Fairy Queen

A Fairy Queen
in
Oz
1
THE FAIRY QUEEN OF OZ
This book
is dedicated
with appreciation
to
Howell V. Calhoun
to
Mr. Charles Regal
and the staff of
Matson Navigation Company
and to
Sallie Keller
my loyalest fan
2
Oz
founded on & continuing
the stories by
1989
Sweden • USA
3
Copyright © 1989 by March Laumer

All rights reserved
Second provisional edition: March 2006

Reproduced simultaneously in the United States and Sweden
Published with the long-standing encouragement of

CONTEMPORARY BOOKS, Inc., Chicago
THE VANITAS PRESS
With verse interpolations by Bernard Hewitt,

Michael J. Michanczyk, III, Kathie Reid
Decorations by Catherine M. Michanczyk
Title page by Michael Vincent
All contributions copyright 1989 by their creators
Opium Books series number 31
With special acknowledgment to Nancy Arrowsmith and

George Moorse, The Field Guide to The Little People © 1977
(Pocket Books)
4
5
6
c h a p t e r o n e
It was her birthday and Lulea, queen of the fairies was open-
ing the letters of felicitation that had come in from all over. Of
course, being a queen, she didn’t open them herself but reigned
on her toadstool throne and let Feebimble and Ereol and Ozzod
and the others do that, but when there would be an especially fun
one they would read it out to her. Then the Queen would laugh
merrily when some conceit pleased her or shed a sentimental tear
when something touched.
“Now here’s one!” said Ozzod, impressed by the blue and yel-
low letter paper. “Embossed and all—”
“Pass me that one, my dear,” said Lulea and yawned delicately.
“Oh, very well, your grace,” said Ozzod, cheated of her chance
to hold—a tiny limelight while reading the letter aloud.
“Hmm,” said the queen when she had scanned the missive—
not aloud. She held the letter by one narrower end and waved it
like a flag. Her attendants looked at each other and wondered
what whim of the Queen’s was this.
Finally Ereol dared to speak. “May we share with Your
Maaajesty...?” she drawled.
“I suppose you must,” begrudged the queen. “I’d like to keep
7
it a mystery and tease you, but I dare say I’ll need your help...
perhaps even your concurrence.”
The fairies were used to these ploys by their doyenne to intro-
duce a little surprise and color into their actually rather monoto-
nous lives. It’s a little dull when you’re an immortal and cannot
possibly suffer any discomfort, let alone pain or constraint, that
you do not specifically choose to suffer—and of course you don’t.
So life is JUST uninterrupted beer and skittles—or, in the fairies’
case, dewdrops and magic-working—and it gets tedious.
Fairies can eat or not, just as they like, with no ill effects. They
can sleep or not. Cold or heat mean nothing to them. There is
nothing that can touch them, physically, that is. Only spiritually
can they be got at, and that not easily. Hence, in order to get to
feel anything at all, they had to make up little traumas for them-
selves. Lulea, oldest of the group, was also the most experienced
in trying to manufacture surprises and suspenses and mysteries
to keep her followers entertained. The others recognized the
present scene as one such attempt.
In a moment, Ereol, placing to one side her bejeweled vanity
case and adjusting her mauve pinafore, said: “I must give my spirit
a polllish” (for which she normally used a patented preparation),
and she did so with a fold of her pinny.
Over the centuries each of the thirty-one fairies of the band
had developed her own idiosyncrasy—just to tell her apart. Fairy
Ereol’s was to play the coquette and to devote much attention to
her appearance. Since it took her no more than five hours a day to
arrange her face, hair, and dress, she spent the rest of her active
hours in attention to what she fondly alluded to as her “spirit.”
This she did because of course she could not speak of her ‘soul,’ a
fairy being by definition “in folk lore a tiny immortal inhabiting
woods and fields and pictured as beautiful and delicate, like hu-
mans in appearance but possessing no soul.”
Of all Queen Lulea’s fairy band Ereol was the one who missed
this possession the most and her whole life was filled up with
trying to pretend she had one. Yet never having experienced soul
she didn’t know what form it took or whether it was something
8
CHAPTER ONE
one only felt or was an attribute more substantially present. Ereol
preferred the latter conception and her “spirit” could be plaited,
varnished, woven, currycombed, preened, marcelled, brushed,
massaged, shampooed, polished, or put up in curlers just as she
felt inclined.
Thus this particular sprite was able to keep herself continu-
ously busy. Her ruse for the relief of tedium came particularly
into play in situations such as now when Ereol felt her dignity
threatened by her sovereign’s reluctance at once to admit her fol-
lowers into her utmost confidence.
“Polish away, dear,” said Lulea complacently and stuck a (non-
habit-forming) ambrosia-flavored dope-stick between her lips as
Ereol made some ambiguous passes with the corner of her pin-
afore. (No one quite knew where the fairy’s spirit was located and
any vague gesture with cloth, brush, or curling-iron was accepted
as being a swipe at the said spirit.)
After this digression there was a return to the topic at hand.
“Yes, you see,” went on the Queen, “this is an invitation—as well
as a felicitation—”
“An invitation!” cried her court as one. They loved to be in-
vited but in fact it happened rather seldom, as most people were
too much in awe of the fairies to think of asking them to anything,
or else didn’t know how to go about it.
“Indeed,” said Lulea. “It’s from the Governor, Mayor, and cor-
poration of a town in Sweden—”
“In Sweden!” exclaimed her attendants.
This perplexed them very much as they had heard that if there
was any place in—or out of—the world that would know nothing
of, and take no interest in, fairies, it would surely be Sweden. So
cold, so blue, so unmagical.
“Yes, it’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Lulea smiled whimsically.
“However, there’s a reason for it. But the thing is: I’m tempted to
accept—”
“O, do! your Feyness,” burst out her fairies-in-waiting, for if
there was one thing they wanted more than another it was for
their beloved leader to have a good time.
9
“You encourage me strangely,” said the queen. “I might al-
most find it in my heart to obey your urging.”
“Oh, do,” repeated the thirty fairy voices. “Pretty please,” they
said, just to make it irresistible.
“Done!” declared the queen. “I’ll go. Oh, but wait: I can’t go
on my own.”
When the fairy band heard that they were quite overcome. It
was centuries, in some cases, since they had been out of the For-
est of Burzee or other fairy lands forlorn. Some of them could not
recall ever having gone abroad. Goodness knows they had longed
to often enough but the occasions for it had been so limited and
Lulea, the pace setter, seemed ever content merely to lead her
maidens in dance, direct them in song, and occasionally produce
a little excitement with some original and inventive magic-work-
ing. Yet the truth was that the greater number of the girls were
just too well endowed mentally to be able to find contentment in
only and always fleeting the time carelessly. The thought of travel
remained ever in the back of their minds as an apparently never-
to-be-granted ideal.
Would it, could it, be possible that some, any, one of them might
get to accompany their Queen to Europe?! Some of the fairies went
into actual tizzies at the thought.
10
c h a p t e r t w o
Blow the wind westerly, westerly.

Well, never mind telling it to do that. It did it all the time any-
way. Had been doing it, in fact, ever since the Earth decided to
spin in a west-to-east directly, The winds, caused by drag on the
would-be inertia of earth air, followed along in the direction of
planetary spin and once they got going there was no stopping
them. There might be little temporary cessations of perceptible
blow and there were relatively brief local occurrences of wind
from north, south, and east, but by and large winds were always
westerly.
As regards the land of Oz, the result of this—and other—ten-
dencies was as follows: those western winds blew across a wide—
and deadly—desert and then came to the magic land dry. They
had no moisture to bring. On the contrary, they were arid absorb-
ing winds and, far from dumping rain on the western Winkie land,
they tended to suck up what moisture they found in the yellow
country, rendering the latter what it has remained: the driest part
of Oz. There the yellow sun shone incessantly (by daylight): that
was appropriate too in that xanthic land.
The wind kept on blowing and of late years it had blown
11
harder, and drier, than ever. Populations out in the great world
complained of unseasonable and long-lasting droughts, and in
Oz it was no better. Where once yellow grass grew yellow winds
blew. Winkies observed that grass straws powdered into dust;
thus it was also with the earth wherein the grass grew. The never-
stopping air currents picked up the yellow dust and carried it
eastward. As the land of the Winkies grew drier it also grew greater
in extent.
The shape and size of the constituent countries of Oz had al-
ways been determined by something as unchanging and peace-
able as the color of the earth. If you leaned and scooped up a small
wad of red clay from the ground and pressed it into the hand of
your passionate friend, saying: “Yes, there is something you love
better than me, though you may not know it,” well, you were ei-
ther in Georgia or in the red land of the Quadlings of Oz. If you
scratched through the blue grass to reveal blue mould you knew
you were in Munchkinland and not Kentucky. And everywhere
that the ground was yellow was clearly a part of the land of the
Winkies.
Ordinarily this state of affairs led to no confusion or dispute.
The purple particles of Gillikin-land did not budge from where
they had been deposited by the hand of Nature. The blue and red
earths of the other lands, the green fundament of the Emerald
country, remained where they were. But now for the first time, at
least in living or historical memory, the same could not be said of
the friable soil of the land of the Winkies. It did not stay put. It
mounted in quantities equaling some tons a day—when the breeze
was at its best—and wafted eastward mile after mile ’til it settled
as a film of fine dust over everything unenclosed.
That didn’t bother the Winkies much. They were used to it. It
was tiresome having to dust and mop so frequently but there was
nothing disturbing about it. But the situation was different in the
lands that bordered on that of the Winkies.
The Emerald City was too far in the interior to be much af-
fected but the fine powdering of yellow dust upon the red earth
of Quadlinga and the purple soil of the Gillikins had far-reaching,
12
CHAPTER TWO
and very differing, results. Quadling red and Winkie yellow
blended to make an orangeness of earth that grew more and more
pronounced with the stealing years. The upshot of this tendency,
as well as of other factors, has been recounted elsewhere.*
In the north the effect was in its way more disturbing. For one
thing there was a perceptibly greater strength to the prevailing
winds up there. More yellow Winkie dust and sand got dumped
on Gillikinland than in regions more southerly. Then, the wide-
spread mountain ranges of the northern land, highest in all Oz,
caught and precipitated the dust, confining it to the western rim
of the country. Yellow dust upon purple soil produced a nonde-
script shade of grey-brown. But that didn’t last too long. As the
centuries passed the yellow overlay grew deeper and deeper. Pass-
ing generations forgot that far down underneath the earth was
purple. The upper soil, many yards deep, was yellow. Little by
little the Winkie border in the north crept eastward. Still, it hap-
pened so gradually that nobody got excited.
It was only when Oz began to be “opened up” in the begin-
ning of the twentieth century with the arrival of Miss Dorothy
Gale, the return of the renowned wizard, O.Z. Diggs, and then
the virtual streaming in of other ‘outlanders’ that attention came
to be focussed on the cartography of Oz. Professor H.M.
Wogglebug, T.E., toyed for years with the idea of undertaking a
grand-scale mapping of the country.** Though the project was
postponed from year to year the professor did get put together a
rough and ready outline chart, locating many of the by-then dis-
covered curious countrylets of Oz and tentatively sketching in
the boundaries of the larger lands. This last he did by placing a
ruler on a drawing of a large horizontally oriented rectangle with
a green spot at its center and tracing a big X. That was indeed
sufficiently rough and ready.
But it wasn’t good enough.
One day a letter arrived at the Palace of Magic in the Emerald
* See The Magic Mirror of Oz

** See The Great Map of Oz. Editor’s notes.
13
City for Princess Ozma. This was a daily occurrence. Indeed, on
some days the lovely Girl Ruler’s fan mail amounted to five or
even six letters. Mostly, however, they were much the same:
“Dear sweet Princess Ozma,
You are the dearest and sweetest. At least, I think so.
Your devoted subject forever,
Deera Swiety”
or
“’Ray, ’Ray, ’Ray for Queen Ozma! We think you’re the
greatest—even if you were once a boy.
Signed, Cheerleader Gang of
East Munchkin High”
or
“Most Honored High Potentatress of Oz and
surrounding deserts,
I am your humble subject. I am not worthy to kiss the
hem of your expensive gown. You have everything. I have
nothing. Please send me a diamond ring. I enclose 2 ozlings
for postage.
Yours truly, Fawn N. Gruvvle”
But the letter that came that spring morning was a little differ-
ent. It said [spelling sic]:
“Deer Pwinsess, How iss oo? [The writer had clearly been
reading too much Sylvie and Bruno.]
I iss fine. At leest I whir—tilll I looked at oo map of Oz. I iss
a Winky. I lives in the NORRTH of Oz. I can tel cawse when
I looks out the windo at the sunwise it’s all sand on the lefft.
That’s a dezzert! But on oo map it shose I’m a Gilly Ken.
PERPLE! I iss all confoosed.
I loves oo. Lana Peethisaw
P.S. I iss 5.”
Princess Ozma had to smile indulgently. “How odd,” she

murmured. “I wonder what she means.” And she sent for a copy
of the Processor’s sketch-plan of her queendom.
14
CHAPTER TWO
Yes, just as the girl ruler was quite sure she recalled, the bound-
ary line between the Gillikins and the Winkies was shown to run
arrow-straight to the far northwestern corner of the land. There
was no way you could be a Winkie, at home, and look toward the
rising sun while discerning a desert on your left. Winkieland was
pretty dry but it hadn’t yet turned into an actual sandy waste. But
that reports indicated it was on its way to so doing was a worry.
The whole matter was worth a look-see. “Maybe I’ll just go an
pay a visit to this Miss Peethisaw,” the thoughtful regent mur-
mured on.
Queens can’t go anywhere on their own, of course. Lulea, queen
of fairies, had stated that axiom. I’m not sure why it is but it seems
that solitariness is considered less noble, less worthy, than con-
stant attendance by adoring followers. The bigger the train of
courtiers the more impressive, of course, but even the most mi-
nor, the most private excursion by a ruler must see at least one
attendant on hand. Not just to carry a handbag either, or do any-
thing at all menial. Simply to be there.
So who should just be there in this instance? The Queen of Oz
thought for a moment and then said to herself, ‘Why, the Profes-
sor, of course!’, and to her maid, Jellia Jamb, who was standing
nearby—to carry handbags, or to serve cups of tea, or to deliver
letters, or whatever”—: “Please get in touch with Professor
Wogglebug at the College, will you, Jellia? and ask if he can spare
a few days to take a little jaunt with me.”
Ozma would go by swift Sawhorse, naturally, and the
wogglebug, IF he was available, could fly along on his own wing-
power. That would leave room on the strong wooden steed for
something else, should such be wanted and of course the more
was the merrier. Somebody light.
Well, who could be lighter than the favorite old Scarecrow?
He weight all of eleven pounds, bran brains and all. That wouldn’t
tax the Sawhorse’s strength. Would the wise Scarecrow, as advi-
sor, be willing to come? Ozma thought so.
15
c h a p t e r t h r e e
“Then be it so,” quoth the Queen of the Fairies, “and go we to

determine who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.”
“’Ludlow,’ your grace?”
“Oh, sorry, I meant ‘Luleå’.” The fairy blushed slightly.
“’Loolly-oh,’ your grace?” Feebimble was insistent.
“Oh, bother,” said the Queen, employing the vernacular. “I
meant to keep it a secret a while longer.”
“’A secret,’ your grace?” Feebimble was getting tiresomely rep-
etitious.
“Yes, well, you see, the place—the people—who have invited
me are the leading lights of a town called ‘Luleå,’ spelt L-U-L-E-
A-with-what-looks-like-a-circle-over-it. I don’t think that’s just a
flyspeck. No, see here?: the postmark? The little circle is repeated
there.”
Feebimble, and the others, had been trying to picture the spell-
ing in their minds but not succeeding very fast, but when they
saw the cancellation stamp on the blue and yellow envelope they
gasped. “Great fays!” they cried. “Your Majesty’s own name!”
“Almost,” said Lulea and smirked gratifiedly. “Actually,” said
the queen, who was a tick more knowledgeable than any in her
16
CHAPTER THREE
band and happened to know that ‘a’ and Swedish ‘å’ are two as
different letters as ‘o’ and ‘q’ or ‘f’ and ‘e’, “the final letter is not
quite the same—but near enough. It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t
it?”
“’Coincidence,’ nothing,” said Moth, who was rather apt to
blurt things out. “This town has clearly named itself after you,
Your majesty! What a charming gesture. Isn’t that what the letter
says?! I’m not surprised you want to go see your namesake.”
As a matter of fact the letter had seemed to the queen more
(and very) curiosity-arousing than strictly flattering. Perhaps that
was partly the reason she had not at first been too keep to divulge
all its contents. It contained phrases like “the very startling simi-
larity of names” and “we would be very much gratified if you
would present yourself—” She sidestepped Moth’s question and
said, “Indeed, I am most curious to see what Luleå is like.”
“And will your majesty not choose on an alphabetical basis
the servants who will accompany you?” asked Aaala, the Hawai-
ian fairy. (Fays from widely dispersed parts of the world had been
recruited in those ancient days when the Forest of Burzee was
getting together its resident fairy band.)
“Oh, surely not!” cried Zyzzifer, dismayed.
Eapa and Ereol were not averse to the alphabetical choice, fig-
uring that at least a dozen would be called and they stood a good
chance of squeezing in. But Mab and Titania (some of the sprites
had not hesitated to take the names of colleagues celebrated in
other contexts) were not at all satisfied with any arrangement of
that sort.
“Surely the Butterfly Band are most worthy to bear Queen
Lulea’s train,” ventured Moth, speaking for a special sorority
within the larger congregation of fairies. At that, a dozen voices
were raised in confirmation.
“Propriety demands it,” stated Farfalla in no uncertain terms
and Butterfly herself said, “Dat’s de troof if Ah evah huhd it!”
Then Squash and Dreamsweet and Seventeen and finally the
rest of the thirty got into the act, all clamoring to be heard and
advancing their claims to be, if anyone, taken along on the expe-
17
dition to Sweden. They wrangled for what seemed hours and then
went back to plan A. By then the gypsy’s dose was taking effect.
The crowd simmered down and paused to wonder at their recent
excitement.
“This honeydew is potent stuff,” murmured the queen. “Re-
mind me to lay in a new supply the next time Nantalengro passes
this way.”
Feebimble, who usually served as secretary, made the indi-
cated note. “And plan A, your grace?” she said, goose quill raised.
“Why, that the whole importunate crowd of you be assigned
to go with me,” quoth Lulea with a laugh that was almost a groan.
“Grand!” said Moth, highly gratified.
“The only eqqquitable thing,” agreed Ereol.
“At least it means we’ll all get to go,” said Farfalla, looking
around at her sorority sisters.
“As by right,” second Borboleta.
“Anyone can understand that,” affirmed Papillon.
“Raht! Ah kin unnerstan’ it,” exclaimed Butterfly.
“It’s far from obvious,” stated Squash pettishly. She was by no
means resigned to the Butterfly Band’s assumed hegemony. She
thought her own little group much more important and Marrow,
Gourd, and Calabash agreed with her.
“Never mind,” said gentle Espa. “What are we going to wear?
That’s the important thing.”
A veritable chorus of shrieks set up as each lady fay announced
what wonder her wardrobe was going to provide.
“I shall wear my green organdie,” said Heartsease.
“And I my tailored navy,” told Titania.
“Won’t that be a bit severe, dear?” asked Mab.
“That’s nothing,” declared Zyzzifer. “I’m going in my neat little
black.”
“Great fays!” ejaculated Petalutha. “A fairy in black! That will
look odd.”
“I shall appear all in silver,” announced Dreamsweet.
“That will be lovely, darling,” assured her admirer Dib. “Would
watermelon pink do for me?”
18
“It will be enchanting.”
“I can’t decide—”
“—have to be altered—”
“Can it be ready in time?”
“And for evening wear?”
“Are elbow gloves in this season?”
“I always catch cold with bare shoulders.”
“They say they’re wearing fichus...”
And so it went on for many hours, far into the night.
c h a p t e r f o u r
“Hey!” squawked Billina, the yellow hen.

“Are you referring to my insides?” asked the Scarecrow.
“Not exactly,” called the hen, running toward the stopped Saw-
horse. Ozma held the bridle and displayed an indulgent smile. “I
thought your insides were mostly straw anyway.”
“Well, they are,” confessed the scarer of crows, “but I always
admix a bit of hay—for body, you know, and bouquets hay smells
nicer than straw, which in fact doesn’t smell of much of anything.”
“Be that as it may,” dismissed the hen, “where are you off to?”
Ozma took up the word. “We’ve received puzzling reports
about the territorial extent of the Winkie country. We plan to see
just what the situation is.”
“Can I come too?” Billina boldly invited herself, and made a
snap at a winged insect. She missed—and looked bewildered. It
wasn’t that her eyesight was failing due to age. The hen was care-
ful to invoke daily the non-aging clause in the Oz constitution.
But the fact remained that she had taken for a vagrant ladybird a
foot above her beak the circling Professor Wogglebug twenty yards
up in the air.
She tried to brush off the incident and regain poise by bus-
19
tling forward and going into an extended spiel:
“Winkie Country? Hmph! That’s MY country, if the truth were
known. If chickens could be queens I might have been chosen to
rule over the Winkies—rather than that tin fellow, who isn’t even
yellow.”
“Oh, no, he’s not yellow,” confirmed the mentioned one’s great
friend, the Scarecrow. “There’s no one braver than Nick Chop-
per—unless it be the Cowardly Lion.”
“Hah!” laughed the hen. “Touché! You’re right, he’s no more
yellow than you’re blue,” and she eyed the Scarecrow’s Munchkin
suit askance.
“No, I try to keep merry and bright,” admitted the straw (and
hay) man. “What’s the use of worrying? It never was worth while.”
“Too true. But seriously: Queen Ozma, may I go along? I’m
fed up nursing this never-ending stream of chicks. The current
batch are old enough to fend for themselves. And it’s ages since I
got to take part in an adventure—after my starring role the time I
saved you from a career as a jade grasshopper,” she bragged
shamelessly.
“What makes you think we’re going to have an adventure?”
questioned the girl ruler indulgently. “This is just a brief business
trip.”
“Never mind. Something fun could happen. And just the trip
would be a change.”
“Come along,” relented Ozma, and the hen flew up and nestled
in the soft interstice between the Scarecrow on the Sawhorse’s
rump and Ozma in the saddle. Then it was hiyo! and away. None
but Wizard O.Z. Diggs and Tik-Tok the clockwork man saw off
the equestrian party at the Emerald City’s north gate.
With the wogglebug flying lookout they clove to the Winkie-
Gillikin border line from where it began just beyond the north-
west corner of the Emerald City-state. No proper road went that
way but the Sawhorse was adept at negotiating broken country,
leaping fences, and clearing brooks with scarcely a break in his
gallop. By midday they had reached Kite Island, bypassing
Loonville, Marshland, and the Serpent Tree in the middle distance.
20
CHAPTER FOUR
The Border River appropriately enough formed the border here
and when they saw its left bank yellow and its right back purple
they knew that they had not gone wrong so far. Where the river
widened to enclose the little island the horse-borne party crept
quietly round the Gillikin shore, admiring from a distance the
varicolored kites that flew over the isle. They felt they didn’t want
to get held up—or even sent up—by a bunch of kiting enthusiasts
and they took care not to let their presence be known.
Beyond Kite Island the travelers got into an area of moorland,
the celebrated Bordermoor. Here anyone might go astray and our
friends promptly did so. Though the river remained a guide there
was nothing, color-wise, to mark the boundary. Everything was
the hue of autumnal heather and bracken—even in June!: a sort of
yellowish purplish brown. When the river began to trend actu-
ally northeast they knew it was time to cease using it as an indica-
tion of where a western boundary was to be found. They struck off
northwest again.
For quite a few miles, indeed for about a quarter of the whole
length of the Winkie-Gillikin frontier, all went well: straight north-
westward they sped, with reassuring glimpses of Dwindlebury,
the Laughing Willows, and the land of the Hoppers on the right,
while Hotchinpotch, Tidy Town, and the wilderness trail to
Wackajammy lay to the left. Say, they were doing swell until they
fell for somebody else’s line—or rather, something else’s: some-
thing which had produced a perimeter that swept ’round the
Gillikin forest and suddenly headed almost due north. It was a
different river that formed the border here but when that too
veered west the yellow aspect of all landly things still continued
to fill the eye toward the north.
Now Ozma saw in earnest what that “something” (the wind)
had done. Even as she watched, motes of dust, grains of sand,
wafted past from the west and settled to earth, imperceptibly yel-
lowing yet further the purple ground under foot. ‘And this has
been going on for centuries,’ she thought, but said nothing to alarm
her companions. ‘If it keeps up, in time—quite a long time—there’ll
be nothing left of poor Gillikinland,’ she mused, and gazed into
21
the depths of the great purple forest nearby, whose nearer leaves
were already sicklied over with a pale cast of buff. ‘I wonder if the
Gillikins realize. Surely the must. But how pleasant that they’ve
never complained, at least in my hearing. Amusing that the pro-
test should come from a Winkie miss!’
The party pressed on, intent now to discover, at once, the ex-
tent of the damage. The remaining quarter of the frontier-follow-
ing journey was made in nearly due-northerly direction. Just at
nightfall the Sawhorse clattered out across a still recognizably
purple area of stony ground and came to a place that appeared, in
the dim evening light, to be quite without color: neither violet nor
yellow nor anything between, but instead a characterless grey.
“The Impassable Desert,” announced the Queen of Oz, awed in
spite of herself. The night-murky sky northward brooded over a
seemingly endless waste.
Professor Wogglebug circled down for a landing. “Yes, your
highness,” he confirmed, “it’s a desert as far as the eye can reach.
The Oz border runs quite distinctly as a virtually straight line east
and west. The purple stands out sharply against the sort of grubby
pearl color of the waste. But I don’t understand this yellow sec-
tion...”
Here the savant twiddled with his compass and sextant, which
had done the journey inside an oiled-silk bag depending from the
insect’s next. “As near as I can calculate, without recourse to tables
and slide-rules,” he apologized, “about one sixth of the whole
northern rim of Oz—and a generous sixth at that—appertains to
the Winkie country! A serious oversight in my former drafting of
the map of Oz! There must be an immediate new edition,” and
the professor made copious notes on his cuff.
“You mean, then,” said the Scarecrow, “that the other five-
sixths—”
“Say that again!?” broke in the professor, rather oddly, raising
his eyes to stare at the straw/hay man with a twinkle. “That last
word...?”
“Sixths...?” complied the Scarecrow.
“Very well done!” crowed the wogglebug. “And without a
22
CHAPTER FOUR
tongue, to boot. Did you know that ‘sixths’ is the most difficult
word to pronounce in the whole Ozish language? ‘Kuh, suh, thuh,
suh’—all in a row, with no vowels between. Even elocutionists
have failed. Stout fella!” he praised the pleased Scarecrow again.
“But you were saying...?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a deep or well thought-out remark,” demurred
the other. “Just that five-sixths are all that’s left of the Gillikin ter-
ritory, you say? It must be the smallest, then, of the four big lands
of Oz?”
“Who knows?” said Wogglebug, chagrined. “With my
unwarrantedly assumed boundary delineation shown up now for
the hollow mockery it was, who knows what size the various lands
really are? For one thing, we can suppose that in the south the
same thing as here is going on at the Quadling frontier: whole
tracts of Winkie land being lifted up to blow east and en-orange
the Quadlings’ southwest border marches. ’Tis very grievous to
be thought upon.”
“I see that strong measures must be taken,” replied Ozma in
similarly Shakespearean vein, “and that at no distant date, to halt
what seems to be a serious disequilibricizing of Oz geography. I
wonder how long this has been going on...”
“Forever?” posited the professor. “I mean: winds have always
been from the west, and Winkieland soil always dry, I suppose,
and easily to be borne aloft by the wind. But shall we press on? to
assess the extent of the disturbance.”
“Hardly tonight, I think, Professor,” said the queen, with a
smile in her voice. “It’s nearly full dark. See, Billina has tacitly
given us the lead.” Indeed, the yellow hen, on the Scarecrow’s
lap, had tucked her head under one wing and was breathing peace-
fully in sound sleep.
“What to do?” said the wogglebug, suddenly brought from
his cartographical considerations and now apologetic. “Your maj-
esty must have shelter!”
“We must have shelter,” corrected the considerate queen. “We,
plural, that is.”
23
c h a p t e r f i v e
And then they all met at Penn Station—or, in this case, at

