surprising,
therefore, that the Red Wagon arrived
before Jinjur's house just as that
energetic young lady
had finished scrubbing the Green Monkey and was about
to lead him to the caramel patch.
Chapter Thirteen
The Restoration
The Tin Owl gave a hoot of delight when he saw the Red
Wagon draw up before Jinjur's house, and the Brown Bear
grunted and growled with glee and trotted toward Ozma
as fast as he could wobble. As for the Canary, it flew
swiftly to Dorothy's shoulder and perched there, saying
in her ear:
"Thank
goodness you have come to our rescue!"
"But who are you?" asked Dorothy
"Don't you know?" returned the Canary.
"No; for the first time we noticed you in the Magic
Picture, you were just a bird, as you are now. But
we've guessed that the giant woman had
transformed you,
as she did the others."
"Yes; I'm Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter,"
announced the Canary.
"Goodness me!" cried Dorothy. "How dreadful."
"Well, I make a rather pretty bird, I think,"
returned Polychrome, "but of course I'm
anxious to
resume my own shape and get back upon my rainbow."
"Ozma will help you, I'm sure," said Dorothy. "How
does it feel, Scarecrow, to be a Bear?" she asked,
addressing her old friend.
"I don't like it," declared the Scarecrow Bear. "This
brutal form is quite beneath the
dignity of a wholesome
straw man."
"And think of me," said the Owl, perching upon the
dashboard of the Red Wagon with much noisy clattering
of his tin feathers. "Don't I look
horrid, Dorothy,
with eyes several sizes too big for my body, and so
weak that I ought to wear spectacles?"
"Well," said Dorothy critically, as she looked him
over, "you're nothing to brag of, I must
confess. But
Ozma will soon fix you up again."
The Green Monkey had hung back,
bashful at meeting
two lovely girls while in the form of a beast; but
Jinjur now took his hand and led him forward while she
introduced him to Ozma, and Woot managed to make a low
bow, not really ungraceful, before her girlish Majesty,
the Ruler of Oz.
"You have all been forced to
endure a sad
experience," said Ozma, "and so I am
anxious to do all
in my power to break Mrs. Yoop's
enchantments. But
first tell me how you happened to stray into that
lonely Valley where Yoop Castle stands."
Between them they
related the object of their
journey, the Scarecrow Bear telling of the Tin
Woodman's
resolve to find Nimmie Amee and marry her, as
a just
reward for her
loyalty to him. Woot told of
their adventures with the Loons of Loonville, and the
Tin Owl described the manner in which they had been
captured and
transformed by the Giantess. Then
Polychrome
related her story, and when all had been
told, and Dorothy had several times reproved Toto for
growling at the Tin Owl, Ozma remained
thoughtful for a
while, pondering upon what she had heard. Finally she
looked up, and with one of her
delightful smiles, said
to the
anxious group:
"I am not sure my magic will be able to
restoreevery one of you, because your
transformations are
of such a strange and
unusualcharacter. Indeed,
Mrs. Yoop was quite justified in believing no power
could alter her
enchantments. However, I am sure
I can
restore the Scarecrow to his original shape.
He was stuffed with straw from the
beginning, and
even the yookoohoo magic could not alter that. The
Giantess was merely able to make a bear's shape of
a man's shape, but the bear is stuffed with straw,
just as the man was. So I feel
confident I can make
a man of the bear again."
"Hurrah!" cried the Brown Bear, and tried clumsily to
dance a jig of delight.
"As for the Tin Woodman, his case is much the same,"
resumed Ozma, still smiling. "The power of the Giantess
could not make him anything but a tin creature,
whatever shape she
transformed him into, so it will not
be impossible to
restore him to his manly form. Anyhow,
I shall test my magic at once, and see if it will do
what I have promised."
She drew from her bosom a small silver Wand and,
making passes with the Wand over the head of the Bear,
she succeeded in the brief space of a moment in
breaking his
enchantment. The original Scarecrow of Oz
again stood before them, well stuffed with straw and
with his features
nicely painted upon the bag which
formed his head.
The Scarecrow was greatly
delighted, as you may
suppose, and he strutted
proudly around while the
powerful fairy, Ozma of Oz, broke the
enchantment that
had
transformed the Tin Woodman and made a Tin Owl into
a Tin Man again.
"Now, then," chirped the Canary,
eagerly; "I'm
next, Ozma!"
"But your case is different," replied Ozma, no
longer smiling but wearing a grave expression on
her sweet face. "I shall have to experiment on you,
Polychrome, and I may fail in all my attempts."
