THERE WAS a time very long ago when the world was fast becoming a civilized place. Becoming civilized is in many ways a good thing, for it is like growing up; but to the magic-folk and fairy-peoples, it is a most discouraging turn of affairs. When this happens, when a country becomes civilized, when there are too many buildings and roads and people concerned with working and money, it drives away the magic from a land and all the magical beings must go elsewhere to live. That is just what happened back in those days.

A band of fairy-people on their way from here to there, led by their Queen, whose name was Lurline, happened to look down in their flight and saw, between the clouds, a beautiful landscape far below. What they saw was a little continent—smaller than any of the others—in the middle of the great ocean, far away from Australia or America or the rest. This continent, called Imagination (the "magi" part refers to magic, you know), was so isolated that it had remained uncivilized; and between its shores dwelt many humble mortals with childlike hearts who still lived among the magic-folk. Some parts were desolate, even a little dangerous; but on the whole it was a quaint and lovely place.

"It surely isn’t right that this land below will finally be like all the rest," said Queen Lurline to her fairy-advisers, as they flew around her in wide circles, still looking down. "They too must become civilized in time; and then the magic will depart from their midst, and the last contact between our kind and mortals will be broken."

"Sad, sad, how sad!" cried her advisers all together, looking anxiously at their queen to see what sort of advice might please her.

"But perhaps something can be done," continued Lurline after thinking for a moment. "Of course we are not permitted to meddle too much in the destinies of the earth-people. But limited though our powers may be by fairy-law, we are not helpless to do what is right."

What she did was this. With the help of her fairies she wove a spell of separation and protection around the continent, causing the nearby parts of the ocean to be cut off forever from the rest of it, so that it would be very difficult—not impossible, but almost—for the outside world to get in. The small part of the ocean that was now enclosed by the magic wall, and which surrounded the continent of Imagination on all sides, was given a new name, the Nonestic Ocean.

"You have done well, O Queen," chorused the advisers.

"Yes, I think I have," agreed Queen Lurline, who always agreed with praise. "If they wish to become civilived, they will do so. But it shall be on their own schedule, and nothing shall be forced upon them by the rest of the world. We have done a good deed, haven’t we? And now," she concluded, "let us proceed on our way."

The fairy-band flew on, and many years passed before they happened that way again.

"Look," said Queen Lurline, "there below is that happy continent we protected from civilization and its discontents."

Now the Queen had one adviser, a boy-fairy, whose name was Ozymandius; this means "the great and good knower of What Is To Be" in the language of the magical folk, where names always describe the real nature of the person. As he knew What Was To Be—insofar as it could be known at all—he often had to disagree with the decisions made by other beings less blessed with the wisdom of foresight. Because of this the others usually did not like him as much as they liked themselves. Now, frowning, he spoke up.

"Good Queen," said he, "if it was your wish to protect the mortals who live in this beautiful land, I fear there may be a bit more to be done. Let us fly on a little further, and I will show you another sight."

The fairy-band flew on, not sure whether to smile or frown, looking at their Queen, who wasn’t so sure herself. After a little while the clouds below began to thin out and finally disappeared altogether, and they saw what Ozymandius had wanted them to see.

In the middle of the continent was a large fresh lake of the purest water, sparkling a deep blue-green beneath the sun. The lake was so big that, if it had been nothing but water all the way across, it would have covered quite a portion of the continent—like the hole in a doughnut. But it wasn’t all-water after all, for it was mostly filled by a four-sided island. The lake waters surrounded the island like the moat around a castle.

This island was the most splendorous expanse the band had yet seen, covered completely by a lush green quilt of different kinds of trees and grasses, with round hills and modest mountains poking their heads up here and there, and the sunlight making little diamonds on merry streams and laughing waterfalls that no mortal eye had ever seen.

"Listen to the birds!" cried Queen Lurline.

"We are listening, O Queen," chorused the others.

"They are more content here than anyplace else on earth," said Ozymandius. "My foresight tells me so. It is so with all the beasts, as well. And what is more remarkable, they have this great contentment even in the presence of mortal men!"

This statement provoked many outbursts of astonishment. It is well known that mankind and beastkind generally do not get along.

"You say there are men here, Ozymandius." Queen Lurline turned a rather serious gaze upon her subject, who now hung immobile in his flight, like a dragonfly. "What sort of men are they?"

"There are men and women and children, four tribes of them living in four separate settlements on the four sides of the island. In the eastern part of the island the people call themselves Munchkins. In the west are the Winkies; in the north, the Gillikins; and in the south, the Quadlings. They are pleasant, peaceful, innocent mortals; most of them are farmers. All the settled areas are close-by to the shore, and some of the people travel across the lake, where they have commerce with the people on the opposite side. The island people are not afflicted with any great ambition for themselves or their children. For now, they are as content as the beasts and birds that live in the forests."

The Queen nodded to show that she understood, but said pointedly, "You have shown us this for a reason, Ozymandius."

"I have indeed, gracious Queen," he replied. "It is my fate to know something of What Is To Be, and I foresee your happiness darkened by regret one day to come."

"But why?"

"Because these peaceful people will come to a bad end unless we do more than we have done," said Ozymandius. "The people of the mainland will increase in number, for they cannot help it, and some day they will cross the lake from all directions in fleets of boats and claim the island for themselves. Then there will be terrible fighting."

"I cannot bear the thought of it!" exclaimed the Queen. "It seems I must think once again."

She proved equal to this daunting task, and a plan of action was evolved in a few fairy-heartbeats—which is very little time indeed, for fairy hearts beat as fast as those of hummingbirds. First, by magical art, all the living things in the lake that surrounded the island were moved gently to new homes that were safer and more pleasant for them. And then the fairies flew low above the now-empty waters, almost touching the waves and moving very fast as they spoke the words of a spell of evaporation. All the waters rose up, and the waves became a fine spray, the spray became a cloud of steam, the steam became a mist that was hard to see, and finally the faint mist became nothing at all. The lake bed, which was several score miles between its former shores even at the narrowest, lay dry and empty all around the island.

Then the fairies of Queen Lurline ordered the lesser spirits of the lower air, who have no will of their own and must do the bidding of others, to gather sand and dust and sharp bits of rock from all around the world and fill up the lake bed all the way to the top, making a flat surface. They then cast three enchantments on this desert waste.

The effect of the First Enchantment was to make the whole desert as bleak and hot and forbidding as possible, day or night. Even the air above became repellant, full of fumes that rose straight up into the sky, foul enough to discourage all but the highest-flying of birds.

The Second Enchantment began at the second mile out—from the island side and from the opposite side as well. It would cause anyone hardy enough to pass the first mile to become overwhelmed with the instinct to turn back and flee to safety.

But the Third Enchantment, which began with the third mile and extended all across the desert to the other side, was the most dreadful, and would only catch those who were blindly foolhardy. Should any living creature touch the surface of the desert from that point forward, even through materials like leather or wood that had once been part of something living, that unlucky traveller would turn instantly to sand and dust and fall to pieces with the very first step.

"This terrible enchantment is necessary if we are to achieve our purpose," said Queen Lurline. "Now the island is no longer an island in water, but an island in a deadly desert, like an oasis. In fact, it is doubly protected, for the continent around it is also cut off from the mortal world." With that the fairy-band flew off again; and if anyone noticed Ozymandius shaking his head, no one cared to mention it.

Time passes swiftly in the sky-world, which is where fairy-folk of Queen Lurline’s type reside. When they once again found themselves in the neighborhood, it seemed they had been there recently; though in fact generations of mortals had lived and died down below.

"That desert is surely an ugly scar upon the land," commented Lurline. "One wonders what it is doing so close to such a lush and pretty country."

"You ordered it put there yourself," Ozymandius made answer as he flew nearby.

"Did I?" she exclaimed—though it was rather languid for an exclamation. "I wonder why."

"To protect the people of the country and preserve their innocence."

"A worthy goal," said the Queen. "I was wise to have done it, not to mention good; and vice-versa."

The boy-fairy lowered his eyes. "I must speak honestly, O Queen," he said softly. "The desert is not enough, if it is your wish that the people below remain happy. Even now there are so few of them, and the land surrounded by the desert is so wide and spacious, that the four tribes haven’t yet bumped into one another. But that will change, as it always does. They will meet; and when mortals meet, there are disagreements and wars, and soon enough their present contentment will be lost to them."

The Queen shook her head impatiently, and all her advisers—except Ozymandius—shook their heads too. "What fools these mortals be!" Lurline liked the sound of that, and repeated it a few times, for emphasis.

"Sadly, my Queen, foolish is just what they are," concurred Ozymandius, "for they are very young compared to us. Consider this. The lovely land below us has no name as yet—no single name, that is. The whole of it is called by the Munchkins, Munchkin Land, for they think they dwell there alone and it is theirs to name as they please. But the Gillikins call it the Nation of the Gillikins. To the Winkies it is Great Winkiedom. The Quadlings know it as the Country of the Quadlings. I foresee and forehear that when the tribes meet, they will fight a war on the subject of which name shall be the official and proper one, and that will be the end of happiness."

"I won’t have it!" cried the Queen imperiously. "But I have already cut the continent off from the rest of the mortal world with an ocean barrier, and I have cut this central land off from the rest of the continent with a desert barrier. What is left for me to try?"

Said Ozymandius, "I see what you will do, and I see what will happen if you didn’t do it—though of course you will."

"Then I command you to advise me," said the Queen.

"The four peoples of this cut-off land are too innocent and unworldly to live forever in peace. They will ruin their own happiness if they are left to be ruled in the manner of mortals, by monarchs and generals and bullies and persons who think themselves better than everyone else. They need someone wise and foresighted to settle their disputes and to advise them—" Here Ozymandius gulped. "—just as I have advised you."

The Queen nodded her agreement. "I must leave one of my band behind."

"And it shall be me, Queen."

"It shall be you, Ozymandius," said Queen Lurline in the manner of a royal decree.

"And you have some further thoughts," said the boy-fairy with sorrow shading his voice; for it is a hard thing for a fairy-being to be deprived of fellowship with his kind for even a short span of time.

"I do. They are coming swiftly now, my thoughts. Mortals do not like being told what to do. It makes them unhappy. They will not accept the judgments of someone too different from themselves. Furthermore, it is a bad thing to have a ruler who cannot sympathize with her subjects, and there is much about mortals that fairies, with all our magical arts, cannot understand. So what is wanted is someone who is both fairy and mortal in one. You know that I am right."

"Yes," he replied in resignation.

"Then there is no reason to wait," said Queen Lurline as the rest of the band looked on in wonder. "It is my decree that you shall live among these mortals as one of them, with half your fairy magic taken away; and as you will have to get used to being less than you were, Ozymandius, I am shortening your name to Oz, which means ‘the great and good’ with all the rest left off. Come to think of it, we will call the country below the Land of Oz, to instill respect for you among the people and prevent their fighting over the name."

"It is a good plan—that I know," said Ozymandius, now called Oz.

"Of course it is. And there is more. So as not to show favor to one tribe or another, you will dwell in the very center of Oz, in a house where the north winds and the south winds meet. Let the animals show you their secret paths, and you shall make them wide enough for people to use as well, so they can come to you when they require your advice and good judgment."