Centralstationen in Stockholm. Petalutha actually WENT to the
Pennsylvania Station, New York—but then, she was always con-
fusing things and missed out on a lot that way. This time she
missed out on the whole Swedish adventure and its aftermath
and only caught up when all was over.
Ereol was standing in the middle of the arrival-hall diligently
applying her nail-brush when some of the others showed up.
“Look,” she said, pointing with her brush. “That’s clevvver, isn’t
it?”
Moth, Butterfly, Kelebek, and Mariposa followed her indica-
tion. They read a long banner sign that said “BANANBANAN”,
with underneath some words inviting travelers to go by that line
rather than another.
“I don’t get it,” said Kelebek, who was always a little slow. All
the fairies had of course provided themselves with Swedish for
use during their outing so Kelebek knew what the word meant;
she just didn’t think there was anything very “clever” about it.
“It’s a play on worrds,” explained Ereol patiently, “—or on
word constituents, one might better say. You see the element
24
CHAPTER FIVE
‘banan’ occurring twice in that word—”
“’Banana-banana’,” translated Kelebek obtusely. “Why is that
clever?”
“Oh, but ‘banan’, by Swedish morphology, also means ‘the
track’ or, in this case, ‘the railway line’,” clarified Ereol. “Stress
here on the firrrst syllable, of course. So the word as a whole means
‘the banana line.’ I don’t think Ozzzish allows of any such combi-
nation. It’s quite clevvver.”
“The Banana Line,” mused Mariposa. “That’s the one that goes
toward Central America, I suppose. Might be fun to take it.”
“Alas,” said Ereol. “We’re to go rrright in the opposite direc-
tion: norrrth.”
“What line do we want?” said Moth, gazing around. She spot-
ted placards promoting the charms of other trains. “’Bon-banan.’
That’s the one for you, dear,” and she gestured impudently to
Ereol. “’The polish line’.”
“Or ‘Bön-banan’,” said Mariposa. “How odd: ‘the prayer line.’
Doesn’t sound very safe, does it?”
“Dat’s de one fo fokes goin’ on pil’mages,” guessed Butterfly.
“What about ‘Ben-banan’?” said Kelebek, catching on and get-
ting into the game. “’The Bone line’—” and, stretching her imagi-
nation, added: “Maybe that one runs out to a local cemetery,” and
she was rewarded by a round of approving laughter from her
sisters.
“Well, don’t forget ‘ben’ also means ‘leg’,” put in Moth; “’the
leg line.’ That would be for people who’d really rather walk,” and
all the fairies laughed even louder. Passers-by looked at them
sternly.
But not all the local train routes made play with echoes of the
word “bana.” Mariposa spotted “Lur-banan.” “’The Lur-line’,”
she part-translated haltingly. “What does ‘lur’ mean?”
“’Horn’ or ‘trumpet’,” supplied Ereol, who had done her home-
work especially thoroughly. “But in fact it’s mostly used in refer-
ence to the ancient Viking battle horns—”
“It could mean ‘the Swindle Line’,” interrupted Moth in her
saucy way. “As a verb that word means ‘cheat’ or ‘swindle’.”
25
And amid the general merriment Butterfly said, “Less doan
us take DAT line, whutebbuh we does!” The crowd roared.
Passers-by began to stop and stare, with hands on hips, dis-
gustedly. Shocking! Young women laughing in a public place! and
a large railway station at that. They must be drunk. And women
drunk in a public place could only be one thing.
Ereol caught a glimpse of an elderly person hastening away to
pluck a strolling policeman by the sleeve. “Er—let’s move onnn,
girls,” she urged. “We must be blocking the way.”
Thank goodness: Lulea and her larger entourage were gath-
ered out in the departures hall near track F. “Oh, there you are,
dears! We wondered where you’d got to.”
The Queen counted. “Twenty-five, twenty-six...” Then she re-
counted but still didn’t get further than twenty-seven. “Oh, dear,
three of us missing. Whatever can have happened?” Each of the
fairies had been meant to get to Stockholm station under her own
steam, there to rejoin the band for the train journey north. This
latter exercise was intended to accustom the ladies at least a little
to the Swedish scene and manners before their taking part in this
gala at the far-northern port town.
“We’ll just have to go without them,” sighed the fairy queen.
“And reservations and all... We must simply hope they’ll catch us
up at Luleå.”
Even so the fairy band filled nearly half the compartments of a
coach. For the first half hour they gazed fascinated out the win-
dows.
After that they gazed with less fascination. Finally some of
them hardly gazed at all. Moth expressed the general opinion.
“It’s just like at home, isn’t it? All forest. Only not so interesting as
Burzee. There we’ve got plenty of deciduous trees but this seems
to be all spruce—”
“Yes, I think we must have got on gran-banan,” Ereol made a
linguistic joke—then remembered to remind Kelebek that ‘spruce’
was ‘gran’ in Swedish. “—though of course there’s plenty of fir
and pine as well.”
“I pine to see some fur,” Moth punned further. “I thought the
26
CHAPTER FIVE
Swedish woods were supposed to be full of animals. I haven’t
seen one.”
“I can’t bear it either,” added Dib, getting almost too subtle,
but Dreamsweet caught it and said: “Oh, deer!” and brought down
the house. She followed it up by announcing, “I did see some golf
lynx back a ways but they weren’t in the forest.” At this the others
grew quite hysterical.
It was too much for the gentleman who, after tipping his hat
and asking whether Petalutha’s reserved place was taken, had
occupied the sixth seat in the compartment. The fairy girls’ laugh-
ter, and the causes of it, had issued from by no means bridled
throats. Now the man could be seen making strange gestures with
his shoulders behind his newspaper. At last he lowered the
Skellefteå Stiftstidende, adjust his pince-nez, stood, reached into his
breast pocket for his case, and presented his card. “I beseech your
pardon for intruding, my dear young ladies, and beg to be per-
mitted to introduce myself.” Here the card was passed around. “I
could not help but overhear—and ask to be allowed to join in the
laughter.”
27
c h a p t e r s i x
The Flathead reached for his can of brains, jabbed in the point
of the can-opener, and began to crank round, annoyance in his
every gesture. Damn!, he’d been wanting to keep his vintage brains
safe until the end, but this situation called for thought, tact,
memory, social graces: all things which, unlike talking, you
couldn’t manage without the use of your intellect.
Angrily he raised the tin and dumped its contents out onto
the level surface of his skull without even looking in the mirror.
Some of the lumpy grey matter ran over the edge and a thin trickle
of liquid leaked down beside his ear. He stuck a forefinger in the
can and ran it around, then scraped off on the rim of his skull
whatever adhered to it.
“Well?” he said disgruntledly, tossing the can in a corner.
Those of his onlookers who could gagged. Then Ozma said,
“You are the chief Flathead, I understand?”
“What about it?”
It was hard for the Princess to maintain her usual gracious
dignity in the face of such churlishness but she tried. “My part
and I—” she gracefully indicated her four companions of various
races “—have been benighted. We wish to request lodging of you
28
CHAPTER SIX
for the night. Any simple arrangement—”
“Heck, no!” blurted the chief Flathead—but then paused, as
the brains exposed on his head-top began to firm up and func-
tion. “...your majesty...?” he went on haltingly. He’d spotted the
traveling coronet on Ozma’s head and even without brains knew
this was a situation somewhat out of the ordinary. With brains, he
began to realize he was putting his foot in it rather badly.
“Oh,” said the Queen in momentary startlement. “You decline
then?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said no.” The fellow’s brains were not
yet fully functional. “—Er, Your Majesty... You ARE a majesty?”
“I am Ozma, Queen of Oz,” said the girl, drawing herself up,
“and your Sovereign.”
Instantly the Flathead groveled offensively.
Ozma spurned him lightly with her foot. “Get up,” she com-
manded. “We do not permit such displays.” She waited. “Well...?”
“Of course, Your Majesty! Yes, indeed, Your Highness. Cer-
tainly, Your Divinity—”
The princess interrupted him. “Nor do we allow such terms
of address. ‘Your grace’ will do. Say, have we your permission to
lie here somewhere until morning?”
At once there was a great snapping of fingers and peremptory
gestures as the now embrained Flathead gave orders to others o
his race. People rushed about, bumped into each other, dropped
things, and all talked incoherently to themselves and each other,
but, amid the melee, arrangements did get made and ultimately
some sort of order was restored. The chief Flathead was giving
up his own dwelling, already the best furnished of the poorly
appointed residences of the community, for the use of the fairy
ruler.
Umbrella stands, ironing boards, china cupboards, cedar
chests, footstools, and whatnots were carried out and day-beds,
linen, wash-stands, ewers, and chamber pots were brought in.
Soon an almost charming bower for the queen of Oz was estab-
lished, with, in the same room, a roost pole for the chicken. In the
male dormitory was a comfortably appointed shelf for Professor
29
Wogglebug and a corner for the Scarecrow to stand in. The Saw-
horse was catered for in a shed behind the building.
In the central apartment a festive board was spread with things
that both queens, chickens and wogglebugs could eat, and there,
after freshening up, our party regathered. The chief Flathead acted
as waiter, nor did the fairy princess hinder him in this. A meal of
principally greens and cereals was partaken of.
“Tell us,” said Ozma, declining the bowl of parched corn that
was offered her again and indicating that the waiter-chief should
draw up a chair, “something of your history. Have you always
lived on the mountain?”
“As far as our traditions show, your grace,” said the Flathead,
whose brains were now operating capably, with the result that
his behavior was now neither gross nor groveling. It is really only
brainlessness that causes people to act in either of those ways. A
protective membrane was even beginning to form over the damp
pile of brains on his head and the unsightly dripping had stopped.
However, he wore a modified top hat to cover the sight. It might
not be the done thing to sit down covered in the presence of roy-
alty but on balance Ozma thought she preferred that to what oth-
erwise would be on show.
“How far back do your traditions go?” asked the interested
princess. “I mean, have you always been like that?” She raised
her glance delicately to the top hat.
“Brainless you mean? Oh, yes, that’s traditional. It is our belief
that we were created thus in the dawn of history. It would have
been the creator Goorikop, no doubt—in his legendary whimsi-
cal mood—who thought it would be amusing to see how people
with no brains at all would behave.” The chief sighed.
“But you have brains,” pointed out Ozma, puzzled, “though
in a somewhat unusual form. Did Goorikop provide—”
“Oh, he wasn’t entirely heartless,” interrupted the Flathead.
“He realized that we would sooner or later die out as a race if we
didn’t at least have ACCESS to brains when we required them.
For the routine of daily life of course nobody needed them but
occasionally there would arise situations where somebody had to
30
CHAPTER SIX
add up numbers, or solve some social problem, or make plans for
a civic occasion, and for such tasks of course brains were invalu-
able. However, as long as we remained brainless we couldn’t even
think about our situation, let alone take any steps to ameliorate it.
“Things went on like that for centuries, as we ran around
clothed in our own hair and subsisting on roots and grubs.
Goorikop, who stopped off once in a while to observe the antics
of the brainless, began to find us boring in our unvarying mind-
lessness, so one time he brought in a wheelbarrow-load of brains
and dumped them in a corner of the big cave in the mountainside
we then occupied.
“The next time he visited he was surprised to find us un-
changed in our brainless behavior. But the pile of brains was gone.
We had eaten them. Goorikop retched when he heard of it and
accused us of cannibalism. But how were we to know? We had
not the intelligence to recognize the brains for what they were.
“This time he supplied us with individual portions of brain
nicely done up in sealed fruit jars— and with instructions for their
use.”
“Yes, I wondered about that,” interjected the fairy princess.
“Canning was only invented less than fifty years ago—by a French-
man, in time for the Paris Exposition. But how did you come to
change from the use of Mason jars?”
“Oh, it took a very long time. Meanwhile old Goorikop had
faded away and the next thing we knew a powerful fairy queen
discovered us. I think she was somehow family with Goorikop
but I can’t be sure. In any case, she was in charge now and deter-
mining what would happen in Oz. She had an even greater sense
of humor than the original founder and thought our situation
amusing in the extreme.” Again a sigh of a sufferer.
“Lurline—that was her name—spent a week here. She insisted
we move out of the dark unsanitary caves in the mountain and
live on the latter’s appropriately flat top—in houses she quickly
ran up for us by magic means. In the middle of the settlement she
established a brain cannery. It employs all our workers, though
they are by no means overworked. There’s still not much call for
31
brains in our daily life. Of course I’ll have to order in a fresh can
now. Brains once exposed to the air don’t last very long: a few
days and then they begin to smell, rather.”
Ozma was glad she had finished her dinner before this dis-
cussion of the varying vicissitudes of loose brains began. Now
she thanked the Flathead courteously for his orientation and made
ready for the night.
The interlude in Flatheadland was entertaining but had of
course little to do with the problem of the Winkie marches that
were proceeding at a rate quite unprecedented in geographical
history.
c h a p t e r s e v e n
The gentleman in the corner seat, unobserved by any of his

countrymen, allowed himself to be captivated by the charm of
the five fairy girls whose artless prattle was so amusing. Of course
they were strangers but then he HAD presented his card to per-
haps that was all right, but they were also foreigners and that was
graver. Although the ladies were fluent in Swedish you could tell
by their appearance they were not natives. No self-respecting (that
is, local) woman would allow herself to be seen in public in gar-
ments other than black, grey, dark brown, or—for the very dar-
ing—lilac. To ride in a train in a red dress! Unheard of! But the
gentleman prided himself on his unusual broad-mindedness and
thought, ‘Poor things. They’re foreign and can’t help it. I must
overlook it.’
So they all talked on as the miles clicked by. The fairies thought
they had made their first friend in Sweden. Then just as the train
was pulling into Luleå station they spoiled it all. Their fellow trav-
eler had been so pleasant and so condescending that the irrespon-
sible Moth said, “Can you recommend a hotel, sir? And won’t
you come and call on us there?”
Well, you can be sure the proper gentleman was at last prop-
32
CHAPTER SEVEN
erly shocked. To invite a perfect stranger home to one’s lodgings!
It was frightfully not done. The scales fell from his eyes and he
saw these women at last for what they were.
He blushed violently, stammered something about “...the Tem-
perance Hotel... Smith Street,” and bolted from the compartment.
Moth stared, then burst into tears. I told you fairies could only
be got at spiritually, and now Moth had. “Bu-but what could he
mean by rushing off like that?” she cried.
The others tried to comfort her, or at any rate silence her, be-
fore they rejoined the ladies on the platform. This station seemed
to be virtually the end of the line and what few passengers were
left aboard besides the fairies scuttled away quickly after covert
glances at the strangers hurriedly snatched.
The rest of the fairy band as well had been getting curious
impressions of the Swedes but Queen Lulea for one was not go-
ing to let her first view of her (except for one small circle) name-
sake town be spoiled by an adverse judgment. She had out her
guide book with town plan and read aloud for the others:
“The visitor arriving by rail at Luleå will at once be impressed
by the presence of water on all sides. Although not technically an
island the city has a view over water in the four directions. The
station itself lies on the brink of Scrub Island Bay to the east—”
The girls dutifully admired the view of crisp blue water lapping
the barren rocks at the foot of the slope. “To the south is Grey Seal
Bay, west is Lule Bay, and to the north of course North Bay. The
orientation is east-west along the somewhat star-shaped cape that
is the site of the present parish seat and county capital. But this
was not always so. Originally Luleå lay fifteen kilometers to the
northwest at what is now called Old Town and was only refounded
in its present location in 1649—”
“How odd,” put in Babbotschka. “I wonder why they moved.”
Lulea consulted a footnote. “As international shipping required
ever deeper draught the port facilities at the old town were no
longer adequate. Luleå was dependent on its shipping, principally
of iron ore from the interior—”
But the girls’ attention was wandering. They wanted to stretch
33
their wings—no, drat! they all remembered: they’d had to dis-
guise their wings under their unusually full-backed dresses for
this excursion. SOME adaptation to standards that would be ac-
ceptable out in the great world they had after all known enough
to arrange for.
“Well, our legs then. We’ll stretch those,” said Gourd with a
laugh and made for the exit.
Gloriana was more thoughtful and felt that it would be useful
to be sure where one was going before going there. She curtseyed
before her queen and said, “We’ll be staying at the Residence, of
course? I wonder where the Reception Committee have got to...”
Lulea went pale. She’d known that the painful moment would
have to occur but had put off thinking about it from hour to hour.
Now she must make a confession about the limitations of her in-
vitation. No mention of accommodations had been made! Nor
any word written about being met, whether by Mayor or menials.
Apparently the fairy queen (no mention either of any attendants
of hers!) was expected simply to present herself at the governor’s
mansion when—and however—it suited her best.
“Oh, never mind, Your Feyness,” comforted kind Moth, for-
getting her own recent disappointment and now contriving even
to reap a little gain from it. “Someone recommended the—er, Tem-
perance Hotel. It’s in Smith Street. Is that on your map?”
“Why, that’s thoughtful, Moth,” replied Lulea. “Thank you.”
Moth glowed. “Yes, here it is,” and folding her street plan to the
indicated area the queen fairy turned and led the way through
the little station building to the street.
All the wonders of Luleå lay exposed before them: the sparse
spring grass and the equally sparse windflowers in the tidy beds
before the station. The row of tidy buildings in various hues of
brick and stucco across the street. A tidy gilded church spire in
the middle distance.
“It’s tidy, isn’t it?” said Queen Lulea.
No one found any further comment to make, except Titania,
who said, “There’s the Station Hotel,” and indicated a prim build-
ing in the row opposite.
34
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Oh, I think we’ll treat ourselves and go to the grandest the
town has to offer, don’t you, my dears?”
The fairies all drew nearer their leader and set up a whistling-
in-the-dark piping: “Oh, yes! That will be lovely, your grace.” One
or two shivered.
“Now it shows here,” went on Lulea, “that the City Hotel has
two stars. Let’s make for that, shall we?” Again she led the way: to
the corner of Main Street, and they turned to the west. This seemed
to be quite the avenue of hotels and they passed several before
coming to the City, a neat structure faced with stone, with enamel
and carved decorations all around the monumental entrance.
Twenty-eight strong, keeping together, with glances modestly
lowered, and trying to look like governesses and school teachers,
the fairy band crossed the lobby. They’d learned a lot just walking
through the town and wished by now fervently that their orange,
purple, and emerald green dresses were other colors. Oh, if only
they’d had the foresight to bring dark cloaks with them! Then they
might at least have concealed from general view the flowing drap-
eries they had at first been so keen to show off.
Feebimble as social secretary, and thereby ‘interference run-
ner’ for the queen, approached the reception desk as the others
hung back discreetly. She put on her most authoritative air. “Ma-
dame requires accommodation for herself and her twenty-seven
novices,” pronounced the fairy with a flash of inspiration. “Of
Saint Birgitte Convent, you understand...”
But God was not mocked. Canary yellow, silver, and fire-en-
gine red gave the immortals the lie. The reception clerk, in cut-
away coat and high collar, looked up, looked around, gasped, and
looked down. “I regret; we’re fully booked.”
THIS was a situation the fairies had not envisioned. What was
to be done? The clerk’s statement must be taken at face value. Of
course this WAS the town’s grandest hotel (for lack of an actual
Grand Hotel) and most travelers of a certain class would make
for it. Though still so light of doors in this northern clime it was
late evening, and the fairy band had been the last to leave the
arriving evening train.
35
Out they trooped and went to the Park Hotel next door. Here
twenty-six fairies waited outside while Lulea and Feebimble—
but in red and gold!—alone approached the counter. The former
put on her most queenly and withal bewitching manner and im-
plied, without actually stating a lie, that she was Nellie Melba.
The clerk was not mocked. If anyone as celebrated as the op-
era diva were in this remote back-country town he would have
heard of it. What he did not doubt was that these women were
“on the stage”—if not the street—and as such could have no place
in the Park Hotel.
Lulea left the hotel in a fury. “What a shocking thing! I’ve never
been so insulted in my life! Of course! there was room, at least for
some of us...” The fairy looked round her crowd of loyal follow-
ers in, for the first time, serious dismay. “—and the rest could
have been lodged elsewhere,” she finished falteringly.
“Never mind, Your Highness, we’ll try another place,” con-
soled Dreamsweet. “They can’t all be full,” she pursued, keeping
up the fiction for a little while yet.
But at the Cecil and the Baltic their luck was no better. The
manager of the latter actually suggested that the queen and as
many of the other fairies as he caught sight of were no better than
they should be. Certainly there was no accommodation for them
at the Baltic. “Try the Diana, down by the ore docks,” he called
after them tauntingly. So they knew that was one hotel they need
not bother trying.
“What was the name of that place you mentioned?” Lulea,
holding in her anger, asked Moth. “The Temptation?”
“The Temperance Hotel,” Moth hastened, chastened, to sup-
ply. “Oh, I do hope... It’s in Smithy Street,” she reminded, getting
back to practicalities. “That’s the last street we crossed.”
The group retraced their steps to the Temperance but
unfortunatley received the same reply, though the manageress, a
woman herself, realized the ladies were all they gave themselves
out to be: honest virgins and blameless travelers. The Temper-
ance really was full on this Saturday night.
“There’s the Station Hotel,” she said. “Have you tried there?”
36
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Titania,” said Lulea, brightening, as she always did when
anyone was the least bit kind; “your hotel!” and to the hoteliere,
“No, we haven’t. Yes, we’ll go there.”
“Wait, I’ll telephone through and see if they can suit you,” said
the woman, unsmiling—well, I mean she wasn’t going to go all
the way—but well-intentioned.
“Oh, would you?” asked the queen and simpered gratefully.
The hotel woman did her job well: got a commitment by the
clerk at the Station Hotel that they could cater for twenty-eight
lady travelers—with a bit of squeezing—and the party were duly
expected. Was there very much luggage? Should a porter with
barrow be sent?
The manageress looked again and her heart sank slightly. “No,
there isn’t a great deal. That will be all right.” In fact, there was
NO luggage, apart from a fairly capacious satchel of Lulea’s that
Ozzod carried. That did seem to the woman a little suspicious,
after all.
Queen Lulea and her train thanked her most cordially, though
traying, as became a Queen and her court, not to overdo, andthe
padrona stayed behind at her desk, trying in her turn not to
believe she had betrayed her profession by recommending
clients so very much outside the ordinary as these.
Alas, the most expectant-looking face of the receptionist at the
Station Hotel darkened the moment he saw the burgundy dress
in which the fairy queen was arrayed and the smile on the face of
the young lady called Titania and the sprightliness with which
Mab, Wob, and Dib ran up to the check-in counter. This exchange
followed:
“Yes?” [severely]
“The lady at the Temperence Hotel telephoned. We have
reservations.”
“Indeed? I see no record here. Your name?”
“Fay McQueen.” [thinking rapidly]
“Sorry. No record.”
“Oh, but we made sure! You have room (with squeezing) for
twenty-eight ladies!”
37
“We have, alas, no such thing. I’m very sorry.” [lying]
“Oh, how terribly disappointing. But we can pay! Look!” [open-
ing of valise, which appeared to be full of gold pieces: fairy gold,
but the clerk wasn’t to know that]
“That isn’t the point. We have no wish to accommodate you.
This is a respectable hotel.”
At that Lulea hit the ceiling. I keep telling you fairies can only
be got at through their feelings.
If she hadn’t been inherently such a decent person (not, ad-
mittedly, a human being, but surely after all a “person”), Lulea
might have changed the clerk into a lump of odiferous ambergris
on the spot. As it was, she turned, white-faced, and marked straight
out of the hotel, her court following crestfallen after.
The night chill cooled the fuming fairy as she hurried across
the street and back to the railway station. Unfortunately the last
train for the night had gone. All approaches to the interior of the
building and to the tracks were locked and barred.
Feebimble took charge. Several of the other fairies crowded
close about their queen to offer warmth and sympathy but
Feebimbled called the turns. “See,” she whispered to Ereol, “the
benches,” and pointed to the dark green seats that alternated with
the scrawny flower beds in the gazon that stretched the length of
the front of the station complex.
“But they’re taaaken!” urged Ereol in reply. Alas, too true: men
of various ages but the same appearance: collars unbuttoned, hats
askew, and eyes bleary (when visible) occupied places on four of
the seven benches.
“Never mind!” hissed Feebimble. “They couldn’t be any worse
than what we’ve run up against already,” and she began to bustle
the girls of the fairy band toward the seats.
Now the fairies, in essaying to visit the realm of mortals, had
taken on the usual size of humans. But this could be changed, for
a need, and now Feebimble got the distraught Lulea to authorize
the girls’ shrinking a tad so that seven of them could sit abreast
on a bench. That filled the empty three benches and the remain-
der of the fairies placed themselves diplomatically on the other
38
seats, choosing ones whose drunken occupants had passed out,
thus offering minimal risk to the young ladies of the band of im-
mortals as they prepared to sit out the short-long light night on
park benches.
c h a p t e r e i g h t
Bright—well, not so bright: the sky was full of a yellow haze—

and early the next morning Ozma rebridled and resaddled the
Sawhorse and led him out of his stall. “Ready for another heavy
run, Lignum?” she asked caringly. “We still have far to go before
we can even think of turning home.”
The Sawhorse said nothing but blew out his lips and shook
himself spiritedly and his mistress knew that he was willing. The
others took their places and Ozma turned to look graciously at
the little group of Flatheads who stood about in the yard to watch
the party off.
It was hard to love people who were so declaratively brain-
less. The Flatheads’ stupidity shone out of their dull eyes and was
communicated by their open-hanging mouths. But they were as
God—or rather Goorikop—had made them and Queen Ozma had
not yet reached a stage in her spiritual development wherein she
allowed herself to go around altering the manifold variety and
colorfulness which, when she ascended the throne, she had found
characteristic of her country.
Away galloped the Sawhorse, and the wogglebug flew over-
head. The road led down corkscrew-fashion about the sides of
39
Flathead Mountain (which was not all that high) and very soon
the travelers were at the frontier, if so one may call a place with-
out fences or guardhouses or gates or troops on patrol. It was
simply that round about a certain point the color yellow took over
completely and no more trace of purple, violet, mauve, lavender,
heliotrope, or lilac was to be seen on the surface of the ground (no
matter what conditions might exist some yards below). But the
trees and bushes! the concerned reader will say: THEY’D go on
being purple if they were Gillikin. Well, no, as the silent centuries
crept on and yellow dust overlay everything, purple plants dried
out and yellow ones took over.
“This is not right,” stated Ozma as the Sawhorse raced on.
“The north of Oz is known from time immemorial to be purple
and at this moment we are far nearer the northern edge of Oz
than the western. This ground should not be all yellow! Some-
thing must be done to bring it back to what it undoubtedly was of
old.”
“If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year, do
you suppose,” the Scarecrow said, “that they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Queen of Oz and shed a bitter tear. It was
distressing to find for the very first time in her reign that there
was something demonstrably wrong, unjust—or anyway unlike
what it was credited with being—about her kingdom.
On they rode, now following the left bank of the Yellow River.
This took its name not from any Chinese namesake but simply
because of the fact that it was choked with yellow silt. On the dry
upland steppe, so near the Impassable Desert a few miles to the
north, the stream spread out thin and languid, like the Rio Grande
of west Texas: “too thick to drink, too thin to plow.” The Saw-
horse was kept busy leaping little wandering meanders of the river,
while the sky grew yellower and yellower.
Traversing the south bank the travelers missed passing through
Corabia, Samandra, and Corumbia, thus leaving those enchanted
lands to be officially discovered a dozen years later. But they did
pass through Quick City—fast. Not there was the address of Miss
Lana Peethisaw.
40
CHAPTER EIGHT
No, Lana lived the life of a little lady in a cunning cottage on
the outskirts of Cut-out County. There it was always afternoon.
Everyone had just had a bath and was fresh and neat; nobody
was ever hot and feddy in Cut-out County. Nothing was ever an
effort there. Everything came ready cut out, which is not to say
cut and dried. Nothing ever changed and everything was always
very nice. Maybe not exciting but just as you would always, in
memory, prefer to have it.
Lana lived at number ten, Lullaby Lane. ‘Hm,’ thought Ozma.
‘At five she won’t be too old for lullabies.’ An odd little wave of
tenderness washed over the fair.
There was a hitching post out front, knee deep in dusty yel-
low grass, and there they hitched the Sawhorse. Just in case he
felt like having a well-earned rest there was a pile of springy hay
beside the post for him to lie down on. In Lignum’s case, of course,
this was all superfluous. He could never tire.
Before the Oz princess and her party knocked they had a look,
by the dark yellow light of day, at the outside of the little girl’s
house. The building was drawn with thick bold smooth lines: the
yellow plastered walls, the red shutters, the steep brown thatched
roof, the blue door. It made you want to touch it and when you
did you were surprised. The low-hanging charming roof was not
compact of sturdy straw stalks but seemed to be all one piece.
When Ozma, puzzled, learned nearer she saw the roof was made
out of enormously thick pasteboard. ‘Of course!’ she realized, ‘cut-
outs!’
The realistic-looking silver-colored door-knocker thunked
cardboardenly against the beaver-board door, which flew open
to reveal a dark-haired little miss dressed à la Kate Greenaway.
“Good day,” said the girl. “Come in. I was expecting you.”
The callers were taken aback. How could—!? They had got
there quicker than any letter could have arrived—which was why
Ozma had never sent one.
The princess smiled a little bewilderedly. “Miss Peethisaw?
You were expecting us?”
“Yiss. Nothing is ever a surprise in Cut-out County—except
41
planned surprises, like birthday parties. It would throw us off if
anything unexpected happened. So we expect everything.”
Ozma decided that that was not unreasonable. Still she was
puzzled. “I am Ozma, as you no doubt expected. But I expected a
much younger young lady. That is to say—” Ozma waffled, un-
usually for her. “I knew you were five years old—from your let-
ter—but your speech is different from your style of writing...”
“Oh, that,” said Miss Peethisaw, welcoming in her guests with
a graceful gesture. She bent to clasp Billina caressingly on the back.
The hen clucked in appreciation. “I never write like I talk. I use all
different styles in writing. It’s my hobby, in fact. As for my letter
to your majesty, it says in my Manual of Correct Letter-Writing that
that’s how children talk. Of course the book was printed in 1867,
so it may be out of date. It also says that on no account must chil-
dren WRITE like that. I’m afraid I was being rather naughty.”
“Indeed, admitted Ozma, “a little of that might have gone a
long way. I like you better as you really are.” Then, “I think, in
fact, I might say that of most persons.
“But now,” the princess went on, when all had been seated
around a table and Miss Lana was handing round the syrupy-
sweet malted milk and the doughnuts, “your problem has caught
my attention. During our journey here I found indeed that what
you posited was correct: the Winkie Country does look to be way
out of line. I had no idea—and can’t account for it. Can you?”
“No; that’s why I wrote you,” said the matter-of-fact Miss
Peethisaw. “I didn’t know until I saw the new map of Oz that this
part ought, by rights, it seems, to be purple. Here people believe
it’s always been Winkie—and yellow. But either that’s wrong, or
your map is. Something’s got to give.”
‘This is a very grown-up five-year-old,’ thought the princess,
without, however, liking little Lana the less. Aloud she said, “Oh
the map is obviously wrong. That must go. But a larger issue is
this: does it matter if a whole sixth of the north of Oz is not, as it
has always been reputed to be, Gillikin at all but Winkie? We might
just rewrite the textbooks and let it go at that.”
“Perhaps that’s a good idea, your highness,” agreed Miss Lana
42
CHAPTER EIGHT
sagaciously. “It might after all be troublesome to have to move
whole countries. There are any number of them, you know, east
of here and all yellow and fondly believing themselves to be
Winkie. How would they take to being done over purple?”
“That indeed is a point that ought to be considered,” quoted
Ozma with a swallowed laugh at the drollness of this learned
conference with a little girl. But Miss Peethisaw was special. What
WAS it about her?
However, “Another point,” the queen went on, “and to my
mind the gravest of all, is that Winkie-land, not content with be-
ing already the largest of the constituent lands of Oz, is still grow-
ing! I hardly think that will do, do you? We don’t want the purple
Gillikin country to disappear completely.”
“I suppose that wouldn’t do,” agreed Lana. “Would it? I, of
course, as a Winkie, can’t see that the Gillikins should mind. Yel-
low is such a wonderful color, isn’t it!” she said with enthusiasm.
“Are you a Winkie?” asked Ozma speculatively. “You’ll for-
give me but you don’t seem quite as yellow as the rest.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t been here long enough—” began the girl
but broke off suddenly and seemed curiously a little flustered.
“But I’m forgetting my manners! I’m afraid I do forget them, rather
a lot. I see you looking about and of course I haven’t showed you
over the house yet!” She stood up from the tea-table abruptly.
Ozma had been casting sidelong glances at the furniture and
hangings. Everything was distinguished by being edged with a
thick border of black, no matter what its own dominant hue might
be. How odd. Surely not an emblem of mourning? No, nobody
ever mourned in Oz. It went against the genius of the country for
there ever to be cause for grieving.
Suddenly, before Miss Peethisaw had yet said a word in
explanation, it came to the girl ruler: of course! the things were
cut-outs! The black lines were a guide for clipping out, and now
Ozma could see where shears had gone round every piece of the
furnishings: occasionally not too evenly. She suspected that
children had had a hand in the scissor work. Possibly Miss
Peethisaw herself.
43
“You live here all alone, do you?” asked Ozma as Lana showed
the way into the kitchen. No cook or serving maid stood there.
“Yiss, all alone,” and the girl gave voice to a trill of laughter—
that cut off sharply.
“And your parents, my dear,” said Ozma kindly. “Where are
they?”
But Miss Peethisaw stumbled violently as she followed the
others over the threshold onto the back porch, and somehow the
princess’ question went unanswered. Queen and Scarecrow and
wogglebug all put out their hands (or feelers) to support their
hostess. “How silly of me!” Lana cried. “But oh! look at the sky.
It’s never been that dark before—and it’s only five o’clock...”
Until this the wogglebug and the Scarecrow and the hen had
been content to listen, over the table, to the talk of the two female
savants but now the Professor offered a third expert’s view:
“Yes, it’s storming up there. As we came along I noticed wind
resistance growing ever stronger. Strange how still it is on the
ground—”
“That’s because nothing ever varies here in Cut-out County,”
Miss Peethisaw put in, seeming relieved at the change of topic.
“There’s always just a faint breeze. It makes things more ‘average’
that way.”
“I see,” said the Scarecrow, who had been quietly sizing things
up. “Averagity is all. No rocking the boat.”
The young girl looked at him with respect. “That’s it. We’ve all
had our boats rocked enough when we came here. This is the quiet
backwater we long for.”
But by now Ozma had guessed enough not to ask further dis-
comfiting questions.
44
c h a p t e r n i n e
The policeman drew his silver sword and rapped a shoe sole
sharply.
Then he leant closer and realized that the sole was not that of
a black wooden clog but appertained to a ruby slipper that graced
the foot of a very pretty, if disheveled, little lady sleeper. He
laughed embarrassedly and the noise wakened the slumberer.
“Sir!” cried Lulea, Queen of the Fairies, and was for a moment
disoriented. “Who dares disturb the Queen’s repose?” And then
she remembered where she was.
Round about, bums and drunks were stumbling to their feet
with mumbles and curses and wandering away. A hasty glance
aside and Lulea saw her fairy retainers cowering back from other
policemen and holding their draperies before their mouths.
“Please, ladies!” she hissed. “Conceal your ankles!” The fairy
had caught on to outer-world prudishness with lightning intu-
ition.
Now she turned back to her ‘own’ policeman and secretly ad-
mired his crisp blue uniform and gold epaulettes and silver belt
and scabbard. “What can I do for you, my man?” she demanded,
trying to keep up a front.
45
The officer touched his cap brim. This was clearly no floozy
requiring sending on her way with a flea in her ear. Lulea swung
her feet to the ground and stood up to her full four feet. Why, it
was a little girl! saw the constable. But he looked closer in the half
light and realized from the fairy’s features that she was a fully
mature woman—and cute to boot! But he must never think of
that, and he cleared his throat and said:
“Apologize, ma’am. The official proclamation states: No
overnighting in public places, to wit, specifically, no sleeping on
benches...”
“Where do you propose we go then?” said Lulea, seeing the
position and building up some righteous dudgeon.
“To a hotel...?”
“Hah!” and no one could have plumbed the queen’s bitter-
ness. “Tell that to the marines!” she lapsed into deplorable jar-
gon. “We’ve been turned away at every hostelry in this town!”
“Indeed?” The officer could hardly believe it of someone so,
in her miniature way, impressive. Then he remembered where he
was and believed it. “Please tell me the circumstances.”
The fairy did, without any great show of satisfaction. The po-
liceman clucked and cooed, then called his fellows around him
and they consulted together. As policemen always annoyingly do,
they acted as if they could by no means credit the story of the
person they were interviewing. They requested Queen Lulea and
her companions to follow and they all re-entered the Station Ho-
tel across Priest Street.
Happily the fairy was not required to be present at the actual
interview. She wouldn’t have been pleased. It went like this:
“These travelers need rooms for the night.”
“I’ve told them: nothing doing.”
“Have you got unoccupied rooms?”
“Yes.”
“The women have funds to pay fully for their expenses.”
“So they indicated.”
“Then why won’t you accommodate them?”
“I don’t like their looks.”
46
CHAPTER NINE
“That’s all? That’s not sufficient grounds for refusing hospital-
ity.”
“It is here. We don’t take in tarts.”
“Watch your language! You’ve got no evidence they’re prosti-
tutes!”
“I don’t need it. The hotel has no obligation to take in people
we, for any reason, don’t want.”
And it hadn’t. That was the law of the land. Perhaps it was the
same in many lands, but in this land they invoked the law, not
seldom. Merely dress too loud—or laugh too loud—and you’d
had it.
Just to be sticklers the posse of police bicycled round to the
four or five other hostelries and went through the same routine.
With less or more surliness the result was similar in every case.
Now the cops’ looking for trouble had produced a neat little batch
of it. The women mustn’t sleep on the benches, they couldn’t sleep
in the hotels. Where then?
You guessed it. Lulea, Queen of the Fairies, and all her radiant
band spent the rest of the night sacked out in cells at Luleå town
jail. The police were obliged to turn away many drunks that night.
47
c h a p t e r t e n
“Professor,” said Ozma, “will you...?” and the big bug took off
to case the upper atmosphere again.
Because nothing ever changed in Cut-out County the far sky
merely got darker and darker, while on the ground it remained
still afternoon and no effects of storm or downpour were to be
noted. But after all it was by now six o’clock and consequently
evening. In other places the state of things might be quite differ-
ent, so the princess sent the wogglebug up into the stratosphere
to investigate.
He returned in half an hour very much the worse for wind.
“Whew!” he expressed it, less than elegantly. “It’s a fierce dust
storm up there! near hurricane force, I’d say. I can’t think what
effects it must be having in other parts of the country that aren’t
under an unchangeability spell as here.”
“Even here doesn’t seem to be totally unaffected,” remarked
Ozma ruefully as she glanced at her green satin travel togs now
overlaid with a smeared film of dust in just the few moments she
was outside to welcome the Wogglebug back from his investiga-
tory flight.
“No,” agreed the bug: “a gauge of how grave the situation is.
48
CHAPTER TEN
I would go so far as to characterize it as a National Emergency.”
“Oh, gracious,” said the concerned ruler; “then we mustn’t
linger here in dalliance, pleasant though it indeed is... My dear
Miss Peethisaw,” —she turned to her hostess— “it’s been delight-
ful! Thank you so much. But as you so rightfully warned us: the
situation in this part of our land is untenable. We must away and
try to cope... thought—” The princess paused, for once seeming
to be perplexed. “I wonder... I haven’t had to deal with actual
disasters of nature before. I’m not sure to what extent mere
magic—”
“Princess Ozma, may I not come with you?” Lana, to the girl
ruler’s surprise, entreated. “I can’t help but feel it’s my fault for
having got you into this. Besides,” —here a sigh escaped her—
“I’ll miss you when you’ve gone... And then of course you’ll need
me to show you the way,” she clinched her case.
Ozma was touched and didn’t know how to refuse. “But, dear,”
she objected, “there’s no more room on the Sawhorse! I was silly
not to use the Red Wagon, but I didn’t foresee—”
“It’s only half a miile to the county line,” urged Miss Peethisaw.
“We can all walk that far—and there you’ll have a full view out
into the dust storm or whatever it is.”
Ozma resisted no longer. Lana ran around to draw the cur-
tains, put out a note for the milkman, collect her pad and pencil,
and throw on her little yellow riding hood, then the part left the
house. They (nearly) all walked. The queen felt uncomfortable at
riding while little girls of five went on foot. On the other hand, if
she invited the Winkie girl to join her on the Sawhorse’s back that
would leave the Scarecrow afoot and they could lose valuable time
waiting for him to totter the half mile to the border. As it was,
Ozma requested her devoted henchman to board the horse and
go on ahead. She, Lana, and Billina would trot after them at their
best speed.
“It’s just over Honey Hill and down Daffodil Dale,” explained
the little girl as she pattered along. “It isn’t far. I just hope we
don’t get stuck.”
“’Stuck’?” queried the queen.
49
“Yiss, crossing Honey Hill. I always do. That’s why I’ve never
seen Daffodil Dale—just heard about it. It was all I could do to
unstick myself the couple of times I tried, and it took me all day to
get the last of the honey off my shoes, my clothes, and myself.”
“Perhaps I can do something to help us on our way,”
enheartened Ozma and to reassure herself felt of the slim quiver
the hung, Diana’s-arrow-case-like, over her left shoulder and con-
tained her fairy’s wand.
Yes, there reared the brown-blond height of honey, glistening
even in the subdued half-light of the eternal afternoon. Bees were
everywhere. Indeed, the hill would seem to have the character of
a vast unenclosed honey-comb. Ozma guessed that the nectar
gatherers had come to realize over the ages that they had nothing
to fear from natural conditions or change of conditions. Their honey
home could never be threatened by rain or snow, cold or heat,
dirt or predations, so why not just build outdoors, with immedi-
ate easy access?
Anyway the bees did. The years, the centuries, went by and
the honey hill got bigger and bigger. Like miles-deep glaciers with
their ice the mass of wax and honey pressed ever tighter on the
strata deeper down. No doubt down there it was solid sweet rock.
The bees seemed not to mind the gradual loss of that fruit of their
ancient ancestors’ labors and merely rejoiced at having an ever
wider outer surface to add cells of sweetness to.
The road—well, it could hardly be called more than a path—
led right up and over the hill. Despite the adhesiveness of the
honeyscape on every side it appeared that sufficient foot passen-
gers had gone that way to make a slight indentation in the crushed
wax to indicate which way the route led.
The fairy had out her wand now, made a pass, and invoked an
old spell that would turn things solid for a limited period. Warn-
ing Billina not to consume any of the industrious insects who for
the nonce were their willynilly hosts, the princess led the way.
Solid-state honey proved not to be more troublesome to tread upon
than, for instance, worn-out flypaper—if even that sticky. It was
well not to linger though. Who knew what might happen if body
50
CHAPTER TEN
weight and warmth were allowed to rest on one spot for any length
of time?
Yet they did stop. They couldn’t help it. Fairy queen and Winkie
girl could not keep back twin cries of wonder when they reached
the top of the hill and saw below them in the distance a crowd, a
host, of golden daffodils. They gazed and gazed, until with a start
Ozma realized she was ankle deep in clinging tar. Quickly she did
a reinforcing charm that outright froze the honey briefly.
Ten thousand saw they at a glance, but the yellow flowers were
not dancing. Rather, they stood in solemn array entirely filling a
shallow valley, not moving until now and then a faint wind would
shift over them and they all nodded their heads in one direction
in a long slow wave-like sweep across the field. It was so quiet.
Oddly, one had the feeling that so much flower beauty ought to
be uttering some kind of flower music, but all was silent. Ozma,
Lana, and Billina did not speak for awe.
But when their feet stuck again they knew it was time to go.
Down off Honey Hill they came, then found a narrow path among
the daffodils and followed that until the magic faded. At the ridge
beyond Daffodil Dale the night could be seen and the storm raged
without.
Ozma turned to Miss Peethisaw. “You must turn back here,
my dear. I shall go on: Billina and I—” But even the princess looked
pale in the glare of lightning striking through the yellow dark.
“Go back to the unchanging comfort and security of Cut-out
County...”
“No, my princess,” said the little girl. “It’s too late for me to go
back now. At first, living here, I was glad just to be alive in a safe
quiet place. But now I know it isn’t enough. I have to go on, just as
I always did want to go on: to grow up, to experience—oh, just
everything...”
The wise ruler already knew enough about the mystery of
things not to fight with that. “Will you keep very close to me then?
Take my hand? Or no, hold onto my cincture, while I carry Billina.
We don’t know how this wind is going to be. I don’t see our friends
anywhere. I’m rather afraid...”
51
c h a p t e r e l e v e n
‘That’s funny,’ thought the officer on the desk. ‘They look like
they’ve grown!’ Pretending he had an early mosquito in it, he
rubbed his eye, in fact both of them. No, it was true enough. This
Mrs. McQueen—English? Australian?—was definitely a foot taller
than she had been when he personally had locked her in her cell
several hours earlier.
Not only that but she was dressed in severe black bombazine.
But there hadn’t been room enough in that one satchel for any
change of costume and certainly not changes for twenty-eight (by
actual count) young women. Yet there they all came trooping in
shades of black, grey, and navy. Vanished were the dubonnet taf-
feta, the green organdie, the watermelon georgette. Hair styles
were different too: formerly flowing or floating locks were drawn
back severely, parted in the middle, and concealed under uniform
dark caps. The girls were even wearing hooked noses. This was
Madame Reinedesfees and her corps des ballet in street dress.
Madame was inclined to be severe herself, though still quite
graciously condescending to the sergeant who had been so hos-
pitable as to save her from complete homelessness during the
night. She signed the check-out book but did not hang around in
52
CHAPTER ELEVEN
superfluous conversation.
Fairies don’t need to breakfast. Just as well, because you can
be very sure that no establishment throughout the length and
breadth of Sweden was open for public refreshment-serving at
nine o’clock of a Sunday morning in 1908. So the ballet corps just
walked demurely down the street, two abreast, with eyes maid-
enly lowered. The girls certainly didn’t raise them to look back to
the southeast at the town’s one landmark, the new belated-mixed-
Gothic Cathedral. Not though the fairies knew, someone had
blundered and instead of looking distinctive and attractive the
landmark just resembled any other run-of-the-mill red brick
Victorian church.
Luleå was not actually ugly, just dull. Since the disastrous fire
of 1887 all the colorful old wooden buildings were being replaced
by brick and concrete. Yet just ahead the walkers saw a forest!
and at that fairy hearts picked up. Past one remaining charming
old house in yellow plankwork with green trim and after that they
were in a wood—well, a thickly tree-grown park that preserved
comforting resemblances to the wild. They felt almost at home.
In the City Park there was a little museum and they lingered
round it under that benign sky, watched the moths fluttering
among the heath and harebelle, and listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass. To tell the truth, the fairies were by
now dreading the interview that was due imminently to take place
between their Queen and the local governor, mayor, and/or cor-
poration in the big house at the end of the street.
The Governor’s Mansion was a quaint building, old-fashioned
already now, forty years after its construction. It was designed in
the traditional country architecture of Sweden: vertical planks with
thin wooden string courses sealing the intervening interstices.
Traditionally too it was painted dark red, with wide window
mouldings in white. Over the simple double wooden doors were
the arms of Norrbotten under a carved architrave. Wide granite
steps led up from grass and gravel. Queen Lulea trod the gravel
with sinking heart.
An eighteenth-century footman opened when Ereol pulled the
53
bell. His appearance made all the fairies pause a moment, speech-
less, but Lulea was not to be overawed by a flunkey. “Will you
announce to His Excellency, my man, that Lulea, Queen of the—
well, Queen Lulea—has arrived in response to his invitation.” Here
the fairy drew herself up regally to her full height—and, forget-
ting herself, shot up to six feet. If he hadn’t been Swedish the
footman’s eyes would have boggled. He did in fact almost stumble
as he hastened to his task.
There was a considerable period of waiting in the spacious
forehall, just to emphasize that the governor was the governor.
Then attractive white double doors opened and a man in a morn-
ing coat came through. Protocol was followed fully. With a faint,
solemn—oh, one would hesitate to say “sickly”—smile the Gov-
ernor bowed. The Queen inclined her head. Neither knew which,
by rights, should kiss the other’s hand, so neither did, but they
moved into proximity to each other and hands were agitated
slightly, indicating that in a later age they might have shaken.
So far nobody had spoken. When somebody did, it was the
Governor to the footman. “Tell the Governess that the—er, Queen
has come.” The man went.
‘Why did he say “er”?’ thought Lulea. ‘I am a queen! —if not,
in the present country, the queen.’ It seemed to her that things
were not boding well.
As if she had been pre-alerted to the likelihood of a call, the
“Governess,” who proved in fact to be the Governor’s wife, ap-
peared almost at once. She wore a severe high-chested lilac gown
with white satin panels and petit-point slippers. “My dear,” the
governor spoke, “the—er, Queen has been so good as to call. I
think: coffee.” The lady gave the appropriate instructions.
There was an awkward pause of eight minutes. The governor
and governess enquired how the “queen” and her attendants had
enjoyed their journey. Lulea duly praised the uniformity of the fir
forest they had traversed. She cast a discreet veil over the night
they had spent in jail. No enquiry was made as to where the fairy
band were staying nor was any invitation forthcoming to reside
at the Mansion.
54
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Now at last the coffee (in lieu of breakfast, for which by now it
was rather late) was announced and they moved to an inner room
where a long table, reminiscent, had anyone but known, of that in
Alice, was set with an enormous amount of crockery though with
little sign of what was to be consumed therefrom. As it happened,
the coffee, exquisitely served, proved to be very good and the
fairies, even if they could go indefinitely without eating, were glad
of it. Plates of buttered slices of sweet bread were passed round.
Though pleased, the fairies were careful not to smile. In rec-
ognition of this compliance with custom the governor and wife
unbent in their turn and almost smiled. Yet the difficult part lay
ahead. After twenty minutes of protocol remarks the Governor
began:
“In the time of King Karl the Eleventh commissions for the
uncovering of witchcraft were active and widespread. The Devil
was personally present in many regions. He was able to establish
relations with particular individuals, usually women.” Here the
speaker seemed to cast a sharp glance about the coffee table at his
dark-clad solemn-visaged guests. “These were employed in the
forwarding of his various schemes. Hundreds of women were
accused, tortured, and executed for consorting with the Devil.
“This of course was a tragic misunderstanding. There is no
such thing as witchcraft.” The governor expressed this thought
as if it were a proven fact; Lulea of course could have undeceived
him. “Nowadays we know better. Sweden is fully modern. No
one now believes in witches.”
The governor paused. Now came the painful utterance:
“—nor in fairies. It is my duty to inform you that such have been
outlawed.”
Queen Lulea couldn’t speak for just a moment. Finally she was
able to say, “But...”
The Governor, anticipating her protest, was ready. He said
extenuatingly: “Brownies still exist—but they are only allowed
out at Christmas. Then of course we have trolls. You can see THEM
on the street any day. But as for fairies, elves, goblins, and all such
truck, they simply don’t exist.”
55
“But—” said Lulea again.
“We do not speak for other countries. What is permitted there
is not our concern. However, in the cause of our own national
purity and freedom from harmful superstition, we have urgently
to request that a native Swedish name—or any close approxima-
tion thereto—not be employed by any foreign fairies. It could lead
to serious misunderstanding, even to compromise of our national
reputation—”
“But...”
“I am sorry but I can brook no rebuttal. I must request you,
Madame Queen, hereafter and forevermore, to cease and desist
from the use of the name Lulea—”
That was as far as he got—and as far as the fairy had ever been
got at in her feelings. With a piercing cry, so shrill and high it
could not even be discerned by the human ear, the fairy Lulea
simply vanished—followed an instant later, as soon as they caught
on, by all her loyal band.
56
c h a p t e r t w e l v e
Indeed, Princess Ozma had cause to be afraid, though in fact

