Contents
--Author's Note--
1. The Girl in the Chicken Coop
2. The Yellow Hen
3. Letters in the Sand
4. Tiktok, the Machine Man
5. Dorothy Opens the Dinner Pail
6. The Heads of Langwidere
7. Ozma of Oz to the Rescue
8. The Hungry Tiger
9. The Royal Family of Ev
10. The Giant with the Hammer
11. The Nome King
12. The Eleven Guesses
13. The Nome King Laughs
14. Dorothy Tries to be Brave
15. Billina Frightens the Nome King
16. Purple, Green and Gold
17. The Scarecrow Wins the Fight
18. The Fate of the Tin Woodman
19. The King of Ev
20. The Emerald City
21. Dorothy's Magic Belt
1. The Girl in the Chicken Coop
The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples
across its surface. Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples
until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became
billows. The billows rolled dreadfully high: higher even than the tops
of houses. Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall
trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great
billows were like deep valleys.
All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean,
which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever,
resulted in a terrible storm, and a storm on the ocean is liable to cut
many queer pranks and do a lot of damage.
At the time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon the
waters. When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and
bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped sidewise--first one way
and then the other--and was jostled around so roughly that even the
sailor-men had to hold fast to the ropes and railings to keep
themselves from being swept away by the wind or pitched headlong into
the sea.
And the clouds were so thick in the sky that the sunlight couldn't get
through them; so that the day grew dark as night, which added to the
terrors of the storm.
The Captain of the ship was not afraid, because he had seen storms
before, and had sailed his ship through them in safety; but he knew
that his passengers would be in danger if they tried to stay on deck,
so he put them all into the cabin and told them to stay there until
after the storm was over, and to keep brave hearts and not be scared,
and all would be well with them.
