. It took three days to sew
all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of
green silk more than twenty feet long.

Then Oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it
airtight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready.

“But we must have a basket to ride in,” he said. So he sent the soldier
with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened
with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon.

When it was all ready, Oz sent word to his people that he was going to
make a visit to a great brother Wizard who lived in the clouds. The
news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the
wonderful sight.

Oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the Palace, and the
people gazed upon it with much curiosity. The Tin Woodman had chopped a big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and Oz held the bottom
of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it
would be caught in the silken bag. Gradually the balloon swelled out
and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the
ground.

Then Oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice:

“I am now going away to make a visit. While I am gone the Scarecrow
will rule over you. I command you to obey him as you would me.”

The balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to
the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much
lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into
the sky.

“Come, Dorothy!” cried the Wizard. “Hurry up, or the balloon will fly
away.”

“I can’t find Toto anywhere,” replied Dorothy, who did not wish to
leave her little dog behind. Toto had run into the crowd to bark at a
kitten, and Dorothy at last found him. She picked him up and ran
towards the balloon.

She was within a few steps of it, and Oz was holding out his hands to
help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon
rose into the air without her.

“Come back!” she screamed. “I want to go, too!”

“I can’t come back, my dear,” called Oz from the basket. “Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where
the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and
farther into the sky.

And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard,
though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we
know. 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.

Chapter XVIII Away to the South

Dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to Kansas
again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone
up in a balloon. And she also felt sorry at losing Oz, and so did her
companions.

The Tin Woodman came to her and said:

“Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave
me my lovely heart. I should like to cry a little because Oz is gone,
if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that I shall not rust.”

“With pleasure,” she answered, and brought a towel at once. Then the
Tin Woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears
carefully and wiped them away with the towel. When he had finished, he
thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jeweled
oil-can, to guard against mishap.

The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he
was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. “For,” they said, “there
is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man.”
And, so far as they knew, they were quite right.

The morning after the balloon had gone up with Oz, the four travelers
met in the Throne Room and talked matters over. The Scarecrow sat in
the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him.

“We are not so unlucky,” said the new ruler, “for this Palace and the
Emerald City belong to us, and we can do just as we please. When I
remember that a short time ago I was up on a pole in a farmer’s
cornfield, and that now I am the ruler of this beautiful City, I am
quite satisfied with my lot.”

“I also,” said the Tin Woodman, “am well-pleased with my new heart;
and, really, that was the only thing I wished in all the world.”

“For my part, I am content in knowing I am as brave as any beast that
ever lived, if not braver,” said the Lion modestly.

“If Dorothy would only be contented to live in the Emerald City,”
continued the Scarecrow, “we might all be happy together.”

“But I don’t want to live here,” cried Dorothy. “I want to go to
Kansas, and live with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.”

“Well, then, what can be done?” inquired the Woodman.

The Scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins
and needles began to stick out of his brains. Finally he said:

“Why not call the Winged Monkeys, and ask them to carry you over the
desert?”

“I never thought of that!” said Dorothy joyfully. “It’s just the thing.
I’ll go at once for the Golden Cap.”

When she brought it into the Throne Room she spoke the magic words, and soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through the open window and stood beside her.

“This is the second time you have called us,” said the Monkey King,
bowing before the little girl. “What do you wish?”

“I want you to fly with me to Kansas,” said Dorothy.

But the Monkey King shook his head.

“That cannot be done,” he said. “We belong to this country alone, and
cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet,
and I suppose there never will be, for they don’t belong there. We
shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross
the desert. Good-bye.”

And with another bow, the Monkey King spread his wings and flew away
through the window, followed by all his band.

Dorothy was ready to cry with disappointment. “I have wasted the charm
of the Golden Cap to no purpose,” she said, “for the Winged Monkeys
cannot help me.”

“It is certainly too bad!” said the tender-hearted Woodman.

The Scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly
that Dorothy feared it would burst.

“Let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers,” he said, “and ask
his advice.”

So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for
while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come farther than the door.

“This little girl,” said the Scarecrow to the soldier, “wishes to cross
the desert. How can she do so?”

“I cannot tell,” answered the soldier, “for nobody has ever crossed the
desert, unless it is Oz himself.”

“Is there no one who can help me?” asked Dorothy earnestly.

“Glinda might,” he suggested.

“Who is Glinda?” inquired the Scarecrow.

“The Witch of the South. She is the most powerful of all the Witches,
and rules over the Quadlings. Besides, her castle stands on the edge of
the desert, so she may know a way to cross it.”

“Glinda is a Good Witch, isn’t she?” asked the child.

“The Quadlings think she is good,” said the soldier, “and she is kind
to everyone. I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows
how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.”

“How can I get to her castle?” asked Dorothy.

“The road is straight to the South,” he answered, “but it is said to be
full of dangers to travelers. There are wild beasts in the woods, and a
race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. For
this reason none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City.”

The soldier then left them and the Scarecrow said:

“It seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing Dorothy can do is
to travel to the Land of the South and ask Glinda to help her. For, of
course, if Dorothy stays here she will never get back to Kansas.”

“You must have been thinking again,” remarked the Tin Woodman.

“I have,” said the Scarecrow.

“I shall go with Dorothy,” declared the Lion, “for I am tired of your
city and long for the woods and the country again. I am really a wild
beast, you know. Besides, Dorothy will need someone to protect her.”

“That is true,” agreed the Woodman. “My axe may be of service to her;
so I also will go with her to the Land of the South.”

“When shall we start?” asked the Scarecrow.

“Are you going?” they asked, in surprise.

“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.”

“Thank you,” said Dorothy gratefully. “You are all very kind to me. But
I should like to start as soon as possible.”

“We shall go tomorrow morning,” returned the Scarecrow. “So now let us
all get ready, for it will be a long journey.”