her recent hesitant broken-off remark had been intended only to
convey that she sensed that her male companions had got into
difficulties in the sand storm. They had. The Sawhorse, galloping
on in advance with the Scarecrow clinging desperately, had crossed
the county line and promptly been snatched up by the gale and
flung, not into the next county merely, but into the next country,
viz. that of the Gillikins. Somewhere up in cloud nineteen the two
travelers parted company, practically forever. The Scarecrow
ended up flattened against the side of Flathead Mountain and, as
for the Sawhorse, I don’t even know where he came down. H.M.
Wogglebug rode out the storm high on the top of a thermal.
The ladies fared scarcely better, although, with an assist by
Ozma’s magic, they did manage at least to stay together. Some-
times during the hours they were blowing about every which way.
Billina wished she had never asked to come along on the adven-
ture. It was proving more replete with incident than she had bar-
gained for. Lana Peethisaw on the other hand was almost enjoy-
ing it. She felt she was really living. And Ozma? ‘If we ever make
a landfall,’ she thought, ‘God works a miracle.’ In her extremity
57
she even mentioned that deity’s name.
In the end, storm-tossed, sand-saturated, dust-blinded, filthy-
haired and -feathered, the party did of course fall to earth. It was
somewhere unspecified and unspecifiable on the edge of the Im-
passable Desert. Lana’s yellow riding hood was torn in two and
Ozma had lost her ear-poppies and looked quite naked. Worse
was the loss of her wand, which had fallen none knew where,
though the useless wand case which had held it, being strapped
through her arm-pit, was saved. The fairy sat on a sand mound
and regarded the quiver ruefully. At any rate it was by now early
daylight and she could regard it.
“What do we do now?” said someone—Billina, I think,
although she was rather preoccupied, preening for dear life.
“I’m too storm-tossed to know,” confessed the girl ruler with
chagrin.
“Should we send for help?” asked little Lana, who seemed to
have greater faith in fairy Ozma’s powers than did fairy Ozma
herself at this moment.
“If only we could,” wished Ozma, without, however, the wish
coming true. Just in case anybody hadn’t realized it, she spelled it
out: “I’ve lost my wand.”
“Oh,” said Lana and looked solemn.
“I wouldn’t be able to ‘send’,” continued the fairy, then looked
a question. “—at least, anyone very big.”
She glanced at Billina.
The hen noticed the pause. “Don’t look at me,” she warned,
then did a double take. Ozma was looking at her. Quickly she re-
tracted. “I mean: are you looking at me, ma’am?”
“I wonder,” Ozma mused on. “With finger magic I could actu-
ally transfer goods up to a weight of eleven and a half pounds. I
wonder...” she repeated and looked about her. Rapidly she mut-
tered a spell and put some of her fingers and toes in certain pre-
scribed positions. A shallow pit appeared in the silver-grey sand
a couple of yards away. Ozma had conveyed eleven pounds of
(extra) sand to the Gobi Desert.
“Oh!” cried Lana again. She was not quite sure what she her-
58
CHAPTER TWELVE
self weighed but she said, “Could I—” Then she broke off. She
remembered.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, darling,” sighed the fairy, and neither she
nor the little girl referred to the idea again. “But Billina...”
She changed her tack. “But who—that is, whom...?” the prin-
cess went on. “Glinda the good sorceress could fetch us off this
desert. The Wizard’s magic isn’t as yet quite up to that. But what
is wanted is far beyond the scope of either stage magic or witch-
craft. There’s going to have to be intervention in the very forces of
nature. Now who...”
Of course it didn’t take the percipient Ozma very long to real-
ize that the authority she had need of was the supremely power-
ful Lulea, queen of all the fairies: at least, of those on the conti-
nent of Sempernumquam: Lulea, her very own relation,
arbitratress of all matters magical in this land and very influential
as well in the councils of fairies everywhere. “Lulea ...” she
breathed.
“Lulea?” said Lana.
“Mmm. Queen of the Fairies,” clarified this other young fairy
queen.
“Is that the same as Lurline?” said Billina, whose knowledge
of Oz history and fairiography was there, but patchy. “The one
that enchanted Oz?”
“A good question,” conceded the fairy. “Actually, you know,
there’s some mystery in the case. Lurline’s character and nature
go—or went!—beyond all human comprehension. She can, or
could, take on alternate appearances, alternate personalities, even,
for a need, alternate histories. It’s difficult to pin her down—not
that one would attempt to, of course,” the girl ruler hastened to
add, mindful of the, in this case, unlucky resemblance between
fairies and butterflies. “Too little has come down to us of actual
chapter and verse in early Oz chronology. The powerful female
spirit who chanced to fly, together with her attendant sprites, over
Oz and enchant it long ago has not been definitely identified with
that Lurline who flourished elsewhere as a water sprite or ‘Water
Queen.’ It seems unlikely that they were one and yet the identity
59
of names is suggestive. And whether the water goddess was or
was not identical with one ‘Lorelei’ who was the legendary mer-
maid spirit of the river Rhein has not been surely established ei-
ther.
“But for our purposes the later history of the enchantress of
Oz is of more concern. She is definitely stated to have been for-
getful!: an unexpected trait in a widely powerful immortal but
yet possibly of use if one were not to be too burdened with an
ages-old load of recollections or with a sense of déjà vu, and hence
boredom, at everything on earth.
“Could she possibly have forgotten that she was a river sprite
and settled down in the forest of Burzee? which is about as far as
you can get from rivers without being in an actual desert. It seems
hardly credible, and yet for ages now—well, I don’t know how
long, really—there’s been no news of Lurline, while the lovely
Queen Lulea has throned it in Burzee and made her presence
known also far beyond the confines of that storied wood—”
“Yeah,” said the yellow hen and again paraded her knowl-
edge of Sempernumquam history. “I was talking to King Bud of
Noland at your party a while back§ and he told me all about queen
Lulea’s enchantments in his affairs. It was through her he got to
be king! and that was years ago already.”
“Quite,” agreed the fairy. “In any case, it is to Lulea we must
make our appeal now. If anybody can put things to rights in this
matter touching the welfare of Oz, it is she. That is: if there even is
anyone to whom we can make an appeal...” went on Ozma, dis-
playing a regrettable doubtfulness in the efficacy of, for example,
prayer.
Billina was quick of comprehension. “You want me to go to
Burzee, I take it? If that storm was just blowing south I could
almost have ridden there on that!”
But Ozma’s thought processes were even quicker. “Not so fast,
my dear. It’s Lulea herself I must fix on, not just her accustomed
home place, for I happen to know that the dear queen was off
§ See The Road to Oz. Editor’s note.

60
CHAPTER TWELVE
lately on a journey to the outside world. To Sweden, in fact—”
“Va’ roligt!!” squawked the chicken. “Tänk! att jag nu äntligen
ska komma till gamla Sverige!” For the fact was that Billina had
grown up on the farm of Swedish immigrants in America before
her miraculous translation to Oz.§ She only acquired Evish (which
is the same as Ozish, which, curiously enough, closely resembles
English) upon going ashore with Dorothy from the chicken coop
in Ev some years previously.
However, Ozma, after having instructed the yellow hen in what
to say to Queen Lulea, ensorcelled her away, not to Sweden ex-
actly but to wherever the fairy queen actually was.
It was with considerable puzzlement that after a moment
Billina found herself on the deck of a large black ship gliding up
and down under a semitropical sky.
§ See Ozma of Oz. Editor’s note.

61
c h a p t e r t h i r t e e n
It was vague in limbo.

In her haste to beat it, forgetful Fairy Lulea had not specified
where she wished to be wished away to on leaving the now hate-
ful presence of Governor Swinhufvud. All such ‘dead letter’
enchantments naturally deliver the wishes to limbo, a catch-all
region with no known characteristics. Lulea’s followers, correctly
wishing themselves to be wherever their queen was, arrived
beside her in Limbo moments later.
Lulea was red-faced. However, it is not ascertained whether
this was in embarrassment at the contretemps she had landed
herself and friends in, or from on-going rage at the insult that had
been offered her. She was mad enough to spit tacks.
Fury is, however, not a condition that gently bred queen fair-
ies ever wish to find themselves in for any length of time. Lulea
quickly passed a slight additional spell and instantly forgot all
her misadventures in the land of Sweden. That was a spell of a
type, as it happened, that she fairly frequently invoked.
“Now then,” she said, vaguely eddying this way and that;
moving or staying still are both too positive actions to be able to
occur in Limbo; “where were we?”
62
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“In Sweden, your grace!” put in Moth alertly.
“Don’t remind me!” hissed the queen and looked about her.
What she saw stirred her out of her absorption in her own emo-
tions. All about her faithful fairies were blanching and blushing
every shade from paper white to rose red. What was the matter
with them?
“What’s the matter with you?” she barked peremptorily. “Why
are you all staring at me like that?”
“Oh, Your Majesty!” cried gentle Espa and burst into tears.
Dreameweet and Vlinder followed suit.
The queen of fairies scratched her head. “I gather something
awful has just happened. Sweden, you say? No, don’t remind me,”
she recommanded when Kelebek seemed to be about to tell her;
instead she reinvoked her forgetfulness spell.
It would seem that whatever had recently taken place was
almost as painful to her followers as she gathered it must have
been to herself. Yet it was apparent from their manner that it was
for her sake they were so wrought up. This would never do. The
queen was not accustomed to being looked at with expressions of
pity, nor was she about to start. They’d better forget as well.
The fairy queen made ready to cast another spell but her
experience immediately past prompted her not to be too impul-
sive this time. She took a moment to plan rather nicely the param-
eters of the new enchantment. For one thing her followers were
not to forget their own names as she discovered, to her dismay,
she had done in her own case. Still, she must have had a good
and sufficient reason for fugueing from that bit of knowledge.
She wondered what it was and felt her curiosity pleasantly piqued.
However, she was clever enough to realize it was no good pass-
ing oblivion spells, then burning to know what it was you’d
forgotten.
With her incantation efficiently drafted the fairy borrowed
Ereol’s tuning fork and used it for a conjuring staff to give an
extra cachet of authenticity to her enchantment. She made her
wish. Then she was pleased to see the expressions of shock,
embarrassment, indignation, and commiseration fade from her
63
followers’ faces,
“That’s better,” sighed the queen. “Now,” she went on, “what
was I about to do? Where are we off to? or something...”
At that all the fairies looked perplexed. Quite aside from their
newly installed memory black-out not a syllable had ever been
spoken about where they might go after their Swedish holiday
was done. They hummed and hawed and looked blank.
“Never mind,” dismissed Lulea-that-was. “Here! Pass before
me in alphabetical order and say where you think we might take
our way. NOT Burzee!” she added. “I’m not going home with my
tail between my legs. Let’s go somewhere fun.”
Aaala stepped proudly to the head of the line and, not sur-
prisingly, said “The Hawaiian Islands!”
“Done!” oried the Fairy Queen.
The next thing anyone knew they were all standing in a bewil-
dered bevy on a rankly green mountainside with a dark blue sea
beneath them. Not that they could distinguish anything of such
colors, of course; this was not odd because it was the middle of
the night.
With one accord they all sank down in the rich grass and did
nothing for quite a while. Although fairies never need sleep many
of them probably drifted off in naps, lulled by the mild breeze
that wafted over the peaceful dark landscape. They stayed there
for hours, doing absolutely naught. Oh, one fairy did something:
at dawn Aaala took her friend Heartsease by the hand and led
her off to show her the hollow in the macadamia tree where she
had lived immediately prior to her being chosen to join the
Sempernumquam fairy band. But that’s all. They presently strolled
back and rejoined their sisters.
Just before anybody got really bored Feebimble said: “Queen
Lulea...?”
“What did you call me?” said that queen, removing a grass
straw from her lips.
“Why, ‘Lulea’,” stammered her secretary, taken aback. The
queen hadn’t told anybody she’s blotted out her name along with
her memory of recent events.
64
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What an unpleasant name,” said the royal fairy. “Are you
sure?”
“Why, yes... at least... for as long as I can remember... ‘Unpleas-
ant’? I can’t believe it, your grace. You were always so gratified by
the name.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Gloriana; “you said it combined the
names of your dear parents: Louis and Leah.”
“I remember them all right!” laughed ex-Lulea with surprised
delight. She didn’t now remember that she’d erased only her
memory of recent events. “They were very sweet. I miss them some-
times.”
“What ever happened to them, your majesty?” asked Dib.
“Oh, like all fairies, they didn’t die; they just faded away... Yes,
now I remember: when they finally faded completely was when I
took their names. At the time I loved that combination of them,
but funny: now I hate it.”
The fairies all looked puzzled.
“But in that case,” Feebimble took up the word again, “what
will now be your grace’s appellation?”
“Hmm,” mused Lulea-that-was. “Let me mull on it. Of course
I must be known as something as we make our way back to Burzee.
But it must be fitting! I wouldn’t want to live in the forest under
the name of ‘Edward Bear,’ for instance.”
Her fairy followers came up with various inept suggestions.
Finally the queen herself had an idea. Now if she had truly for-
gotten everything that had happened to her in Sweden it must
simply have been her original impulse reasserting itself that caused
her to reinvent, off the top of her head, the name “Fay McQueen.”
“Fay McQueen,” she said. “That’s it.”
Then her court spent a little while practicing getting used to
the new name.
65
c h a p t e r f o u r t e e n
Every reader will have wondered what in the world the young,
brilliant (though so modest), adventuresome Dorothy Gale did all
the time she wasn’t traveling in Oz. We never hear of her going to
school or of other activities young farm girls in the early years of
the century might have been expected to engage in. Apparently
she just sat around cheering herself up by playing with her little
dog and trying to forget how grey everything was (curious color
for waving grain and healthy corn stalks which we learn of as
being raised by Farmer Henry.
When she first went to Oz (at latest in early 1899 we can, I
think, assume that Dorothy was at any rate no younger than six
years old. Her adventures in that land lasted no longer than a few
weeks. Then she was home again in Kansas until, in 1905, she
went with her ailing and unprosperous uncle on a cruise to Aus-
tralia. By then, by any reckoning, she would have been twelve,
and looked it (Oz non-aging has never been stated to carry over
and be effective for persons resuming residence outside the magi-
cal country).
Dorothy returned from Australia just in time to be caught in
66
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
the celebrated California earthquakes of 1906. Again she spent at
most a couple of weeks on the way to and in Oz, the time she and
the wizard, O.Z. Diggs, had alarming adventures under ground.
Now don’t you know that when Dot returned to Kansas at the
end of that third Oz venture she was going to be worried to death
over the fate of her San Francisco friends who had been so hospi-
table to her during her return from Australia, when she learned
that the same earthquake that had swallowed her had also lev-
eled great parts of the California city? Of course she was. She tele-
graphed and phoned and sent a special delivery too. The answer
was “We’re safe, and hope the same applies to you.” Dorothy sat
right down and wrote her friends again.
“Dear Miss Matson,
“What a relief to know you are all right! and the dear Captain
and Mrs. Matson too. I would have been sick if I heard that your
beautiful house was damaged—or that anything had happened
to you! Aren’t earthquakes awful! I’m sure my life was shortened
by a lot of years when I fell through that crack in the earth. But
luckily it all ended well, though I have to confess it was the—how
shall I say?—‘gloomiest’ Oz adventure I hope I’ll ever have.
“It’s getting so hard for me to tear myself away from my Oz
friends each time I visit there. The little Queen would like me to
stay too, but of course I always tell her I can’t abandon my poor
dear aunt and uncle—nor, now that I’ve found you!—such kind
friends as you and your family. But oh dear, if life seemed grey
here on the farm before I ever went to Oz, you can imagine what
it’s like now.
“There isn’t anything to do. The cat and dog quarrel like mad
and I’m kept on the run separating them, but of course that’s
not a full-time occupation. Sometimes I wish I cared about read-
ing but really, I never crack a book; I wonder if I ever will. Which
is not to say I’m not involved in a certain amount of ‘literary’
activity. Since that author man, Mr. Baum, found out about my
first journey to Oz he plagues me all the time for details of all my
travels there. I get through a lot of time writing him long descrip-
tions—”
67
And so on, for several pages in the same vein.
Let’s face it: how’re ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after
they’ve seen Emerald City? Dorothy Gale had now been in the
Emerald City four times, if you count the two separate sojourns
during her first stay in Oz. She could never forget the glamor of
those big green jewels everywhere. Even the green corn of Kan-
sas now looked genuinely grey in comparison.
Hence, every year when the snow cleared she got itchy feet
and wanted to GO somewhere. Her secret admirer from Austra-
lian days, the Shaggy Man, came along in the nick of time in Au-
gust 1907 and accompanied her to Oz. Now she had gone there
all the possible ways: through the air (in the adventure of The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz), over water (in Ozma of Oz), under ground,
and OVER the ground. Maybe that was it, she reflected wryly: it
could be that she wasn’t to see Oz again, now that she’d used up
all the different ways of getting there.
And yet, she had got in the habit now of going to visit the
Emerald City every year. Was she really going to miss out in 1908?
Of course she could go there any day she wanted, just by making
the agreed-upon secret sign. But she had to have an excuse! She
couldn’t just abandon her poor old relations and go traipsing off
on her own.
It came then as a considerable relief when in the last days of
1907 a letter arrived from her friends in San Francisco.
“Dear Dorth” (by now the girl friends called each other “Dorth”
and “Lurl”),
“Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. I seem always to be
on the go.” (Sadly unlike Dorothy herself.) “But now something
extra exciting is going to happen and I had to let you know. You
remember how I was named after a ship? Well, now they’re going
to name a ship after me! Isn’t that fun?
“The thing is: it’s all going to happen way over on the east
coast. Don’t ask me why! The place is Newport News, Virginia. (I
do hope the newspaper there is called the Newport News News!)
Dad and I are going. Mother intends to stay at home and ‘hold
the fort’. And how are we going to get there? By train, straight
68
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
across the country! Dad can’t spare the time to go by ship. Ships
are the greatest, but they’re not the fastest.
“Well, I’ve been looking at time tables and routes and behold!
Union Pacific, as the crew more or less flies, goes right through
Kansas City. I thought: I can’t possibly go through there without
seeing Dorothy Gale. So that’s what I’m going to do! I’ve found
out there’s a spur line to Butterfield and we’ve made enquiry and
it turns out we can arrive at B. at 3 in the afternoon just 2 weeks
from today. Please write back at once and say if you can meet us.
“It’ll be such fun to see you again! It’s been far too many ages
since our cruise together...”
Oh, that cruise. Dorothy dropped the letter and flew back in
memory to almost two years before. She and her uncle had been
sailing for what seemed weeks (and was) across the pacific and
had put in, with considerable relief for all concerned, at Hilo, where
they were to change ships for the remaining lap of the voyage to
San Francisco.
They had a night in a funny old rambling wooden hotel and
were down at the docks next day in plenty of time to go aboard—
and to watch others going aboard. As Dorothy stood at the rail
she suddenly nudged her uncle’s elbow. “Look, that must be the
captain.”
They watched as a handsome man (made more so by his smart
uniform) in his fifties came across the gangplank, followed by a
lady in a tall plush hat and a sprightly young girl a few years
older than Dorothy herself. The Kansas girl was amused to notice
that the other was wearing a modified sailor’s cap and carrying a
fishing rod over her shoulder. “I guess she must like the water,”
Dorothy giggled, and Uncle Henry nodded solemnly.
Of course in the little world of a trans-Pacific combined freight
and passenger ship it wasn’t long before Dorothy and Lurline
Matson became acquainted. It was the name that did it. Looking
over the passenger list Dorothy was struck by the fact that the
captain’s (pretty obviously) daughter was called Lurline. ‘Hm,’ said
the girl to herself, a chord of memory plucked, and she set herself
to think where she had heard the name before.
69
By the time she ran into Miss Lurline on deck Dorothy was
ready. “Yes,” she said gravely, when they had introduced them-
selves, “I suppose you’re named after the famous fairy.”
“’Famous fairy’,” laughed Lurline. “What are you talking
about, my dear young lady? I was named after a ship!”
That sounded like a story worth hearing and Miss Lurline
was not at all averse to telling it, as the girls settled in canvas
chairs against the bulkhead. “Start right at the beginning,”
urged Dorothy. “I love a story.”
“‘Beginning’? Hm, where would that be?” wondered the mari-
time girl. She had the data at her fingertips but how far back should
she start? Still, it was a lovely spring day and in the lea from the
breeze quite balmy on deck. She settled back with eyes half closed.
“I guess it all began on the River Rhein,” she said.
“‘Rhein’?” said Dorothy, on whom formal schooling had made
but little impression. She was glad that Lurline had said “river.”
That was at least a clue.
“Yes, in Germany. Well, Holland too apparently, and Switzer-
land, but it was in the German part that there used to be a siren
on the cliffs—”
“A what?”
“A siren. You know: a sort of irresistible girl who led sailors to
destruction on the rocks—oh, how funny!’’ Lurline broke off.
Dorothy waited patiently but the captain’s daughter seemed
lost in thought. Finally the Kansan prompted again. “What was it
about the siren on the rocks?”
Miss Lurline came out of her daydream. “Oh, it’s just that
mother must have been a siren, a Lorelei, herself...”
That sounded like yet another story and soon Dorothy heard
it as well. “Let’s see if I can tell both these tales at once,” said
Lurline.
“First, there’s the Lorelei—pronounced ‘Laura-lye’ —also
sometimes written ‘LURLEI’ —and that’s ‘Lurr-lye’: more like my
own name. Apparently there was just one of her and she was called
‘The Lorelei’, kind of like ‘The Sphinx’ or ‘The Minotaur.’ Anyway
she was simply gorgeous and she sat on a rock—a cliff, actually—
70
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
beside the Rhine, combing her hair with a golden comb and sing-
ing a wild song, which enticed fishermen and sailors to shipwreck
on the rocks.
“Later on somebody wrote an opera called Lurline, all about a
lovelorn water sprite and pretty obviously based on the legend of
the Rhine maiden. The name from the opera was chosen by a rich
family named Spreckels who called their yacht by it and the
Spreckels in turn were very kind to my Dad when he was just
starting out as a seaman. He sailed with them lots of times on
Lurline—”
Dorothy broke in: “I notice sometimes you say ‘Lerr-lye‘n’ but
your own name you pronounce ‘Lerr- LEEN.’ How come?”
Miss Matson looked a bit awkward. “Oh, you’ve caught me,”
she said. “Obviously, coming from ‘Laura-LYE’ the name ought
to be ‘Lurr-lye’n.’ But somehow we always say ‘Lurr-leen’ in the
family. I guess it sounds prettier. There’s something about that
‘eye’ sound that isn’t so appealing...”
She was quite right, and may have been one of the first
consciously to register a sound shift that has become general in
American parlance: the rejection of the ‘eye’ phoneme in favor of
‘ee’ in many words ending in ‘-ine’ or ‘-ein.’ Thirty years later it
would be common practice to pronounce ‘carbine’ as ‘carbeen’
and even ‘Frankenstein’ became ‘Frankensteen’ (and similarly with
many Jewish names in ‘-ein’). The flight from ‘eye’ grew even more
widespread and a word such as ‘archive’ began, in certain quar-
ters, to be pronounced ‘ar-keev.’
“But to go on: when Dad began to have his own ships he called
one of them ‘Lurline’ in honor of the yacht. That was a 135-foot
wooden brigantine—” Miss Matson had to stop and explain to
landlubber Dorothy what a brigantine was: a two-masted sailing
vessel with a square-sailed foremast and a main mast with trian-
gular sails in front and behind. “It was launched in California in
1877 and made its maiden voyage from San Francisco to Hilo in
June of that year.
“That’s when Mother got into the act. She was a schoolteacher
making her first trip to the Sandwich Islands—what we mostly
71
call ‘Hawaii’ now. She sailed on the Lurline. And that’s what I’ve
just realized is so funny...”
“What?”
“Well, mother must have been a sort of Lorelei herself but with
a twist. You see, my father crashed the ship against the rocks—
and my mother was the first one he rescued. Of course, he’d
noticed, and fallen in love with, her on the ship. But she didn’t
lure him onto the rocks in order to kill him, like any ordinary old
siren. She did it so he could rescue her and find out he loved her!
“No wonder they named me ‘Lurline’!”
c h a p t e r f i f t e e n
“What are you doing, dear?”

