“That was really too bad of you Toto,” panted the little girl reprovingly. “You wouldn’t eat a poor little baconfly, would you?”
“Woof, gr-rr woof!” sulked Toto, which was Kansas for “You bet I would!” Pretending not to understand this last remark, Dorothy fanned herself with her broad straw hat and started slowly back toward the lane. But the baconfly had led them such a roundabout chase that when she did come to the lane she turned in exactly the opposite direction from the way she had intended, and instead of walking toward the Emerald City she began walking away from it. But as neither she nor Toto was aware of this fact, they progressed most cheerfully, Dorothy carrying on a one-sided conversation with the saucy little bow-wow. Occasionally Toto would bark or wag his tail, but most of the time he listened in superior silence to the little girl’s chatter of the fun they had had in Nick Chopper’s tin castle.
Now how Nick Chopper came to have a castle is a story in itself, for Nick has, in the course of his strange and interesting life, risen from a wood-chopper to Emperor of all the Winkies and from an ordinary blood and bone man to a real celebrity of tin. Yes, Nick is entirely a man of tin, as you can see by referring to any of the histories of Oz. In these same histories it is recorded how a wicked witch enchanted Nick’s ax, so that first it cut off his legs, then his arms and finally his body and head. But you cannot kill a good Ozman like Nick Chopper and after each accident he hied him to a tin-smith for repairs. First the tin-smith made him tin legs, then tin arms, next a tin body and at last a tin head, so that he was completely a man of tin. And this same little Dorothy, on her first trip to Oz, had discovered the Tin Woodman, rusting in a forest, had oiled up his joints and taken him to the Emerald City itself. There the Wizard of Oz had given him a warm, red plush heart, which he still has and since then Nick has been in almost every important adventure that has happened in the wonderful Land of Oz. Ozma, the little fairy ruler of Oz, finding Nick so dependable and so unusual, has made him Emperor of the East, and the loyal little Winkies have built him a splendid tin castle in the center of their pleasant yellow country.
Dorothy herself was first blown to Oz in a Kansas cyclone and after a great many visits to this delightful country, determined to stay for good. Ozma, with the help of her magic belt, transported Dorothy and Uncle Henry and Aunt Em and Toto to the Land of Oz. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em have a comfortable little farm just outside of the Emerald City, but Dorothy and Toto have a cunning apartment in the Emerald Palace itself, for Ozma cannot bear to have Dorothy far away. The two girls—for Ozma herself is only a little girl fairy—have been through so many adventures together that they are almost inseparable, and to show her love and affection for this little girl from the United States Ozma has made Dorothy a Royal Princess of Oz.
But through all her honors and adventures Dorothy has remained the same jolly little girl she was in Kansas. Every now and then she puts aside her silk court frocks, slips into an old gingham dress and steals off for a visit to some of her friends in the country.
“We’ll soon be at the Scarecrow’s, Toto; shall you like that?” she asked, after skipping along for five whole minutes without speaking. “Perhaps he’ll have corn muffins and honey and—Whatever’s that?”
“Little girl! Little girl!” A voice came echoing high and clear down the sunlit lane. Toto pricked up his ears, and Dorothy, shading her eyes, turned in the direction of the voice. Running toward her was a young man clothed all in buff—an extremely excited and agitated young man—and by the time he reached Dorothy and Toto he was perfectly breathless.
“Well—” began Dorothy, hardly knowing what else to say.
“Not very well, thank you,” puffed the young man, slapping at his face with a yellow silk handkerchief. On closer inspection Dorothy saw that his handsome suit was torn and muddied and the young man himself exceedingly scratched and weary.
“I am most unhappy,” he continued, regarding her mournfully. “At least, when I can remember to be. It is hard to be unhappy in a lovely country like this.”