Oz smiled at his queen. "I will pave the principal paths with yellow brick from the fairy kilns, so the rains and forest roots will not destroy them over time."

"That is a fine idea," Lurline said approvingly. "Now you’re in the spirit of the thing."

"But my Queen, in all humility, there is a request I must make." Oz tried to look both humble and imploring. "You have commanded me to give up a great deal, and depart from the company of my brothers and sisters. Shall I go through all my days without love or companionship, alone?"

"No, that would be too cruel," said the Queen thoughtfully. "Though we fairy-beings and mortals do not mix well, it is true that you will be only half a fairy from here on, and the other half mortal. Yes—and you will seek love, and marry, a mortal of the Land of Oz. Your firstborn child, whether boy or girl, will inherit your fairy powers, but only when he or she is ready to take over the crown of the Rightful Ruler. And that will be the rule from then on."

"And then?"

"And then there will be a new Oz; or if it is a girl, an Ozma. The former ruler may choose freely to retire to the sky as a full-fledged fairy again, or to remain on earth among mortals. That seems fair," she said definitely. "As to the Oz mortals, we will make it so there is no illness and no death among them as long as the Rightful Ruler is upon the throne. They will not grow old haphazardly as mortals usually do, but will always stay at their true ages, which is the age they are inside, in their spirits. All they need to do is be good and faithful subjects and in general behave themselves; and anyone can do that, you know."

And so it was done, and Queen Lurline and her fairy band travelled on, leaving one of their kind in Oz to serve as Rightful Ruler. Ozymandius was right, as always, when he said that these actions would prevent Lurline from feeling any regret; for the fact is, over the ages she forgot about Oz and its people completely.

THE southernmost part of the Land of Oz is the Quadling Country, just as it was many ages ago when Ozymandius became the very first Rightful Ruler; and in the southernmost part of this southernmost part, on the very edge of the Deadly Desert (which the Quadlings sometimes call the Great Sandy Waste) stands the proud and many-spired castle of Glinda the Good, sorceress supreme and special adviser to Princess Ozma, ruler of all Oz. That the castle is itself a thing of magic is clear to all who pass, for its walls of polished marble are trimmed in row after row of tiny rubies that gleam an inviting red in the daylight and glow a soft crimson at night. From all the high places on the castle roof wave the special banner that is the emblem of the Quadlings, consisting of five stripes in different shades of red, with three silver-white stars arranged in the center like the points of a triangle, two stars above and one below. Red, as you may know, is the favorite color of the Quadling people, and silver-white is the color of all who work good magic; so the banner well represents the love and loyalty of the Quadlings to the great sorceress who is their friend and protectress. She is not exactly their ruler. They have—somewhere or other—their own Quadling King and Queen for that purpose, if it should ever be necessary to make a law or issue a decree. But it never is necessary. Furthermore, the Country of the Quadlings is part of the Land of Oz, and Princess Ozma, living in the City of Emeralds at the exact center of that fortunate land, is their true sovereign.

On this day, which might well have been in Autumn, any of the ornamental girl guards who took turns standing by the castle gates might have seen, if they had been looking, a tiny dot far off on the winding road that leads from the Emerald City to Glinda’s domicile. To a rapid clip-clopping sound the tiny dot grew swiftly into the form of Princess Dorothy, who rode in a comfortable little two-wheeled buggy of the kind called a shay, adorned with the royal ensign and filligree of Ozma’s court. The horse that drew the shay might at first glance have seemed too small to pull such a load, for it was hardly larger than a big dog; but closer inspection revealed the quaint shape of the Sawhorse of Oz, a being fashioned entirely of wood who had been brought to life by a magical powder and who had great knotted muscles beneath the tree-bark that served him for skin.

"We have arrived, Princess," the Sawhorse called out in his rough and gnarly voice over the monotonous sound of his gold-shod wooden hooves.

"I can see it with my own eyes, Sawhorse," replied Dorothy. "But thanks. I was just afraid I might nod off along the way, you know. You’re not ’specially talkative company."

"No," conceded the wooden beast. "But then again, what have I to say?"

The contraption came to a stop, almost too suddenly, before the gates of the castle. Dorothy, the Kansas girl who had been made a real Princess of Oz by Ozma, stretched and stepped down daintily to the tiles of the forecourt.

It would be hard to say just how old Dorothy Gale really was, for ever since she had come to live in Oz permanently—and this was many many years ago—she had not aged even a single day in appearance. She still seemed a sweet golden-haired child, perhaps no more than ten or eleven years of age, and her manner was as breezy and venturesome as when the terrible cyclone had first carried her to the Country of the Munchkins more than—could it be?—one hundred years before.

Dorothy straightened her stylish dress of true Ozian gingham, and nodded at the two girl guards at the gate, who knew her well; for she was a frequent visitor to the castle of Glinda the Good. One of them touched a hidden mechanism and the ruby-studded gates, which had seemed solid and formidable, melted away into thin air. At this a girl rushed out, paused for a moment, and then bowed low before Dorothy.

"Oh, please don’t!" cried Dorothy. "I’m just reg’lar folks, you know."

"No, you are most irregular," responded the girl as she stood upright again, "for you are a Princess, Princess Dorothy of Oz. I ought to have known you right away from your portrait in my mistress’s bedchamber."

"Well, perhaps I’m not so reg’lar at that," admitted Dorothy, "but still, I don’t care for too much bowing. You’re new, aren’t you?"

The girl nodded and gave Dorothy a shy smile, which brightened a plump pretty face wreathed in hair the color of sun-darkened brick. Dorothy noticed that the girl had blue green eyes, the blue one being the one on the left. "Yes, Princess. I am one of Glinda’s new handmaidens, those privileged to wait upon her inside her private living chambers. There are new ones all the time; for my mistress does not like to see anyone wear out, and thinks we should all do many different things so as to stockpile our remembery with good things. My name is Notmarie."

"To be sure," said Dorothy, "but what is your name?"

"Why, that is my name," Notmarie replied.

"Oh. Then That is what I’ll call you." Dorothy clasped Notmarie’s hands. "And you just call me Dorothy."

"I shall," said Notmarie, as they began to walk hand-in-hand into the inner courtyard of the castle.

"Since you have red hair, I figure you must be a Quadling," observed Dorothy. "Where in Quadling Country do you come from?"

"It’s far away from here, to the north, near the further edge of the Dark Forest. Do you know that forest, Dorothy?"

Dorothy nodded. "I should say! That’s where my friend the Cowardly Lion once fought a giant spider—such a dreadful old thing! And then—do you know of the Hammer-Heads, That?"

"The Hammer-Heads that what?"

"Oh, you’d know ’em if you saw ’em," answered Dorothy. "Their necks stretch out like Jack-’n-the-Boxes."

"I have heard of them," said Notmarie, "and of the Fighting Trees, and the tiny city made of China. But those are all many Quadling miles from the cottage where I lived with my mother and father and three brothers and three sisters."

"That’s a pretty big family, That," commented Princess Dorothy.

"That it is. You might have heard of them," continued the little handmaiden. "My brothers are Notalbert, Notaworri, and Notanuff. My sisters are Notalice, Nottewdaye, and Notaneemoor."

"Not any more?"

"She’s the youngest. Our father is Notmomma..."

" ’Course he is."

"And our dear mother is Whooalze."

"Is she well known, then?" inquired Dorothy politely.

"Not especially, Princess. Why do you ask?"

Dorothy frowned, for this exchange left her in some perplexitude. "Well, since we’re friends, I don’t mind telling you, That, I’m really quite muddled."

Notmarie put a conspiratorial finger to her lips. "Oh, what a lovely name, if a bit unusual. But if you don’t mind I will still call you Dorothy. It’s shorter, and I am short myself. Now let me announce you to my mistress."

None of this at all helped Dorothy in her muddlement, but she wisely decided to let it pass. Notmarie pressed a button next to a speaking-tube that protruded from the wall of the inner courtyard, and the tube stretched out to form a real mouth with perfect lips of ruby-red. "Yes?" asked the tube.

"Please tell Mistress Glinda that Princess Dorothy has come to visit," said the little handmaid.

"Mistress Glinda already knows," replied the speaking-tube, "and awaits the Princess in the Hall of Receiving." With that the tube ceased to look like a mouth and became once again just a little funnel of red copper.

"Will your animal friend need any attending?" asked Notmarie, gesturing Dorothy toward the great double-door that led from the sunlit inner courtyard into the castle proper.

"The Sawhorse? Not a bit!" laughed Dorothy. "He is content to just stand in one place without moving until I come back. I ’member I once asked him what he thought about during all that time, and he told me he was so ’mazed at being alive he didn’t need to think of anything else."

Notmarie led Dorothy through the high doorway and into the richly appointed halls of Glinda’s castle. A pastel light, gentle and inviting, glowed everywhere, not from any lamp but from every corner of the air.

In the Hall of Reception stood Glinda the Good herself, who greeted the Kansas girl warmly like the old friend she was.

The sorceress Glinda, stately and elegant, appeared to every eye a beautiful young woman. Her long lustrous hair was of scarlet color with the glint of gold, and her silver-white gown bore many red gemstones to dazzle the eye. Her lips were as calm and perfect as a painted doll’s, and her eyes, which shone with wisdom and just a trace of mischief, were of a crystalline blue-violet hue not found anywhere else on earth. About her neck was a golden ribbon intertwined with silver, to which was attached a single ruby pendant; and on her head she wore a crown of the Egyptian style—backward-sweeping quills of pink metal, imitating the wings of a heron, with a woven veil that draped down to the middle of her back.

"What may I do for you today, dear?" asked Glinda as she released Dorothy from her embrace. "I am always glad to see you, but I sense you have come here on a mission."

"I have for sure," replied the girl. "You see, it’s Professor Woggle-Bug. He’s gotten one of his ideas again, and just won’t let up on it. He’s worried about my edj’cation."

Glinda smiled at the mention of one of Oz’s queerer inhabitants. "If he is concerned about your education, why does he not give you a few of his Learning Pills?"

Professor Woggle-Bug, an ordinary woggle-bug who had become Thoroughly Educated by classroom learning, and later on Highly Magnified to the stature of a grown man, was known far and wide for his self-proclaimed attainments as a thinker and an educator. Perhaps his most notable invention is the Learning Pill, which comes in a variety of pleasing flavors and allows the absorption of an entire college course in a single swallow.

"Well," said Dorothy, "you know those pills of his don’t always work so well on folks like me who came to Oz from the outside world. All the facts get scrambled up so you end up knowing less’n when you started. So Woggles thinks I should go all around Oz and learn interesting things the old-fashioned way—not in a classroom, thanks to goodness, but by asking questions."

"There is some wisdom in that," admitted Glinda. "Then have you come here to ask me questions?"

"If you don’t mind," Dorothy nodded. " ’Course I already know a lot of things general-like, but I was thinking just the other day that I don’t know too many of the details; and it’s details that the Professor thinks I’m slow in."

Dorothy and Glinda now retired to a comfortable sitting room, with the handmaid Notmarie following behind in case her mistress should have any further instructions. The sorceress clapped her hands, two brisk claps, and a little fire sprung up in the fireplace. She and Dorothy sat down on a sofa that curved like a half-moon, so they could face one another.