Ozma leaned from the rock she was sitting on to peer over
Lana’s shoulder. The little girl was writing on her pocket pad.
“Oh, it’s just a little lyric—to pass the time, you know,”
explained the young Winkie. She handed her work to the fairy,
who read:
“There’s wizards in the wind,
their beards long and billowing and white.
Their robes flutter all around,
scattering magical dust in their paths.
The dust sparkles and glows for an instant,
then fades from sight,
but remains visible in my heart:
my heart
that refuses to let go
of childhood dreams...
and wizards in the wind.”
“But this is charming, Lana!” cried the queen, delighted. “I
72
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
didn’t know you wrote.”
Lana looked at the Oz ruler sceptioally. “The first your
majesty knew of me was through something I wrote.”
“Oh, of course!” Ozma blushed. “But that was a letter. I mean
I didn’t know you were a poetess.”
“I’m not,” disclaimed the little girl. “I just writes all sorts of
things—in all sorts of styles. Sometimes some of it may rhyme a
little, or have a bit of a swing to it. But it’s really just thoughts,
impressions, not really poetry.”
“Anyway,” pursued Ozma, “it’s very nice. Do carry on. And
did you see wizards in the wind just now?”
“I thought I did, actually, at one point,” admitted the child,
“but I must have been mistaken. There certainly aren’t any around
here just now, are there?” She gazed out on the level featureless
greyness of the Impassable Desert. “I’m hungry,” she added.
“I’ll bet you are. I could do with a little something myself,”
confessed Ozma. But, wandless, there was not much she could
do about it.
Lana kept on gazing. “Doesn’t it look a bit lavender to you
down that way, your grace?” she said and pointed to the south.
“Do call me ‘Ozma,’ dear,” inserted the princess. “All my young
girl friends do. And we are going to be friends, aren’t we?”
For answer Miss Peethisaw got to her feet and drew near the
boulder throne, where she placed a small kiss on the fairy’s cheek.
“It IS purplish, isn’t it?” she pursued.
“What is, dear?”
“The horizon. Look.” As Ozma followed the direction of the
girl’s finger she soon became convinced that there was, indeed,
something markedly mauve about the meeting of sand and sky
that way.
“Let’s walk toward it,” the girl ruler proposed. “Lulea will soon
be able to trace us, wherever we go. Anyway, I wonder if she’s
coming...!” It had now been seven hours since she’d dispatched
the yellow hen to fetch the fairy queen. What could have
happened to hold them up? No wonder she and Lana were both
bored and hungry.
73
In little more than an hour of brisk stepping out the pair crossed
gratefully into the Gillikin country and left the tedious desert be-
hind. ‘Now things can begin to happen,’ thought each of the young
ladies, though without communicating her thought to the other.
Things did. The first thing to happen was their arrival in mid-
afternoon at a vineyard. In Gillikinland the purple grapes get ripe
all year round so even though it was June there was nothing
surprising about seeing the workers out in the plantation filling a
cart with the lustrous clusters.
“May we help?” called Ozma as they got closer.
“Sure,” said the complacent peasants and paid little attention
as the newcomers wandered down the rows, snipping bunches
with secateurs they borrowed, and incidentally not drawing back
either from making a good meal of rich grapes as they worked.
At work-day’s end the two waved goodbye as the campesinos
moved off with their laden cart. “Oh, what’s that way?” called
Ozma a moment belatedly and pointed to the path that trended
upward to the south.
A bandanna-headed woman looked back. “That way? Oh,
that’s the way up to the ice plateau.”
Ozma knew Gillikinland was the most mountainous part of
Oz. She and her companion would have to face heights and climb-
ing before long in any case, and at the moment a bit of ice sounded
quite inviting, after the dust of the Winkie country and the barren
dryness of the desert. The two hiked on.
“It’s so funny to see everything purple around us,” commented
more than once young Lana, who had never traveled in Oz out-
side the yellow land. “I’m not sure I like it.”
“I hope you’ll get used to it, dear,” urged Ozma. “As ruler I
naturally have to like all my country colors equally, and I must
say it’s quite a relief for me to find that all Gillikinland hasn’t gone
yellow.”
“You’re right,” confirmed the little Winkie. “There’s no dust-
ing over with yellow here at all, is there?”
“No; that latest dust storm seems to have blown itself out over
the desert. But even so I think we will probably see yellow again
74
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
before long. If we’re to continue our journey we’d better head west.
It’s in that direction we’re more likely to get a clue as to what’s
happened to our lost companions.”
Thus when they came to the next crossroads Ozma chose the
right-hand turning. This proved to lead sharply upward and the
going became more of an effort. The path was now a rugged trail.
The villages and houses Ozma had thought to see were nowhere
visible. Evening was coming on and she began to be a bit
concerned. There would be no tenting out tonight in a pretty
pavilion raised by her friend the Wizard out of her own pocket
handkerchief.
Any shelter at all was going to have to do. They had been climb-
ing for several hours; when they saw it: standing in a clearing a
hundred yards off from a cross-way on the level heights to which
they had now attained: an abandoned building looking like a
disused general store.
“I’m sorry, Lana,” apologized the fairy as they turned in that
direction, as if she were herself somehow to blame for being nearly
as powerless as her little companion to create any coziness about
them wherein to get through the night.
“Never mind,” said Lana. She walked ahead through the brittle
stalks of dead weeds in the field. “Morning will come.”
It did, eventually, though there had been suffering in the mean-
time. Inside the derelict building there was just daylight enough
remaining for the two girls to see to drag dusty sheets of fallen
paneling to cover holes in the floor in the most protected corner
of a room. Perhaps the place had been a store, or a barn and farm-
house in one?, since an outer room on the far side contained a
drift of grey dusty straw. The concrete floor there was too hard
to sleep on and they carried armfuls of the musty grass to their
chosen bower on more resilient wood.
Ozma’s unaided fairy power was just sufficient to be able to
place around each of them a cocoon of warmth—in lieu of bed-
clothes. Even that protection was perhaps in large part psycho-
logical. The two talked quietly together through much of the night
but exhaustion at last claimed them in sleep despite cold and dis-
75
comfort.
When Ozma woke and sat to rub the grit and dust from her
eyes she saw Miss Peethisaw sitting on the floor by a low window
writing. She went nearer and silently looked.
“The structure of rough wood
and corrugated iron
stood in high grass,
that sprouted rank and weedy.
It stood at the junction
of dusty roads;
and marked a barter station
where people emerged
from among the rocks
to exchange strange stones
found in extinct streams
for special goods
and magical seeds.”
The princess glanced at the girl in admiration. Her imagina-
tion was outside the ordinary. “I love the mystical bite you bring
in, Lana,” commented the queen. “‘Magical seeds’: now where
did they come from?”
“I don’t know. They just occurred to me. (Maybe it was some-
thing I dreamed—something I felt we could use—like wizards in
the wind. But they wouldn’t do us much good now. Look!”
The girl pointed out the window to where fleecy white snow
covered the weed-filled fields. At least it was prettier than it had
been yesterday!
“Hm,” said Ozma, not really pleased. “I agree it doesn’t look
like seed-planting time. I thought it had grown colder and of course
we were warned that somewhere up here was to be found an ‘ice
plateau.’ Still, somehow I didn’t expect...in June—”
“But you know Oz, Ozma,” rebutted Lana, putting down her
pencil. “Grapes ripe one minute; snowing, the next.”
The two girls remained looking out the broken window.
Instinctively they drew together. The outlook was decidedly blue.
Though, with their warmth balloons about them, they were at the
76
moment not in acute discomfort, there was little to look forward
to: no chance of a bath, nothing to eat, and nobody feeling really
well slept out. On the other hand there was much to dread: either
the bleak boredom of remaining in the derelict house another day
or the physical misery of venturing out into the snow to try to
make their way—who knew where?
c h a p t e r s i x t e e n
As it happened, Billina had not previously met the Queen of

the Fairies. Hence, when she turned from the contemplation of
tropical seas on the railing to which she had fluttered and looked
at the (apparently) young lady closest to her on the spotless deck,
she did rather a double take. She hadn’t somehow expected Lulea
to be quite that color. But that was silly traditional unimaginative
thinking. Why shouldn’t a fairy queen be a nice chocolate shade?
or even purple! or green...?
“Pardon me,” she said, “are you Queen Lulea?” But, alack,
here in the great world the hen’s question came out as just a polite
mild clucking.
Fairy Butterfly looked down at her feet, to which the chicken
had approached, there at the outer edge of the group surround-
ing their fairy leader. Ozma’s spell, with wise built-in precaution,
had not delivered Billina closer to Lulea herself lest she be
trampled as the fairy girls clustered about their queen to hear the
jokes with which she was regaling them as the sleek ship scud-
ded westward over the smiling sea.
“Well, fan mah brows” exclaimed the fairy. “A chiggen! Whea’d
77
yo’ come fum?”
“Oz!” explained the hen. “Well, just north of it, that is. But
please! take me to your leader.” Somehow she now sensed that
this was not Lulea.
“Hey! yo’ gals!” cried Butterfly, delighted. “Looky heah! A
chiggen! Ain’ dat sum’n?”
Now if there’s one thing fairies like more than another it’s hens
and chickens. Perhaps the wise Ozma had also had that fact in
mind when she selected her envoy (admittedly, the range of choice
available to her had not been great) to the court of the great im-
mortal (—and the court just turned out to be a tennis court marked
out on the main deck of a middle-sized ocean steamer). In any
case, the fairies turned as one woman (they’d heard all their queen’s
jokes before anyway, lots of times) and went into raptures about
the unexpected addition to their party.
“A chicken!” cried Fyerril.
“Let me get AT the dear bird!” almost screamed Zyzzifer and
broke through to seize up the startled fowl in her arms.
“It’s a hen,” constated Mariposa.
“Hen, schmen,” blurted Zyzzifer. “It’s a chicken, regardless,”
and thirteen of the fairies got into a discussion as to the extent to
which hens and chickens are synonymous or not.
When the furore died down the bird had been transferred to
the safekeeping of the leader of the fairy band, Mrs. McQueen,
who soothed her ruffled feathers and proposed a question that
still had not been settled since Butterfly’s original exultation: “I
wonder where you came from...”
“Oz!” squawked Billina but by this time knew too well how
little her words availed. She was delighting in her popularity but
suffered severely from frustration at being unable to communi-
cate. She herself had overlooked it but surely Ozma would have
remembered this detail before sending her out into the great world
to transact business. Of course the girl ruler knew that Lulea could
cast an instant spell to enable the hen to talk fairy language, or the
fairies to speak Henglish, but the hurdle was to get the queen to
realize that here WAS an occasion for communication. ‘Oh!’
78
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
thought Billina, ‘if only the dear princess had thought of provid-
ing me with a leg band that said “Billina has a message,” or some-
thing—!’
As it was, the fairies just assumed that the chicken had
escaped from the galley and they soon trooped down there to
enquire of the cooks if one of their layers was missing. When they
learned that one was not their delight knew no bounds. “Oh,
lovely!’’ they cried to the Turkish scullery boy who was showing
them round. “We’ll keep her for a pet.”
To the practical Turk this seemed an impractical plan. He had
a better idea. “You give me bird,” he suggested, pinching Billina’s
breast familiarly. “I make you boiled hen water.”
“’Boiled hen water’!?” exclaimed Mrs. McQueen. “Do you
mean chicken soup? The very idea!” she fumed in dudgeon and
seizing the bird from the cook’s grasp she stalked out of the galley
without a word of thanks to the poor immigrant. All her train
followed after.
They installed Billina on the chifferobe in the cabin of Queen
Lulea-that-was and all might have been well if the steward had
not come to turn down the bunk a scant half hour later.
“No poultry allowed in passengers’ quarters,” he announced
in tones of obvious regret. “Board of Trade regulations.”
“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. McQueen. “How very distress-
ing. What are we to do? I’m not sure I any longer want to face the
voyage without my loving hen beside me.”
“It’ll have to go as deck freight,” declared the steward. “But
don’t worry. I’ll have the ship’s carpenter knock up a crate for
your pet and it can stay right outside the cabin door.”
This seemed the only solution and ex-Lulea gave way. She went
down with Billina to the carpenter’s shop and to the very bench
itself. It was the end of her happiness and perhaps she knew it.
But if she did, she didn’t do enough about it. She could have
defied the steward’s command later that night—but, alas, she did
not.
‘Uh-oh,’ thought Billina as the coop door slammed to behind
her. This seems familiar!’ And it got to seeming more familiar yet
79
as the night wore on, the sea rose from mild swells to higher
billows, and a sub-tropical storm came on.
At least there were no icebergs to fear and the ship plowed
onward, the captain well aware of the storm warnings that had
been received. The steward, however, was not thus aware, and no
more was the captain, of objects not lashed down on deck.
The ship heaved more and more. The crate shifted position.
Presently both ship and coop were outright tossing. Spray dashed
over the bows. The deck was awash. When the vessel plunged
into the deepest wave-trough yet, deck chairs went floating, quoits
flew through the air, and a chicken coop with a great deal of clat-
ter and bustle made its way over-side.
Billina folded her wings with resignation. “Here we go again,”
she said.
80
c h a p t e r s e v e n t e e n
Fay McQueen and her court had spent several days lolling
around on that Hawaiian island where they first arrived, before
they got too bored. They were taking the sun, discreetly clad of
course, on their broad seaside cliff top one afternoon when Fay
caught sight of a white sailing ship floating gently along on the
deep blue, some distance out below them.
“How romantic,” the queen sighed, and most of her band
agreed with her.
“And getting more so,” said Aaala, the local expert. “In my
time it was all sail out this way. But now! that’s the first one we’ve
seen so far.” Since the fairies had been on the island there had
been a number of ugly black smoke-spouting steamers go by
within sight of the headland, but they didn’t rouse anybody to
romantic daydreams.
“I wonder what it’s like aboard,” mused Mrs. McQueen. Her
knowledge of seafaring life was virtually nil.
“Why don’t we go look?” suggested Ereol. A slight odor of
sizzling came from her spirit-curling iron.
“Hey?” said Fay, startled. “That’s an idea. Why don’t we?”
81
For her followers her question was their command. Before
anyone had time even to realize that this was a daring bid to
escape ennui they were all clinging in the rigging of the bark
Harvester as it made its way rather sedately over the smooth sea
from Honolulu to the Big Island.
“Whee! What fun,” said Fay as she rode up and down on the
gently pendling shrouds.
“Whee!” answered her devoted followers, all drastically
reduced in size so that there’d be room for them in the shrouds.
“What do we do now?” asked Wob.
“Oh, after we’ve pendled a bit more we’ll go have a look
round,” announced Fay with assurance. “That’s what we came
aboard for.”
“Like we are?” asked Titania. “I mean, what will the sailors
think if they see twenty-eight fairies?”
“That their grog was stronger than they thought it was,” put
in the impudent Moth.
“Shh,” said Fay. “There’s one of them looking now. Just to pre-
vent confusion it might be better to make ourselves invisible.”
They did so without loss of time, leaving just the one seaman
to believe he’d had an hallucination, and to carefully say nothing
about it to his messmates.
Concealed from view, the fairies in a body toured the ship and
saw the bridge and the bilge, the poopdeck and the forecastle, the
galley and the accommodations for ten passengers. “Oh, how
cozy!” cried fairy Fay, peering into a tiny two-man cabin. “One
could be very snug in here.” Sometimes fairies got these longings
to experience simple human life-styles.
The bark reached Hilo on the big island about midnight and
the fairies wondered what to do then. Hanging around town in
the dark was their idea of nothing to do. They presently found
their way to the tiny botanical gardens and there curled up in
flower cups to doze the night out for lack of more exciting
pastimes.
With the stamen of a tiger lily sticking in her back queen Fay
lay thinking how comfortable the bunk on the Harvester would be
82
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
(with herself at a different size, of course). But alack, they had
seen that there was accommodation only for ten aboard that ship.
Next morning the fairies covered the waterfront looking for some-
thing a bit more capacious.
Their luck was in. Admittedly the ship was one of the ugly
coal-burning steel steamers but it was a regular passenger ship,
one of the first in the strictly mainland-Hawaii trade, and not
merely a raw-sugar freighter with a few passenger berths.
For the occasion the fairies got themselves up as missionaries
and Salvation Army lasses, turned some fairy gold into just enough
real gold to cover their passage, and went aboard, to while away
the time until the late afternoon sailing. The run to Honolulu was
only an overnight affair.
They’d been lucky with the weather too, so far. But such luck
doesn’t last forever. Queen Fay was thoroughly enjoying her night
in the commodious luxury of her first-class cabin when suddenly
she found herself on the floor.
Her surprise knew no bounds. She stumbled to the porthole
and looked out. Nothing was to be seen, of course. A weak light
farther, along the deck revealed nothing substantive. She only
knew the ship was going violently up and down, back and forth,
even, so it felt, round and round. Even as a fairy she hardly dared
venture outside in the raging storm, and to what purpose?
Then she remembered. Oh, that poor chicken she and her band
had befriended the previous afternoon! What would have been
its fate? That the hen and her makeshift coop any longer survived
on deck seemed highly unlikely. Quickly Lulea-that-was passed a
spell: that if the yellow hen wasn’t already dead she wasn’t to be,
but was to make a landfall in good order.
Fay groped her way back to her bunk and crawled in it. She
hung in there for dear life and presently when the gale abated a
little she succeeded in falling into a troubled sleep. The night was
not, alas, the session of cosy comfort she had envisioned.
She dragged herself out bleary-eyed at dawn, reflecting that
after all she’d felt fresher after the night in the tiger lily in the
botanical gardens. Mab, Wob, Dib, and the rest had not fared much
83
better. They were glad to leave the ship in Honolulu when, before
noon, it lay to under Diamond Head. It was June twenty-first,
1908.
c h a p t e r e i g h t e e n
“Oh, Miss Matson!” screamed Dorothy, jumping up and down,

as she caught sight of her friend’s face at the train window.
“I thought we were ‘Lurl’ and ‘Dorth’,” said the heiress mat-
ter-of-factly, sticking her head out of the window to be embraced.
“Oh, so we are!” admitted Dorothy, gratified. “But I didn’t want
to take a liberty. After all, you are Miss Matson, the rich and ritzy,
and I am only Dorothy, the small and meek.”
“Not so small as all that, my girl,” pooh-poohed the young
lady from San Francisco as she signaled the depot’s one attendant
to take her bags. “You’ve grown enormously since I saw you last.
What are you now? Fifteen?”
“Going on sixteen,” said Dorothy proudly. She had never, in
fact, thought there was anything so marvelous about being trapped
forever in the size (and mentality) of a six-year-old, as she might
have been if she had never returned from her first visit to Oz.
“But come along!” she urged her friend. “Oh, Captain!! how
lovely to see you again!” The Kansas girl allowed the gruff old
Swede to give her a hug. “And there’s Uncle Henry.” It was old-
home week for a few minutes, and then with the porter trailing
with his cart the quartet strolled through the station house and
84
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
out to the curb.
‘Heavens, what a wreck!’ thought Miss Lurline to herself when
she saw the carriage that awaited. Aloud she said, “What a de-
lightful period piece. Where did you get it?”
“Don’t laugh,” warned Dorothy. “That’s the buggy I went to
Oz in. It’s terribly shabby, I know, but you see, I didn’t want to
change anything. Every scratch and dent is a souvenir from some
adventure along the way to Oz. The carriage was almost new when
we started out that time. The canopy cloth was really shiny. But it
was a mess by the time Zeb got it back to the ranch–”
“But how did it get here?” demanded the visitor. “It’s a long
way from California to Kansas. You never drove it!?...”
“Oh, no, I got uncle to pay for it and have it shipped, and Zeb
came along with it for a holiday—and Jim!” Dorothy said when
she saw the horseloving Lurline go to the animal and clap his
muzzle comradely.
“Nice old thing,” approved Miss Matson. “Rather sleek. I see
you’ve been taking good care of him. But he IS rather old.”
“Oh, ancient,” laughed Dorothy. “Aren’t you, Jim?” The horse
nodded complacently. “Yes,” went on the girl, “since I got both
horse and buggy safely here I’ve kept them up the very best I
could—without, however, removing any of the battle scars from
the buggy. You see, I treasure everything that reminds me of the
magical land.”
“Oh, that magical land of yours!” said Lurline as the girls
crammed themselves into the narrow back seat. Uncle Henry took
the reins and they were off. “I never quite know whether to laugh
of go blind when I hear you talk about ‘Oz.’ Can there really be
such a place?”
Dorothy pouted. “You’ve got San Francisco,” she riposted,
“and all of the Sandwich Islands—and they’re marvelous. Why
can’t I have Oz?”
“It’s a little too marvelous—to hear you talk.” Lurline gave her
friend a squeeze. “But let’s not quarrel about it. Come on: tell me
about your latest adventures there! You’ve been back since last
we met.”
85
“Twice, actually. Once just after we two got acquainted when
I fell through the earthquake—and then again last year.” And
Dorothy told the tale of her trips with the Wizard and with the
Shaggy Man, not to mention various animals and young boys
who’d got into the acts. Whether the stories were true or not
Lurline enjoyed them as much as if they were.
Nor were they even finished when the buggy pulled up in front
of the new(ish: just eight years old) farmhouse Uncle had built
since the earlier ramshackle cottage had departed for Oz. Miss
Matson, who lived in a virtual palace, was polite as she could be
about the modest appointments of this dwelling. But before she
had a chance to do that she met Dorothy’s Aunt Em.
Lurline’s heart went out to her when she saw the gaunt care-
worn woman on the narrow porch of the already sun-bleached
farmhouse. Aunt Em was nervous. She’d heard long and often
about the glamors of the Matson mansion near Golden Gate Park.
She was also tired after a week of doing what she could to make
her humble home worthy to receive such eminent guests. Her
old-fashioned finery looked odd in contrast to the smart sea-
going modernity of the Matsons’ attire.
Everything that made the place and people unsuitable made
Lurline like them that much more. Underneath her active girl-
sport’s manner was a heart that was touched with tenderness when
she saw people meaning well and trying to do their best. Not pity!
No, pity was a suspect emotion that meant “You’re just a poor
miserable creature and I in my secure and exalted position can
see it clearly.” “Pity” was really just a synonym for “well-mean-
ing contempt” and that wasn’t what she felt.
She stepped to Aunt Em and turned their handshake into an
encirclement of the farm woman’s arm as they moved into the
house. There was more to feel “tender” about in the specklessly
clean austerity of the front room. Then two widely loved celebri-
ties of Oz broke any ice that might have been about to form by
staging a spat in the kitchen.
Toto at nine-years-plus should have been a middle-aged
gentledog but whenever he caught sight of Dorothy’s cat Eureka
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
he became a lively juvenile again. His yaps and growls the white
cat returned with interest, especially today when the nerves of
both animals would be at the stretch. They knew very well what
was planned and Eureka was all atwitter with anticipation of see-
ing again her (also) old acquaintances, while Toto was all set to
spoil it for her if he could.
The three women appeared abruptly at the open kitchen door
to see Eureka on the drain board, hissing electrically, with arched
back and all claws a-tingle, while Toto on his hind legs strained to
get nearer and barked furiously. “Toto!” shouted Dorothy, “stop
it at once!”
“Eureka,” called Miss Lurline fetchingly and the cat bounded
over Toto’s head to the central work table, narrowly missing the
big glass bowl of purple punch that rested there, and then leapt
onto the collar of the heiress’ middy blouse.
After that diversion everybody felt at ease and the girls did
not stand on ceremony at leaving the grown-ups to their own
socializing while they ran upstairs to Dorothy’s garret room, Toto
skittering after, and Eureka safe in Lurline’s arms.
A little later, after Dorothy had opened the old trunk and
displayed the few souvenirs she had brought home from Oz, and
from less “marvelous” places such as Australia, the girls sat, each
in a corner of the window seat at the gable end and dreamed.
Dorothy held black Toto and Lurline still plied white Eureka with
reunion attention.
“Well, yes, I see what you mean,” said the California miss,
gazing out at the snow-covered fields that stretched with very
little variation to the horizon’s end. “After a few years it could get
a little monotonous. Oz must surely have a lot more to offer.”
“And yet I love it here,” mourned Dorothy. “When we have a
good year—and of course in the snowy wintertime as now—it’s
not grey at all. I know I’d miss it if I decided to go to Oz to stay. Yet
when I think I could go to Oz any minute I like but only duty keeps
me here, sometimes I think I hate it!”
Lurline looked at her friend speculatively—and with a secret
sparkle in her eye. “You need a change,” she said.
87
“Don’t I know it,” said the Kansan rather bluntly. Then she
brightened. “That’s why it’s so wonderful you’re here. I’ll live your
travels at second hand! Now tell me everything you’re going to
do between now and when you get back to San Francisco!’’
•••••
Lurline absolutely insisted on being allowed to help Aunt Em

do the dishes after the rather gala supper. Every dish in the crock-
ery cupboard had come into play, so there was enough to do. The
two men had gone for a walk with Dorothy in the early sunset.
“Mrs. Em,” said Lurline, polishing a plated gravy ladle, “does
Dorothy have enough to do here on the farm? I mean, do you
ever get the feeling she’s... restless?” The girl didn’t like to say
“bored.”
“Oh, you’ve noticed that too, ey, Miss?” Em sloshed at the cake
of Octagon soap vigorously. “No, she don’t and that’s a fact. She’s
fidgetty a lot of the time and I reckon it’s only natural—”
“And yet you’re so busy all the time, and your husband too,”
Lurline broke in.
“But that’s the way we want it!” the aging woman intervened.
“Dorothy’s mother was... delicate—and much more of a lady than
what I am. We’ve always wanted Dorothy to be a lady too, not
just a common farm girl. So we’ve never asked her to do any-
thing—leastways, nothin’ coarse.”
Lurline folded up the tea towel and began to line up glasses
on a tray. “That’s not very fair, seems to me,” she judged bluntly.
She herself thought nothing of mucking out a stable.
“But we couldn’t have Dorothy swillin’ the pigs! or milkin’—
or, or tossin’ hay!” protested the farm wife, fair scandalized.
“It’s not not doing anything that makes a lady,” declared Miss
Matson forthrightly. “It’s what you do do and the spirit in which
you do it.” She glanced aside at her hostess speculatively. “Would
there be any chance of Dorothy going on to college?”
Aunt Em looked at her guest with a very sad eye. This was too
painful. But she was not the moaning and mourning type. She
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
decided to put a sprightly face on it. “Dorothy’ll be lucky if she
keeps on eatin’ regular,” she blurted. “Farm times aren’t good
around here. We do a good bit o’ worryin’ “
Lurline hung up the dish towel. “Mrs. Em,” she said, coming
straight to the point, “I want to invite your niece to go on with us
to the launching, and then for some shopping—and then—well,
we’ll see what happens. I think it would be... so broadening for
Dorothy—and such fun for me!”
Aunt Em put her wet hands on her hips and looked at the
heiress admiringly. She knew what Miss Matson meant, but all
she said was, “Dorothy’s found the friend she deserves.”
The two were standing together at the storm-door to the porch
when the strolling trio came up the path, stamping off the snow.
Dorothy ran ahead and seized her aunt’s hands. “Oh, Aunt Em,
you’ll never guess what! The Captain’s invited me to go along to
the launching—and oh! I’d love to go.”
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c h a p t e r n i n e t e e n
The girls, the older one and the very much younger one, could
not make up their minds. In the end the weather made them up
for them. The snow began again and the wind got up. Walking on
across the dread “ice plateau” would be frightful in such circum-
stances. Suppose they found no other shelter when night came
on? They did not dare risk it and remained for another miserable
night in the house at the crossroads. Lana Peethisaw wrote a verse
for the occasion.
“Around the isolated house
on the ice plateau
snow fell and never thawed.
The wind howled,
tearing at a corner tower.
Its only light fluttered
but it was there to welcome
a rare unwise traveler
seeking something
in that remote country.
But what he knew not.”
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
“A light?” said Ozma, reading the composition. “I only wish
we had one.”
“That was my wish too,” admitted the poetess. “Sometimes
my writing is about what I wish, or dream rather than what is.”
“Oh, Lana,” cried Princess Ozma in a rare moment of near-
despair, “can’t you write something gay, cheerful? I really need it
in a pinch like this.”
Miss Peethisaw sat down again at a window and by the last
grey light of the wintry day wrote, after much thought, the fol-
lowing:
“I seem to have lost my buggle boo.
He must have run far away.
I looked under the bed,
and out in the shed,
and everywhere he liked to play.
“I believe I will miss him a lot,

