For a while the travelers were constantly losing their direction, for
beyond the thistle fields they again found themselves upon the
turning-lands, which swung them around in such a freakish manner that
first they were headed one way and then another. But by keeping the City
of Thi constantly behind them the adventurers finally passed the
treacherous turning-lands and came upon a stony country where no grass
grew at all. There were plenty of bushes, however, and although it was
now almost dark the girls discovered some delicious yellow berries
growing upon the bushes, one taste of which set them all to picking as
many as they could find. The berries relieved their pangs of hunger, for
a time, and as it now became too dark to see anything they camped where
they were.
The three girls lay down upon one of the blankets--all in a row--and
then the Wizard covered them with the other blanket and tucked them in.
Button-Bright crawled under the shelter of some bushes and was asleep in
half a minute. The Wizard sat down with his back to a big stone and
looked at the stars in the sky and thought gravely upon the dangerous
adventure they had undertaken, wondering if they would ever be able to
find their beloved Ozma again. The animals lay in a group by themselves,
a little distance from the others.
"I've lost my growl!" said Toto, who had been very silent and sober all
that day. "What do you suppose has become of it?"
"If you had asked me to keep track of your growl, I might be able to
tell you," remarked the Lion sleepily. "But, frankly, Toto, I supposed
you were taking care of it yourself."
"It's an awful thing to lose one's growl," said Toto, wagging his tail
disconsolately. "What if you lost your roar, Lion? Wouldn't you feel
terrible?"
"My roar," replied the Lion, "is the fiercest thing about me. I depend
on it to frighten my enemies so badly that they won't dare to fight me."
"Once," said the Mule, "I lost my bray, so that I couldn't call to Betsy
to let her know I was hungry. That was before I could talk, you know,
for I had not yet come into the Land of Oz, and I found it was certainly
very uncomfortable not to be able to make a noise."
"You make enough noise now," declared Toto. "But none of you has
answered my question: Where is my growl?"
"You may search _me_" said the Woozy. "I don't care for such things
myself."
"You snore terribly," asserted Toto.
"It may be," said the Woozy. "What one does when asleep one is not
accountable for. I wish you would wake me up, some time when I'm
snoring, and let me hear the sound. Then I can judge whether it is
terrible or delightful."
"It isn't pleasant, I assure you," said the Lion, yawning.
"To me it seems wholly unnecessary," declared Hank the Mule.
"You ought to break yourself of the habit," said the Sawhorse. "You
never hear me snore, because I never sleep. I don't even whinny, as
those puffy meat horses do. I wish that whoever stole Toto's growl had
taken the Mule's bray and the Lion's roar and the Woozy's snore at the
same time."
"Do you think, then, that my growl was stolen?"
"You have never lost it before, have you?" inquired the Sawhorse.
"Only once, when I had a sore throat from barking too long at the moon."
"Is your throat sore now?" asked the Woozy.
"No," replied the dog.
"I can't understand," said Hank, "why dogs bark at the moon. They can't
scare the moon, and the moon doesn't pay any attention to the bark. So
why do dogs do it?"
"Were you ever a dog?" asked Toto.
"No, indeed," replied Hank. "I am thankful to say I was created a
mule--the most beautiful of all beasts--and have always remained one."
The Woozy sat upon his square haunches to examine Hank with care.
[Illustration]
"Beauty," said he, "must be a matter of taste. I don't say your judgment
is bad, friend Hank, or that you are so vulgar as to be conceited. But
if you admire big waggly ears, and a tail like a paint-brush, and hoofs
big enough for an elephant, and a long neck and a body so skinny that
one can count the ribs with one eye shut--if that's your idea of beauty,
Hank--then either you or I must be much mistaken."
"You're full of edges," sneered the Mule. "If I were square, as you are,
I suppose you'd think me lovely."
"Outwardly, dear Hank, I would," replied the Woozy. "But to be really
lovely one must be beautiful without and within."
The Mule couldn't deny this statement, so he gave a disgusted grunt and
rolled over so that his back was toward the Woozy. But the Lion,
regarding the two calmly with his great yellow eyes, said to the dog:
"My dear Toto, our friends have taught us a lesson in humility. If the
Woozy and the Mule are indeed beautiful creatures, as they seem to
think, you and I must be decidedly ugly."
"Not to ourselves," protested Toto, who was a shrewd little dog. "You
and I, Lion, are fine specimens of our own races. I am a fine dog and
you are a fine lion. Only in point of comparison, one with another, can
we be properly judged, so I will leave it to the poor old Sawhorse to
decide which is the most beautiful animal among us all. The Sawhorse is
wood, so he won't be prejudiced and will speak the truth."
"I surely will," responded the Sawhorse, wagging his ears, which were
chips set in his wooden head. "Are you all agreed to accept my
judgment?"
"We are!" they declared, each one hopeful.
"Then," said the Sawhorse, "I must point out to you the fact that you
are all meat creatures, who tire unless they sleep, and starve unless
they eat, and suffer from thirst unless they drink. Such animals must be
very imperfect, and imperfect creatures cannot be beautiful. Now, _I_ am
made of wood."
"You surely have a wooden head," said the Mule.
"Yes, and a wooden body and wooden legs--which are as swift as the wind
and as tireless. I've heard Dorothy say that 'handsome is as handsome
does,' and I surely perform my duties in a handsome manner. Therefore,
if you wish my honest judgment, I will confess that among us all I am
the most beautiful."
The Mule snorted and the Woozy laughed; Toto had lost his growl and
could only look scornfully at the Sawhorse, who stood in his place
unmoved. But the Lion stretched himself and yawned, saying quietly:
"Were we all like the Sawhorse we would all be Sawhorses, which would be
too many of the kind; were we all like Hank, we would be a herd of
mules; if like Toto, we would be a pack of dogs; should we all become
the shape of the Woozy, he would no longer be remarkable for his unusual
appearance. Finally, were you all like me, I would consider you so
common that I would not care to associate with you. To be individual, my
friends, to be different from others, is the only way to become
distinguished from the common herd. Let us be glad, therefore, that we
differ from one another in form and in disposition. Variety is the spice
of life and we are various enough to enjoy one another's society; so let
us be content."
"There is some truth in that speech," remarked Toto reflectively. "But
how about my lost growl?"
"The growl is of importance only to you," responded the Lion, "so it is
your business to worry over the loss, not ours. If you love us, do not
inflict your burdens on us; be unhappy all by yourself."
"If the same person stole my growl who stole Ozma," said the little dog,
"I hope we shall find him very soon and punish him as he deserves. He
must be the most cruel person in all the world, for to prevent a dog
from growling when it is his nature to growl is just as wicked, in my
opinion, as stealing all the magic in Oz."
[Illustration]
Button-Bright Loses Himself
[Illustration]