"Ask what you wish, dear," said Glinda; "and then we shall have lunch."

DOROTHY opened her purse of polished green leather and withdrew a small brass box fashioned in the shape of an ear, decorated with many intricate curly-cues. A little key protruded from the side, and this Dorothy wound tightly.

"The Wizard came up with this," the girl explained. "He calls it his Magic Mechanical Ear. When it’s all wound-up, it listens to everything that’s said that is worth listening to; and then later on you can ask it questions, and it’ll tell you what it heard. He says they have things like this in the outside world now, even in Kansas—but his is much better, because it just ignores all the silly things people say when they’re not being ’specially careful."

"How very useful!" said Glinda with just a trace of amusement.

"I’ll use it to keep ahold of your words, so I can hear ’em over and over when I write my report for the Professor," continued Dorothy, setting the box down on the sofa. "Now then. I’ve worked out my questions all in my mind. The first one is, Are you really a mortal or a fairy-person? I’m asking because I got to thinking that when I first met you, when the Winged Monkeys carried me over the Quadling Forest, you were called the Good Witch of the South, but when Ozma brought me back to Oz just a couple years later you called yourself a sorceress."

Glinda regarded her friend thoughtfully. "I remember those days," she replied. "I have never told you much of my story—not you or anyone—because Ozma had asked that knowledge of the workings of the magical realms not be spread too widely, for it can do great injury to ordinary people; and as our Rightful Ruler she wishes happiness for her subjects. Do you promise, dear, that you will be cautious what you write about these secret things?"

Glinda looked very serious, and Dorothy nodded her head gravely and crossed her heart.

"Then I think it will be all right to tell you," said the Sorceress. "You ask whether I am a mortal or a fairy-person. It’s not quite so simple as all that. Did you know that Ozma and I are relatives?"

"No!" Dorothy exclaimed, her eyes wide at all the new things she was learning.

"Yes; I am her eighty-eighth cousin thrice removed. Both of us have the same ancestor, Oz Mandius, the first Rightful Ruler of this land, who was by transformation half-mortal and half-fairy himself, and who wed a mortal woman. So you see I am descended of a line in which the two sorts are mixed together."

"You haven’t ever told me about your parents, Glinda," observed Dorothy. "I just thought you never had any, being a fairy."

"My parents are no longer living," Glinda replied, "for they opposed the rule of the old Wicked Witch of the South, and as punishment she turned them to glass goblets and dashed them to pieces in the fireplace after a toast, which prevented them from living."

"Oh my!" Dorothy gasped. "How awful!"

"Oh, it was a long time ago, Princess," said the sorceress in a comforting tone. "even before the Wizard, whom we called the Great Oz, came down from the sky in his balloon. But the Rightful Ruler, Oz Pastoria, had been stolen and hidden away by enchantment; and I think if he had still occupied his throne at the center of the Land of Oz, the full force of Queen Lurline’s protective fairy-spell would have preserved them. Many things were different when the Rightful Rulership was a vacant position, you know. People grew older and it was not impossible to die. I was a young girl when my parents were lost to me, and I was heartbroken. I vowed to myself to master whatever magical arts were necessary to defeat old Kragmagda, who held the whole Country of the Quadlings in thrall."

"In what?" interrupted Dorothy politely.

"It means she was mistress of everything, her will supreme. For many years I lived in the Quadling Forest and studied the arts of nature magic; and because I had some fairy blood in my veins, and was working toward a good end, the fairies of the ground and air, of the plants and animals, told me a few of their secrets. And so I became the Good Witch of the South and deposed the evil Kragmagda. But for all my knowledge, I was only a sort of magician, really, and had not the power to defend the Quadlings from all danger. But I feared to advance myself further, lest I attract the attention of the Great Oz and his armies."

"It seems so silly to think that way about the Wizard, knowing him now," commented Dorothy. "But I s’pose you didn’t know he was just a humbug."

"I only knew that he had driven back the witches of the east and west, and that Kragmagda was afraid of him. It was after his departure, while the Scarecrow ruled in the Emerald City, that I began my course of study in silver sorcery, which is sorcery used in the service of good. I mastered my craft in time. But I could not honorably call myself a true sorceress until I was officially admitted to high sorceriety and received my Great Gift."

Here Glinda paused mischievously, enjoying the fascination on the face of her friend. "Oh, Glinda!" cried Dorothy. "Don’t leave me all pins-an’-needles! Tell me what your gift was! Was it a dress?"

"No."

"Your necklace?"

"No."

"I know! Your castle."

"No indeed," smiled Glinda. "But it is something wonderful and full of power, like nothing else in this or any other world as far as I know; and you have seen it so many times I think you have long since taken it for granted."

Dorothy leapt to her feet excitedly. "Please don’t make me guess! You’ve just got to show it to me!"

"And so I shall," laughed Glinda the Good merrily, rising from the sofa. She led Princess Dorothy through the halls of the castle, the girl guards saluting at every turning as their mistress passed. Little Notmarie—who had been awaiting Glinda’s further wishes outside the room where she and Dorothy had been speaking (for that is what a handmaid does)—followed a respectful distance behind.

Even before Glinda opened the brass door of her private study with a double-clap of her hands, Dorothy thought she knew the identity of the Great Gift; and now a gesture confirmed it. "There it is," said Glinda.

In the center of the high-domed, circular chamber (which Glinda called her magiquary) was a broad pedestal of white marble veined in ruby. The top was cut off at a slant, like an old-fashioned writing desk—the kind that you write on while standing up. Resting upon this surface, fastened to it by sturdy chains and six golden padlocks, was a very large and thick book. This was Glinda’s Great Book of Records, which Dorothy had seen ever so many times over the years. It was illuminated by a sunbeam which fell from a round window in the middle of the dome high above; and the fact that the sunbeam shone down day or night proved that it was magical in nature.

No doubt you have heard of this magic book, for it is surely the most useful tome in all the world. It is very large, bigger even than the Atlases that you find in libraries, and taken as a whole, cover and all, it is too heavy for even three strong men to lift—much less three typical Quadlings, who in general are not especially strong. But for all that, it had once been stolen by a wicked magician named Ugu the Shoemaker. It was after its return that the Record Book had been moved from a table in Glinda’s drawing room to its present place, which is much more secure.

But I have yet to remind you of exactly why the Book is an item wonderful enough to be a Great Gift for a would-be sorceress. The Book of Records, which has existed in one place or another since the very beginning of time on our planet Earth, contains notations of every interesting event that has happened anywhere in any country at any time, all in perfect order and—though not always very detailed—completely correct; which is a claim even the best encyclopedias dare not make. As a great many events are occurring in every second of every minute of every hour, each and every day of the year, more and more notations are constantly being added to the last page of the Book. Indeed, Dorothy once took a look at that page and could see only a blur that made her eyes ache, so rapidly did the page fill up. You might think the Record Book would by now have spilled over from between its covers. If it had not been a magic book, I hesitate to imagine how many pages it would contain after all these centuries of years. But it is indeed a magical object, printed by the elves of Inka upon a finely-woven paper milled by the wood-nymphs, and they arranged it so that the book never grows any thicker or needs any more pages than it already has.

Furthermore, to allow a record of so much information to be useful at all, it is part of the enchantment that the Book always falls open at just the place where the events are listed that one is interested in at the moment.

All these things Dorothy already knew; but she had never known that the Book of Records was a gift conferred upon Glinda to signify her advancement from Good Witch to full Sorceress.

"But ’zackly how did you beat the Wicked Witch, Glinda?" asked Dorothy, holding the Magic Mechanical Ear in her hand after winding it with the little key. "It must have been hard, since you weren’t yet a sorceress."

"I had to outwit her," was Glinda’s answer. "I was not powerful enough to destroy her, for she could not be melted like the Wicked Witch of the West, who was conquered by one litle girl and a pail of water." She was referring, of course, to Dorothy herself, who had accidentally destroyed the Witch on her first journey to Oz. "Besides, I didn’t know Kragmagda well enough to judge whether she could help being evil, and it is wrong to punish someone for something they cannot help."

"That’s true," Dorothy admitted.

"But I found another way. I used my witchcraft to create a dustpan filled with magic dust, which I threw into the air upwind of Kragmagda’s red-brick bungalow. Now the upstairs of the house was Kragmagda’s personal quarters, where she lived, and it had open windows all around; for she liked the shivery breezes and enjoyed looking down at her many Quadling slaves as they labored. The magic dust rode the breeze through the windows, and she breathed it in without knowing it. Once inside her it worked its charm, which she could not remove without knowing the cause."

"What did it do to her?"

"It aggravated her allergies," answered Glinda. "Whenever she tried to use any instrument of magic, she broke out in hives and had to scratch so fiercely she couldn’t concentrate. And when she tried to speak the words of any spell or enchantment—even a little one—she began to sneeze, one sneeze after another, which spoiled it completely."

Dorothy couldn’t help laughing at the thought of a wicked witch laid low in this way. "Why, that would be more than enough to discourage a person, I ’spect."

Glinda nodded. "She was very discouraged. And so one day she was gone; she had crept away in the night with just her cuckoo-clock and her piggy-bank. Nailed to the door of her house was a notice written on her official letterhead, which went like this—‘I hereby resign, quit, and renounce my position as Incorrigible Dictator and National Witch, as it appears my services are no longer desired.’ She had signed underneath and gone away, no one knows where. It was then that the Quadlings pulled their old King out of safe storage and had him give me the authority to watch over the Quadlings—who are my own people, after all—for as long as I live, and for as long as I am good. And that," concluded the Good Sorceress, "is enough to tell you before lunch."

As Princess Dorothy and Glinda the Good entered the hallway from the study, Glinda took notice of Notmarie waiting demurely four steps from the door.

"You may dust the magiquary now, if you wish," Glinda said with a smile; for her servants came to her willingly from all over the Land of Oz, and she treated them as friends and equals.

"Yes, Mistress," responded Notmarie with an anxious nod of her head and a dainty curtsey. She was something of a shy and retiring sort of girl (much too much so, to tell the truth) and very much wanted to please Glinda and remain in her employ, for this was considered a great honor.

In the study Notmarie went straightway to the broom closet, which was hidden behind an ornate panel that blended nicely with the rest of the wall. The little Quadling took out a feather duster, dust rag, and dustpan; but she had scarcely begun to work when she paused. On the carpet next to the base of the marble pedestal was something that glinted in the bright magic sunbeam from above. She picked it up and examined it closely. It was a tiny, delicate key made of polished green metal into which a single emerald had been set.

"Oh, I know what this is," Notmarie said to herself; for she had heard Dorothy speak of the Magic Mechanical Ear and the key that was used to wind it up. "Princess Dorothy must have dropped this." This thought led to another and another, as thoughts do when one is distracted, and Notmarie found herself thinking of the bits of conversation she had overheard concerning the history of the Land of Oz and the magic of the Great Book of Records. Of course, she had dusted the covers of the book, and the pedestal upon which it rested, many times. But she had never looked up anything in it. Now it occurred to her to look up what her parents had been doing at that time long ago when the Great Oz—whose Nebraska name was O. Z. Diggs—had first come to the Land of Oz in his big balloon. She set down her dusting things and opened the magic book.