my beloved buggle boo.
But my mom doesn’t mind.
Please don’t think her unkind.
He lived in her best tennis shoe.”
The fairy princess laughed long and heartily and then gave
Lana a fond hug. The poem had given her courage to face the
night, which, just then, was as much as she could ask.
The night was got through somehow or other. Time has a way
of going on like that: you think you can’t bear a thing and then
time comes along and carries you away, back into daylight, for
instance, and then you find matters have got a little better.
It was that way for the girls. When they struggled awake on
the second morning, stiff, aching, famished, and more unwashed-
feeling than ever, the sun was gleaming brightly over a white
world. Ozma ran to a window and looked out. “Oh, Lana, how
beautiful! Today must be better...”
Little Lana agreed with her. “Let’s leave right away, shall we?
Anything will be better than stopping on here.”
But now that they came to depart, nostalgia set in. They wan-
91
dered one last time through the tattered dusty rooms where they
had been so uncomfortable but they remembered the long
intimate talks they had had and how they had suffered but how
they had lived. To experience anything (except, just possibly, un-
bearable pain) is better than to experience nothing. Lana knew
that and could never stop being grateful. She had told Ozma all
about it during their time in the derelict building and Ozma
understood.
“So white and clean,” said the little girl as they stepped out
into the snow. “I know I’d feel ever so much cleaner and fresher if
I could just roll in it.”
“I’ve thought that too,” said Ozma as they made their way
along gingerly in their, anyway, serviceable walking boots. “And I
could warm us up again sufficiently afterwards. But we’d just have
to get back into the same grimy wrinkled clothes. I’ve always
especially hated having to put on dirty clothes when all clean
myself.”
One might wonder when the queen of Oz had had any such
unpleasant obligation as that. But perhaps she was referring to a
time when she lived as a boy in the hut of a witch, a place not
noted for its bath and laundry facilities.
“We’d better leave it,” suggested Ozma and Lana was forced
to agree with her.
“If only there was something to eat,” said the five-year-old,
stooping to catch up a handful of damp snow which she pressed
to a lump of near-ice and popped into her mouth. “That might
almost make up for feeling so unwashed.”
Ozma could not agree more. Though a fairy she thoroughly
enjoyed the pleasures of the table. Why, nothing, she suddenly
reflected, in her life devoid of the intimacies of love, gave her more
physical pleasure than the flavors of fresh-baked bread, almond
chocolate, steamed clams, violet lozenges, crisp chicken skin,
malted milk, lobster mayonnaise, pecan pie, rum toffee, popcorn,
maple syrup, or potato chips. But it was madness to think of those
things now! Instead she said consolingly:
“I know. But though we may grow desperately hungry or
92
terribly thin, this is after all Oz: we can’t actually die.”
‘No,’ thought Lana, ‘I can’t do that.’ Aloud, she said some-
thing more concretely encouraging. Then they plodded on,
trying to concentrate on the truly glorious beauty of sun
sparkling in a thousand ice drops on the needles of pine and fir.
c h a p t e r t w e n t y
Billina squawked and clung. That’s about all she could do.
The wooden crate was unable to sink so she had no chance of
drowning, unless she deliberately got down on the water side of
it and stuck her head through the slats—and she wasn’t about to
do that. No, she was just going to be vastly wet and uncomfort-
able for many hours, or even days or weeks, until the box should
fetch up against a shore somewhere.
Actually that happened rather soon, helped or not by an un-
suspected fairy spell. Billina woke from a nap of sorts to find both
sea and sky blue and a small island at no great distance. By dint
of patient waiting she drifted up on the strand in an hour or so.
Now what? The hen looked out enquiringly. There was no one
about who could help her out of her wooden prison. Anyway she
was not sure she wanted to see any human beings capable of such.
She had noticed that humans had a tendency, if one was a chicken,
to help one out of the fire (symbolically speaking) into the frying
pan.
She was however ravenously hungry and eventually starva-
tion was going to diminish even her fear of being served up for
93
dinner. Meanwhile her sharp eye discovered some infinitessimal
sand fleas and sea slugs in the beach slurry underneath her and
she consumed those. Faintly sustained she looked about her more
attentively.
This was a very strange island. The sand grains were as fine as
powder. Not far off fully formed coconut palms leaned aslant of
the coastline, and were all of four feet in total tallness. Away off in
the interior of the island, about half a mile away, a miniature
volcano perhaps twenty feet high puffed companionably. Birds,
in comparison with which normal hummingbirds would appear
gigantic, flitted about.
It was one or more of these who finally brought the yellow
hen relief. They happened to perch on her crate and cocked their
heads to peer at her enquiringly. “Are you a great Auk or some-
thing?” they enquired in Avian (spoken and understood by birds
everywhere).
“‘Great auk’?” squawked the hen. “Not that I ever heard of.
I’m a normal-sized domestic fowl temporarily incarcerated but
longing to be free.”
“Oh,” said a spokesbird, whose name was Patatipi-
ipiapaatapapita. “We thought you might he a great auk. You’re
the greatest bird WE’ve ever seen.”
“Why, thank you,” simpered Billina, confused by the nuances
of the word “great.”
“Are you dangerous?” went on Patatipiipiapaatapapita.
“Dangerous to whom?” enquired Billina. “I’m no cannibal,
if that’s what you mean. I never attack my own kind—birds,
that is.”
“That’s good to know,” said the resident bird, a dwarf mem-
ber of a species known as Walaka’akukialakakua ilex latex. “In
that case we might help you to get free.”
“Splendid!” crowed the hen, now feeling extremely cordial
toward the locals—who were about the size of large ladybirds.
“How will you do it though?” she pursued, impressed again by
her friends’ tininess. “You’re so petite. In fact, this is the petitest
island I was ever on. Where are we exactly?”
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CHAPTER TWENTY
“This is the island of Tinitiwinitihumunuo’ahonomua some-
times shortened to ‘Teentyweent’,” informed Patatipi-
ipiapaatapapita. “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. Everything seems, so extremely small. Or
aren’t you bothered by that?”
“Bothered? No. We seem to us the size we were meant to be.
On the other hand, things that wash up on shore here appear to
us enormous. The rest of the world must be inhabited by giants!”
“That’s one way of looking at it, indeed,” admitted the hen,
“—though we in our own way feel quite normal-sized also.”
“We had an awful scare a couple of years back. An outer-world-
sized human arrived here—”
“Pardon me,” broke in Billina. “You say ‘outer-world-sized
human.’ That might seem to imply there were human beings who
were some other size.”
“Of course there are! Teentyweent’s not a desert island!
We’ve got our own resident tribes of humans. They’re about as
tall as you are—when fully grown. They’ve got their own towns
and villages. There’s one just a few dozen yards off in that di-
rection—” The informant bird cocked its head toward the north-
west. “And they’ve reached rather a high level of civilization, it
seems.”
“Odd one’s never heard of this island before,” mused the
chicken. “You’d think it would be a famous sight-seeing resort:
everything so tiny.”
“Too tiny,” put in Patatipiipiapaatapapita. “That is: just tiny
enough! People on ships passing by probably figure it’s just an
uninhabited rocky islet—and the locals prefer it that way. I
believe they go in fear and trembling they’ll be overrun by out-
sider giants one day. It would be the end of their civilization—”
“’Civilization’,” quoted Billina. “You referred to that before.
How civilized can one get? cut off from everywhere.”
“Oh, Teentyweent’s not cut off from everywhere. The humans
here maintain cultural contacts with many other small societies.
Lilliput hes quite an imposing embassy in Tiny Town.
Teentyweent’s a famous vacation resort in the world of miniature.
95
People come from across the seas to attend our finishing schools
and colleges. Art is exported. A Teentyweent specialty is carving
angels on the heads of pins. ‘If it’s small we’ve got it all’ is the
motto of the business community...”
Patatipiipiapaatapapita went on like that for quite a while, until
Billina began to grow restive. She was still feeling damp and
hungry and the native birds were beginning to look ever less like
birds and ever more like ladybirds. At last she revealed her
predicament and her friends’ danger. “How’m I going to get out
of here end get something to eat—other than yourselves?”
“Eat us?” chirped the birds in alarm arm and rose from the
crate to circle in the air. “After such kindness that would be a
dismal thing to do!”
“Mm, I rather felt that myself,” admitted the hen. “There would
seem then to be one of two things you might do: either bring me
some provender, or else get me out of here so I can forage for
myself.”
At that the tiny birds flew off as one, fetched some of their
comrades, and began an ‘air bridge’ operation, freighting in
minuscule grains of corn in their beaks and dropping them into
Billina’s cage, where she eagerly snapped them up.
After an hour or two of that the visitor was replete. Then she
had time for social amenities and harked back to a topic that had
been started earlier. “I’m sorry,” she apologized belatedly, “I think
I interrupted you,” she said to Patatipiipiapaatapapita. “You had
been about to tell me of a scare you all had some time back.”
“Yes! A shipwrecked mariner from the outer world washed
up here on a broken spar. He proved to be a holy terror. He’s why
the local humans are so terrified of anybody else coming here
from the outer world. You see, the sailor was not a person of
any culture at all. As soon as he got his strength back after wash-
ing ashore he set off tramping all over the island. And I mean
tramping! Or do I mean trampling?! Because that’s what he did:
flattening forests, grinding gardens into the ground, vandalizing
villages. It seemed he didn’t take the local culture seriously but
regarded it all as one big free toy shop, loading his capacious pock-
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CHAPTER TWENTY
ets with everything he could make off with: people’s furniture,
things out of the shops, farm implements, bicycles, boats—he even
took hostages!”
“What? kidnapped people?” gasped Billina. “How shocking.”
“Not quite humans,” admitted the birds. “But almost as bad.
At the boarding school in Tiny Town he caught sight of a family
of pigs who had been sent there for training—Oh! we have no
race prejudice on Teentyweent—and made off with the swine, all
nine of them!”
“How dreadful,” sympathized the hen. “And were they never
seen again?”
“Not here. Whether they were seen anywhere else we have no
way of knowing. When the sailor had pillaged his fill he set out
on his spar again, planning to get picked up by a ‘tramp steamer’
or something—so he boasted—and then live high on the sale of
the curiosities he had acquired on this island.”
“And what of the pigs’ people?” enquired the yellow chicken.
“They must have been distraught when they heard of the kidnap-
ping of their family members.”
“Oh, frantic—from what we’ve overheard. Their father, one
Professor Swyne, threatened to come here from half-way round
the world—to demand restitution.”
“Where did the nine little Swynes come from?”
“I doubt if you’ll have heard of it,” confided
Patatipiipiapaatapapita. “A place called Oz.”
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c h a p t e r t w e n t y - o n e
The fairies really had fun on Oahu. They turned themselves

into hummingbirds and sped everywhere. As winged fairies they’d
have been able to get about almost as expeditiously but they
wanted to avoid the complications that might have arisen if
anyone had spied them, twenty-eight strong, at the bottom of
his garden. After all, ex-Lulea, as a queen, rather preferred the
TOPS of gardens, and there the blithesome band would have been
discovered and no doubt put to rout that much sooner..
They hung around the hibiscus-crowded gardens of Hono-
lulu for a day. They went up to Diamond Head for the magnifi-
cent views of sea and land. They spent a whole day doing their
washing and hanging it to dry at the Upsidedown Waterfall. This
was a place wonderful enough to make them feel right at home.
Rivers that flowed backwards, roads on which vehicles coasted
uphill, in short everything which appeared to set the law of
gravity at nought was meat and drink to the sprites. It seemed so
magical. And a cataract that plunged off a mountain brink to be
blown upward by the strong and unceasing wind that scoured
the valley was just the sort of play pen they adored.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As birds of course they’d have nothing to wash so just for the
space of this lark they changed back to fairy form, sudsed up their
draperies, and winged it, with themselves IN them, back and forth
through the upward-flying waters. Then they hung the clothes to
dry on cobweb lines on the cliff top. In the sun and prevailing
breeze that took about seventy seconds.
While they waited Mme. Mcqueen and Zyzzifer sunbathed
and idled the time in chat. Zyzzifer, as befitted her spelling, had
been the last to join the fairy band and sometimes the Queen
adopted a schoolmarmish tone in talking to her. “This is light
matter,” she said now.
“‘Light matter’?” replied Zyzz on cue. She knew that obscure
vocabulary was gauntlets thrown down to encourage her to ac-
quire new knowledge.
“Yes,” instructed ex-Lulea. “Everything in the universe is di-
vided up into light matter and dark matter. You remember that?”
“Oh, of course,” laughed Zyzzifer easily and immediately
remembered rainbows, the square of the hypotenuse, and the
speed of light. “Gravity,” she said.
“Well, no, actually gravity’s one of the dark matters,” confessed
the queen. “But this is light matter: the strength, speed, and
direction of the wind just here combine to be greater than the
force of gravity. Hence, the water mounts instead of falling. You
see that, don’t you?”
“Yes indeed,” reassured the pupil. “But gravity now: please
explain that again. I can never quite grasp it: why should every-
thing be drawn toward the center of bodies of matter? To my mind
it would seem much more logical that everything bobbed about
loose in the universe without being attracted to anything.”
“To everybody’s mind,” dismissed the queen, turning over to
get a little sun on her back. “And the universe IS logical and so of
course gravity isn’t what it seems. We—and everything—are not
pulled toward the center of massive bodies. We’re pushed.”
“What by?”
“Dark matter, of course. At once that makes it all logical, doesn’t
it? Two solid objects can not occupy the same space at the same
99
time. The very feeble pressure of the dark matter that fills the
universe (all except ten percent, which we see as the light of stars,
including our sun) is however just strong enough to press us
against the heavenly body nearest us. Since we can’t occupy the
same space as that body (in our case, the Earth) we cling against
its outside. And we call the result gravity.”
At this point fairy Zyzzifer always experienced an effect as
of drawing aide of veils across her mind. “Of course! and dark
matter—this is the part that’s so hard to remember!—possesses
the qualities of both solids and light waves, or rather, dark waves.
It can be perceived as a solid in itself under certain conditions
but it can also pass through true solids, sometimes leaving
a perceptible result and sometimes not.”
“Right!” ohortled the queen. “It’s all coming back to you now.”
“And to think,” sighed Zyzz, reaching for her gossamer petti-
coat, “that you can control it all, Your Majesty!”
“Well, ‘control’,” murmured Fay McQueen modestly; “nay
rather ‘influence.’ But of course. What else is one a fairy for?”
100
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - t w o
“Oh, Dad!” cried Miss Matson, “how terribly disappointing!

But how grand!!”
The captain handed his daughter the telegram he had just read
out to her. It was from Chief Clerk Printz, Matson Navigation
Company, Ferry Building, San Francisco, and read: “You have been
named Consul General for Sweden, for California, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Alaska. Impera-
tive you return at once to accept honor at ceremony 13 January.
Chargé d’Affaires Ekengren on good-will tour will officiate.”
“Sorry, flickan min,” said the old salt, brushing his walrus
moustache across the side of her auburn hair. “You’ll have to take
over for me. You can crack a bottle of champagne by yourself,
can’t you? You’ve got young Dorothy here to help.”
“I don’t care!” pouted Lurline. “At least—I do: But I want to
go back with you!”
“And leave Lurline II unchristened? You wouldn’t do that.”
Now it wan Miss Gale’s turn to be a tower of strength for her
friend as she was torn between two diametrically opposing
desires: to turn right around and board the train back to San Fran-
101
cisco with her father or to climb the scaffolding at the shipyard
two days hence end send a bottle crashing against the bow as the
big black brand-new ship slid down the ways.
Dorothy was subtle. She stooped to conquer. She pretended
to selfishness in order to get her friend to do what she knew her
friend afterwards would be gladdest to recall having done. She
said, “Yes, of course! You’re disappointed. And I want to share
the disappointment with you. We’ll go back with the Captain right
away and I’ll never go shopping in Richmond or see the sights of
Washington or anything. I guarantee to feel even flatter than you
all the way back through the tiresome train trip to K.C. Since
misery loves company, we’ll be miserable together—and still have
a lot of fun.”
Lurline could not help smiling at her friend’s droll presenta-
tion. But it pointed up a truth for her: it’s scarcely fair to get your
own back for a disappointment by disappointing others. She
swallowed her chagrin and plumped for staying on to launch the
Lurline on 11 January.
The ceremony went off all right and after all there was a bit
of shopping for fallals in Lorfolk. The captain had left behind a
generous check. But there was now no question of two unaccom-
panied teen-age girls attempting the round of big and dangerous
cities on their own. They duly boarded their own return train on
the appointed day.
“You were right, Dorth,” admitted Miss Matson as they
trundled across the snow-covered hills of Kentucky. “I wouldn’t
have felt satisfied with myself if I’d dodged the responsibility of
the launching. Rut now I’m going to get my own back after all.
Since you felt so keenly my obligations in this affair, it’s only just
that you come in for the rest of the responsibilities. It’s not all over
with the launching, you know. There’s something called the
maiden voyage. Now you wouldn’t want to see that spoiled, would
you?”
“I’d be very sorry,” admitted the Kansas girl. “But it’s nothing
to do with me, surely?”
“Suppose I make it a condition of my going on the dreary old
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
cruise that you go along? After all, we’ve found out we get on like
a house afire on these long-drawn expeditions. I could say I can’t
face the maiden voyage without you beside me!”
“‘Dreary’!?” echoed Dorothy. “Do you call an ocean cruise
‘dreary’? Why, nothing could be more fun!”
“Fun?! Hanging over the rail and reseeing your breakfast?”
said Lurline whimsically. For here was a paradox: Dorothy, the
girl from the heart of an inland America a thousand miles from
the sea, was an excellent sailor. She’d shown that when she sailed
off to Oz in a flying house with never a trace of mal d’aire. Her
long Pacific voyages after that, including one in a chicken coop,
but confirmed her sea legs. Meanwhile Lurline, the girl from the
coast, who had virtually been born on a ship, got seasick every
time. “Unhrh!” she gloomed, “I can’t face it: to get on that thing—
even if it is named after me—and sail all the way to Honolulu and
Lurline again in one swoop.”
“Delightful!” thrilled Dorothy. “I can’t think of anything
niftier. You talked me into it! When do we sail?”
“June sixth, from San Francisco. And get back there June thir-
tieth. Nearly an entire month at sea!”
“Wonderful. To see dear San Francisco again and all of you!
and then to sail across to the Sandwich Islands—”
“People are calling them ‘the Hawaiian Islands’ more now,”
reminded Lurline, “the native name. But you remember that.”
“Yes. It’s going to be exactly like old times. Do you realize it’s
just a year and three quarters since we first met? and that’s where
we met. Oh, how lovely to be in the islands again!”
Miss Matson was steam-rollered by so much enthusiasm. “I’ll
pack a supply of Dad’s long woolen underwear,” she said and
assumed a resigned expression.
“Woolen underwear?” said Dorothy in disbelief. “What in the
world? That’ll be in the middle of the summer.”
“Mm,” agreed Lurline. “Mother will be furious. “Woolen
underwear’s horribly expensive.”
“But why are you going to wear men’s long-johns as we sail
the tropic seas?”
103
The heiress broke out in delighted laughter. “Not WEAR them,
silly. It’s for seasickness. I—well, Mother too—we’re the worst
sailors in the world. But Dad figured out an excellent remedy. He
tears up his woolen underwear and makes hot compresses out of
them. To put on our tummies, you know. That feels So good...!”
104
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - t h r e e
Yes, now it was better: The sun gleamed on and as the day
advanced and their exercise was prolonged—the two girl travel-
ers were no more discommoded by the cold. By a little after three
in the afternoon they saw the first stones: grey-purplish boulders
whose surfaces rose above the level of the snow. By four they trod
on pebbles.
And all this while they had seen no people. That was what
struck Ozma as eeriest of all. That lonely house at the crossroads
had been the last sign of habitation for scores of miles in this most
desolate region of Oz. There was no village, no signs even of char-
coal burners in the forest. But now that too would change.
“Look!” said Ozma and pointed to foot-marks in the inch-deep
frost. The two girls looked behind them and saw, where they two
had walked, three lines of footprints. Lana trembled.
They went on and now foot traces followed theirs on both sides
and more joined presently and ever more. By late afternoon the
couple became aware that grey silent people marched beside them.
The girls ought to have rejoiced but somehow they did not. Why
did no one speak? either to our travelers or to each other. The
105
silent wayfarers moved so slowly too. Tired and stiff as they were
after their daylong trudge Ozma and Lana pressed forward much
faster.
The Oz princess had some idea by now that, hastening ahead,
they two would presently catch up with the leaders of the multi-
tude. Hour after hour, with simulated gaiety and dancing step,
she forced the pace. At full dark Ozma and her companion were
obliged to droop onto a fallen log and catch their breath. The prin-
cess heard her little friend murmur:
“In a stolid crowd
with cares of the world on them,
not one dared stand out.
She danced along,
eyes flashing, beguiling,
setting everyone smiling.”
“How beguiling can you get, my dear!” laughed the older girl.
“I haven’t seen one person smile yet.”
“You know my verses are about wishes, your grace,” dis-
claimed the poetess. “Not quite about things as they merely are
but as I would like them to be.”
Ozma didn’t quarrel with that. She only encouraged the
younger girl to gather up her courage because it seemed as if they
must carry on by night. Not yet had any house or settlement been
seen, just the rocky ground and the sparse stunted-looking trees
of the highland forest. The ice of the plateau had been left behind
but not the plateau itself.
Luckily the night was full of stars and they could see to make
their way. Did they not have an impression that their ghostly com-
panions gleamed ever so faintly phosphorescently in the dark?
At least Ozma by starlight could see to pick up a fragment of one
of the thousands of stones they found under foot.
“Look, Lana,” said she with wonderment in her voice. “This is
no ordinary bit of rock outcropping. This stone is carved! See its
square corner.”
Miss Peethisaw marveled, and then she had an idea. “There
must have been marble cities here on this upland in ages past. I
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
wonder what happened to them.”
“I wish the ancient history of Oz were better chronicled,”
bewailed the Queen. “I’m sure I don’t know what places these
were. I must take a leave of absence and go read up Witch Glinda’s
great book of records from the very start. But even that only goes
back as far as 1234 O.Z...”
The pair struggled on until an hour before dawn. They did
reach the vanguard of the great horde of shadow pilgrims who
clustered about them but found no leader or elders or wise-men
there. Such were still to seek, it appeared, for somehow it was
borne in upon them that the silent multitude was in search of just
such a charismatic leader. The way still led imperceptibly upward
until, just as they saw the morning star, the ultimate ridge was
reached.
The night’s adventure seemed to stir the young poet’s inspira-
tion strangely. Perhaps she was getting a bit light-headed with
hunger too and lack of sleep. At any rate she dropped down at
last at a flat rock where there was an infinite view into the blue
south and wrote these lines:
“Templed cities shone white
in cold starlight.
From the highest valley
the people looked back
at the ruins they left
on their march to the peaks.
It was a thousand generations before
when their ancestors
trod clogging mud.
They struggled upwards
and on the pinnacle
wondered where to go.
They were shown a sign
intruding among blocks
of unearthly silence.
It was a star, the largest and nearest,
shining from afar.”
107
Ozma in her strapped-on traveling crown and palest green -
even if sadly stained and worn drapery was looking every inch a
queen as she took up the notebook and, standing, read from it,
aloud.
Then most marvelous to behold: little Miss Lana turned her
gaze from her sovereign and looked about. On every hand the
silent pilgrims had stopped, had turned, and, far as the eye could
span on that scrub-grown mountain edge, they were facing as
one man toward the gentle fairy princess who had shared, nay,
led their long wandering.
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - f o u r
“That’s it!” gasped Billina and flopped back in the corner of

her crate, bowled over. “Oz! And Teentyweent!... I thought the
name of your island was not altogether unfamiliar. Yet I knew I’d
never been here myself and I couldn’t think who could have men-
tioned it. The Wizard!”
“’Wizard’?” queried the island birds and rose to flap their
wings, then settle on the upper slats once more.
It took Billina about half an hour (during which she became
quite hungry again) to tell the oft-told tale of the Wizard of Oz.
Well, of course a smattering of the story had reached the ears of
the birds already, by animal hearsay, from that period when Oz
natives had spent time on Tinitiwinitihumunuo’ahonomua as
inmates of the boarding school. But not ’til now had the later saga
of the Nine Tiny Piglets of Teentyweent been reported back to
their temporary home island.
“This is tremendous,” cried Patatipiipiapaatapapita. “We ought
to let the Teentyweentians know. It would relieve their minds to
find out that the pigs got back safely to where they came from
after all.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“‘Let them know’?” asked the hen. “But this is marvelous. Can
you speak the language of the island humans?!”
“Our civilisation is high,” again declared Patatipi-
ipiapaatapapita, “but else not that high. No.”
“How can you ‘let them know’ then?”
“Oh, we could fly in a body into the nearby village of
Liddlebiddy and attract their attention—at least enough to get
them to follow us back here. When they see you they’ll be ever so
excited and get you out of your prison at once. Then you can tell
them!”
Billina gave a squawk of pure frustration. “I can’t speak to
them—any more than you can yourselves. I’ve already been cast
away once this trip for lack of being able to manage in plain
Humanese...”
She trailed off in dejection. At least she had not fallen into the
vulgar error of supposing that since everything on Teentyweent
was wonderfully small the place was probably at least minimally
magical as well and she looked for no quick solutions. But then
she had an ideas “The nine Swynes! What was the language of
instruction in their school?”
“Interesting you should ask that,” complimented
Patatipiipiapaatapapita. “Apparently the piglets were quite clever:
they understood Humanese but they couldn’t epeak it themselves,
at least here on Teentyweent,” (‘Just my predicament,’ thought
Billina) “but the headmaster had studied abroad under the fa-
mous Dr. Dolittle—and he can get along in any number of animal
tongues: Feline, Canine, Avian, and of course Porcine. We some-
times have a natter with him ourselves. That’s how we pick up
the odd bit of town news—”
“Could you get him out here?!” demanded the hen. “Then we
might get somewhere.”
The birds were excited—but thoughtful too. “Tiny Town is on
the other side of the island. It’ll take longer than trying to fetch
the locals would. But yes! Prof. Humuu’u will be thrilled to get
word of his missing pupils. We’re sure he’ll come...!”
All a-twitter, the greater part of the bird delegation rose, circled,
109
and winged away toward the north.
Alas, so it turned out the tide came in again before Prof.
Humuu’u could get down to the coast. It was a spring tide and
the wind was offshore. When the schoolmaster reached the spot
where the crate of the yellow hen had rested he saw only a shin-
ing expanse of sea-polished sand.
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - f i v e
“Sad grey light dawned

on the arid pine forest.
A line of pilgrims
toiled upwards
in the silence
with eyes fixed
on the mountain top.
Whether beggars,
haughty rulers,
or important burghers,
they aimed for discovery,
hope, and an audience
with the gifted lady
of the mountain
reputed to be in contact
with mystic existence.”
Yes, as the day broke the pilgrims pressed round Ozma’s place
and silently made their plans. The Queen spoke back to them,
kindly, sympathetically, with consoling words which seemed to
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
soothe them, make their anguish fade, put them at rest, so that
when the sun stood high and every shadow was gone—well,
every shadow was gone.
“I never realized before that I was ‘in contact with mystic ex-
perience’, Lana,” said the girl ruler. “Thank you for pointing it
out.”
“It stood to reason, didn’t it? You are the sovereign of every-
thing in Oz and that includes not only the living.”
The queen pressed the little girl’s hand very tenderly and said,
“I shall not be remiss in my duty there again.”
Thus lauded artistically Miss Peethisaw, in the bush that fol-
lowed, again put pencil to paper.
“It was so quiet a leaf
fell like thunder to earth
and among the broken columns
people awoke to dawn.
Drifting with the leaves
they were the living dead:
descendants of trailblazers
discarded by progress.”
Ozma observed and approved, then she turned and cast an
arm wide. “This is the last of the Gillikin country, Lana. That is all
Munchkinland down there.” She indicated blue distances that
from the foot of the cliffs stretched to the horizon.
Presently the two Ozites scrambled down the rook face. That
warmed them up after the night’s long march but also tired them
that much more. It was with gasps and groans of exhaustion and
relief that they crawled into a bosky blue thicket at cliff-bottom
and pulled it in after them. The blue grass beckoned like a feather
bed and they slept almost before their bodies touched it.
Long on in the afternoon the couple woke. Now there was to
be no gainsaying their ravenousness. But happily by now they
were back ‘in civilization’ and they stood not upon the least cer-
emony in knocking at the first farmhouse door and stating their
near-desperate need.
Of course the Munchkin family received them with every kind-
111
ness, even without being told that any of their unexpected guests
was the very queen of Oz herself. (Ozma with forethought hid
her battered crown among her draperies.) Without actual fibbing
the travelers succeeded in giving the impression that they were a
lady and her niece who by unspecified means had become sepa-
rated from their companions. ‘More than separated,’ suspected
the kind housekeeper, ‘more like through the mill. I’ve never seen
two more disheveled people.’ She scarcely allowed them to dawdle
over the dessert before demanding that the visitors stop into the
cast-iron bath while delivering over to her their garments to be
scrubbed and mended.
“Oh, but that would take hours,” protested the elder girl. “We
cannot impose—”
The farm woman shushed her almost rudely and displayed
the handsome steam iron she would presently have recourse to.
“You’ll never notice the time passin’,” assured the hostess. “You’ll
be asleep.”
After many days of privation two nights’ worth of sleep in
twenty-four hours is not more than is very welcome. When Ozma
and Lana saw the vast down-stuffed baldachin bed they were to
share, it struck both of them as the most delightful thing that had
fallen in their way since they had left Cut-out County.
Next morning, all the difference in the world having been
made, the grateful pair took leave of their hosts with many heartfelt
expressions. Ozma made a mental note to send the family a year’s
supply of bottled ozade, once safely back in her palace. Aloud she
said, “We’re making for the yellow brick road. Is it far?”
Still a day’s march, perhaps more, they were told. But clean,
fed, rested, and presentably attired the girls thought they could
face anything. In fact they turned out to have to face very little
until, in the late forenoon, they heard a clattering thumping
tattoo behind them and turned to see the Sawhorse rushing
toward them, pulling Ozma’s own red wagon, at whose reins sat
the grinning little Wizard of Oz.
Such an unbelievable sight caused the queen of Oz to be com-
pletely flabbergasted.
112
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - s i x
Billina’s only consolation, as she staved a sad and lonely fare-

well to Tinitiwinitihumunuo’ahonomua, was that at least, while
missing meals herself, she probably wasn’t going to become any-
one else’s. The chance of meeting gallinapophagous individuals
on the open ocean was minimal. Such might well infest the wa-
ters beneath her but from these she was protected by the slat floor-
boards of her coop.
No, there was just boredom to look forward to, until she should
meet somebody, or, more likely, some subsequent bit of ocean
shore. That and hunger. She remembered all too well how fam-
ished she had grown during the three wave-tossed days between
the Klondike and the beach at Teentyweent. Billina cocked her head
and looked one-eyed down at her plump form. Well, she couldn’t
see that she’d lost any weight so far.
The trip was boring: the first two days. After that, curiously,
things picked up. Billina noticed it first when she woke once from
a snooze and saw that all was no longer blue about her. Part of
it was white. Her crate was progressing so rapidly through the
water in an easterly direction that it was casting up a ridge before
113
her and leaving a white wake behind. It was, in fact, the hasty
sloshing of sea water through her vessel that had wetted and
wakened her.
What could the reason be? Chicken coops adrift at sea didn’t
head anywhere. They just float, wherever the winds and tides carry
them. Could it be winds and tides at work now? she pondered.
No, there didn’t seem to be more than a normal mild breeze blow-
ing, and not at all that easterly anyway. As for the tides, it stood to
reason that the waves couldn’t propel anything faster than they
were going themselves.
Something was thrusting her onward and it was not just a force
of nature. Coming from Oz, Billina at once thought of magic.
Being in the Pacific Ocean, she at once forgot it. No magic around
here. If there were, the hen might well have expected the benefit
of the use of a tiny bit of it the time she had stood in the presence
of an actual confessed fairy, but there hadn’t been a wand in sight
then or any incantation of the slightest use invoked when she was
in extremis.
No, she had to look for a corporeal agent and that could only
be in the waters beneath her. She cocked an eye at one of the
narrow rifts in the capable carpentering that made up the floor of
her cage. Was there a paler shape against the ocean dark that
suddenly flashed across her sight and was gone?
For fun as well as profit she squatted down by the widest crack
and trained a permanent eye on whatever might visibly move in
the water below. Before more than a minute or two had passed
she was certain: white waving things like arms! were passing and
repassing under her cage. Sometimes she thought she saw slick
pearl-grey bodies too. Then once, behind the craft, a bottle snout
was briefly visible, moving at express train speed and casting the
box forward before it on a wall of water.
Later Billina got the fright of her life. She had by now been
rushing forward for so many hours in that unaccountable way
that the first excitement had paled and she subsided into a corner
for the night. Perhaps she had slept for three hours, perhaps more,
when a change in the manner of her moving forward waked her.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was like when you go to sleep to the accompaniment of some
deafening noise. When the noise stops, the silence wakes you. So
the hen woke now, because there was no surging up and down
any longer but only a smooth forging forward, almost like the
feeling of standing on the deck of a ship that makes its way over a
millpond sea.
What could it be? Sharp chicken eyes served for nothing. The
night was cloud dark. The visible world was invisible. All was
black as a night could still be black in 1908. Nothing was hurting
her though. Billina could even note with pleasure the warm dry
wind, from forward propulsion, that breezed through her cage.
Lulled, she fell asleep again.
It was when she woke by daylight that she got her shock.
Though the sky was light grey all was still black beneath her. Billina
had heard of a Black Sea but never a black ocean. Besides there
were no waves on this ocean. What was more: there was no water
in this ocean. She seemed to be riding on—if not dry, at least only
damp—land.
A wild glance farther afield and then she saw—and fainted
from the shock. She and her crate were riding serenely on the
back of a vast black whale.
115
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - s e v e n
“Would this place do for lunch?” asked the Wizard.

