The Emerald City of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum (best free e book reader .TXT) 📖

inhabitants that they scarcely noticed the strangers at all. So the Wizard stopped a boy and asked:

“Is this Rigmarole Town?”

“Sir,” replied the boy, “if you have traveled very much you will have noticed that every town differs from every other town in one way or another and so by observing the methods of the people and the way they live as well as the style of their dwelling places it ought not to be a difficult thing to make up your mind without the trouble of asking questions whether the town bears the appearance of the one you intended to visit or whether perhaps having taken a different road from the one you should have taken you have made an error in your way and arrived at some point where—”

“Land sakes!” cried Aunt Em, impatiently; “what’s all this rigmarole about?”

“That’s it!” said the Wizard, laughing merrily. “It’s a rigmarole because the boy is a Rigmarole and we’ve come to Rigmarole Town.”

“Do they all talk like that?” asked Dorothy, wonderingly.

“He might have said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and settled the question,” observed Uncle Henry.

“Not here,” said Omby Amby. “I don’t believe the Rigmaroles know what ‘yes’ or ‘no’ means.”

While the boy had been talking several other people had approached the wagon and listened intently to his speech. Then they began talking to one another in long, deliberate speeches, where many words were used but little was said. But when the strangers criticized them so frankly one of the women, who had no one else to talk to, began an address to them, saying:

“It is the easiest thing in the world for a person to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when a question that is asked for the purpose of gaining information or satisfying the curiosity of the one who has given expression to the inquiry has attracted the attention of an individual who may be competent either from personal experience or the experience of others to answer it with more or less correctness or at least an attempt to satisfy the desire for information on the part of the one who has made the inquiry by—”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Dorothy, interrupting the speech. “I’ve lost all track of what you are saying.”

“Don’t let her begin over again, for goodness sake!” cried Aunt Em.

But the woman did not begin again. She did not even stop talking, but went right on as she had begun, the words flowing from her mouth in a stream.

“I’m quite sure that if we waited long enough and listened carefully, some of these people might be able to tell us something, in time,” said the Wizard.

“Let’s don’t wait,” returned Dorothy. “I’ve heard of the Rigmaroles, and wondered what they were like; but now I know, and I’m ready to move on.”

“So am I,” declared Uncle Henry; “we’re wasting time here.”

“Why, we’re all ready to go,” said the Shaggy Man, putting his fingers to his ears to shut out the monotonous babble of those around the wagon.

So the Wizard spoke to the Sawhorse, who trotted nimbly through the village and soon gained the open country on the other side of it. Dorothy looked back, as they rode away, and noticed that the woman had not yet finished her speech but was talking as glibly as ever, although no one was near to hear her.

“If those people wrote books,” Omby Amby remarked with a smile, “it would take a whole library to say the cow jumped over the moon.”

“Perhaps some of ‘em do write books,” asserted the little Wizard. “I’ve read a few rigmaroles that might have come from this very town.”

“Some of the college lecturers and ministers are certainly related to these people,” observed the Shaggy Man; “and it seems to me the Land of Oz is a little ahead of the United States in some of its laws. For here, if one can’t talk clearly, and straight to the point, they send him to Rigmarole Town; while Uncle Sam lets him roam around wild and free, to torture innocent people.”

Dorothy was thoughtful. The Rigmaroles had made a strong impression upon her. She decided that whenever she spoke, after this, she would use only enough words to express what she wanted to say.

23. How They Encountered the Flutterbudgets

They were soon among the pretty hills and valleys again, and the Sawhorse sped up hill and down at a fast and easy pace, the roads being hard and smooth. Mile after mile was speedily covered, and before the ride had grown at all tiresome they sighted another village. The place seemed even larger than Rigmarole Town, but was not so attractive in appearance.

“This must be Flutterbudget Center,” declared the Wizard. “You see, it’s no trouble at all to find places if you keep to the right road.”

“What are the Flutterbudgets like?” inquired Dorothy.

“I do not know, my dear. But Ozma has given them a town all their own, and I’ve heard that whenever one of the people becomes a Flutterbudget he is sent to this place to live.”

“That is true,” Omby Amby added; “Flutterbudget Center and Rigmarole Town are called ‘the Defensive Settlements of Oz.’”

The village they now approached was not built in a valley, but on top of a hill, and the road they followed wound around the hill, like a corkscrew, ascending the hill easily until it came to the town.

“Look out!” screamed a voice. “Look out, or you’ll run over my child!”

They gazed around and saw a woman standing upon the sidewalk nervously wringing her hands as she gazed at them appealingly.

“Where is your child?” asked the Sawhorse.

“In the house,” said the woman, bursting into tears; “but if it should happen to be in the road, and you ran over it, those great wheels would crush my darling to jelly. Oh dear! oh dear! Think of my darling child being crushed into jelly by those great wheels!”

“Gid-dap!” said the Wizard sharply, and the Sawhorse started on.

They had not gone far before a man ran out of a house shouting wildly, “Help! Help!”