The Record Book fell open at Notmarie’s touch as if its great weight had been turned to nothing at all. At the top of the big page thus revealed was a heading, denoting a certain second of a certain hour of a certain date of a year many years ago, and the first entry below this heading spoke of Mr. Diggs and his balloon. Searching the page for a mention of her parents, little Notmarie stood on the decorative rim that girdled the base of the pedestal, and rose up on tip-toe. That, I’m sorry to say, was the girl’s first real mistake, for one foot slipped and she thought she might take a spill to the floor. It was then that she made her second mistake. Flinging out her hands to soften the fall, she plucked from its holding-clip Glinda’s quill pen.

Some of my readers may not know what a quill pen is, as they are no longer in fashion. It is a stiff long plume donated by some bird or other for the purpose of writing. The spiny point, on the end opposite the feather, is to be dipped in a little well of ink and used to write with. Sometimes a whole word or two can be written before another dip is necessary. But that is an ordinary quill pen, and a sorceress could not be expected to use something so plain as that. Glinda’s magic quill, with which she made notes while studying the Book of Records, did not require dipping or any ink at all. It made its black mark on any kind of paper just by the touch of its point. Its other end, the feather end, was like a perfect eraser, able to whisk aside and completely remove any word or letter that it swept across. This extraordinary quill had been given to Glinda by a lavender oztryx whom Glinda had assisted in the northern Gillikin Country, where purple hues are favored. The oztryx had plucked it from among her own tail feathers, and as the hen was versed in scratch-magic, the quill was magical as well.

With the quill in her hand, Notmarie fell across the open book. Then she steadied herself and caught her breath. "I’m so clumsy," she thought, "but no harm done." That was her first thought; but then she looked down at the page that the Book of Records was open to.

As you recall, Notmarie had been looking at the page that spoke of the moment O. Z. Diggs had first landed in Oz. Near the top of the page had been this notation—which, by the way, Notmarie had not had a chance to read:

That is what had been written in the Book. But Notmarie had brushed against the page with the feather-end of the magic quill, and one part of the sentence had been erased. It now read like this:

There was a blank space where something used to be—we know it was where the "o" and "w" of "now" had been printed. The blank was easy to see, even though only two letters were gone, and the longer Notmarie stared at the page, the more the blank seemed to stand out. "What have I done?" thought the handmaid in a guilty whirl, ashamed of the displeasure her carelessness would cause her mistress. "And what shall I do?"

Now the smart thing to do would have been to confess to Glinda; for after all, Notmarie’s action was just an accident, and Glinda the Good was always a loving and forgiving mistress. But people often do not think as clearly as they might at just the time clear thinking is most needed. Notmarie impulsively turned the quill around in her hand and, after the briefest moment, wrote two letters upon the page before her. The two letters hardly matched the printing of the book; nevertheless, they made the blank space less obvious.

"Perhaps Mistress Glinda will never notice," Notmarie thought hopefully. "And if she does—and asks who did it—then there will be time enough to explain and beg her pardon."

The little handmaid tried to finish her dusting; but the incident seemed to have left her in a nervous state, for all the things on the various shelves now struck her as out of place, as if someone had come in behind her back and rearranged them. So she put away her dusting-things and went out into the hallway.

But leaving the magiquary only made matters worse. The hallways of the castle, which had become so familiar since Notmarie had come to work there, were now different in ways not easy to put one’s finger on. It seemed the halls failed to cross one another where they ought to; doors opened into rooms that the girl had never noticed before; the wallpaper had pastel stripes where it should have had tasteful polka-dots; and even the pattern in the carpet seemed different to Notmarie’s eyes.

"Oh, something terrible has happened to me," she murmured to herself, all in a panic. "My eyes have gone bad—or perhaps my memory. It’s because I wrote in that magic book! But Mistress Glinda won’t mind using a touch of her magic to put me right."

It was strangely difficult for Notmarie to make her way through the castle to the private, sunlit patio where she knew the sorceress would be luncheoning with Dorothy. But finally she stood blinking before her mistress, who was half-reclined upon a thickly cushioned chaise-longue.

Glinda’s eyes fell upon the Quadling girl just as she began to speak.

"Mistress, I—"

That is as far as she got, for something in Glinda’s expression brought her to a stop.

"How did you get in here, my child?" asked Glinda. Her tone was not unkind, yet there was firmness in it. "It is really best to wait to be announced. But no matter. What is your name?"

Notmarie was taken aback by this greeting and was silent for a moment. It was then that she noticed for the first time that there was no hint of any luncheon food, nor of Princess Dorothy, and that Glinda was no longer wearing her beautifully crafted crown, but only a silver tiara.

Finally Notmarie found the voice to respond. "Mistress Glinda, you know who I am. You left me only minutes ago. I’m Notmarie, one of your handmaids."

Glinda shook her head, the smile on her lovely face sympathetic but cautious as well. "I am pleased to meet you, Notmarie. But I think we have never met before. And I am always right about such things, you know."

Glinda’s calm pronouncement left Notmarie in quite a state, as you might well imagine. In a matter of minutes her everyday world seemed to have been turned upside-down, and things were getting worse.

Notmarie could only think of one thing to say. "Oh mistress, you must be joking!"

"I do not joke, child," said Glinda briskly, "except when I do. And now you must tell me what you wish of me."

But Notmarie scarcely heard this reply. Her brain was in a spin. "Why, Princess Dorothy must be having some fun with me! Is she hiding?"

"And who," asked Glinda, "is Princess Dorothy?"

At this little Notmarie burst out in tears, for she thought her mistress was making fun of her. Glinda gently drew her down next to her on the chaise-longue and touched her hand reassuringly. "Let’s see what this is all about," said the sorceress. She cupped her two hands together, one above the other, and Notmarie had to stop sobbing in order to watch what was about to happen. Glinda began to raise her upper hand very slowly, as if something were pushing it up from beneath; and there between her hands was a little pair of opera-glasses—like dainty binoculars—resting upon her left palm. These she held up to her eyes, aiming them directly at Notmarie’s forehead as she turned the little wheel that adjusted the lenses.

"Oh, I see," said Glinda the Good thoughtfully. "Yes indeed. Your name is Notmarie, and you do believe that you have served me here in the castle for several months. And you think I know a Princess Dorothy—what a sweet smile she has!—who came from a place in the outside world across the desert, and who lives in the Emerald City at the center of this Land of Oz, well to the north of us. There are many other things like that, I see; and right now you are fearful and very confused."

Glinda now folded-up the opera-glasses into themselves with a click, and they vanished from sight. She stood and regarded Notmarie with uncertainty. "But what shall we do with you?" said Glinda, mostly to herself. "These things that you have in your brain are all untrue—except, perhaps, your name. I wonder if you are the victim of a spell."

Taking her by the hand, Glinda led Notmarie into the castle. For an hour she tried to free the girl from her enchantment, using all manner of incantations and magical instruments. But it was no use in the end, for Notmarie still believed what she believed, and Glinda still thought it was all wrong.

"I can’t help you," conceded Glinda. "It seems we have made no progress at all. But let me see." The sorceress went over to her bookshelf, which went from floor to ceiling, and pulled out a compact volume which said on its cover, "The Wizard’s and Sorceress’s New Concise Almanac and Weather-Reckoner." "You see, Notmarie, there is magical weather as well as natural weather," she explained. "When the invisible climate is poor, my abilities are diminished; and—there, you see? The weather is inclement today and for most of the week to come, but Wednesday after next it will turn round, but just for about an hour. Go home to your family and give me time to research the problem. Return to me Wednesday after next at three minutes past eleven in the morning. Perhaps I will have an answer for you then. But you mustn’t be late, for good weather is not expected again for quite a long time, and there is nothing anyone can do about the weather."

Notmarie wasn’t so sure that what she wanted was an "answer." What she really wanted was for everything to be as it had been before. Nevertheless she was too worn-down to argue with the great sorceress. Perhaps if she had carefully explained her accident with the Great Book of Records, there might have been a better result right away; but Notmarie was far too timid and shy for her own good. She thought she daren’t speak up lest she lose her job at the palace. So the next hour found her walking down the northerly road that would take her to the cottage in the Quadling Forest where she had grown up.

As she walked along, sometimes in the shadows of high arching trees and sometimes in the afternoon sunshine, she went over the events of the day in her mind—over and over, with no clue as to what had happened.

But I know what happened, and I will tell you now, so that we will both know a bit more than Notmarie.

You will recall that the Great Book of Records had an entry which read:

And that by accident Notmarie had erased two letters, leaving the sentence this way:

She tried to replace the two missing letters, using Glinda’s magic quill. But in her nervous excitment and haste, she made a simple mistake. She wrote in the "o" perfectly well; but instead of writing "w" as she should have, she wrote the letter "t." This made a word, all right, but not the right one. If she had stopped to read the sentence carefully, she would have noticed that it now read:

As it happens, there is quite a difference between "now" and "not." In almost any other place, this little mistake, which is called a typographical error, would be unimportant. But the Great Book of Records is a magic book, tied by a powerful enchantment to everything that happens, and part of the enchantment is that whatever is inscribed upon its pages must be exactly correct. So when Notmarie carelessly changed "now" to "not," there was only one way for the Book to remain correct, and that was to change the historic facts themselves to match what had been written. As a result it had become true—as if it had always been true—that the balloon bearing the man who would have been the Great Oz failed to come to ground in Oz at all, but passed on over without descending. That is what happened; and everything that would have happened afterwards in Oz, everything that depended upon the erased event, failed to occur. All of which is to say that because of Notmarie, a slip of the toe, and a quill pen, the history of Oz had been turned into a new story.

Notmarie knew nothing of this as she walked along through the Country of the Quadlings. She thought that Glinda, who was after all a sorceress and very wise, must be right. Some person, or perhaps the Book of Records itself, must have put a spell upon the girl, a spell which could only be broken by superior power. It was probably a punishment for her carelessness, she thought.

An hour of pleasant walking passed, and then another. As the shadows began to lengthen a bit, Notmarie took a fork in the road and found that she was leaving behind the more populous southern part of the country, dotted with many farmhouses, and approaching the outer edge of the Great Dark Quadling Forest. This forest extended almost all the way northward to the borders of the open countryside surrounding the Emerald City. To the northwest it ran right up against the Great Dark Winkie Forest, and to the northeast it abutted the Great Dark Munchkin Forest, and both of those forests in turn spread further toward the north until they turned toward one another and joined the Great Dark Gillikin Forest from either side. For in truth there is only one Great Dark Forest in the Land of Oz, a round band of trees many score miles broad enclosing an open region of farms and meadows, called the middle country, with the Emerald City at its center.

Notmarie was a child of this forest, and was not afraid of it. Still, it would be one more day of solid walking before she would arrive home, and she would need some suitable place to sleep. The road had gradually become little more than a path between the tall trees—which was not at all the way she remembered it—and for quite a long time she walked without sight of man or beast. Only the birds called from high above. Now and then she could catch what they were saying to each other. It was mostly gossip.