Princess Ozma thought that the blue bank of the Upper
Munchkin River would do better than most places and so the
Wizard erected a small marquee there, using a page from Lana
Peethisaw’s writing pad. He hadn’t yet acquired any great facility
in creating whole pavilions out of Ozma’s pocket handkerchiefs;
besides, the little queen had lost her handkerchief during the
course of the awful sandstorm.
Over the celery and blue cheese Wizard Diggs offered ex-
planations. In fact, Ozma never did completely understand the
sequence of events in the rescue mission, which struck her as
having followed much the same course as the old conundrum
about how to get all the soldiers over the river in the rowboat
with the strictly limited capacity. There was the virtually
untranceportable Magic Picture, the need for a vehicle to carry
passengers but the absence of a means of impelling the vehicle,
the known position of some of the missing persons, and the
unknown location of others.
The start of it, at least, she did grasp. “After seeing you off at
116
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
the Old North Gate I naturally followed your progress in the Magic
Picture,” recalled Diggs. “But after a day or so, when everything
seemed to be going fairly routinely for you, I confess I grew slack.
I believe more than half a day had passed without a ‘tune-in’ when
suddenly in the dead of night I recalled my dereliction and sprang
out of bed to hurry in my nightshirt to the Hall of the Picture.
What was my horror when, upon asking to see you, Your Majesty,
I discovered you tumbling head over heels through the air in a
frightful dust storm.
“I’m afraid I panicked. I rushed back to my room and seized a
box of wishing pills from the bureau drawer. Pausing only to throw
around me my old zodiac cloak—which I sometimes drape over
the bed as an extra spread—I swallowed a pill and wished myself
into your presence—”
“I thought I saw wizards in the wind at one point!” broke in
the little poetess, “—although the ones I noticed had long beards.
You didn’t happen to have thrown on a beard too, did you, Mr.
Diggs?”
“Not at that point, my dear,” confessed the Wizard. “Later
there was no end to the dodges I had recourse to. I remember
when we were trying to rescue the Scarecrow from the renewed
clutches of the Flatheads.
“Chronology, Wizard, chronology,” prompted Ozma as
she sipped a huckleberry juice cocktail (made with a dash
of sour cream, just to lighten the indigo hue). At this time
she was still trying to keep track of the order of events with
some precision.
“I still was not thinking in a responsible manner,” Diggs con-
tinued to confess. “Otherwise, with another pill, I’d have wished
us all safe home in the royal palace.”
“Just as well you didn’t, my friend,” soothed Ozma. “Presum-
ably at that point you knew nothing of little Lana’s having joined
us. She might have been left to blow about alone through that
terrible night. That would have been great pity.”
“Ah well,” murmured the Wizard and beamed his gratitude
for this sop to his conscience.
117
“As it was,” he went on, “I continued to panic and merely
wished myself safe home again, and even then the rest of my stock
of pills blew away in the whirlwind.”
It took all the lunch hour to retail the saga of the still essen-
tially student-magician’s fumbles before at last he got his show
effectively on the road. There was the story of the wogglebug
riding out the storm high on stratospheric thermals and then
making his way on own wing-power back to the Emerald City.
There was the problem of how to get the red wagon to where
the Sawhorse was or else the Sawhorse to where the red wagon
was. There was the mission to rescue the Scarecrow from Flat-
head Mountain (easily recognizable by Professor Wogglebug
from what he saw of it in the Picture). All through, the Wizard
was keeping tabs on his queen—and her unexpected new com-
panion—but though he could see her clearly enough and wept
to witness her trials and discomforts he couldn’t make out her
whereabouts more exactly than that she was somewhere in the
purple country.
When at last the original team of explorers (though minus all
its female participants) had been brought to safety and O.Z. Diggs
had bethought him to avail himself of his patented where-is-scope,
it was a matter of less than a day to get on the trail of the errant
ladies and track them to the banks of the Munchkin River.
“Tell me, Wizard,” said Ozma, drawing a line under all those
confusions, “in your comings and goings in and around the
palace did you happen to see anything of BIllina the yellow hen?
I sent her on a mission but much to my surprise I’ve heard
nothing from her.”
“Why, no, your grace, I’m sorry—”
“Or of any unusual influx of fairies? Specifically in fact, Lulea,
queen of them all?”
“Had I but done that, your highness, I would have lost no time
in beseeching her aid in this tangle.”
“Mmm, I thought as much. Well then, no more but this; let us
make all possible haste back to the Emerald City. If Billina cannot
bring the fairy queen I must have recourse to other means.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Oh, er, Your Grace,” mumbled the wizard, once more embar-
rassed. “Would three extra hours—say four—put out your plans
unconscionably?”
Ozma smiled. “Now that you mention it I suppose time really
doesn’t matter that much. I have urgent tasks in hand but I don’t
know that speed will help. Rather diplomacy—and detective work.
What is it you have in mind?”
“You know the nine tiny piglets?”
“Of which one belongs to me? How could I forget them?”
“I’ve always meant to seek out their parents and reassure them
that the pigs are alive and well and living in the Emerald City.
Now that, at last, we’re so close it seems a shame to miss the
opportunity.”
“Close? Do the pigs’ parents live around here? In Oz!? I
always thought...” Ozma’s voice trailed away in the effort to
recall.
“That they came from the island of Teentyweent? That’s what
the sailor said from whom I bought them. You can imagine my
amazement when, after the ten of us reached Oz and the piglets
found their voices, I heard from their own lips that they were
natives of this country after all.”
“How quite incredible,” breathed the girl ruler and feared that
she was in for another tale of wanderings and coincidences that
was going to tax her powers of belief. She didn’t ask for details
but simply said, “I hope the pigs have been back to visit their
family,” and looked quite stern for her.
“Oh, yes!” Diggs hastened to reassure. “Even your favorite,
Pigmy, times when he’s been away to participate in table tennis
tournaments, has extended his absence to cover a night with the
old folks. Only alas...”
“Yes?” pursued the princess.
“I’m sorry to say I myself have never taken the occasion to
come way off here to this outpost of the country to pay my
respects.”
“I understand, O.Z. Say no more. We shall be pleased to lend
our presence to a state call on—”
119
“The Swynes. Professor Grunter Swyne and Mrs. Squealina
Swyne.”
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - e i g h t
The fairy hummingbirds completed their circuit of the Hawai-

ian island by a visit to the Barking Sands. These were a stretch of
coastal earth that had the odd property of giving off a squeaking
or “barking” noise when you trod on it. As hummingbirds Mme.
Fay’s followers couldn’t tread to any great extent, nor were they
much more convincing as treaders in the shape of gossamer
fairies. Hence, just for half an hour they turned themselves into
elephants and rhinoceri. Then there was treading enough and
to spare. Oh, how those sands barked. They’d never barked so
much before, because the incidence of elephants in Hawaii is
virtually nil.
Just before the local Kanakas got out spears and blow-darts
with which to confront the unusual animals the whole fairy band
switched back to hummingbirds and returned to Honolulu.
By now they felt they’d fairly done the Sandwich Islands, where
after all they had been for more than a fortnight. One and another
of the fays had expressed a desire to see how things were going
on in the Forest of Burzee. Secretary Feebimble was, in addition,
feeling some concern about the whereabouts of the three sisters
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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
who had missed the boat, or rather the train, at Stockholm. These
had ultimately got in touch with their queen via telepathy, helped
out significantly by recourse to their two-way wrist radios. (The
powerful queen fairy, expert in the use of the globes and adept
at manipulating light, dark, and anti-matter, had naturally been
among the first to avail herself of, and improve upon, the tech-
niques of wireless, once the rudiments of these had been
worked out.)
The three truants had ended up in the oddest places. One had
found herself on a bleak shelf of rock near Tristan da Cunha. Bored
with the exclusive companionship of albatrosses, rook-hopper
penguins, and inaccessible island raffle, she had early signaled
her intention to return to Burzee, there to await the eventual
return of her sisters. Another was having the time of her life
playing the roulette tables at Macao. And as we know, poor
Petalutha had hung around Penn Station for days in vain before
finally taking a cheap walk-up flat in the Bowery, where she
expiated in pointless poverty her silliness in mistaking directions
on her first setting out.
It was the latter whom queen Fay, when she had been reminded
of the case by her devoted secretary, now intended to look up and
gently detach from durance more or less vile. There was no great
hurry. “Je m’amuse merveilleusement!” she exclaimed, lapsing into
French for no obvious reason, and went on to explain that she
was having such a good time that she wanted to spin out the days
in the Pacific, while yet conceding that she and her supporters
might begin to trend in the general direction of New York.
That’s how they happened to be down at the docks on 22 June,
looking at the posted notices of arriving and departing vessels.
What a lot of famous names! though, to be sure, perhaps not one
of these ships was the celebrated original bearer of any given
appellative. They remarked the Ark, the Dove, the Savannah, the
Mary Rose, the Great Eastern, the Mayflower, the Niña, the Pinta, the
Santa Maria, the Victory, the Half Moon, and the Mary Celeste, but
the listing that struck all fairy eyes, except just those of the Queen,
was “Lurline (II) (maiden voyage)”
121
“Hm,” said Fay, when her attention had subtly been drawn,
“’maiden voyage.’ that one ought to be up to date and comfort-
able enough. ‘Passengers and freight. Accommodation for fifty-
seven.’ That’s not very many, is it? We’d take up more than half
the places ourselves, if we went normal-human-size, and I
suppose we must, under the circumstances.”
“What if we went as crew?” suggested Calabash.
“‘Crew’?” said Mme. McQueen, turning in surprise. “In what
capacity?”
“As musicians,” replied the musical fairy.
“But, darling, we none of us play, except the virginals of
course—and except yourself,” the queen added, vaguely recall-
ing that somebody had used to perform as one-woman band on
harp, flute, and tuba in the old days when the fairies would dance
madly by moonlight in Burzee.
“But don’t you see? they could learn!” cried Calabash, now all
fire and flame. “By a wave of your wand you can propagate my
knowledge of threnody in the brains of all. Finger facility will
follow along as a matter of course.”
“Well, we’ll see,” allowed the queen. “If there’s not room for
all twenty-eight of us among the passengers, it might be an idea.”
As it turned out, the fairy horde were dispersed about equally
among passengers and crew. The end portion of Lurline’s maiden
run WAS popular with customers so there were only about a dozen
free berths left when the fairies presented themselves at the ticket
office. On the other hand, Matson Navigation scarcely needed
twenty-eight musicians to entertain forty-two passengers.
With their instruments (hastily recruited from pawn shops)
stowed behind the curtain in the salon, the fairies went on deck.
There was undeniably an air of fiesta about the lei-draped ladies
and the gentlemen in yachting jackets and white ducks who clus-
tered along the quayside rail of the ship. A hula band was playing
Aloha Oe on the deck and paper streamers were thrown. A thun-
derous hooting split the air and the engines began to throb.
The fairies, most of them, succeeded in insinuating themselves
among the other passengers along the rail. For the time being no
122
one knew which of them were travelers and which were crew.
There was a great deal of merry noise and yet not so loud but
what Butterfly presently left her hard-struggled-to position of
vantage and went to squeeze in beside queen Fay a little further
along the line.
“Yo’ Highness?... ‘Scuse me but would yo’ lean out a mite? See
dere, ‘long to de lef’? dem two gals in white? It’s a mahty cu’yus
ting but ah heard ’em talkin’—and yo’ know what day was talkin’
‘bout?... Oz!”
c h a p t e r t w e n t y - n i n e
Princess Ozma was not as irresponsible in the face of contend-

ing crises as might appear, when she accepted an invitation to
pay a social call instead of dashing home to attend to business.
The first thing she did when there came a lull in the Wizard’s
continued bout of reminiscing was to borrow his crystal set and
put in a call to Glinda, great and good—and powerful—Sorceress
of the South and ruler of the Quadlings.
“Glinda dear? Ozma here. I’ve got into rather a mix-up. I
went off pretty impromptu to have a look at the Winkie-Gillikin
border. Were you alert to the fact that up north Winkieland occu-
pies a sixth of what one would have expected to be all Gillikin
territory? that is, along the northern desert border of Oz.”
“It’s been like that for ages, dear,” confirmed the sorceress.
“Has it got worse?”
“I should say so, yes,” stated the fairy ruler ruefully, “on the
evidence of the dust storm I’ve just been through.”
“I’m afraid those happen quite frequently,” said the good witch.
“I rather tend by now to skip the descriptions of them in the Record
Book.”
123
“Well, they’re pretty bad,” insisted Ozma, “and I for one don’t
think they ought to be allowed to go on—”
“It may not last, Ozma,” asserted the southern sorceress. “I
have reason to believe we may be nearing the end of the Winkie
proliferation cycle—”
“Whatever do you mean?” Ozma, still a neophyte ruler, didn’t
know ALL the ins and outs of Oz cosmogony.
“In my researches I’ve come across tantalizing hints of a
process that may have been going on for millenia: actually back
beyond Goorikop’s intervention in Oz affairs—not to mention
those of Lurline-that-was.”
“Hm,” said the Oz queen speculatively. “Lurline—or Lulea as
she’s been calling herself for some time: she’s what I was signal-
ing you about. But go on—with your—er, explication.”
“The Oz colors,” said Glinda a trifle unexpectedly. “You know
what they represent, of course.”
“Well—or.” The girl ruler had to confess herself somewhat
stumped. Her reading hadn’t progressed that far if indeed the
Royal Library she had inherited contained any volumes on the
topic at all. “Aren’t they just arbitrary? Whatever popped into Mr.
Baum’s head when he had to fill out the background of the sketchy
story that Miss Dorothy retailed to him?”
“Oh, gracious, no,” laughed the sorceress. “The colors are what
they are, if not for a purpose, anyway with a signification. You do
appreciate that your four kingdoms represent the traditional ele-
ments of earth, air, fire, and water?”
“Yes, of course.” Ozma bridled a little over the wireless.
“Well, the Munchkin country, water-richest of the lands, is
naturally blue—”
“I see. And you all are red down your way because of ‘fire’...
And that’s why you’ve got so many volcanoes too.” Ozma was no
dummy.
“Exactly,” the witch concurred. “Winkie yellow represents
earth—”
“Odd. I’d have thought brown.”
“Quite so. Although we tend to think of brown as a separate
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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
distinct color it’s really no more than very dark yellow. That’s why
there’s no brown in the rainbow which is made up of cardinal
hues in their purest manifestation. And of course the Oz colors
would be in their ‘cardinal’ form.”
“Hm—and Gillikin purple then?” wondered the Oz princess.
“’Air’, of course. But since air is colorless it’s a little hard to
symbolise in a hue. However, because air, at least in terms of life,
is the noblest of the ‘elements’ (be the others what they may, life
couldn’t exist without air), no doubt it is fitting that it should be
represented by the noblest color. Hence too, the mountains, of
course, as the emblematic geographical feature of the land: ‘purple
mountains’ majesty’ reaching to the airy heights...”
“All very neat,” said Ozma. “I’m persuaded. Do go on.”
“Apparently there’s more to it,” related Glinda. “I’m com-
ing to the conclusion that there are geological epochs when
these topographical features go a bit on the rampage, and in a
clockwise direction, for some reason. Among the earliest tradi-
tions is that of a great flood, or floods. That would be the Munchkin
element in operation. Then, right within the historical era, there
were long-drawn-out periods of volcanic activity, centered here
in the south. How long the Winkie ‘earth’ expansion phase has
been going on I’ve no idea but perhaps right from the end of the
volcanic epoch.”
“Oh, dear,” commented the girl ruler. “That all sounds a bit
bigger even than I feared. I can’t do anything about it of course,
but I had some idea that Queen Lulea, once the case was put to
her, could manage to put a damper on those winds, which appear
to be the vehicle of the unfortunate phenomenon. But if this is all
part of something cosmic...”
“Don’t underestimate Lulea’s competence,” warned the witch.
“She’s only a woman, of course—if non-human creatures can be
termed ‘women’—or ‘men’—”
Ozma broke in with some (ladylike) indignation: “I’m an im-
mortal myself and yet I also think of myself as a woman ...or girl.”
“All right! Let’s say ‘woman.’ Furthermore the good Lulea can
also behave a bit scattily at times. However, we must give the
125
fairy her dues.. her power is greater than that of mere deities
(often male) who identify with human beings and also occa-
sionally work miracles. Everything a fairy does is a miracle and
though these acts may often be limited to trivia, like wish-grant-
ing and personality transformations, when the chips are down
the capabilities of a really top-rank fairy can be characterised
as cosmic, indeed.”
“That’s good to know,” declared Ozma earnestly. “You’ve
relieved my mind enormously, Glinda. Thanks so much. But I’m
afraid I’m still a bit: uneasy. You see, I sent Billina off—you re-
member Dorothy’s yellow chicken—to try to alert the great Lulea.
It’s been days now! I’m badly worried that something may have
happened to Billina herself...”
“Put your mind at rest, dear,” comforted the charitable Good
Witch of the South. “I’ll be onto it this minute! with a general alert
to fairies of land, sea, and air to watch over the bird wherever she
may be.”
126
c h a p t e r t h i r t y
“Fantastic,” said Mme. McQueen and looked at the two nau-

tically dressed teen-agars along the rail. “Talking about Oz, you
say?”
“Dey sho’ is,” assured Butterfly.
“What’s so surprisssing about that?” put in Ereol, who liked
to think of herself as chief fairy (after their queen herself and
always tried to stay near her leader as being her second-in-com-
mand. She had overheard the whole exchange. “It’s well known
that the Ozzz books by now are famous evvverywhere, especially
in America. Every well-read young girl would know of them, and
those two look quite intellligent. I expect they’re their favorite
books.” She fingered her spirit (which for the moment subsisted
in a couple of blue and yellow marbles) confidently.
But Butterfly came right back. “Yo’ nevah heard wut dey was
sayin’! One o’ dam gals talk lak she done been in Oz.”
“Fascinating,” agreed the Queen. “Which one?”
“Dat one wid de yeller ha’uh,” Butterfly pinpointed.
At this moment the Lurline at last began to edge away from
the quayside and the attention of the three fairies was distracted
127
toward the crowd on shore, whose cries of farewell increased in
volume and excitement. When they looked again, the two mortal
girls, objects of their attention, had disappeared.
But Queen Fay’s curiosity had been piqued. She kept the teen-
age pair in mind—and in sight, whenever one or the other or both
would appear on the deck or in the gangways of the LURLINE.
The second day out, while at dinner—if not actually AT, still very
near, the captain’s table—the fairy sent a note to Calabash leading
the all-girl orchestra. The note requested her follower to direct
the players in a tune of the Burzee queen’s choosing. Then Mme.
McQueen leaned back and kept a watchful eye out.
At the captain’s table two girls were toying with their char-
lottes russes. A person always ate too much aboard ship and by
the time they got to their dessert they had almost lost interest.
Talk had dwindled too and when the music struck up a livelier
tempo one of the girls began to hum along with it. “What fun,”
she broke off. “That’s one of my favorites.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“That’s the funny part. I can’t think of the name of it. Wait a
minute—” The girl began to follow the tune with words:
“Come on and dance it! We’re doin’ a new step!
It really is new. It’s a fresh-as-the-dew step.
A lively one too. It’s no sticky old glue step.
And it’s not a fake. It’s an honest and true step.
Everyone loves its no pride-of-the-few step.
Christians and Moslems and many a Jew step.
The animals dance it and call it the ‘Zoo Step’—
“Oh, how queer!” gasped the girl with the yellow hair and
sang on as if bewitched:
“It’s the yellow and purple and red, green, and blue step.
Well, what do they call it?! Why, that’s the Oz Two-Step!”
Dorothy stopped as the orchestra went into a da capo at an
even more frenzied pace. She leaned forward and stared at the
leader with big eyes. How in the world—?
“What is it?” said Lurline excitedly.
“That song—or dance, really. How on earth could this band
128
CHAPTER THIRTY
know it? I last heard it at Ozma’s reception at the Emerald City
last summer. The Nine Tiny Piglets performed it, each one sing-
ing a line. It was the big hit of the season. But an Oz tune couldn’t
possibly be known to musicians here.”
Miss Matson was equally impressed. After all the weeks,
going on years, of talk the two had had about the Land of Oz and
whether it existed (Lurline’s constant question) and yes, it did!
(Dorothy’s always answer), this was the first time anything had
happened that incontrovertibly tended to prove there really was
a place called ‘Oz.’ Dorothy had demonstrably known the words
of a song that the San Franciscan herself had certainly never heard.
This was something that could be investigated.
Lurline got to her feet, crossed the floor to the bandstand, and
waited ‘til the last rousing note of the Two-Step blared out. Noth-
ing daunted (as daughter of the owner of the line) but agreeably
courteous (as became a well-bred young lady), she plucked the
leader by the sleeve.
The girl made a lively pantomime of silent clapping, then
gushed: “I love that tune! I couldn’t stop dancing—my feet, that
is, under the table there. Tell met has it got words? It’s brand new
to me.”
Calabash was charmed but also, appropriately, somewhat
abashed. Mme. McQueen had not been at all specific about how
far she, Calabash, could go in presenting an artifact unmistakably
Ozian. But after all, what could the words to a popular tune hurt?
“Thanks so much! Well, actually there is a lyric. I’ll have one of
the girls render it for you.”
“Oh, would you?! How smashing! By the way, what’s your
name? On the menu it only says ‘Haunting strains of the Fairy
Pipers’.”
“Calabash,” informed the band leader. “Er Cab Calabash,” she
improvised, aware that both a first and a second name were
standard in the world she temporarily occupied. “And that’s Dolly
Dreamsweet who’s going to sing for you now.”
Without appearing to, Lurline, back at the table, over the nuts,
listened carefully to hear if Oz and (what even she by now knew
129
were the Oz colors would also be mentioned by a musician in
the employ of the Matson Navigation Company. That would
prove that Oz existed at any rate somewhere besides in the
imagination of Dorothy Gale and, evidentially, the Reilly and
Britton Company.
“‘...the red, green, and blue step’,” sang Dreamsweet. That tore
it. The cloud of doubt burst and conviction rained down on the
mind of Lurline Matson. Oz was real! And what’s more, these
musicians were from Oz. Suddenly she knew it in her bones!
“Dorothy!” she hissed low. “Do you know those people?”
“Who?” The Kansas girl was still lost in a reverie of specula-
tion.
“The band! The girls that are playing. Look close!”
“I’ve been looking. But no, not a face seems familiar. How
come?”
“Well, you know everybody in Oz. It just occurred to me these
people might be...er, Ozites.”
“Then you do believe, Lurl?! At last!! Oh, I’m so glad! But no,
actually I’ve never seen any of them before. And besides! I don’t
know everybody in Oz.”
“Don’t look now, but what about that woman at the next table?
She seems to be pretty thick with the band leader.”
Dorothy peered, unobtrusively. But the frequent Oz visitor had
never had the pleasure of meeting queen Lulea in Oz, though of
course over and anon hearing tales of the fairy’s exploits through
her great chum, the regnant Princess of Oz.
“I think there’s more here than meets the eye,” declared Miss
Matson with pondus. “I’m going to do some detective work.”
130
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - o n e
Relieved, Princess Ozma shook the reins gaily, determined to

force herself to have fun. Billina could almost surely be counted
on to be safe, and otherwise nothing was pressing too awfully on
the Girl Ruler’s conscience. Here in the heart of Munchkinland it
was easy to forget the extent to which great forces of nature were
conspiring to make Winkieland take over Gillikinland.
“Mr. Wizard,” said Lana Peethisaw, as the blue breeze whipped
her curls, “will you tell me about the pigs?”
“To be sure, my dear,” said O.Z. Diggs, taking it easy on the
back seat beside the little girl. “You’re fond of pigs?”
“Well, animals in general,” confessed the girl. “I never had
any of my own. I’m partial to hippopotami—but it was consid-
ered inconvenient to have any at home.”
“And pigs are related to hippos,” fell in the Wizard genially. “I
see the connection.”
Which was more than Lana did. To cover her confusion she
said, “I’ve written about hippopotami—”
“Do tell us, Lana!” said Ozma enthusiastically. She was over-
hearing attentively as she guided the Sawhorse along the yellow
131
brick road.
The poetess obliged.
“’I may be an ignoramus
But I know a hippopotAmus
When I see one,’
Said the little girl in blue.
‘Oh, you will forgive me, darling,’
Said her teacher (fearing quarreling)
‘But your stress scheme
In that word will never do,
For the accent falls on ‘-POTam-’
And it really is the bottom—
Not to say “the pits!”—
To emphasise the “A”.’
‘My apologies, dear teacher,’
Said the darling little creature,
‘But I only said
I know how hippos look.
How they sound’s another matter
And I’ve never heard one natter
And I haven’t looked them up
In any book.
For the nonce I’ll stress the “-pot-” and
Wait until a hippo’s got an
Opportunity
Himself to have a say.’
‘Charming child!’ approved Miss Wilcox
As she fumbled with her pill box—”
Lana seemed going on indefinitely in her recitation, when
Ozma, perhaps feeling that the little girl had delighted them long
enough, broke in to say, “What’s that up there a head?”
The others dutifully peered forward along the road but could
discern nothing out of the way. But the princess had spoken
literally; with a gay laugh she now pointed upward with her whip,
saying, “There!” and indicating the tops of a stand of blue-gum
trees with which they had now drawn level.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It WAS a head. Over the highest tufts of the trees they could
just make out a pointed face that looked down at them quizzi-
cally as it rotated its jaws in chewing fashion.
Ozma pulled on the reins. The Sawhorse didn’t actually need
such physical constraint (not to mention the use of the whip!).
His dear ruler need only have said “Stop” and it would have suf-
ficed. Everybody, horse and people alike, was interested in look-
ing further into the matter of the head above the trees.
“Hi!” called a jaunty voice.
“Exactly,” Ozma called back. “You’re the highest thing we’ve
seen all day. Do you live up there?”
“Oh, no, only my head is in the clouds. I’ve got my feet on the
ground.”
With that the head disappeared down behind the dark blue
leaves and a moment later they heard a drumming sound and a
fine young giraffe cantered into view. At least, it moved quickly
in typical undulating giraffe fashion but with a stiffness, a
gawkiness, in its stride that was unusual. It gave the wise-becom-
ing young ruler of Oz an idea and when the animal had drawn
near she said, “Have you been here long?”
The giraffe stopped short and a blank (but always cheerful)
look spread over its face. “Funny you should ask that,” it called
down. “I haven’t been here very long, and I don’t know how—” A
sudden expression of grief, almost of horror, filled up the blank-
ness on its face. The tall creature made a couple of tentative moves
with a right front leg and a left rear one. Then a big tear leaked
down its face. But again abruptly, “Never mind,” it said. “I’m here
now. Then I saw those gum leaves and I thought I’d have a taste...”
The giraffe’s voice trailed off. “You know what?” it said with
renewed brightness. “I never talked before either! I wonder...”
“Don’t trouble about that now,” advised the fairy princess.
“Later you’ll want to think it all over quietly. But for now, will you
tell us your name?”
“They called me ‘Gerry’ at the zoo,” stated the animal. “The
last thing I remember was some people saying, ‘Oh, Gerry’—”
Suddenly, “Who’s that?” he asked and without standing on
133
ceremony lowered his head to the level of Lana Peethisaw’s hat
brim. (In 1908 it was unheard of to go outdoors without a hat—or
at least a crown—on, so the kindly farm family had outfitted both
girls with headgear. Gently the giraffe’s long velvet lips lifted the
hat off Lana’s head so that he could get a look at the face under-
neath.
Lana shrieked with delight and instantly transferred her
preference from short fat animals to a tall gangly one. “Ooh,” she
crooned and something made her compose furiously for a mo-
ment.
“I saw a giraffe
And I wanted to laugh,
But I couldn’t, you see.
Something stuck
In my throat when I tried
And I very near cried
And my feelings at once
Ran amuck.
That giraffe grabbed my hat
And the moment that that
Occurred something inside
Me went ‘click!’
Now I stand and adore
And I’m hoping for more:
To be friends and to
—never be sick...”
the poet concluded somewhat unexpectedly.
“‘Sick’, Miss P.?” asked the Wizard, but the giraffe had lifted
the hat high and was mumbling it with soft lips, juggling it so it
stood on end, and seeming to plan to eat it. But this was illusion;
it never used its teeth. If it had, Lana’s blond straw with the blue
ribbon would have been shreds in seconds. Instead, Gerry low-
ered the hat gently and dropped it on the little girl’s head again.
The Wizard’s question got lost in the shuffle but Ozma knew.
134
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - t w o
Further friendships were being forged about the same time.

Dorothy Gale became great chums with band-leader Calabash and
secretary Feebimble and “second in command” Ereol. She seemed
to have an affinity for those close to a throne, as she liked to feel
she was, herself. Lurline Matson (without even realising it) went
right for the one on the throne, and perhaps that was the attrac-
tion of likes as well.
It began with the captain’s daughter unobtrusively keeping
an eye out for the (as she was to learn) fairy queen’s appearances
on deck. The latter was always accompanied by a bevy of attrac-
tive girls. The Californian had found out from the purser that the
ladies were traveling together and were the manager, staff, and
star pupils of a secretarial school. The leader was a Mrs. McQueen.
Though Lurline had more than once observed the directress
looking in her direction with a questioning and friendly eye the
woman was never alone and the California girl, though usually
so forthright, somehow hesitated to push through the crowd
merely to drop an obviously conversation-starting remark.
The weather solved her problem for her. The first days out of
135
Honolulu had been placid but during the fifth night the seas got
up. The heiress awoke dismayed to find her cabin (shared with
Dorothy) going up and down in an unsettling manner. However,
she supposed she’d found her sea legs and she managed to make
her way to the dining saloon with her chum. There she had to say
“No, thank you,” to almost everything the waiter suggested and
remained picking at a grapefruit. But when she saw the big stack
of pancakes with syrup and melted butter that Dorothy proposed
to eat (against a background of swaying chandeliers) she abruptly
excused herself and made her way on deck.
The wind wrapped her skirts about her legs and tossed her
auburn locks in every direction as she studied the whitecaps
intently. Then she heard a throaty voice beside her.
“Feeling the waves?”
Lurline looked and groaned. The fascinating woman from A
deck! and herself in this deeply embarrassing position. She had
thought she couldn’t feel worse but she did.
“Perhaps a little Coué will help?” said the woman and laid a
cool left hand on Miss Matson’s brow. The suffering girl didn’t
see her pluck from her luxuriant, though wind-blown, coiffure a
long pencil and gesture peremptorily with it. All she knew was
that suddenly she had never felt better!
Lurline nearly staggered with the relief. She leaned against
the rail and turned and looked at her deliverer marveling. “Is that
Coué?!” she said.
“A form of it,” said ex-Lulea, fibbing slightly.
“Whatever it is, it’s magic!” declared the girl, and she was
certainly right there.
Well, that was the beginning of the great friendship. The two
descended to the little dining hall together, where Mrs. McQueen’s
staff were buzzing agitatedly over her having given them the slip
that way. The fairy queen brooked no nonsense. She made her
way majestically to the Captain’s table, whither Lurline Matson
had invited her. There was room. The captain wasn’t there. He
was ruling the waves on the bridge.
Lurline ordered a stack of hot cakes bigger than Dorothy’s had
136
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
been, and some greasy sausages. Miss Gale marveled, but smiled,
to see her friend so confidently restored. She too was interested
in meeting the beautiful lady from the other table. Up to now,
however, she had no particular reason to connect Mme. McQueen
with her orchestra friends (all of whom had proved very coy about
admitting any personal connection with Oz).
What was her astonishment then, after names had been
exchanged (some form of these were already known to all from
the purser’s records), when, on an enquiry after home towns, the
business college proprietress calmly stated that she was from a
place called “Burzee.”
Dorothy nearly dropped the loquat she was having for
dessert. “Pardon me!” she gasped. “Would that be ‘the Forest
of—’?!”
“Why, yes,” said ex-Lulea. “Don’t let it get about,” she whis-
pered, “but my girls and I are traveling in disguise! We do stay,
normally, in the Forest of Burzee. Not L.A., as was stated to the
ticket agents.”
Connections were made abruptly in the Kansas girl’s mind
(while Lurline listened fascinatedly, although eating). “So you and
the orchestra ladies...”
“Yes. All one,” admitted Madame, without, at the moment,
giving further details.
“Oh! Good gracious sake,” cried Dorothy. “You’re the Queen
of the Fairies!!” She had stopped eating completely.
Ex-Lulea nodded complacently. “I know I can trust you girls
to keep our secret. You see, I know that you believe. What’s more,
I know you know the magic continent yourself. That’s why I’ve
been so very curious to meet you. I can’t conceal my fascination.
How...?”
“Why, I’m Dorothy Gale!” declared Dorothy Gale.
“Yes, I caught your name,” assured the fairy. “But what I was
wondering was how you came to know about Burzee personally.”
Dorothy blushed. Apparently she was not so famous as she
thought she was. How humbling to have to say, “Well, you see, a
tornado blew away the house I was in and accidentally killed a
137
witch in the fairyland of Oz—”
Mme. McQueen, contrite, laid an earnest hand on Dorothy’s.
“Forgive me, my dear. So you’re that Dorothy Gale?!... I have an
awful memory for names. For instance, at the moment I can’t
remember what my own name is—”
“Why, ‘Mrs. Fay McQueen’,” suggested Lurline, getting in a
word.
“No, we only thought that up the week before last. No!—” she
turned to Dorothy again urgently, resqueezing her hands “if you
recall the name of the Queen of the Fairies, don’t tell me! It turns
out that I’m in a fugue from that name. I don’t care to remember
whatever it was it would remind me of. I shall presently be taking
a new name, but for the moment my traveling alias, ‘McQueen,’
will do.”
Well, they remained talking Oz for ages, until the busboy
absolutely insisted he had to clear the table. Then they went on
deck. Happily the high wind had leveled off and the sea was now
no more than averagely choppy. The three girl-ladies stood right
up at the prow gazing out to sea but really seeing nothing,
because in their minds’ eyes the scene was filled with emerald
towers, as they talked about the most fascinating topic in the world:
Oz.
And yet they were not totally absorbed, for one of them, Queen
Lulea-that-was, suddenly stopped in mid-word and exclaimed:
“Now this is really too marvelous.” (She was being a little bit
disingenuous, for it was in fact partly the result of her own spells
that what was about to happen was about to happen. “Do my
eyes deceive me? Or is that a chicken crate I see bobbing on the
waters down there?”
It was a chicken crate.
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c h a p t e r t h i r t y - t h r e e
Gerry Giraffe elected to amble along beside the red wagon of

