CHAPTER 7
The Trials of Tattypoo
On the same evening Philador and Akbad flew off from the Ozure Isles, the Good Witch of the North sat quietly before her fire, spinning silver from straw. From time to time Agnes, her pet dragon, would toss a log on the blaze and set it glowing with her fiery breath. The cat with two tails purred drowsily in the chimney corner and nothing could have been cozier than this little room in the good witch's hut. And Tattypoo was content. Ruling over the north Country, settling disputes between its small kingdoms, and advising the Gillikens about everything from birthday parties to preserves, filled her time most pleasantly. The door of the good witch's hut was never bolted and no one, coming for help or advice, had ever been turned away. So though her skin was drawn and wrinkled and her hair white as snow, and the little hut plainly, even poorly furnished, Tattypoo was perfectly happy.
But Agnes, the amiable dragon, was not. Agnes longed for grandeur and style and felt that the ruler of all the Gillikens should wear a crown or live in a castle. Agnes, while not exactly conceited, felt that her own beauty was utterly wasted in this little hut. She longed to flash her silver scales and switch her tail at the fine courts of Oz. But Tattypoo was neither vain nor ambitious and only chuckled when Agnes complained of the poorness of their dwelling, the plainness of the food and the lack of servants to wait upon them. She had lived so long in the purple forest on the Gilliken mountain side that she had grown to love every tree and tumbling brook and even the witch's little cottage.
At the time The Wizard first came to Oz it was ruled over, as you well know, by four witches. Little Dorothy's house fell on the wicked witch of the East, and later this same little Dorothy had put out with a pail of water the wicked witch of the West. Glinda the good sorceress had conquered the bad witch of the South and Tattypoo had conquered Mombi, the wicked witch of the North, not before she had stolen Cheeriobed's Queen, however, and done many mischievous transformations. At first Mombi had been deprived of her magic powers but after her last attempt to capture the Emerald City she, too, had been put out with a pail of water, so that Tattypoo was the only witch of any power or consequence in Oz. And as she explained over and over again to Agnes, being a good witch in an important country like Oz was honor enough for her, and as long as she used her magic powers for good and so long as the Gillikens were peaceful and prosperous under her rule, she would be perfectly satisfied and happy.