Suppertime came, and the little handmaid sat herself on a fallen log by the path and pulled from a pocket in her blouse a tiny bundle, wrapped in a red-striped handkerchief bearing Glinda’s monogram. Upon being untied the handkerchief fell open, and its contents grew rapidly to full size, becoming a healthful and satisfying dinner of stork-burgers, fried marshmallows, and tickled carrots, with coconut fizz to drink and chocolate celery for dessert. Glinda’s kitchen servants had prepared this portable meal for Notmarie, as well as two more for the next day; and the girl gratefully finished every bite and drop.

Just as she was wiping her lips with the handkerchief, she noticed a red squirrel eyeing her from a few feet away. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Notmarie. "If I had known you were there, I would have offered you something."

"Quite all right, little miss," responded the squirrel in the sort of twangy, nasal voise you might expect a squirrel to have—slightly Cape Codish. "Most human food is not to my taste, nor is it good for we squirrels who are untame. My brother-in-law lived in a public garden, where the humans fed him a diet of peanuts and macadamias; the salt was bad for his blood pressure. Salt is bad, you know—also pepper, sugar, and butter."

"I didn’t know that," said Notmarie. "Is there any place nearby where I might sleep tonight?"

"There are many such places," replied the red squirrel, "but they are all much too small for a human." After a pause to think, he continued, "Tell me, do you have any objections to bears?"

"Of course not," Notmarie replied quickly, "not if they’re clean and friendly."

"Well, some humans don’t much care for bears however they smell or act," observed the squirrel. "Seeing as you are open-minded, though, I think I can help you."

The red squirrel scampered off into the underbrush and for a moment Notmarie thought she had lost him. But then he reappeared and gestured impatiently for her to follow. This time he moved more slowly, pausing now and then for the girl to catch up; and occasionally he would point out, with his tiny paws, places where Notmarie could make her way—for the growth was thick and it was getting to be twilight.

Presently they came to a mound of earth with a dug-out place in front of it, like a hollow circled by drooping trees and twisted roots. The squirrel climbed up the trunk of a tree and sharply knocked on it several times with an acorn. "Ogogo!" he called out, placing the accent upon the first syllable—Og. There was a rustling in the hollow and a deep gruff sound that might have been a yawn, and a big crimson bear reared up not six feet distant.

"Watterya wan, Zeef?" asked the bear somewhat irritably. "I’uz sleeping."

"You are never not sleeping," retorted Zeef the squirrel, "except when you are hibernating. But if you will rub your eyes open," he continued, "and take a look, you will see that I have brought a guest with me."

Ogogo rubbed his eyes and stood silently for a little while, staring at Notmarie. "Yup-yup. I see ’er," he said at last. " ’sa human cub. Watcher name, girl-cub?"

"Notmarie," she said, nodding politely; for it seemed too fussy to curtsey to a forest creature. "I hope I’m not inconveniencing you."

"Oh no, no, no," Ogogo replied; "not so far. But then we’ve jus’ met. If’n you stay, that might be a diff’ent pail o’ water."

"She needs a nice warm cuddlesome place to sleep tonight," Zeef said, "and as you are able to provide a good many of the needed qualities, I do believe you have an ethical obligation to do so. That is—how recently have you bathed, Ogogo?"

"Jus’n this affernoon."

"That’s all right, then. I am told human girls are sensitive."

"Oh, I’m not a bit sensitive," Notmarie said quickly; for she was looking forward to a night alongside Ogogo, who was as plush and cuddly as a toy.

"A done deal!" exclaimed the red squirrel. He bowed once to Notmarie, very formally—for a squirrel—and suddenly was gone with barely a flutter of leaves.

"The bear is large and burly," said Ogogo after a long silent pause, as if in answer to a question. "For this reason, he is presumed to be mentally sluggish and without wit. Yet the brain of the bear is typically larger than the squirrel, the sparrow, the wood-mouse, or the wildcat. How sad that we must hide our intellectual prowess behind a false front."

"But why must you hide it?" inquired Notmarie.

"Because, little girl, beasts can be as prideful and jealous as humans," he answered gravely. "If I wish to have the companionship of anyone other than my fellow bears—who can be rather dry and stuffy, alas—I must take care not to appear to be better than various lesser personages think themselves to be."

"You have learned to do it well," observed Notmarie.

"Thank you," Ogogo replied with great dignity, leading her through the bushes with surprising daintiness. They entered the dug-out hollow area, which was Ogogo’s home. The place was furnished with a wooden table and a sturdy bench, an elaborately carved wooden rocking chair twice as wide as the human kind, and a huge bed, its mattress bulging with forest leaves. "I regret that I have no library of books with which to entertain you and while away the time," he commented, "but the fact is, we bears tend to have poor eyesight, and no one has yet designed spectacles large enough to fit our faces. So I have had to develop my personal philosophy on my own, strictly through intuition and the observation of nature." He assumed a seat upon the rocking chair, and indicated that Notmarie was to sit upon the edge of the bed, which made a crinkly noise as she did so. Ogogo added: "I do hope you like to talk before falling asleep. I am bursting with insights."

"Oh yes, very much," was Notmarie’s response. But this was said out of politeness. In fact the girl was tired after a trying day. Nevertheless she tried to listen with open eyes as the crimson bear discoursed upon many obscure topics, repeating a number of maxims, proverbs, and sayings he had heard over the years from any number of beasts and birds—and even a few fish, though not many. A good deal of what Ogogo spoke of had to do with food; and most of the rest, with sleeping. Notmarie was glad when the bear lay down next to her, causing the mattress to sag down all around him like a valley. She snuggled up to his warm fur—to try to go anywhere else would have been like rolling uphill; but luckily his fur was very soft, his fat like a pillow, and his breathing as soothing as a lullaby. The last thing she remembered of the night was the drone of a deep bear voice repeating something he had once learnt from a Wise Donkey who lived far away.

A shaft of red-tinted sunlight awakened the Quadling girl to a new day. Ogogo was nowhere to be seen; but as she stretched, he lumbered out of the bushes carrying a brass basin filled with clear spring water.

"Drink some first," he advised, "and then wash yourself. I will go off to gather my breakfast, for I know you already have your own."

Twenty minutes later the girl and the bear were seated side by side on the wooden bench, their breakfasts on the table. Notmarie’s breakfast, from the handkerchief, consisted of lemon-peel sausage and round pink eggs from the golifbird of Munchkin Land, which are laid hard-boiled. There was also some appleseed tea, which warms itself in the apple, leaving the rest of the apple to be consumed separately. Of Ogogo’s breakfast I will say nothing, save that Notmarie took care not to look at it.

"You have told me nothing of yourself, little girl-cub," commented Ogogo. "It is only fair that you give in return as much wisdom as you have received."

So Notmarie commenced telling of her short life and career, ending with the queer events of the day previous. "And so you see, I must return to Glinda a week from next Wednesday, so that she may work her magic and restore my rightful memories to me."

"We beasts know of Glinda the Good," Ogogo said thoughtfully. "She is kind to us, and has never allowed even one tree to be cut down within the borders of the Great Dark Forest. All the naiads and dryads and other nature-spirits commend her highly. If anyone can help you, it is she. But then," he added, "perhaps no one can help you."

Notmarie’s face fell at this, and she finished her tea in silence.

"Memory is overrated," continued the bear presently. "That which it contains does not exist, as it is past. What is now occurring is whisked away in an instant, and what is to come serves only to make us worry. It is best to contemplate only what is eternal and thus is always with us. That is my advice."

"I’m sure it is wise advice," Notmarie said. "Now I must be on my way, I think."

"If you must." Ogogo rose from the bench and led the girl back to the path through the forest. "Keep walking steadily, and by the time you are hungry again, you will have come to a place where many paths come together. Turn around three times to the left and once to the right, and then take the path between the two rose bushes, which ought to take you where you want to go, if you are not too particular."

Notmarie began to thank him; but he turned away in the middle of her sentence and trotted into the underbrush on all fours, vanishing from sight. And that was the last she saw of Ogogo the crimson bear, who was more crimson than ever in the bright morning light.

Fortified by her magical breakfast, Notmarie made her way along the path with a constant step. Sometimes the branches of the trees joined together above her, and she walked in shadow; but much of the time the trail broadened out and became a real road, and she could enjoy the coppery sunshine. She saw no animals along the way, but the birds darted here and there above her and chirped out their greetings.

Just as the sun was at its highest the path entered upon a flat clearing many yards wide, covered with a lawn of green grass, each blade turning to pink at the tip. A number of forest paths came together here; and she remembered what Ogogo had said and what she was to do. Standing in the middle of the open space she turned herself around three times to the left and once to the right. Then she looked for a path between two rose bushes, which she saw right away as there was only one path of that description. Starting along the new path, Notmarie reflected that her memories told her nothing at all of these things.

Some time later, her luncheon complete and the last of the three handkerchiefs used up, Notmarie became aware of another person on the pathway far ahead of her. Taking longer steps, Notmarie began to catch up. The other person proved to be a Quadling girl pushing a sort of wheelbarrow piled with goods of various kinds.

"Hello!" cried out Notmarie. "Wait a moment!"

The girl with the wheelbarrow stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Her face was sweet, round, and pleasant, but as Notmarie closed the distance between them she thought she detected a slight trace of suspicion upon it.

"Hello," repeated Notmarie with a friendly nod.

"Hello yourself," responded the girl. I am told this is a common manner of speaking and not meant to be impolite.

"It seems we are going the same way," said Notmarie.

"So it seems," the girl replied.

"Perhaps we might walk together," Notmarie added.

"Perhaps we might," said the girl; and without further comment, she began to walk, pushing the wheelbarrow which had, Notmarie now noticed, a squeaky wheel. They walked along side by side for a while, the silence broken only by the squeaking, which was very persistent. Then Notmarie said: "I’m on my way home, to the house where I was brought up—the house of my family."

The girl gave a slight nod, and Notmarie was afraid she was not going to say anything at all, which would have made for a dull sort of journey. But after a moment the girl did speak.

"I am also returning to home," she said. "I’ve been to the village that is a half-day’s trip away, south and east, to buy food and other things to last the next few weeks; and then I must go back again."

"I know of that village," remarked Notmarie. "But what do you mean exactly—to buy food?" For in the Land of Oz as Notmarie remembered it, money was not in use. Work was done for the pleasure it gave, and goods were given freely to whomever asked.

The girl now looked at Notmarie wth an ironic expression. "And just where are you from, miss," she asked, "not to know that you have to pay for what you want?"

"I am from here," replied Notmarie somewhat haughtily. "I live with my family in a big cottage of red oak and orange ivy about an hour’s walk further on."

"You are quite wrong," declared the other girl, "for there is only one dwelling on this trail, and it is my own."

Rather than engage in what promised to become a heated dispute, Notmarie asked the girl: "What is your name?"

"My name," replied the girl, "is Notmarie."

At this our Notmarie shuddered and put her hands to her face. She had begun to weep for the first time since the day previous.

"I’m Notmarie!" she insisted through her tears. "You most certainly are not Notmarie!"