those who were going to visit the Swyne family. He wasn’t going
anywhere else—had no travel plans at all; in fact, no plans
period. As far as he could make out he was in a setting where he
had never been before. That was already travel enough and it left
him completely disoriented. The only plan he could even imag-
ine was possibly trying to get back to the little outdoor zoo at
Paignton, Devonshire, and somehow the idea of that filled him
with distaste, although already he could hardly have told you why.
As for Lana Peethisaw, she certainly didn’t intend to be parted
from the person she had already become fondest of, this side
of the Shifting Sands. Oh, she had a great fondness for Queen
Ozma and much esteem for the Wizard, O.Z. Diggs, and even the
obliging taciturn Sawhorse. But she loved Gerry Giraffe. Funny
how the heart is. Grab somebody’s hat with your lips and you
may find out.
Ozma conceded at once when Lana wanted to invite the
giraffe along. There was of course no question of the little girl’s
clinging on her favorite’s back and riding along that way. Giraffes
139
are your non-beast-of-burden par excellence. There’s no level place
to sit or to deposit loads. There’s nothing to hold onto without
awful straining upward. The undulating canter is guaranteed to
shake off anything that may have lodged on the giraffe’s back. So
Gerry just ambled along beside the red wagon. Now and then he
lowered his head to the others’ level to let know that he was
still there any who might have missed the beautiful long rose-
patterned legs (with that curious stiffness) that moved beside the
carriage.
Thrown back on her own devices, the Winkie girl reverted to
her former question to the Wizard; would he tell her something
about the pigs they were going to visit?
“It all began—” reminisced the amiable old man, “as far as I
became concerned—when I was operating the old shell game at a
midway in Los Angeles.” He broke off to explain for neophyte
Lana and the Queen of Oz, for that matter—what a shell game
was. That in turn made it necessary to explain why anyone of
such probity as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz should have been
engaged in any business as dubious as that. Mr. Diggs gallantly
made light of the distresses he had suffered since his creaky old
balloon, returning from Oz, had gone down in a swamp in
Manitoba, and of the number of meals he had missed until he
gravitated back into circus life in the United States.
“It was the disappearance aspect of the shell game that fasci-
nated me,” he explained, “not the hoodwinking—or, if you will,
cheating—of my customers. The penny was always there, under
one of the shells, if they could but have divined which one. But
I loved being able to mystify them, and I grew clever at it.
Apparently the public liked it too because they always came back
for more. I began to branch out. Hiding coins and nuts about my
person became too easy. I took to concealing doves, and even a
mangy rabbit, about other persons’ persons and then drawing
them forth, to general amazement and acclaim.
“One day at the shell table a drunken sailor approached me.
He had, he said, a number of pigs for sale.
“‘Pigs’?” I said. ‘But I’m not in the pork business.’
140
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“‘No-o,’ he admitted blearily. But these were pigs with a dif-
ference. They were that small! And indeed, when he brought them
forth from his kit bag, they were of a diminutiveness! I saw at
once they would be perfect for my act. But could I afford them?
Pigs of that rarity ought to be in a zoo, if not a museum.
“I affected indifference but deigned to listen to what price he
was asking for them. Five dollars a pig! It was a fantastic buy. But
I must not appear too eager. He began to sell. They were his
mother’s pigs, he explained, and he loved them dearly every one.
‘But, see yet’ he blurred further, ‘I ain’t et all day.’ He made no
such claim about drinking. He was on his beam-ends, he mourned,
and was down to his last nine pigs. Would I have a heart?
“I made sure I had all nine swine in a hamper I happened to
have by me before I handed over fifty dollars, five extra to seal
the deal. ‘Where did you get them?’ I demanded coldly.
“‘Off the islan’ of Teen’yweent,’ he explained, no more remem-
bering the mother than I had believed in her.
“‘Where might that be?’ I wanted to know.
“‘In the Pacific —this side o’ the San’wichees. It’s an islan’ where
everything is liddle-biddy. Why, even the hours are no bigger’n
a minute!’
“I took this last for a sickly essay at humor. I was not inclined
to tarry in the fellow’s company. But first I made some show of
trying to establish the legality of the transaction. ‘The pigs are—
were!—your own property?’ I insisted.
“‘Oh, absolutely, yur honor!’
“No doubt I let myself be too easily reassured. But I was wild,
don’t you know, to possess so ideal an adjunct to my carnival act.
The pigs proved admirably teachable. I could not doubt their
intelligence and I had every day proofs of their tractability. The
illusion we practised: of my being able to part one pig into two,
grew steadily in convincingness.
“I should have been content with the renommée I was gaining
as a reliable prestidigitator.
“But no. In talk with the carnival proprietor I let slip that I had
once piloted a balloon. The next thing I knew he had bought out
141
of mothballs a tatty old gas bag left over from the St. Louis world’s
fair, and there I was; aloft again, advertising in the sky.
“The rest you know. I presently came down in the land of the
Mangaboos and Dorothy Gale and I reached Oz, I never to return
to the land of my birth.”
“No, indeed, O.Z.,” confirmed Princess Ozma from the driver’s
seat, “...unless one day you should choose to return there—but only
for a visit.”
They all sat on for a moment in a glow of good feeling. But
after all that wasn’t quite all. Lana still didn’t get the connection
with the Swyne couple and the Wizard had to continue explain-
ing.
“Of course we hadn’t been in Oz any time at all when the pigs
woke up to where we were. They’d got their voices, for one thing—
for purposes other than squealing and grunting. They announced
that this was the land of their birth and spoke of how pleased they
were to be back. On their first free weekend some or all of them
wanted to be off to pay a courtesy call on their parents. They did
so, I’m happy to say. Unfortunately I was unable to get away to
accompany them and the omission has preyed on my mind to
some degree ever since. I’m extremely grateful for the opportu-
nity...” the Wizard trailed off, feeling he should make a big deal of
it, but Ozma waved her whip dismissively.
“Such a strange coincidence,” mused little Miss Peethisaw.
“The piglets are famous in certain circles as coming from the
island of Teentyweent, and yet they’re also native Ozites and their
parents live here. It hardly seems possible to co-ordinate the two
sets of data.”
“It hasn’t been easy!” confirmed the Wizard. “A lot of it is still
unclear to me. Frankly, I’m hoping to hear more of the story in a
few minutes when we reach the Swynes’. But as I can learn...”
Then Diggs recapped for the little girl what the nine tiny pig-
lets themselves had told him: of their being sent abroad when
very young to be educated and of the old happy days in Tiny
Town and of the sailor who had altered their fate and of so many
mysteries of time and aging and of the mind, and of the strange
142
ultimate dream of Blue Hawaii. “It is the piglets’ great hope one
day to see Teentyweent again.”§
“Do you think they will ever find it?” she asked.
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - f o u r
There was frantic activity aboard Lurline II.

After her initial pose of cool casualness Fay McQueen virtu-
ally shrieked: “We must stop the ship!” At the same time she jerked
her pencil wand from her hair-do and made a rapid pass with it,
regardless of consequences. Far away in the bowels of the ship
the engines choked and died.
Dorothy and Lurline stared. What in the world? They
wondered, but they were prevented from wondering long by their
new friend’s throwing herself, figuratively if not literally, on her
knees in front of Capt. Matson’s daughter and pleading, “Miss
Lurline! Could you? Would you use your influence to get the
captain to turn the ship around or or put out a boat, or some-
thing—and pick up that chicken coop?!”
Lurline was alarmed and stuck her head over the side to catch
a last glimpse of the floating box before it disappeared toward the
stern of the ship. “That coop? But what—! Yes, of course, Mme.
McQueen, if you say so. But what excuse can I give?” she jab-
bered as the two females set off at a run for the bridge, Dorothy
§
See THE work TINY PIGLETS OF OZ. Editor’s note.
143
Gale trailing behind and a cortège of fairy stenographers follow-
ing her.
Captain Conrad was much mystified at his employer’s young
daughter’s urgent request but he gave the necessary command.
As it happened, there was a call from the engine room at the same
time, reporting unexpected malfunctioning of the brand new
engines. A temporary halt to perform a small overhaul would not
be amiss. Of course with the engines gone, the halt was inevitable
anyway so why not concede gracefully? After all, Miss Matson
was a sensible young woman who would not interfere with sea-
manship for a whim. Besides—he gave a last sop to his sense of
duty—the ship was named for her.
Propulsionless, there could be no question of turning the
vessel about but a boat was lowered, manned by those seamen
surest of their legs in a pitching sea, and in more time than it takes
to tell they rowed back the quarter mile to where a nondescript
slatted box lurched up and down on the billows.
A crowd of women—girls, really—waited agog at the side of
the Lurline as the boat was winched up. “Oh, thank you, captain!”
cried the captivated queen of the fairies to each sailor in turn as
he stepped on deck. The last man to debark had his arms full of
the great unwieldy crate. It was deposited on the deck and as Fay
McQueen leaned near in a transport of anticipation the ship’s car-
penter applied hammer and chisel.
Yet when the lid was wedged up they all heard a strange si-
lence within. There was no glad cackle of a rescued fowl. Fairy
Butterfly pressed forward, knelt and thrust her arms under the
slanting slate. “Wheuh’s yo’ chiggen, Ma’m McQueen?” she cried.
She groped further and in the remotest recess her hand en-
countered a sodden bundle of feathers. “Oh, happy day!” cried
the dark damsel. “Dauh’s yo’ chiggen!” and she pulled forth the
sorriest-looking yellow hen the world has ever seen.
Ex-Lulea was not worried. She knew she had passed good and
sufficient spells. Her favorite was only temporarily the worse for
wear. When Billina had squatted briefly and reassured herself that
she was again at least on navis firmus, the hen clucked a bit and
144
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
began to look around her.
Suddenly she gave the squawk of her life and came speedily
back to her full perceptions. Let go that she was seeing again that
elusive crowd of fairies she’d lost violent track of more than a
week ago. There among the collection of curious faces above her
was the unmistakable one of Dorothy Gale!
While the fairy women all exclaimed at once, expressing their
satisfaction at seeing again the hen they had feared lost to them
forever (and Butterfly’s voice sang out above the rest, crying, “Oh,
hallelujah. It sho’ is a happy day!”), Billina screamed greetings to
her former protectress.
But slang it was the same deal all over again. In the real world
the bird could only talk Chickenglish. Nobody could understand
a word she was saying!
The girl from Kansas was not asleep, however. From being a
mystified but very sympathetic bystander she now assumed a
leading role. The thing was that, from long association, the
chicken’s native voice, not only her human-speech one, was inti-
mately familiar to the Oz princess. Combine that with the russet-
canary color of the fowl and her whole manner of self-presenta-
tion and there could be no doubt in Dorothy’s mind: this, unbe-
lievable as it might be, was none other than her old favorite and
companion in hair-raising adventures, Billina the yellow hen!
The girl did not stop to consider the impossibility of the
appearance in the Pacific Ocean of the hen she had last seen cluck-
ing contentedly on her roost in the back yard of the Palace of Magic
in the Emerald City. She stepped to the crouching Queen of the
Fairies, laid a restraining hand on her arm, and said, “Mrs.
McQueen,” higher honorifics were not in order within earshot of
innocent mariners, “that chicken can talk as good English as you
or I—”
Fay rocked back on her heels. Not bothering to consider the
miraculosity of Miss Gale’s knowing anything about the case, she
blurted, “Why doesn’t she then?”
Dorothy laughed merrily—and it lightened delightfully the
tense mood of the moment. “Chickens don’t... usually,” she
145
averred, “not outside Oz.”
“Of course. How stupid of me,” said ex-Lulea. “My good
fellows,” she addressed the crewman or two who still stood about,
and sent them on some makeshift errand. It wouldn’t do to have
mortal sailors hear a hen talk. Too much that was strange had
already happened in the business school directress’ vicinity aboard
this ship. She didn’t want the men mutinying or anything due to
superstitious horror. Billina wasn’t an albatross but just the same...
When the area had been cleared of non-initiates, Madame Fay
rubbed the talk talisman she always had about her and murmured
low but clear, “Let this fowl resume use of her original human
language.”
At once Billina’s voice rang on the damp (though balmy) morn-
ing airs “Nå, äntlingen! Kära Ni, jag har ett jätteviktigt meddelande
åt Er från Princessan av Oz!”
146
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - f i v e
It was a bit much. Queen Ozma of Oz had to stand in the yard

and talk to the Swyne couple at their front door. Their home was
too small to allow of inviting anyone inside. Nor did the pair seem
particularly apologetic about the fact. One almost got the impres-
sion they preferred it that way.
“It’s a great pity, really,” said Mrs. Squealina Swyne, keeping
her trotters crossed. “The house is enchanting! I’ve decorated it
so beautifully. You’ve never seen anything like it! But alas, it’s just
too tiny for entertaining. Sometimes I do wish we had more
room—but of course if we did we wouldn’t have any excuse for
not invit—Oh!” she broke off abruptly.
“What Mrs. Swyne is trying to say,” explained Prof. Grunter,
“is that we would be but too delighted to be able to entertain on a
grand scale, but our accommodations simply don’t run to it. So if
you will state your business...”
O.Z. Diggs now took the floor, or rather the ground. There
was no garden furniture for them even to be able to sit down. It
looked as if the visit would be short.
“I have for some time,” he began, “been wanting to call and
147
pay my respects. I have the honor to be associated professionally
with your children—”
As he said this the Swynes looked at each other and Mrs. Swyne
said, “So that’s him?” and the professor; “Yes, he’s the one.”
Not really flattered by the comments, the Wizard proceeded,
“I am devoted to those talented performers, who appear under
the name of the ‘Nine Tiny Piglets’—”
“Oh, is that what they call themselves?” broke in Squealina.
“I think Pigbert mentioned something to the effect the time he
was here,” confirmed her husband.
“You can imagine my surprise,” pursued O.Z. Diggs, “when
after a business relationship extending over many weeks, even
months, the pigs and I arrived in Oz and I learned that their
parents resided here. I know how worried you would have been
all that time—”
“Were we worried?” mused Mrs. Swyne.
“Yes, I believe we were,” the professor tried to put a good face
on their attitude. “Of course,” he appended, “we really didn’t
know the children had been kidnapped until they turned up here
and announced it. By then it was too late to worry.”
“Even so,” the Wizard went on, now only a little short of
exasperated, “I have felt it my duty to approach you and reassure
you yet again that the nine piglets are well and happy and living
in the Emerald City.”
“Good ‘cess to them,” said Professor Swyne, achieving real
heartiness.
“They might as well live there as anywhere,” sniffed his wife.
“May I take it then,” Diggs hurried on, “that I have your bless-
ing on my enterprise of retaining the piglets with me and giving
them a well-rounded education?”
“What’s it worth to you?” the professor startled everyone by
asking. It wasn’t normal procedure or good form in Oz to expect
to be paid for things done or kindnesses rendered.
“Oh—er—” said the Wizard, all at sixes and sevens.
Of a sudden the pig professor turned to his wife. “My dear, do
I not smell the swill boiling over?”
148
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Mrs. Squealina ducked out of sight on cue. It would be dread-
ful to get any splashes on her kitchen carpet.
Swyne turned back to the waiting Wizard. “I tell you what I’ll
do: My wife is house-proud. You may have noticed. But there’s
too little scope for her talent in this bijou bungalow. It’s crammed
to the rafters with her little treasures. We could do with a much
larger place. You say you’re a magician. The pigs also described
how capable you were with your enchanter’s staff. Could you
make over this house to be three or four times larger than it is at
present? And yet it must not appear any bigger to the eye of the
beholder, lest we be inundated with importunate wayfarers want-
ing to guest us and eat us out of house and home.”
O.Z. Diggs could still only say, “Oh—er...” He had never been
asked before to use his magic to so ignoble an end.
Princess Ozma was much more pragmatic. The request would
not essentially alter an already existing, if somewhat deplorable,
state of affairs. She put in: “When I have returned to my fairy
capital I can assist the good Wizard in fulfilling your wish. Once
the reconstruction is effected—by magic means—it involves
merely the invocation of a simple illusion. Granted!”
The pig professor at once became more genial and hospitable.
He even stepped to one side so that the callers could peep within
the cottage and verify the existence and beauty of Mrs. Squealina’s
cuspidors and antimacassars. He waxed effusive and nostalgic.
“Observe the particularity with which each object is placed! Noth-
ing could be more exquisite. Mrs. Swyne could not bear for one
item to be out of place, or for one mote of duet to remain unswept
away. For any refuse to be left lying about would be anathema to
her. Picture then what was her grief when she was given to
understand that she was with child. I sometimes despaired of her
life as the weeks passed and her size increased so that she could
not with ease attend to the tidying of our dwelling or the arrange-
ment of her nicknacks. At last we took extreme measures: the nine
piglets were born prematurely, the smallest (live!) swine the world
has ever seen. But this was Oz and once alive they could not die.
There remained no recourse but to pack them off to a boarding
149
school the moment they could cope on their own. Luckily, in one
of my professional journals we had read of an island in the far
ocean where tininess was the norm. There the piglets’ diminutive
size would pass as the regular thing. We wrote for particulars
and before many weeks had passed the young swine were on their
way and the house again empty, swept, and garnished. Thus el-
egantly did we dispose of the litter.”
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - s i x
It was only a momentary setback.

Captain Matson had taken care that his daughter not learn
any Swedish. One didn’t want that discrediting air of foreignness
hanging over the family and its fortunes. Even so, the Scandina-
vian expletive did escape him from time to time and Lurline
learned to recognize the rhythmic dactyle of Bohuslän speech.
Hence, it was she who cried:
“For gosh sakes, she’s speaking Swedish!”
At that the fairies all came to and realized that they knew
exactly what the hen had said. When they had elected to blot from
their memories the recollection of what they had been through in
Luleg they forgot to forget the language.
The Fairy Queen cried, “Kyckling lilla! Så underbart att få se
Dig igen! Du kan tro vi var ledsna—inte sent, flickor?—”
“För all del, Ere Majestät!” returned the fairies in chorus.
“—då vi trodde att vi aldrig fingo lära känna Dig närmare. Jag
var halt utom mig av raseri då jag upptäckte att Du var borta. Va’
jag skälde på manskapet! och även kaptenen fick känna på den
vassa tungan. Men vad hjälpte dot—”
150
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
At this point Lurline Matson, who was only getting the odd
word, drew Mrs. McQueen’s attention to Dorothy, who wasn’t
getting any. The fairy stopped her stream of speech, turned
several delightful shades, and said, “How idiotic can one get?”
She waved her pencil (now openly revealed to be a fairy wand)
and instantly converted everyone present to full conversability in
both English and Swedish, even Dorothy, who would never in a
million years have any use of the latter language.§
“At last!!” shrieked Billina, virtually collapsing with relief and
gratification. “I’ve been desperate to communicate with you for
more than a week, Your Fairy Majesty. Quick! There’s not a
moment to be lost. I’m sent by Princess Ozma of Oz; to request
your urgent help in a matter that is beyond her powers of
enchantment and which involves the welfare of all Oz!”
The girls all sat down on capstans and hatch-covers to hear
the story. It took the yellow hen half an hour to tell it all in well
chosen words and not leaving out any important details. When
she had done, they all said, “Well...!” and could hardly speak for
amazement at all that had happened, among which the crisis loom-
ing over Oz nearly got lost in the shuffle.
To think!: that the powerful fairy queen of Oz had been wan-
dering in a desert, bereft of all that power, and that her emissary
to the only one who could help had the terrible luck to be washed
overboard for the second time in her life. The coincidences were
too thick on the ground—or rather, on the water—to be able to
handle; that of all places in the world Ambassador Billina should
drift ashore on Teentyweent, with its intimate connection with
Oz—and that Ozma’s great friend Dorothy Gale should turn up
on the same ship as did that fairy queen and mentor whom Ozma
so urgently was seeking—and, not content with this, that a third
Oz-connected personage should make her way to the same ship.
“Well, that part’s not so coincidental.” Ex-Lulea broke into the
circle’s half-articulated wonderings. They all stared at her. More
marvels to be revealed?
§
But wait a minute! See A Swede in Oz. Ed. note.
151
“Yes,” pursued the queen fairy. “Tell me, dear Billina: during
your wanderings on the waves did you ever have the impression
you were being helped along? in any mysterious way or other?”
“Did I!” ejaculated the chicken. “How interesting you should
ask that, your grace. Not right at first, no, but after I left
Teentyweent it was as if strange powers took over. To begin with,
I was only aware of curious shapes half visible in the waters be-
neath me—”
“That would be the sea fairies, reconnoitring,” posited the
Queen. Everyone gaped.
“Then afterwards,” pursued the hen, “dolphins took turns
pushing that crate along.” She glanced aside with some dis-
dain at her floating prison of a week that stood abandoned some
distance away. “But it was like that wasn’t fast enough. The
next thing I knew a whale picked me up and brought me here
like an express train. It only dumped me when we were in sight
of this ship a little while ago!”
Fay McQueen nodded. “As I said: I was an idiot! —and scoun-
drel. Of course as soon as I found you and your crate were miss-
ing I cast a general spell of protection in your favor. But then I got
caught up in a mindless round of pleasure-seeking on Oahu and
it wasn’t until we were aboard Lurline that I had leisure during
the long lazy days at sea to reflect on that strange passage: the
unexplained appearance of a yellow chicken on the deck of a ship
many sea miles from the nearest barnyard. I decided there was
more there than met the eye and I became possessed of a great
curiosity to know the meaning of the incident. I got in touch with
Aquareine, queen of the ocean fairies, and requested her to have
her far-flung subjects comb the broad Pacific. In case they encoun-
tered a hen in a coop still afloat they were to expedite her to my
vessel as quickly as was convenient. Their friends the cetaceans
were glad to assist in the rescue operation.”
So simple when you heard it explained that way.
“But now to this cloud looming over Oz.” The fairy queen
spoke only partially figuratively. “Oh, how idiotic I’ve been,” she
reiterated in sorrow. “Poor Ozma—and poor Oz. Goodness knows
152
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
what’s happened to them in the eight days since the poor girl tried
to get help by sending you to me.” Fay stroked the hen’s now
nearly dried feathers. They were still sticky with salt.
“I’m not so worried about Oz,” remarked the chicken. “The
problem’s grave but probably wouldn’t have got too much graver
in a week. But I am awfully worried about how the Princess has
managed since I left. What if she were still out on that dreary
desert! I think she should be rescued without loss of time.”
“It does make one uneasy,” concurred the queen. “If Ozma
had managed to receive other help before this she would certainly
have sent subsequent word to me. I’ve had nothing—But how
stupid! of course! Nobody knows I’m here! When they tried Burzee
and got no answer—Tell me, my dear—” A sudden thought struck
her. “—when the little Princess teleported you how did she word
the command?”
“I was to turn up in the immediate presence of the Queen of
the Fairies—wherever she might be. Ozma was clever that way.”
“And the fact that she has sent no substitute emissary
weighing less than eleven and a half pounds moat mean that
she is still in the wilderness, far from her capital and her
magic appurtenances.”
“Not to mention,” put in Billina, “my offspring in the palace
courtyard, any one of whom would be glad to come.”
“Yes! The case is grave. Indeed we must lose no time. So then,
how many of us for Oz? Shall we all go?! A wave of the wand—”
Lurline Matson looked enchanted. Not only to be convinced
that Oz was real, but to go there oneself! It—
But Dorothy Gale was looking stricken. To have her long-held
wish granted so miraculously: an excuse, and a pressing one, to
go to Oz! And then—her nimble brain reasoning speedily—to have
to decline!
“Oh, your majesty,” she mourned. “Lurline can’t go to Oz!—
and I can’t either,” she said after only a second’s hesitation.
Lurline’s face fell and all the fairies stared. Not go to Oz? even
when invited by a fairy queen? It didn’t make sense.
“No,” explained Dorothy. “We’re due in San Francisco day
153
after tomorrow. What in the world is dear Captain Matson going
to think—not to mention Miss Lilie—when they tell him his
daughter disappeared off the ship in mid-ocean?”
Everybody gasped, and Lurline said, “Dad...!”
“And if Lurline can’t go I’m certainly not going,” declared
Dorothy loyally and put her arm about her chum’s waist. “It’ll be
bad enough trying to explain how twenty-eight lady passengers,
and an important chicken to boot, vanished without a trace.”
Ex-Lulea was thoughtful. “Don’t let that last part disturb you,
dear. My followers will wait ’til after the ship’s safely docked. And
you were wrong in another particulars ‘Lurline’ will go to Oz.”
Before Miss Matson could get her hopes up again the queen
fairy made haste to explain her little conceit: “When I meet her I
don’t want Princess Ozma calling me by that other distasteful name
whatever it was. And ‘Fay McQueen’ was never more than a stop-
gap. I decided yesterday. I’m taking the name of this delightful
ship where I have passed happy hours. ‘Lurline’: it goes trippingly
on the tongue, whether you pronounce it ‘-leen’ or ‘-lye’n’. Also it
will be a gratification to honor my new young friend—if you give
consent, my dear...?”
Affectionately the queen of the fairies took Miss Matson’s hand.
The fairy band nodded complacently. They remembered.
Things had come full circle.
154
c h a p t e r t h i r t y - s e v e n
The fairy princess of Oz was back at square one. A week out of

her life and away from the claims of her loving subjects who sought
her constantly to determine their suits at law (Ozma was her own
Supreme Court and took those duties seriously)—and what had
she to show for it?
Well, the friendship of her little protegée Lana Peethisaw, of
course. Her acclamation as regent also of all the ghosts of Oz,
indeed of all those who lived on in the magic land when their
time in the great world of the real was done. And even the little
detail of the Swyne couple’s granting of formal fostership rights
over their errant offspring to the gratified Wizard of Oz.
But the problem she had originally set off to seek to arbitrate
was, if anything, with time, only aggravated. Not a word from
Billina and it was now twenty-four hours that the Princess had
been back in her capital city. Ozma’s first act on her return had
been to go to her thaumaturgical laboratory and reinforce the pro-
tective spells of Witch Glinda in favor of the hen.
Lulea, supreme ruler of all immortals exercising power in the
land of Oz and continent of Sempernumquam, was, it seemed,
155
not going to be able to be called on for assistance. Who then could
Ozma turn to?
She shut herself up in the library of the Palace of Magic and
began to read all the books she’d long promised herself to dip
into and so far never had. Sorceress Glinda’s wisdom and her
possession of the great Book of Records notwithstanding, the
richest store of books in all Oz was that in the royal library. The
University of Oz would one day have a collection to rival it but
that was in the future and besides would be mainly science
and literature, rather than magic and fairy lore.
Her project took the young queen all weekend. It was not this
time incantations and transformations she was concerned with. It
was more like history and geography. If Lulea’s vast power could
not be tapped into, who otherwise might conceivably help? and
where were they to be found?
Ozma filled a sizeable note-pad with her jottings. As soon as
ever she would run across a new name and address she would
despatch her maid Jellia to send yet another fairygram: Would
the recipient drop everything and observe the utmost promptness
in coming to the Capitol of Oz to render assistance in a national
crisis?
Many and jumbled were the notes she took; toward the end
perhaps even a bit chaotic:
“..fairy queen of Forest of Lurla on Isle of Yew... Groves of
Trom, home of fairy Hallita... forest of Ethop: place that knooks
revel in: wild & jungley; knooks guardians of trees... Zurline,
Nymph queen... Queen of Water Sprites... King of Sleep Fays,
somewhere in Kingdom of Dreams... Frost King & son Jack Frost...
Sound Imps ...King & Kingdom of Wind Demons; ditto Light Elves:
princes Flash & Twilight, constant companions of Elf kings Flash
recklessly uses blinding flashes of lightning bolt & horn of gun-
powder; Twilight, unguarded, throws all into darkness with great
snuffer & black cloak ... Polychrome & Cloud (or Sky) Fairies...
Spirit of Happiness (lives in Laughing Valley), & Spirit of Death...
“Above all other immortals (!?) are ranked Ak, Master Woods-
man; Bo, Master Mariner; Kern, Master Husbandman... Fire Is-
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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
landers with prince, Forge John... various fairy tribes of Boboland:
Elfeons, Puckerts =? Notabells... fairy unicorn from Halidom...
Aquareine, fairy ruler of Mermaids = Sea Fairies” (Ozma herself
composed the longer and special message that went to Queen
Aquareine.)
“Erma, Queen of Lights; ‘King of Animals’: their authority
overlaps, counteracts? that of King of Light Elves? knooks or other
animal fairies such as Beaver Fairies?
“Concludes all benevolent fairy beings of Sempernumquam
mentioned by Royal Historian as well as other sources.”
But now that she’d got going, the diligent Girl Ruler was not
going to be limited to assistance from merely her own continent
or by beings necessarily familiar to her countrymen. Dusty old
tomes (even Jellia Jamb with her feather duster didn’t get around
to these volumes all that often) were hauled down and Ozma read
up on fay folk never heard of in her own land. The list began to
appear endless: elves, sylphs, knooks, imps, fays, sprites, ryls,
kewpies, cobolds, naiads, nereids, gnomes, afrites, banshees, mer-
maids, erls, djinns (or jinns), nisser, tomtar, fatas, trolls, kelpies,
harpies, hobgoblins (and plain goblins), bogies, sirens, ogres, dry-
ads, oreads, leprechauns, brownies, demiurges, fauns, hamadry-
ads, nixes, nymphs, peris, pixies, pigwidgeons, toovergodins...
As the devoted scholar got into the second half of the alpha-
bet she came across references that piqued her fellow-feeling
curiously. Under “Norway” she read, and noted down: “The Nor-
wegian Thusser, or ‘Mound Folk’, are tall thin elves of great age
and even greater skill. They are the master smiths the Eddas tell
us about and are clever mechanics who know the secrets of old
runes. They live inside mounds, with all the typical characteris-
tics of village life: children, dogs, parties, dances, quarrels...
“Today, the Christians have succeeded in driving a great
number of the thusser out of the country and revile them as
‘evil trolls’...”
In a volume on Russia, Then and Now she came across state-
ments like “As the arms of Mother Church stretched out to
embrace ever more of outlying cultures, feyas, karliks, domovoys,
157
and such baggage fell into increasing disuse, large contingents of
the fabulous creatures even fleeing the country to seek asylum in
less prejudiced regions.” “Tiresome religions,” muttered the little
queen to herself. “They spoil more fun than even politics do.”
The Superiority of the Swedish Ethos contained the most shock-
ing report of all: “Under the terms of an act of the Riksdag of
1853, reinforced generally by local ordinances, most forms of
fairylife were outlawed. The sufferings of hundreds of thousands
of displaced elves, fays, näckar, and tomtar were indescribable as
they were driven like cattle to the borders and forcibly ejected,
into countries scarcely more hospitable than that which they were
leaving.”
“Poor darlings,” Ozma went on talking to herself. “Why
weren’t we informed?” That was more than half a century ago.
Where did they all go? Where are they now?
“I wonder...” she mused on, “They might be more amenable
than most to exercising their fairy gifts in a good cause in exchange
for a safe refuge at last and a haven from their wanderings.”
Sweden. But wasn’t that where Queen Lulea herself had been
off to lately to receive some kind of honorary award? How pecu-
liar. Deporting all your fairy folk with one hand and summoning
in others to be commemorated. That hardly made sense. A fur-
ther veil of grey settled over Ozma’s spirit. Suppose all had not
gone so well for Lulea as assumed?
The girl ruler dispatched an urgent message to the Old
Woman of the Mountain at Blåkulla. She’d know. And she car-
ried on reading.
“Swedish elves (älvor) are Light Elves, not to be confused with
trolls, with whom they have little in common.
“Habitat: live next to rivers, under hills, and in marshes. Their
homes can be seen only once by humans and then vanish, never
to be found again.
“Identifying marks: not daybound and can travel with ease
through air, fire, wood, water, stone. The females ride sunbeams
through keyholes. The males prefer to sit on the edges of moors,
basking in the sunlight. Both sexes can foretell the future and are
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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
guardians of ancient secrets. Because of their power over all things
natural and their great beauty and strength, it is dangerous for
mortals to come in contact with them.
“Occupations: by far their favorite and most characteristic
is dancing. Can often be seen on moonlit nights, weaving cho-
reographic patterns of incredible complexity, tirelessly capering
to the delicate music of stringed instruments. The grass grows
better where they have danced and rich circles of green spring
up under their feet. The elfin dance remains the most dangerous
temptation to those of the mortal world. Men who have stepped
inside their magic circles and felt the whirling vibrations can never
more find safe haven on earth...”
That was as far as the queen got by Monday evening when
she began to be disturbed by unlikely sounds coming from the
ballroom.
As requested, the members of Ozma’s court had left her strictly
undisturbed all the weekend. They were told off to receive, to
welcome, and to make feel at home the various fairy emissaries
as they arrived. Now the little queen began to suspect that they
had done so by staging an impromptu hoedown.
Just so. Making her entry in the fashion that was to become
so popular among royalty in this new century of exaggerated
modesty, Ozma suddenly appeared in the great chamber, unan-
nounced, from behind a drapery. She was nearly caromed into by
Polychrome, the rainbow’s daughter. As usual, Polychrome was
dancing madly and at the moment was further engaged in con-
firming in her own mind her infatuation for her partner, the
Shaggy Man, whom she would soon take the first substantive steps
to attempt to capture for her own.§
“Oh, Your Majesty!” gasped the charming maiden, stopping
in the middle of a back flip.
“Carry on, my dear,” Ozma reassured her. “I’ll just look on
for a bit. But early in the morning we must all gather in solemn
conclave.. I have something most pressing to discuss.”
§
See The Careless Kangaroo of Oz. Editor’s note.
159
She moved on to the refreshment tables and accepted a sup of
dama-fruit punch from Jack Pumpkinhead. There she stood look-
ing out over the fantastic sight of all the fairies and immortals
from the entire continent in a blaze of shimmering colors, moving
in the mazy motions of a gavotte.
Suddenly the chandeliers flared bright as suns in a most un-
characteristic fashion, the orchestra faltered, the dancers were put
off their stroke. A curious hush fell over all.
Then, in the middle of the ballroom, the moat majestic-look-
ing of all fairies was seen resplendent. In her arms she held an
excited-appearing chicken with primrose-yellow feathers.
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c h a p t e r t h i r t y - e i g h t
“How d’ye do?” said the Queen of the Fairies to Princess Ozma
of Oz, who advanced rapidly towards her, “My name’s Lurline,”
she hurried to put in before the Girl Ruler could say anything. “I
believe you sent for me.”
“‘Lurline’!” repeated Ozma, startled. “Queen Lurline! Yes, of
course,” she said, remembering her history. “How very kind of
you to come!” The two did not shake hands, Lurline’s being full
of chicken.
“Very sorry to be so late getting here, don’t ye know! This splen-
did bird did her best, but I wasn’t on my toes. Stills perhaps I’m
not too late,” said the fairy queen, gazing about. “This doesn’t
look like a scene of disaster.”
Ozma colored. “Well, no. In fact the focus of our problem
doesn’t lie in the Emerald City. But I’d sent for all the available
fairy talent to seek their advice, failing that of your own gracious
self. Actually the dance was unplanned, I believe. I’ve only just
been alerted to it myself.”
Lurline sighed. “The girls would so have enjoyed this! But I
dare say duty comes before pleasure,” she went on—a little mys-
teriously as far as Ozma was concerned. The queen fairy saw the
161
questioning expression on the other little queen fairy’s face. As
they walked toward temporary thrones set up at the side of the
hall Queen Lurline began to relate the main heads of her tangled
tale.
Ozma had taken the yellow hen in her arms and now smoothed
her feathers lovingly as she marveled at the story of her adven-
tures. “Billina, my dear,” she murmured, “did you do all that?”
“Yes. And then some,” the hen admitted braggadociously,
loving the limelight, and she added some further details of her
stay on the island of Tinitiwinitihumunuo’ahonomua.
“What a coincidence!” exclaimed Ozma, as if there weren’t
enough of those in this story already. “I’ve just come from visit-
ing the Tiny Piglets’ parents. Oh, Pigmy would love to hear the
news from Teentyweent. I’ll send for him.” This she proceeded to
do, while Queen Lurline accepted Jack Pumpkinhead’s invitation
to perform a cake-walk.
“And, Billina,” went on the little Oz queen presently, “to think
you’ve been with Dorothy! I long with all my heart to see the
princess. I hope she is much grown since last I saw her.”
“Ay, madam, but I would not have it so.”
“Why, my good chicken, it is good to grow. And in the world
outside of Oz there’s nothing that would slow down her coming
to look—let’s sea; why, fair fifteen she’ll be by now.”
“Mmm—and looks it,” reported the hen. “But I want her—
selfishly, I guess—to go on looking like she did when I first knew
her. To me that’s the real Dorothy.”
“To lots of people, I guess,” admitted Ozma. “But how real is
Dorothy going to seem to anyone if, living for years on end in the
outside world, she never grows to appear older than six?”
“I wish we could get her back here to Oz for good,” said Billina.
“Me too,” agreed the princess colloquially. “Next time she
comes here I don’t think we’ll let her get away again.”
With that promise-threat the two tried to be content.
But now Jack Pumpkinhead was escorting the breathless
Queen Lurline back to her place. “And now to affairs, my dear,”
she said, and accepted a cup of cocoa the Scarecrow brought.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Billina speaks of an encroachment of the Winkie country—its
colorization, at least—upon the territory of your Gillikin people.
Please let me have complete details.”
Ozma did so; at suitable length. She ended up saying, “The
frequent and severe sand- and dust-storms are bad enough but in
the long run the xanthification of everything east of Winkieland
is a graver problem. I don’t think we, any of us, want the whole of
Oz turning yellow. But my poor fairy power is not enough—I
know—I’ve tried—to counteract a force of nature.”
“I understand,” said Lurline solemnly. “Nor do I command
other than fairy powers, albeit perhaps in some degree more
potent than yours.” She sat a while and pondered.
“There may be a way,” the great fairy pronounced at last. “Fairy
power can, at least, influence a force of nature to work against
another force of nature.” Ozma hung on her words. “My dear, do
you know what ‘dark matter’ is?”
The Oz princess found the words suggestive but could not
satisfactorily define them as an established concept. Her mentor
had to explain.
“All space is dark, outside the immediate vicinity of stars—or
‘suns’, if you will. This is because light, which ought properly to
suffuse the universe, is sucked away by countless lumps of every
size—of so-called ‘dark matter,’ of infinite density, which hurtle
through space endlessly. These lumps of dark matter—or let
us call them ‘lod’ms’ for brevity—seem to have one dominant
characteristic: they are the most powerful magnets you can imag-
ine—or, rather, fail to imagine. Everything is drawn to them, since
everything includes light, one can understand why they cannot
be seen, or sensed in any way, except by their effects. And yet
they populate the universe thickly.”
“If that be so,” Ozma could not help interjecting, “why is the
Earth not constantly bombarded by them?”
“It is!” declared the Fairy Queen. “But that is another trait of
lod’ms—very little understood, by the way. In some inexplicable
was they seem to take up no space. They can pass straight through
a solid body and leave no trace of their passage!”
163
“You’re right,” said Ozma with a smile, “I can not picture it.”
“Dark matter has one further characteristic,” went on the queen
fairy. “Over time, it would appear that very small lod’ms can in-
deed reach a point of satiety. Their magneticism remains great
but they no longer absorb further solid matter. They become in
short what would appear to be merely balls of rock of incredible
density, while at their heart remains the intensely powerful grain
of dark matter.”
Ozma waited.
Queen Lurline went on: “If we could harness one such it might
solve your problem, your majesty.”
The implications of the magnitude of her mentor’s ability left
the little Oz queen breathless.
“You would be able to influence... to direct nay, to ‘harness’!
—the power of a particle of dark matter, Your Feyness?”
The Queen of the Fairies explained.
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c h a p t e r t h i r t y - n i n e
At about seven o’clock in the morning of June thirtieth, 1906, a