She then tried two or three different methods of
magic, hoping one of them would succeed in breaking
Polychrome's
enchantment, but still the Rainbow's
Daughter remained a Canary-Bird. Finally, however, she
experimented in another way. She
transformed the Canary
into a Dove, and then
transformed the Dove into a
Speckled Hen, and then changed the Speckled Hen into a
rabbit, and then the
rabbit into a Fawn. And at the
last, after mixing several powders and sprinkling them
upon the Fawn, the yookoohoo
enchantment was suddenly
broken and before them stood one of the daintiest and
loveliest creatures in any
fairyland in the world.
Polychrome was as sweet and merry in
disposition as she
was beautiful, and when she danced and capered around
in delight, her beautiful hair floated around her like
a golden mist and her many-hued
raiment, as soft as
cobwebs, reminded one of drifting clouds in a summer
sky.
Woot was so awed by the entrancing sight of this
exquisite Sky Fairy that he quite forgot his own sad
plight until be noticed Ozma gazing upon him with an
intent expression that denoted
sympathy and sorrow.
Dorothy whispered in her friend's ear, but the Ruler of
Oz shook her head sadly.
Jinjur, noticing this and understanding Ozma's looks,
took the paw of the Green Monkey in her own hand and
patted it softly.
"Never mind," she said to him. "You are a very
beautiful color, and a
monkey can climb better than a
boy and do a lot of other things no boy can ever do."
"What's the matter?" asked Woot, a sinking feeling at
his heart. "Is Ozma's magic all used up?"
Ozma herself answered him.
"Your form of
enchantment, my poor boy," she said
pityingly, "is different from that of the others.
Indeed, it is a form that is impossible to alter by any
magic known to fairies or yookoohoos. The
wickedGiantess was well aware, when she gave you the form of
a Green Monkey, that the Green Monkey must exist in the
Land of Oz for all future time."
Woot drew a long sigh.
"Well, that's pretty hard luck," he said bravely,
"but if it can't be helped I must
endure it; that's
all. I don't like being a
monkey, but what's the use of
kicking against my fate?"
They were all very sorry for him, and Dorothy
anxiously asked Ozma:
"Couldn't Glinda save him?"
"No," was the reply. "Glinda's power in trans-
formations is no greater than my own. Before I left my
palace I went to my Magic Room and
studied Woot's case
very carefully. I found that no power can do away with
the Green Monkey. He might
transfer, or exchange his
form with some other person, it is true; but the Green
Monkey we cannot get rid of by any magic arts known to
science."
"But -- see here," said the Scarecrow, who had
listened
intently to this
explanation, "why not put the
monkey's form on some one else?"
"Who would agree to make the change?" asked Ozma. "If
by force we caused anyone else to become a Green
Monkey, we would be as cruel and
wicked as Mrs. Yoop.
And what good would an exchange do?" she continued.
"Suppose, for
instance, we worked the
enchantment, and
made Toto into a Green Monkey. At the same moment Woot
would become a little dog."
"Leave me out of your magic, please," said Toto, with
a reproachful growl. "I wouldn't become a Green Monkey
for anything."
"And I wouldn't become a dog," said Woot. "A green
monkey is much better than a dog, it seems to me."
"That is only a matter of opinion," answered Toto.
"Now, here's another idea," said the Scarecrow. "My
brains are
workingfinely today, you must admit. Why
not
transform Toto into Woot the Wanderer, and then
have them exchange forms? The dog would become a green
monkey and the
monkey would have his own natural shape
again."
"To be sure!" cried Jinjur. "That's a fine idea."
"Leave me out of it," said Toto. "I won't do it."
"Wouldn't you be
willing to become a green
monkey --
see what a pretty color it is -- so that this poor boy
could be
restored to his own shape?" asked Jinjur,
pleadingly
"No," said Toto.
"I don't like that plan the least bit," declared
Dorothy, "for then I wouldn't have any little dog."
"But you'd have a green
monkey in his place,"
persisted Jinjur, who liked Woot and wanted to help
him.
"I don't want a green
monkey," said Dorothy
positively.
"Don't speak of this again, I beg of you," said Woot.
"This is my own
misfortune and I would rather suffer it
alone than
deprive Princess Dorothy of her dog, or
deprive the dog of his proper shape. And perhaps even
her Majesty, Ozma of Oz, might not be able to
transformanyone else into the shape of Woot the Wanderer."
"Yes; I believe I might do that," Ozma returned; "but