"Call me whatever pleases you, I’m sure," said the other girl, somewhat alarmed. "But the fact is, I have always had that name, and I live in a cottage that is just as you described—and it is the only one along this trail, which comes to an end there."

Notmarie—our Notmarie, that is, and not Not-Notmarie—gave a great deep sigh and stopped crying, realizing for almost the first time that it would do no good at all. "I’m sorry. Some strange things have happened to me since yesterday morning, when I was at the castle of Glinda the Good. A spell has been put on me, and I think things are so that never were at all."

Not-Notmarie raised an eyebrow at this. "How peculiar."

"It is very peculiar and very distressing, and I just don’t know which memories are true and which are false. Tell me, is your father named Notmomma, and your mother Whooalze? And are your brothers Notalbert, Notaworri, and Notanuff, and your sisters Notalice, Nottewdaye, and Notaneemoor?"

"Indeed they are," responded the other girl, "just as you say."

"Well," said Notmarie sadly, "I suppose it will be pleasant to see them again, even if they don’t know that I am me; or that the me I think I am is really the you you think you are."

"But you shall not be meeting any of them," said Not-Notmarie.

"Why not?"

"Because not a one of them still lives in the cottage. They have all gone their separate ways, and I live there alone."

"Gone!—but where to?"

"Oh, here and there," Not-Notmarie continued. "Notalbert is a barrister in Winkie Village. Notaworri is a banker in Munchkin Land. Notanuff went off one day to seek his fortune; I don’t know if he found it, but he has never returned. As to the girls, they are all married to stupid Quadling men and live among other people in the south. But I chose not to marry."

"But what," asked Notmarie, "about Mother and Father?—whether they are yours or mine."

"Why, they retired years ago after a hard life, and moved to the east. They live in a nice little hamlet on a bluff overlooking the Deadly Desert."

This answer greatly bemused Notmarie. "I have never heard of anyone retiring," she commented, "nor of anyone having a hard life."

"What would you call it?" asked Not-Notmarie indignantly. "The old cottage, and the little farm around it, is claimed by the Princeling of Guyle. He has always required us to give him half of everything we grow, sew, raise, or otherwise produce. That is our rent, and if there isn’t as much as he expects in a year, he has the right to evict us. So Mother and Father were worn out by their labors, especially after the others had left us. I was always the best and cleverest worker, and can almost keep up by myself; but I think this year might be the very last."

"I know nothing of this Princeling of Guyle," said Notmarie. "Cannot Glinda protect you?"

"No, for she has made a treaty with him in order to protect the rest of the Quadling Country."

"But surely Princess Ozma herself will not allow this!" exclaimed Notmarie. "The Emerald City is not so far from here, and she will make things right."

"Oh, no doubt she will," replied Not-Notmarie; "that is, if you say so. But who is this Ozma? And where is the Emerald City?"

I NEED not describe for you how these simple statements affected Notmarie, as by now you surely know. But to her credit, she managed not to cry. She was forming the habit to not do so.

"You must know of the Emerald City," she implored. "Why it’s the only true city in all the Land of Oz. In the middle is the royal palace which can be seen for miles around, which stands at the location of the stone hut where all the former Ozzes and Ozmas used to receive those who came to them for advice; and the city itself is full of wide streets and big buildings of graceful design, decorated with gold trim and many emeralds. It was built by the Great Oz himself years ago, you know. It is said he wished to duplicate some of the finery and grandeur he was used to in Omaha, Nebraska, which is where he came from."

"It sounds well worth seeing," commented Not-Notmarie.

"And you have never heard of it?"

"Not a word. Nor of Ozma, nor this Great Oz you speak of."

Not-Notmarie asked no questions, and our Notmarie had no answers, and so they continued on in a silence broken only by the monotonous squeak of the wheelbarrow wheel.

Along toward sunset, the trail took a bend, bringing to view a cleared area in the forest, several acres square.

"My home," said Not-Notmarie simply. To Notmarie it was her home as well; yet it had changed. The cottage seemed an older, sadder place, and the little swatch of farmland beyond appeared overworked and touched with desperation.

"If you will let me spend the night here," Notmarie said, "I will continue on tomorrow to the Emerald City—whether it is there or not. Perhaps someone there will know something that can help me."

"Spend the night if you wish," the other girl replied indifferently. "I can share one meal with you, I suppose; but one only. And do not expect much talk out of me, for I have been alone here for some time and am quite out of the habit of speaking."

Notmarie smiled at this, which was her first smile in some time. "That’s all right. Last night Ogogo the Bear talked way too much."

They had a small supper in the cottage, sitting quietly as the shadows deepened in a room that was mostly bare. Afterwards Notmarie took the air, strolling a ways down to the old orchard. She remembered it as full of nice smells and healthy fruit trees of several varieties, such as the apple-pear, the banana-peach, and a small stand of mincemeat trees. Those memories were only a few months old, but now, somehow, the orchard was mostly dry dead branches.

Notmarie managed to find a living dessert bush. She was eating the creampuff she had picked—it was a poor and scrawny thing—when something darted across the starry Oz sky and came to rest on the bough of a long-dead calapatha tree. A big moon was out and the starlight was bright, so the girl had no difficulty seeing that it was a tiny canary-bird.

"Hello," was her greeting.

"And to you," the canary responded in a small and chirpy but courteous tone. "I have come for you."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you, Notmarie; that is, if that is your name."

The Quadling girl shook her head sadly. "I think it is. I do hope it is. There is a girl in there who thinks she is me," she said, gesturing toward the cottage.

The bird hopped down to a lower branch and lited right next to Notmarie’s ear. "I know about that," he said. "But it is you I am here for. Here, hold out your finger—I wish you to look at me closely."

Notmarie extended a finger, and the canary leapt onto it, grasping it gently with his tiny claws. He seemed to weigh no more than a pile of dandelions, and Notmarie easily lifted him to eye level to examine him carefully. What she saw surprised her; though how any inhabitant of the Land of Oz could still be surprised by anything is a mystery. The canary was not made of feathers and bird-flesh, but entirely of wood—one single piece of wood without a break, joint, or nail. Despite this, he could unfold and flutter his wings, move his beak and legs, and generally do everything an ordinary canary can do.

"I am whittled from a single branch of pineaway wood," the canary explained, quite unbidden. "If the light were better, you would see how intricately I am made, every feather sculpted with exquisite craftsmanship. My outside is polished smooth where it is not supposed to be rough like feathers, and then varnished with macadamia oil. On top of that, I am painted a variety of bright colors—mostly green, it is true, for I am of the middle country; but with lively trimmings of this and that."

Notmarie looked him over carefully. "Yes, I see. You’re a wonderful sort of thing."

"I am," agreed the whittled canary. "And yet I am not happy. Strange, isn’t it?"

"How did you come to be what you are?" asked Notmarie. "And why did you come looking especially for me?"

The canary ruffled up his wooden feathers once, hopped off Notmarie’s finger, and settled down on her left shoulder. "I will tell you. It is a story that goes back some ways."

And this is the story the canary told.

For centuries after the start of Queen Lurline’s enchantment, all was well among the peoples of Oz, and there was great contentment and peace. The people became more numerous, it is true; babies were born and grew up to their true ages, whatever age it might be, and now and then it became necessary to build a new house or to move a bit further from everyone else. Occasionally some dispute would arise between two persons, or two families, or—very rarely indeed—between two of the four countries: as when the Winkies and the Quadlings argued whether Orange Meadow, right on the border, belonged to one or the other. In such cases the disputants would travel the roads of yellow brick to the middle country where the four principal countries cornered together at the center of Oz, there to consult with the reigning Oz or Ozma in the Hut of Green Stone. All arguments were settled by the Rightful Ruler, whose judgments were always just, kindly, and wise, and from whose decree there was no appeal. Nor did anyone ever wish to appeal.

Starting with Oz Mandius there had been many Ozzes and Ozmas, just as Queen Lurline had planned. Each ruled until his or her firstborn child came of age—which was not a matter of any set number of years, but of inner character—and then the old ruler gave way to the new one, whose fairy abilities and gifts had just then come alive.

During all these centuries there remained local sovereigns in each of the four countries; for some people like to have an aristocracy, and some people like to be the aristocracy, and so the arrangement worked out for the best all around. The Winkies had an Emperor, the Munchkins a Monarch, the Quadlings a King, and the Gillikins a Sovereign—or if a woman held the office, an Empress, Monarchess, Queen, or Sovereigna. As a matter of national pride and popular inspiration, these leaders were usually provided with a better dwelling than those around them, as well as fine clothes, fanfares, and jewelled crowns. They were not expected to do anything with their time. In this way they were just like the kings and queens of the outer world.

About a hundred and a half years ago, the throne of the Rightful Ruler was occupied by a man called Oz Bozkinz—that is, Oz is what he was, and Bozkinz was his own private name. He was a wise and good ruler, but perhaps not so watchful as he might have been, for he failed to notice that four powerful witches, all of them wicked, had turned up, one in each of the nations. Of Kragmagda, in the southern Country of the Quadlings, you have already been told. In the north, where the Gillikins live, the wicked witch was named Mombi. The Wicked Witch of the East, in the Land of the Munchkins, was Quoribble; and her counterpart in the Winkie Country to the west was named Hagnag. Hagnag was the very worst of them.

The four witches leagued together in secret, helping one another seize power in the four lands, deposing the local rulers and compelling them to find some useful employment. The witches ruled their peoples cruelly—or at least, they did them no favors; but the Rightful Ruler, Bozkinz, thought he ought not intervene unless someone asked him to, and the people were too afraid of the witches to ask.

Still, the witches knew that Oz was Rightful Ruler, and feared that he might some day go against them with his fairy magic, which was very strong as long as he held the ancient throne of the land. So they combined their separate powers and plotted against him.

One day Bozkinz left for a few days to hunt gump in the Great Dark Munchkin Forest. A week passed, and another. Had something happened to the King? Even the several gumps who were Bozkinz’s prey became concerned; when the King failed to show up, they made their way to the Stone Hut to ask after him, only to find that his whereabouts were completely unknown.

Then after three weeks a purple vulture with flaming eyes came whirling down from the sky and perched on a tree next to the Hut of Green Stone. All the leaves of the tree turned a deadish brown and fell off in a pile, and the people who had gathered around began to suspect an ill omen. The vulture threw back his head, and a huge flame flashed from his beak, like a bonfire floating in mid-air. In the middle of the fire appeared the face of old Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North. "Oz Bozkinz is our prisoner," said she. "Do not bother to hope for his escape, for it can’t be done. He and his descendants shall live in captivity to the end of time, and we witches shall run this Land of Oz as we please." Then the flame burst outward and consumed the vulture, and nothing was left but black cinders and a plume of smoke.

With no Rightful Ruler actually ruling, the enchantment of Lurline was weakened a good deal. It was now possible for people to die—and for people to be killed. The four witches weighed the advantages of killing Oz Bozkinz, conferring together at a table with the King himself held captive nearby. But if the Rightful Ruler were destroyed and not just dethroned, Lurline’s spell would be lifted completely and the witches would have to deal with the one enemy they feared most, which was Time itself. For the witches, being gnarled and evil old crones in spirit, showed the signs of great age in their bodies as well. With the Great Enchantment weakened, it was all their powers could do to keep themselves intact and alive. If it were ended utterly, it would be their own end. So they resolved that Bozkinz must be allowed to live out his days.