The Sawhorse stopped short and the Wizard and Uncle Henry and the Shaggy Man and Omby Amby jumped out of the wagon and ran to the poor man’s assistance. Dorothy followed them as quickly as she could.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Wizard.

“Help! help!” screamed the man; “my wife has cut her finger off and she’s bleeding to death!”

Then he turned and rushed back to the house, and all the party went with him. They found a woman in the front dooryard moaning and groaning as if in great pain.

“Be brave, madam!” said the Wizard, consolingly. “You won’t die just because you have cut off a finger, you may be sure.”

“But I haven’t cut off a finger!” she sobbed.

“Then what HAS happened?” asked Dorothy.

“I—I pricked my finger with a needle while I was sewing, and—and the blood came!” she replied. “And now I’ll have blood-poisoning, and the doctors will cut off my finger, and that will give me a fever and I shall die!”

“Pshaw!” said Dorothy; “I’ve pricked my finger many a time, and nothing happened.”

“Really?” asked the woman, brightening and wiping her eyes upon her apron.

“Why, it’s nothing at all,” declared the girl. “You’re more scared than hurt.”

“Ah, that’s because she’s a Flutterbudget,” said the Wizard, nodding wisely. “I think I know now what these people are like.”

“So do I,” announced Dorothy.

“Oh, boo-hoo-hoo!” sobbed the woman, giving way to a fresh burst of grief.

“What’s wrong now?” asked the Shaggy Man.

“Oh, suppose I had pricked my foot!” she wailed. “Then the doctors would have cut my foot off, and I’d be lamed for life!”

“Surely, ma’am,” replied the Wizard, “and if you’d pricked your nose they might cut your head off. But you see you didn’t.”

“But I might have!” she exclaimed, and began to cry again. So they left her and drove away in their wagon. And her husband came out and began calling “Help!” as he had before; but no one seemed to pay any attention to him.

As the travelers turned into another street they found a man walking excitedly up and down the pavement. He appeared to be in a very nervous condition and the Wizard stopped him to ask:

“Is anything wrong, sir?”

“Everything is wrong,” answered the man, dismally. “I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?” inquired Omby Amby.

“If I go to sleep I’ll have to shut my eyes,” he explained; “and if I shut my eyes they may grow together, and then I’d be blind for life!”

“Did you ever hear of any one’s eyes growing together?” asked Dorothy.

“No,” said the man, “I never did. But it would be a dreadful thing, wouldn’t it? And the thought of it makes me so nervous I’m afraid to go to sleep.”

“There’s no help for this case,” declared the Wizard; and they went on.

At the next street corner a woman rushed up to them crying:

“Save my baby! Oh, good, kind people, save my baby!”

“Is it in danger?” asked Dorothy, noticing that the child was clasped in her arms and seemed sleeping peacefully.

“Yes, indeed,” said the woman, nervously. “If I should go into the house and throw my child out of the window, it would roll way down to the bottom of the hill; and then if there were a lot of tigers and bears down there, they would tear my darling babe to pieces and eat it up!”

“Are there any tigers and bears in this neighborhood?” the Wizard asked.

“I’ve never heard of any,” admitted the woman, “but if there were—”

“Have you any idea of throwing your baby out of the window?” questioned the little man.

“None at all,” she said; “but if—”

“All your troubles are due to those ‘ifs’,” declared the Wizard. “If you were not a Flutterbudget you wouldn’t worry.”

“There’s another ‘if’,” replied the woman. “Are you a Flutterbudget, too?”

“I will be, if I stay here long,” exclaimed the Wizard, nervously.

“Another ‘if’!” cried the woman.

But the Wizard did not stop to argue with her. He made the Sawhorse canter all the way down the hill, and only breathed easily when they were miles away from the village.

After they had ridden in silence for a while Dorothy turned to the little man and asked:

“Do ‘ifs’ really make Flutterbudgets?”

“I think the ‘ifs’ help,” he answered seriously. “Foolish fears, and worries over nothing, with a mixture of nerves and ifs, will soon make a Flutterbudget of any one.”

Then there was another long silence, for all the travelers were thinking over this statement, and nearly all decided it must be true.

The country they were now passing through was everywhere tinted purple, the prevailing color of the Gillikin Country; but as the Sawhorse ascended a hill they found that upon the other side everything was of a rich yellow hue.

“Aha!” cried the Captain General; “here is the Country of the Winkies. We are just crossing the boundary line.”

“Then we may be able to lunch with the Tin Woodman,” announced the Wizard, joyfully.

“Must we lunch on tin?” asked Aunt Em.

“Oh, no;” replied Dorothy. “Nick Chopper knows how to feed meat people, and he will give us plenty of good things to eat, never fear. I’ve been to his castle before.”

“Is Nick Chopper the Tin Woodman’s name?” asked Uncle Henry.

“Yes; that’s one of his names,” answered the little girl; “and another of his names is ‘Emp’ror of the Winkies.’ He’s the King of this country, you know, but Ozma rules over all the countries of Oz.”

“Does the Tin Woodman keep any Flutterbudgets or Rigmaroles at his castle?” inquired Aunt Em, uneasily.

“No indeed,” said Dorothy, positively. “He