giant fireball was seen moving rapidly over a region of marshy
ground and impenetrable forests near the Tunguska River in north-
central Siberia. Presently a thunderous crash was heard over an
area two hundred miles in diameter as an enormous explosion
leveled trees throughout hundreds of square kilometers of forest.
Even six hundred miles from the point of impact three or four
dull thuds in succession were heard— “like artillery fire,” as one
witness described it—and the atmospheric shock wave circled the
earth twice. Horses and men were flung off their feet many miles
away and windows were broken as far as fifty miles distant, while
the water in rivers rose in huge waves. Over an area as large as
the English county of Middlesex all trees were flattened: laid out
like felled ten-pins, with their trunks radiating outward from the
center of impact.
A huge column of fire over twelve miles high rose from the
earth. It appeared to be about a mile across. In addition to trees
blown down, thousands of conifers burned throughout a twenty-
mile-wide area. The charred carcasses of a large herd of reindeer
165
were afterwards found, but curiously there is no record of any
human fatalities.
As it was early in the morning, most people were still asleep.
One witness recalled how his tent was blown into the air, occu-
pants and all. These suffered bruises and some were left uncon-
scious, but that was the extent of their injuries.
At Vanovara trading station a man raised his axe to hoop a
cask, when “the sky split in two” and flames shot up above the
forest. The whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with
fire. There was a bang in the sky and a mighty crash on the ground
and the man was thrown down.
A plowman heard sudden bangs and his horse fell to its knees.
Horses galloped off in panic, dragging plows, while others col-
lapsed.
A washerwoman was scrubbing wool in the Kam River. She
heard a noise like the fluttering of wings of a huge bird, and a
great swell of water came up the river. After that came a single
sharp bang, very loud. A wall of water was also driven up the
Angara River.
Some carpenters heard two crashes, then after a third they fell
backwards off a building they were at work on. The crashes were
followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky or guns firing.
The ground trembled.
Fir forests were found to have been bent over by a hot wind
blowing peat from the north, so strong that it carried off loose soil
and left traces of its passage on the surface of the ground.
A farmer engaged in harrowing heard a single loud report,
then saw an elongated flaming object flying through the sky, the
front of it much broader than the tail, and of a color like fire seen
by daylight. The object was many times larger than the appear-
ance of the sun but much dimmer and it could be looked at with
the naked eye. Behind the flames trailed what looked like dust,
and blue streamers from the flames were left behind. After the
flaming object had disappeared the farmer heard bangs louder
than gunshots and window panes were broken.
People everywhere abandoned work and crowds gathered in
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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
the streets in terror.
On that date in 1906 the Earth was crossing the trajectory of
the Beta Taurid meteor shower, which is connected with the orbit
of the comet Encke. Comets consist mostly of ice with a propor-
tion of methane and ammonia. Hence, it has been posited that the
“Tunguska event” was caused by an icy cometary fragment about
one hundred meters across, weighing a million tons and moving
at thirty kilometers a second, or seventy thousand miles an hour.
However, despite the tremendous explosion, the shock
waves, and the vast fire, there remained no impact crator. Al-
though a large number of tiny diamonds were found strewn
over the site there was no other trace of debris. A complete
absence of radio-activity at the impact site would seem to indi-
cate that the colliding object is likely to have been anti-matter
annihilated on contact.
Could it have been a mini-black hole that passed through
Earth and out the other side?
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c h a p t e r f o r t y
“Mmm,” said the queen of the Fairies, “—but not out the other
side.”
Princess Ozma was crying quietly but now she looked up with
a tear-stained face and said with alarm, “Not out?”
“No. As near as I can reckon—” Lurline put aside her
abracadabacus and prepared to elucidate: “—the particle of dark
matter is now lodged about forty miles below the surface of the
earth in the southern part of the Deadly Desert, between the
Winkie Country and the Kingdom of Dreams, but rather nearer
the former.”
“But, oh!” cried Ozma, shocked. She had thought this inter-
planetary power play a strictly one-shot, temporary phenomenon:
a massive geophysical twist to be accomplished one time for all
and, with that, basta. “Won’t that represent an ever-present, on-
going danger?”
“Why, no. Once a fragment of dark matter stabilizes in a par-
ticular location it is quite harmless. Why? did you think it will
blow up or something?”
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CHAPTER FORTY
“I don’t know. But if it continues to suck everything to it as it
did before...?”
“But that’s just what we’ve—well, I’ve counted on! At first I
did consider shifting the Earth on its axis, so the Poles would be
at the equator, and then the prevailing ‘westerly’ winds would
change course and blow what we would think of as north-south.
But than I decided that would create too many mix-ups generally.
No, this way is much more elegant.”
“Please explain, Your Grace.”
“Well, an I said, the magnetic power of the fragment of dark
matter now buried thousands of fathoms deep in the earth will
remain potent. The ‘fragment,’ by the way, is about as big as a
thumbnail. All the solid matter associated with it was atomized
on impact: that’s what made the big bang and fire—”
Ozma wept afresh.
“Come, my dear,” said Lurline, “don’t grieve too much. What’s
done—although undoable—could have been much worse.
“As I was saying, the lod’m will naturally continue to exercise
its pull. This will involve a certain amount of suction of the earth
material directly around it. We may even observe a general low-
ering of the desert level—oh, only by a few yards, well, say a quar-
ter of a mile at most—on the surface of the earth above the frag-
ment. But that tendency too will change. As the lod’m reaches its
level of satiety the inward-attracted earth around it may build up
in a sort of wen effect, resulting possibly in a hill visible on the
(sunken) desert surface.§ It will be quite interesting to keep tabs
on that as the years go by.
“More important, for our purposes,” the great fairy went on,
“is the fact that that magnetic drag will, first and easiest of all,
attract all mere winds and air currents. Winkie topsoil has already
ceased to blow over eastward into the land of the Gillikins. Your
§
In fact, (at least in Alternate Oz) the result was two great rocks of surpassing
density and, in themselves, great magnetic force, which dust broke the surface
of the desert. See A. Volkov: The Wooden Soldiers of Oz. Curiously, in Alternate
Oz, the excrescences are located in the desert beyond the Munchkin, rather
than the Winkie, country. Editor’s note.
169
problem is solved.”
“Oh, I know! and I’m infinitely grateful to you, Your Grace,”
exclaimed the girl ruler. “But I can’t forget those poor reindeer!”
Fresh paroxysms of weeping.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep harping on that, my dear,” said
Queen Lurline with a trace of acerbity. “I’ve said I’m sorry. I
miscalculated. The ‘comet’ was supposed to have come down in a
totally unpopulated region of pack ice just short of the North Pole.
Let us, rather, count ourselves fortunate that the meteorite itself
came to rest, finally, pretty exactly where I intended.”
“Oh, I know. But just the same, it spoils my satisfaction. I
almost wish...”
“What?”
“That we hadn’t sent to Siberia to know the full extent of the
disaster.”
Lurline, made of sterner stuff than the gentle little Oz queen,
replied: “In the spirit of scientific enquiry one has to take the
bitter with the sweet. Anyway, that wasn’t strictly my doing, was
it? Admittedly, I sent word to the girls aboard Lurline to pick up
what information they could on the way home to Burzee. They
had planned to head east to collect those stragglers at New York
and Macao but when they got my message a contingent trans-
ported themselves west again instead, to Vladivostok. But as you
quite well know, the true close-up story of the tragedy came via
those domovoys you sent for. They were actual eye-witnesses in
own persona to what happened.”
“Yes, yes, it’s my own fault,” sobbed Ozma. “That’s what makes
it worse. But I couldn’t lose any time in sending out a general
invitation to displaced wee-folk everywhere to come and make
their home in Oz. I hadn’t realized there were still plenty of
domovoys and karliks hidden out in obscure corners of the great
Russian empire. Apparently there’s quite a concentration of them
in Siberia...”
“Your motivations in everything and in every respect were
irreproachably kind and well-intentioned, my dear and worthy
Ozma,” stated the ranking fairy queen with great dignity. “Any-
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CHAPTER FORTY
way, since you’ve also sent for the deer themselves to spend their
post-lives in Oz, what’s the loss?”
“Untimely earth-death is always sad,” declared Ozma,
“even if some of the sufferers do get to come to this country
afterwards and live on. It is felt—and I share the feeling—that
a natural full life in the great world is preferable to a ‘consola-
tion’ existence in Oz.”
“‘Consolation’ life you call it?”
“That’s how I’ve come to think of it. As near as I can deter-
mine it only occurs in the case of individuals of great promise
who die before that promise is fulfilled. I’ve been reading up
on it in the library.”
Ozma’s attack of the weeps seemed to be subsiding as she got
interested in describing her intellectual pursuits. “Incidentally one
very quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore told how a
sovereign fairy could invoke transmigration even in the case of
individuals lacking any particular promise. So of course I did that
in the matter of the poor reindeer. But after all, eight thousand
deer suddenly transplanted to that Ice Plateau—!”
“You said you found the place totally unpopulated,” returned
Lurline. “Sounds like a most equitable arrangement to me.”
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c h a p t e r f o r t y - o n e
The Sawhorse was harnessed and the red wagon sparkled,

fresh furbished after its return from the Munchkin country and
now ready for a sally into the Winkie one. Ozma was going to
make a progress to the far northwest but this time with adequate
preparation, not impromptu and essentially harum-scarum as last
time.
After a week-long joyous reunion of Queen Lurline of All Fair-
ies with as many of her far-flung tributaries as she had in fact
ever seen gathered in one place, the great enchantress had
received a royal send-off back to Burzee, where further enjoyable
reunions awaited her. Fellow Queen Zurline and a bunch of the
visiting ryls went along with her. The parting with Billina the hen
had been particularly affecting.
But that was not before Lurline had had a farewell chat with
her friend Lurline just off the Lurline. She found out Captain
Matson’s home number and put through a call via a hook-up of
her two-way wrist wireless with the local San Francisco telephone
system.
“Mission accomplished,” the queen of fairies announced mat-
ter-of-factly to the California girl. “Everything fine here. But how
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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
are you, my dear?”
“Oh, hunky-dory, your majesty,” declared Lurline. “Lovely to
see the home folks again. And of course I can’t let Dorothy go—”
“Oh, yes, how is Miss Gale?” the queen remembered to ask.
“Splendid... That is, she’s missing the girls in the band like
mad—oh, and her friend, the hen.”
“Billina? She’s right here. Would Dorothy like to have a word
with her?”
“Oh, boy. I know she would! Wait a second, your highness.”
So Dorothy came on and talked to Billina, and then there was
nothing for it but Dorothy must speak with Ozma and the two
got very sentimental and Dorothy declared that it had been an
awful wrench not to get to go to Oz this time, and Ozma also
regretted it desperately and said that they must make some
arrangement whereby the Kansas girl could come to Oz perma-
nently and Dorothy promised that she would work on it but that
it was so hard because of her aunt and uncle but naturally—
“Of course your first loyalty is to them, my dear,” said Ozma.
“Your loyalty to your friends is one of your most striking—and
admirable traits. And now that to Miss Matson as well—”
“Yes, Lurl is fabulous!” gushed Dorothy. “She’s by far my best
girl friend! I don’t know—oh, what am I saying?! Oh, Ozma, how
stupid I am! How could I—Oh, Lurl don’t look at me like that!
Oh, Ozma, this is terrible! Oh, Lurl...!” The rest of Dorothy’s speech
was drowned in gasps and sobs.
Lurline Matson took the phone.
“Princess Ozma? This is Lurline Matson. Dorothy has told me
so much about you. Poor girl, she’s having a bit of a seizure. But
we’re not going to hold it against her, are we? Having a new friend
doesn’t mean there’s any less room in your heart for the old—
what?... Yes, exactly: that’s very good: ‘It just makes the heart get
bigger.’ I’ll tell her that!... Oh, she’ll get over it.
“I’ve got a special treat for her. We’re going riding this after-
noon. Yes, isn’t it ridiculous?: she doesn’t ride! She says in Kansas
horses are for plowing, not riding around on. And she’s even got a
horse! but she never thought of riding him... Oh, it’s an old cab-
173
horse named Jim. But of course!: that’s right, the cab-horse has
been in Oz, so Dorothy claims. I guess everyone’s been to Oz but
me. I’d love to go but—well, we’ll see. Thank you!... and I’ll never
forget that I have spoken with the fairy Queen of Oz.”
•••••
But now the last gossamer draperies of the last sprites and
pixies had fluttered into invisibility and the great green Palace of
Magic echoed emptily with their absence. Ozma couldn’t bear it
and sought comfort in the intimacy of the little company of friends
who were setting out for Cut-Out County.
Ozma drove, of course, and Lana sat beside her. The original
membership of the original expedition was reconstituted, and the
Scarecrow occupied the back seat with the Yellow Hen (oh—and
the Wizard of Oz) while H.M. Wogglebug flew lookout overhead.
Lana’s now inseparable companion, Gerry the Giraffe, cantered
along beside. He was getting more and more back to his old
accustomed easy gait every day.
Jack Pumpkinhead and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers
saw the party off. Jellia Jamb put a massive basket of cold bacon
sandwiches on the floor of the back of the wagon. Some of Billina’s
children ran after them in the dust when the vehicle started off at
a smart pace.
This time they took leisure to see everything properly:
Loonville, the Ice Town. They rode the little ferry across to Kite
Island and spent an afternoon flying—and, in the case of Prof.
Wogglebug, even becoming!—kites. For they were not going any-
where that couldn’t wait. Who knew when this particular com-
pany—if ever—would pass that way again?
Nights they spent under the paper or cloth marquees O.Z.
Diggs was getting clever at erecting out of whatever magazines
or scarves people happened to have along. The Jaunty Giraffe
stood guard, what time he wasn’t snoozing against whatever trees
were tall enough and anywhere handy. He had the Scarecrow for
company in wakeful moments.
174
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The lazy days, dawdling along, seemed to inspire poetess
Peethisaw to renewed heights of creativity. The Conference of
Fairies at the Emerald City appeared to have made a great
impression on her so that now her effusions were full of allusions
to the Little Folk. Although the last of the elves and goblins had
been seen in the flesh the day Queen Lurline left town, there was
nothing to stop Lana from enjoying continued delight in their com-
pany in dreams. That’s how it happened that she came to break-
fast one morning with this creation (in lieu of newspapers) for the
entertainment of her companions:
“Hello, down there.
Can you see me?
Sssshhh!
I’m hiding
‘cause there’s
a little elfin boy
looking for me.
He’s ‘it’.
And I don’t want
to be ‘ it’
with him.
So sssshhh!
Don’t tell him
I’m here.
(You can tell him
about the fairy
hiding behind
that flower though!)”
This was so well written and the Ozzish was so good that ev-
eryone gave congratulations and felicitated her on the excellent
work.
Maybe they shouldn’t have done that quite so declaratively
because it seemed to make her muse(s) sweep particularly low
over her, with the result that Lana spent the whole rest of the day,
as they dogged along, with Billina the hen on her lap and a dreamy
expression on her face.
175
At dinner time she was able to move her companions with the
following:
Please, come knock at my door.
Here I em waiting, waiting within.
Rap firm and true,
For if you knock too softly,
Though I fain would,
I may not hear.
But if you knock too loudly
I may fear,
Remembering one grim visitor
And I a tender fern
Beneath the giant’s step.
Please come to my cottage.
One step will take you far.
Don’t be a stranger to my gate.
With arms extended I await.
Is that a storm aloud on your brow?
Please some and see my garden!
We’ll change that cloud to cleansing showers,
Trade your rain for friendly flowers
And garlands of sweet scents.
Knock, knock upon my door,
That I may welcome you inside.
And see! there is the seat I proffer,
And here the warmth of company,
And on the hearth, a gentle fire...”
Princess Ozma was so convinced of the efficacy of the mea-

sures taken by Lurline, Queen of the Fairies, to put a stop to the
encroachments of the Winkie coloration upon the territory of the
Gillikins that she didn’t bother to follow the current color divid-
ing line between the two lands to its end. Perhaps too, somewhere,
subconsciously, she a little dreaded any further encounter with
the unsavory Flatheads. Instead, she laid out a route more west-
erly, so that in time the party in the red wagon came in sight of the
176
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
woolen walls of the little capital city of Patch off to the southwest.
At the following crossroads they took the turning for Kuma
Party. That proved to be quite a different sort of party from there
own. They spent the last night of their journey there. What with
the marigold wine that was served (in tulip cups) it turned out to
be party-party far into the night.
You can be sure that Miss Peethisaw was a busy little person
after they at length made it to her cottage in Out-Out County. She
felt that she had been, all the long days of her travels with Ozma,
only receiving hospitality above and beyond the call of duty and
especially at the end of the trip, with those weeks at the girl ruler’s
capital. She had received some buffets too, of course: that tour
in the dust storm, their sufferings on the ice plateau, even the
inhospitality of the Swynes. Now it was time for her to offer and
what she meant to offer was going to be all good.
Leaving Ozma and the Scarecrow to give Wizard Diggs a
conducted tour of Honey Hill, Lana dived into her toy kitchen.
Everything was little-girl-sized, but it worked. Throwing a pile of
clams into a colander, she set water to boil. She got busy with
milk, cream, syrup, honey, malt, and an egg beater. She put oil on
to heat in the cast-iron pot and soon corn was popping sweet
music.
In half an hour everything was ready. Lana went out in the
garden, where Billina was having her own meal already, of a nice
assortment of grubs. “These are as tasty as any I’ve found in Oz,”
commented the hen.
“I’m glad,” Bald Lane. “Eat your fill. You didn’t care to see
Honey Hill again?”
“Since I’m not allowed to eat the bees there it would have
seemed rather a feast of painted grapes.”
Lana strolled on down a path lined with California poppies to
where, beyond the garden gate, the Jaunty Giraffe rested, legs
folded under him, beneath a spreading baobab tree. The girl sat
down in the high grass beside him and leaned her back against
his flank. They had no need for words.
Presently Billina followed along the path and with a cackle
177
scrambled into Lana’s lap. “I like it here,” she said, her eyes half-
lidded in drowsy contentment.
“Do you, Billina? I wish you’d stay. You know—oh, I know
everything’s always fixed and perfect in Cut-Out County, but just
the same, I’m going to be lonely when you all go...”
Billina opened one eye speculatively and looked up. “You mean
that? about staying here?”
“I do, I do.” The little girl was warm in her insistence. “I have
Gerry and I’m so fond of him, but for company inside the house...”
She let her invitation remain unrearticulated. “But you’d miss the
high life in the Emerald City. And it wouldn’t be right to keep you
out of all the Oz adventures in years to come.”
“If they’re going to be as much fun as this last one,” clucked
the hen, remembering her ten nights in a barred room, and that
room floating half submerged in salt water, “I think I’d just as
soon skip ’em.”
So that was settled and no more needed to be said. They sat
on silently, just resting... and remembering. Oh, lazy days and
warm still country twilights. The high soft laughter from the quar-
ters. The golden warmth and security of those days.
Presently Lana Peethisaw took from her apron pocket her bat-
tered old pad and pencil and she wrote:
“In the long tall green grass
with my knees bent and the sun beating down,
making new freckles on my nose,
I see castles in the clouds.
Beautiful tall enchanted castles
with billowing flags waving in the wind.
The wind changes the shapes of the flags
and the castles change too,
into a wide fluffy weeping willow,
whose dangling branches partly hide
a young boy talking to a butterfly.
The butterfly flies away
and the air from its fluttering wings
changes the weeping willow
178
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
into a giant rose about to bloom.
As its petals open I can see a tiny fairy
sleeping contentedly inside.
She opens her eyes and, seeing me,
shyly closes the petals.
The rose is altered to a ship
sailing far out at sea.
I feel the gentle rolling
of the waves of grace beneath me.
I fall asleep and sail the ship
into the sunset of long dreams.
179
c h a p t e r f o r t y - t w o
The wogglebug with the light flimsy Scarecrow on his back

had flown on ahead and Ozma and the Wizard were left to make
a swift but essentially repetitive journey by red wagon on their
own. As the Sawhorse raced across the miles the two passengers
sped the time in beguiling talk.
The companions from whom they had just parted naturally
formed the immediate topic of their conversation.
“A curious trio,” commented O.Z. Diggs at the reins. Ozma
was having a well-earned rest on this journey home. “—but each
one most likable in his way.”
“Yes, I’m devoted to them all,” affirmed the princess.
“But perhaps ‘curious’ was the right word,” attested the
Wizard. “There was something I didn’t quite grasp. It’s—well,
curious—but somehow I felt Billina was the realest of the three.
The little poetess was brilliant with her art and the giraffe as jaunty
and jolly as you like. But after all there was something the least bit
pale pastel—about those two.”
Ozma stared. Diggs caught her silence and threw a quick glance
her way. He was astonished to find her agape—as much as a
180
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
delicate princess of Oz could look agape.
“Oh, Wizard, I thought you guessed,” she breathed.
“‘Guessed’, your majesty?” he said, flustered, knowing he’d
missed something.
“Oh, O.Z., I should have spoken.” Ozma was really contrite
and the Wizard didn’t know why. “Don’t you remember? Like—
well, at the phone, remember?, when Queen Lurline called San
Francisco. We all had a word with the girls, you too but not Lana.”
“She’d never met them,” said Diggs reasonably.
“But that wasn’t the reason. I didn’t invite her to speak—nor
did she ask. Her voice wouldn’t have carried.”
“Not carried?” echoed the Wizard, acting awfully dense.
“Yes, little Lana can never have any personal contact with the
outside world. On the other hand, she fits in beautifully in Oz—
because she can never die.”
Finally, the Wizard got it. “I see. Because she has already.”
Ozma gave a little crooning sound of assent. Then they were
silent.
“May I know?” said Diggs presently. “The circumstances?”
“Of course.” Ozma settled herself, half turned aside to speak
toward the Wizard’s ear. “I heard of it during those two bleak
days in the derelict house. I’m afraid it didn’t make the time any
jollier for us, but I think it was a relief for the little girl to speak of
it to someone...”
O.Z. broke in. “But Lana’s a Winkie! and Winkies don’t die.”
“Of course when these individuals come to Oz, they appear
as natives. That’s the way it works! Certainly it makes their life
here easier. But didn’t you notice? Lana says ‘Yiss’ not ‘Yes.’ She’s
a little New Zealand girl.”
“New Zealand!” exclaimed the Wizard. “I wondered at the
accent—and one or two turns of phrase.”
“She had leukemia. Her death was long, drawn-out and ago-
nizing. I believe her parents were completely devastated by the
loss. Lana had a little sister but it was herself, so young and gifted
and full of charm, in whom the hopes of the family rested. Now,
as I can learn—I’m new at this, Wizard. Remember it’s just five
181
years and a bit since I came to the throne. There’s still so much to
find out!—but as far as I can discover it is only, in the case of
human beings, those who can expect to come to Oz who can
expect to come to Oz.
“That sounds like a conundrum, doesn’t it? What I mean to
say is this: that apparently only persons who know about Oz come
here; those who believe in it and those who actually wish for it.
Now it appears that during those long sad weeks Lana’s mother
read to her the English classics and then at the town library she
discovered others: American books. At once the little girl loved
the tales of Oz and I gather they were the very last thing in her
mind when the time came. That’s the way it happens...”
“But Gerry then? the young giraffe. Is he—?”
“Yes, the same thing. The story is equally distressing. Of course
Gerry hadn’t read any Oz books! But the thing occurs in the same
way with regard to animals: promising, and cut off before their
time.
“Gerry had been at a small zoo in southern England only a
few weeks but was—he modestly confessed—already the favor-
ite of the crowds. Intelligent and frisky and not shy with the pub-
lic. They called him even then the ‘jaunty giraffe.’
“Then one morning he tried to leap a shallow dividing ditch:
never a wise thing for a giraffe to do, but he was young and inex-
perienced—and alone at the zoo, with none of his own kind about
to serve as models for behavior. He leapt, and the ground was
wet and he slipped—and came down spraddled, the four legs
splayed out in the four directions. He couldn’t fall any further
and he couldn’t scramble up. The young giraffe was trapped by
his own legs.
“The zoo folk, who were devoted to him, were distraught, but
what could they do? Nobody thought quickly enough or they
might have brought a construction crane from a distance, but that
would have had to be by railway and the zoo was not near the
line. They had to stand there and watch him die by inches,
silently, struggling to raise himself... until his strength gave out.
And all the zoo public looking on: it was right inside the perim-
182
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
eter fence—until the authorities had grace enough to close off the
road until it should be over...
“And so Gerry same to Oz.”
“His awkward gait, at first,” said O.Z. Diggs. “I wondered
about that.”
“Yes,” said Ozma.
Let’s leave them there: speeding onward to the green city far
away where it is never too late for dreams to be made real.
Meanwhile, in another part of Oz, a little girl and her giraffe
still play along the road and over the hill where the sun is always
high but the air is cool.
Workington, Cumbria, 17 August 1988

Lund, 9 May 1989
183

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A Fairy Queen

Copyright © 1989 by March Laumer

Second provisional edition: March 2006

Published with the long-standing encouragement of

THE VANITAS PRESS

With verse interpolations by Bernard Hewitt,

Decorations by Catherine M. Michanczyk

Title page by Michael Vincent

All contributions copyright 1989 by their creators

Opium Books series number 31

With special acknowledgment to Nancy Arrowsmith and

Blow the wind westerly, westerly.

* See The Magic Mirror of Oz

Princess Ozma had to smile indulgently. “How odd,” she

“Then be it so,” quoth the Queen of the Fairies, “and go we to

“Hey!” squawked Billina, the yellow hen.

And then they all met at Penn Station—or, in this case, at

The gentleman in the corner seat, unobserved by any of his

Bright—well, not so bright: the sky was full of a yellow haze—

Indeed, Princess Ozma had cause to be afraid, though in fact

§ See The Road to Oz. Editor’s note.

§ See Ozma of Oz. Editor’s note.

It was vague in limbo.

“What are you doing, dear?”

As it happened, Billina had not previously met the Queen of

“Oh, Miss Matson!” screamed Dorothy, jumping up and down,

Lurline absolutely insisted on being allowed to help Aunt Em

“I believe I will miss him a lot,

The fairies really had fun on Oahu. They turned themselves

“Oh, Dad!” cried Miss Matson, “how terribly disappointing!

“That’s it!” gasped Billina and flopped back in the corner of

“Sad grey light dawned

Billina’s only consolation, as she staved a sad and lonely fare-

“Would this place do for lunch?” asked the Wizard.

The fairy hummingbirds completed their circuit of the Hawai-

Princess Ozma was not as irresponsible in the face of contend-

“Fantastic,” said Mme. McQueen and looked at the two nau-

Relieved, Princess Ozma shook the reins gaily, determined to

Further friendships were being forged about the same time.

Gerry Giraffe elected to amble along beside the red wagon of

There was frantic activity aboard Lurline II.

It was a bit much. Queen Ozma of Oz had to stand in the yard

It was only a momentary setback.

The fairy princess of Oz was back at square one. A week out of

At about seven o’clock in the morning of June thirtieth, 1906, a

The Sawhorse was harnessed and the red wagon sparkled,

Princess Ozma was so convinced of the efficacy of the mea-

The wogglebug with the light flimsy Scarecrow on his back

Workington, Cumbria, 17 August 1988

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