They decided that Mombi, who had cast a spell upon Oz Bozkinz in the forest, would continue to play the role of his captor: for Kragmagda was too vain, Quoribble too foolish, and Hagnag too vicious to be trusted with such an important responsibility. Mombi went to the little Valley of Narr in her own Gillikin Country, and there she released the King from her enchantment, only to put upon him a curse, a well-contrived but terrible one. If he set one foot outside the borders of the valley, or if he used the least bit of his fairy magic, or if he told to anyone a single word as to his true history and identity—he would begin to shrink in size. In a half-minute he would be half his normal size, and in the next quarter-minute he would be a quarter his normal size; and so on until, by the end of a minute, he would have shrunk down to nothing. He would not be dead, not exactly, but there would be nothing left of him—and that is as good as being dead for the person concerned. Mombi alone could not have imposed such a curse on a fairy-being, not even a half-fairy like Bozkinz. But she was backed by the other three witches, whose power was considerable when pooled together.

Bozkinz resigned himself to living in the Valley of Narr. As to the four witches, no sooner was their goal in sight than they fell to quareling amongst themselves, as selfish people do; for no one of them could bear the thought of any of the others having a part in the rulership of the Land of Oz. So Mombi and Kragmagda, with their armies of Gillikins and Quadlings, went to war against the combined forces of Quoribble and Hagnag. Then Hagnag betrayed Quoribble and made a pact with Kragmagda, just as Mombi abandoned her erstwhile ally and went over to Quoribble. The Wars of the Wicked Witches went on for many a year; and all this while the former king of all Oz, Bozkinz, lived in secrecy. No one knew what had happened to him; only that he was missing.

Bozkinz met and married a girl of the valley, and in time they had a son, whom they named Pastoria. For years all was well as could be—given the circumstances—but when Pastoria reached his eighteenth year he began to show signs of his inherited fairy-magic coming alive in him. If Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North, had known of this, perhaps she would have risked destroying Pastoria right off. But she had been busy with war, and had forgotten that the offspring of the Rightful Ruler might in time cause her some trouble.

Bozkinz’s conscience weighed heavy upon him, for he knew that his carelessness had allowed the four witches to depose him and bring unhappiness to all Oz. The morning came when, with great sorrow, he resolved to tell his wife and son the truth, whatever the consequences to himself. So Bozkinz wrote it all down in a letter; and then, after kissing and embracing his bewildered family, handed the letter to Pastoria. The youth began to read, but no sooner had his eyes taken in the very first word than Bozkinz began to wither down in size, smaller and smaller, until at the end of a minute he had winked out of existence like a grain of sugar in a cup of hot tea.

As he was of sufficient years in both spirit and age, Pastoria was now the rightful King of Oz. Not confined to the Valley of Narr by a curse as his father had been, but knowing of Mombi’s spies, he slipped out of the Valley one night with his mother and made his way to the middle country, raising an army along the way from the many Ozites who were sick and tired of what the four witches had wrought. Of course the threat of an enemy other than each other brought the four witches together, and the two sides fought it out not far from the Hut of Green Stone. The valor of Pastoria’s army was enough to overcome the witchery of his opponents, who barely trusted one another, and with good reason. And so the witches were driven back to their own countries, where they stewed about this turn of affairs for some time; and Pastoria took the throne of Oz.

Years passed. The witches still ruled in their separate lands, but with the Rightful Ruler upon the throne the enchantment of Lurline had returned to full force. Once again, no one aged or died, and no one ever became ill. In time Pastoria, now known as King Oz Pastoria, became complacent; as anyone does when things go well and our days are occupied.

Alas!—the witches had not given up the fight. They created a magic handbag, emerald-green in color, and then one of their number, old Mombi herself, went to the Hut of Green Stone in disguise (taking care to select shoes that matched the handbag) and humbly requested an audience. No sooner had she been ushered into the presence of Pastoria then she opened wide the handbag and held it up. A smoky black light shone forth in a beam; and when it struck the Rightful Ruler, it caused him to be flattened and folded upon himself twenty times, like a newspaper. He was not hurt at all, but was in no shape to rule the land. Mombi slipped him into the handbag, snapped it shut, and returned to the Country of the Gillikins with Oz Pastoria her prisoner, just as his father Bozkinz had been before him. There she opened the magic handbag and restored the King to himself. And then—but no one knows what happened then, for Mombi did not include it in her press-release.

Since that time (said the canary) more than a hundred years have passed. The Wicked Witch of the East, Quoribble, was scrunched to dust when the house of Dorothy Gale of Kansas fell upon her head. The Wicked Witch of the South, Kragmagda, was defeated and made to flee the Quadling Country by Glinda the Good. In the Country of the Gillikins to the north, old Mombi was put down, and most of her witchcraft taken away from her, by the secretive Good Witch of the North, whose name is Locasta; even so, neither threats nor magic succeeded in forcing her to reveal the fate of Oz Pastoria or his descendants, who would be the Rightful Rulers of Oz. Of the four evil ones, only one remains—Hagnag, the Wicked Witch of the West, who has cruelly enslaved the Winkies and rules to this day from her castle next to Bilious Gorge.

THE WHITTLED CANARY paused at last and bobbed his head modestly, to show that his story had reached an end.

"That can’t be all," declared Notmarie firmly, "for you have yet to tell me about yourself, or why you sought me out."

"Why, that’s true," responded the canary, "true as truffles on trees. It’s quite a long tale, actually—"

"Oh please," interrupted Notmarie anxiously, "won’t you make it a short one?"

"If I must," replied the wooden bird with sore gruntility. "As to who I am, perhaps you won’t believe me when I tell you."

"I’ll believe you. I promise."

"Then the fact is that it is Oz Mandius, the first Rightful Ruler of the Land of Oz, who now sits upon your shoulder."

"Oh my!" Notmarie exclaimed. As she had promised to believe the canary, she thought she ought to try; but it was far from easy to imagine the ancient king of Oz in the form of a whittled canary.

"You may call me Mandi," added Oz Mandius, "for I hope we shall be friends. Indeed, I know we shall be. I was once called The Great and Good Knower of What Is To Be, and even when I was sent down to earth to rule Oz, I was permitted to keep a large share of that talent."

"But it wasn’t enough to keep you from becoming a wooden canary," Notmarie observed.

"Quite true," Mandi admitted, "true as termites. It goes to show that we don’t always take time to think when there is something we want. You see, after I had sat upon that throne in the Hut of Green Stone for a great many years, I fell in love with a mortal girl from the Country of the Winkies, a pretty girl with short yellow hair curled all in a bunch, like a dandelion puff. Her name was Yammy, and—in keeping with Queen Lurline’s enchantment—we married and soon had with us a daughter, whom we named Ebrateb. In the fairy language, ‘Ebrateb’ means ‘true gold is wisdom.’ She came of age, and we had a grand ceremony to symbolize the passing of the Rightful Rulership. Yammy and I continued to live in the middle country, in a nice house near the Stone Hut; and we had Ozma Ebrateb over for dinner every Sunday."

"I’m sure it was all very quaint," said Notmarie impatiently, "but I do wish you would come to the point."

"Ah!" responded Mandi. "Well. Perhaps Yammy grew tired of having a husband who could see What Is To Be and could never be surprised, for one day she told me she would be happier going off to live by herself in the Winkie Country where she was born; and I saw that this was true. So I told her to do as she pleased. But that didn’t mean that I stopped loving her, for she was quite unique—which is redundant, but true as tinfoil."

Notmarie wanted to ask what "redundant" meant (it means a word that is unnecessary), but she forebore asking and prolonging the story.

"And so," Mandi continued, "I decided to try to reawaken her love with a gift unlike any in the world. At the edge of the middle country lived an old woodcarver and whittler by the name of Parikutt. I went to him and described what I wanted, and a week later a messenger came and told me it was ready. You see his exquisite work before you. I was overwhelmed with its intricate beauty. ‘Do you like it, O Former Oz?’ Parikutt asked me. I should have said ‘Yes indeed’ and left it at that; but I missed Yammy greatly and my judgment, and magical foresight, was much clouded. So I added: ‘I wonder if we might make it move and sing and fly about, like a living bird?’ Now most of my own fairy-magic was gone, you know; for that is what happens when a new Rightful Ruler takes the throne from the old one. But Parikutt assured me he had a few connections among the dryads and wood-nymphs and even the knooks, who tend the infant trees. So he asked me to return in one week more. When I did, he placed the whittled canary between my two hands clasped together, winked twice at me—once with each eye—and pronounced the word ykleuropflescu."

As Mandi had paused again, Notmarie prodded him: "And then?"

"And then my half-mortal half-fairy body turned into a single green bubble, my clothes dropping to the floor in a heap; and the bubble, which surrounded and enclosed the whittled canary, popped with a tinkling sound. And my next thought came from within the canary’s solid wooden head. I had become the very gift I had intended to give to my beloved!"

"My goodness!"

"It was traumatic," agreed Mandi. "Of course old Parikutt was most apologetic, and promised to track down the boastful knook who had given him the incantation. In truth, I think the old man may have mis-heard the pronunciation of the magic word. But nothing would reverse the spell—not even the fairy magic of my daughter Ozma Ebrateb. In desperation, not even bothering to look into the future, I flew on my new wooden wings to Yammy in the Winkie Country and begged her to return to me. But though she was sympathetic, she said she just couldn’t see herself with a carved wooden canary as her husband. And so I went off to live in the woods, and as the centuries passed—"

"Now," interrupted Notmarie, "tell me why you came to me. Do you know something about what has happened?"

The canary flitted up to a nearby branch. "Yes. Two days ago, in the morning, I was overcome quite suddenly by the strangest feeling, as if a lost memory were trying to nag its way into my brain. I felt a sort of urge to use my gift—that is, to know What Is To Be—to look over the times that were coming. Now what I see when I do that is not exactly a picture. It’s more like feelings and twinges, sometimes connected with words. On this occasion I felt I must fly about and seek out someone named Notmarie, and guide her along to someplace else. And so I did. The little twinges led me here, and I knew you by a prickly feeling I felt when I first saw you below me."

Notmarie nodded at this. "I understand. But now that you have found me, can you tell me about the spell that has hurt my memory?"

"Even as you ask, I am feeling my way to an answer: for What Is To Be ultimately holds the answers to everything if one knows just where to look. I see that you made a change of some sort to the Record Book owned by the sorceress Glinda, and in consequence you have changed the whole history of the Land of Oz from that point forward. Your memories are not so much wrong, Notmarie, as out of date. You remember things as they used to be, you see: but a new ‘used to be’ has replaced the old one."

At this explanation the Quadling girl felt considerable shame. But she did not cry, but only asked, "Then what can be done? After the accident I restored the book to the way it had been before, but there must have been something I didn’t do properly. Perhaps if I went back to Glinda the Good, she would try out different spells upon the book until something worked."

Mandi hopped off his branch and perched again on her shoulder. "No, we won’t be doing that. Neither Glinda nor anyone else will believe that the history of the last hundred years, which they all remember so clearly and well, never existed until the morning before last. We cannot prove to them that what one little girl remembers is the truth as it was meant to be, nor are they likely to accept that I am their former king—and your story is a good deal more peculiar than mine. No, I foresee that we shall travel to the eastern part of Oz, to the blue Country of the Munchkins. As to why we shall do it, I’m sure I don’t know; but these intuitions of mine are never wrong." And with that the whittled canary flew off into the darkness.

Notmarie spent a comfortable night in her old house, which was strangely changed yet strangely familiar. In the morning Not-Notmarie bade her goodbye.

"If you travel toward where the sun is rising, you are sure to find Munchkin Land," she said. "I can’t say I understand what you have told me, but I wish you good fortune. Perhaps," she added, "you might do something for me, if all goes well."

"What?" asked Notmarie.

"If you mean to rub elbows with the magical and the powerful, perhaps you might ask someone to take on the Princeling of Guyle and banish him somewhere. Otherwise I don’t know what will become of this little farm, which is all I have left."

"I’ll do what I can," said Notmarie.

"Do you promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Well," said Not-Notmarie, "that’s something, anyway." She turned back into the house and closed the door without so much as a wave.

It was easy to see which way was east, for the morning sky was bright in that direction. But there was no path heading that way, and Notmarie had to stop at the edge of the farm where the cleared land met the woods. Just then she heard the sound of tiny wings, and Mandi swooped down before her eyes, fluttering so rapidly that he was almost able to hang in midair.

"You’re ready to commence our journey, I take it," observed the former king of Oz.

"Yes," responded Notmarie. "But there’s no road, or even a trail, leading from here to there."

"What nonsense!" asserted Mandi. "Wait here a moment."

He darted away, returning in a few heartbeats with a small curved stick clutched in his claws. He dropped it into Notmarie’s outstretched palm, and she examined it closely. It was queerly shaped, like a shepherd’s crook or question mark, and the wood it was made of seemed very hard.

"This," announced the whittled canary, "is a trailblazing twig, rare as the aluminum rose and the squared circle but known to the various birds of the forest, who have been my comrades for years and years. There can’t be more than a few in all Oz, and it is good fortune indeed that one happened to be found so near."

"But how can this little twig help us?" Notmarie asked skeptically.

"Hold it between the second and third fingers of your left hand, and walk forward."

She did as she was told; and to her astonishment a smooth grassy pathway, wide enough for two to walk abreast, unrolled before her to a length of ten feet or so, as if the dark forest had never grown there. She took a few steps down this path, and found that the far end of it kept moving along in step with her, while behind her the trees and bushes closed in again.

"I think you’ll agree that the trailblazing twig is just what the situation requires," said Mandi. "Now you will be able to walk easily in whatever direction you choose, and I will fly by your shoulder without having to worry about low branches."

And so in this way, with the trail unrolling before them, the Quadling girl and the wooden bird began their long trek toward the Country of the Munchkins.

THERE IS no need to recount the details of the several days’ journey eastward; for nothing of interest occurred. It is true enough that a great many things did not occur. But as they never came to the attention of Notmarie and Mandi, I think we are free to ignore them.

Very soon after they had begun, the faint tinge of Quadling red in the things around them faded away, to be replaced by green. They were cutting across a corner of the middle country, where the Emerald City ought to have stood in all its glittering magnificence. Now, however, there was nothing special to be seen, only a few green-painted farmhouses scattered here and there surrounded by neat greenwashed fences, and a few farmers clad in green overalls working the land that they themselves had cleared and ploughed under.

"We are not far from my old home," commented Mandi, "nor from the Hut of Green Stone, which has stood empty since the disappearance of Oz Pastoria. But it would be best to keep near the border, for the Princeling of Guyle is an unpleasant fellow who might well impede our journey."

"Who is this Princeling?" inquired Notmarie.

"He is a nobody," replied the wooden bird, "a nobody who thinks he is a somebody. You see, with Oz Pastoria a captive, the witches began to fight again amongst themselves; and no one of them was powerful enough to hold this middle land against the other three. Therefore it remained free until a young upstart arose among the local people, got together an army of nine or ten, and proclaimed himself a princeling. His name is Malodo. He calls this country of his, Guyle; and claims that it includes bits and pieces of the four real countries that border it. Now that money has come into style in Oz, he has made a habit of collecting it from others. He has built himself up nicely, and has a house with three turrets, two towers, and nineteen flagpoles flying the national flag of Guyle, which bears a flattering picture of himself on a moss-green background. Every house is required to hoist the flag of Guyle, as a matter of fact. He takes it poorly if you don’t."

"Then he is well worth avoiding," Notmarie agreed.

"Yes," said Mandi, adding, "He is thought to have some wizardry about him, for he has grown only a little older over the last hundred years; and those who have commerce with wizards and witches are usually dangerous."

The magic trail unrolled before them, and soon the colors began to change again, from green to blue; for they had crossed over into the Country of the Munchkins. The surroundings also became darker, the trees taller and thicker in their trunks. They were now in the Great Dark Munchkin Forest, and though the trailblazing twig provided a path to walk on, it did not do anything to light the way.

While keeping generally eastward in their trek, Mandi guided Notmarie here and there to point out good food to eat, visible to his sharp wooden bird’s-eyes but not to those of his human companion. There were berries and fruits in abundance, nuts both shelled and unshelled, an occasional pork-rind bush, and a variety of bread flowers. Patches of chilled milkweed provided liquid refreshment. Night came when the sun went down, and Mandi—who could see in the dark—was always able to find soft spots thatched in moss and clover for Notmarie to sleep on. She never needed a blanket, for it was never cold.

It was strange that neither the Quadling girl nor the former king of Oz knew precisely where they were heading. Mandi simply flew along, guided by his inner sense of What Is To Be.

Around noon of the third day of the journey, the end of the magic trail ahead of the travellers suddenly opened up, revealing bright sunlight, golden with just the slightest trace of powder-blue. The forest had come to a halt at a place where the ground began to slope gently downward, and as Notmarie was thus standing at a high point, she could see for a distance of many miles. "It’s beautiful!" she cried happily; and indeed it was.

Stretched out before Notmarie and Mandi was the broad farmland of the Munchkins, a patchwork of little farms and stands of dainty trees crisscrossed by roads. Far in the distance the horizon was cut off by a streak of an ugly whitish-gray color, like the color of sand, which gave the pretty scene a contrasting stark frame.

"The Deadly Desert!" said Mandi simply.

They made their way down the slope—that is, Notmarie made her way, for Mandi needed only to fly along as usual. But it was a shallow and easy slope, with many flat places to stop and rest; and even here in the open, the trailblazing twig proved its worth, providing a smooth path to walk on.

At the foot of the slope was a stream, which Notmarie crossed on a sheep-bridge made of blue logs. Twenty steps beyond the end of the bridge she came to a road paved in yellow brick.

"I thought I remembered this road," Mandi declared with satisfaction. "You know, it was I who had the several Yellow Brick Roads constructed in the first place, long long ago."

"It has held up well," Notmarie observed.

"Of course," responded the whittled canary, "for I had it made from brick forged in the fairy kilns. It will never wear down from traffic, nor head off in some new direction without permission."

As is the case with roads, this one offered two ways to go—to the right, and to the left. Mandi flew around in a circle, once, twice, three times; and then he gestured with his beak toward the left-hand direction, which appeared to run north of east.

"This is the way," he said. "I feel it."

They went along for another hour and a half, exchanging greetings now and then with the Munchkins they encountered, most of whom were as short as Notmarie, if not shorter still. The people of the east country are the most diminutive of all those in the Land of Oz: and perhaps that is the reason they wear especially tall pointed hats.

The road of yellow brick took a curve round a grove of trees, bringing a new scene into view, and Notmarie suddenly called out, "Oh, look!"

Before the two travellers was a small house made of wood planks. Two things were odd about this house. First, it had four flat sides and a peaked roof, which was quite unlike the round, domed houses favored in most of Oz. But what was really odd was the way it sat on the ground. It seemed to be at a slant, as if one whole side of the floor were lifted up a couple feet higher than the other. And as all the sides were nailed and bolted to the floor, the entire structure was tilted to one side in consequence.

It seemed the tilted house had its backside to the road. Between the road and the house was a broad space which was a flower garden in one place and a vegetable patch in another, all enclosed in a low pickett fence painted robin’s-egg blue. Just as Notmarie spoke, a woman, who had been bending over picking turnips, stood upright. She was a very old woman, quite old indeed, with wispy white hair tucked up in a bun; and though she was little more than five feet tall, she seemed like a giant compared to the Munchkins Notmarie and Mandi had become accustomed to.

The old woman squinted at Notmarie through five-sided spectacles, and then nodded. "Hello," she called out in a sweet friendly voice. "Have you come to see me, my child?"

"I’m afraid I don’t know yet," Notmarie replied. She turned to Mandi, who was fluttering beside her. "Have we come to see her?"

"Yes," answered Mandi decisively.

"Oh, I didn’t notice your canary-bird," the woman said. "Well, if you wish to visit me, you must both come around front, around front I say—so you may enter properly through the front door."

Notmarie and Mandi followed the old woman around the corner of the tilted house, to the side that was the front, although it faced away from the road. In the middle of the front side was a plain wooden door. Leading up to the threshold were several broad steps, each one a little more angled than the one below it, so that the top step matched the tilt of the floor. And next to the steps was a post with a bright blue sign at the top, upon which these words had been neatly painted:

"SO YOU’VE noticed my sign," said the very old woman with a chuckle. "Not that it is easy to miss, even if you try. The Munchkins made it for me. And they made my fence. Such clever workmen! A little short, I s’pose, but clever just the same."

She opened the door wide—which was not very wide at all—and led Notmarie into what she called her "parlor." But the parlor was the same as the bedroom, and the bedroom was the same as the dining room, and the dining room was the same as the kitchen: for in fact the little house was no more than one square room with a door in front, a door in back, and a single window over on the side, next to an old-fashioned cookstove of cast iron. Although the slant of the floor was not too great, Notmarie noticed that all the furnishings in the room had been nailed down to the floorboards to keep them from sliding to the side. There was a thick carpet on the floor, artfully woven in shades of blue, and also a bed with a quilt, a table, a rocking chair, a big basin with a hand-pump for water, and a few pieces of simple furniture; and that was all.

"All I need," said the woman, as if responding to Notmarie’s unspoken thought. She bade the girl sit down in the rocker, which was attached to the floor on a clever sort of hinge, and then without asking she began to prepare a meal. All the while she talked. And what she said was something like this.

"I came here on a cyclone," said Miss Dorothy Gale. "Do you know what that is, child? A big round windstorm. Picked up the whole house and carried it through the air all the way from Kansas to Oz, right over the desert. Oh my, what a fright! But it put me down gentle enough, I guess; right on top of the old Witch of the East too. Nothing left of her but her shoes—silver shoes. Locasta took ’em: that’s the good witch who lives in the Gillikin Country up north. The house, now, the house was set down on some rocks; it’s all a-slant, y’see. Oh well, can’t expect a cyclone to lay a good foundation, I s’pose.&quo