1.
The Girl in the Chicken Coop
chapter 1 of Ozma of Oz
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.
Now, among these passengers was a little Kansas girl named Dorothy
Gale, who was going with her Uncle Henry to Australia, to visit some
relatives they had never before seen. Uncle Henry, you must know, was
not very well, because he had been working so hard on his Kansas farm
that his health had given way and left him weak and nervous. So he
left Aunt Em at home to watch after the hired men and to take care of
the farm, while he traveled far away to Australia to visit his cousins
and have a good rest.
Dorothy was eager to go with him on this journey, and Uncle Henry
thought she would be good company and help cheer him up; so he decided
to take her along. The little girl was quite an experienced traveller,
for she had once been carried by a cyclone as far away from home as
the marvelous Land of Oz, and she had met with a good many adventures
in that strange country before she managed to get back to Kansas
again. So she wasn't easily frightened, whatever happened, and when
the wind began to howl and whistle, and the waves began to tumble and
toss, our little girl didn't mind the uproar the least bit.
"Of course we'll have to stay in the cabin," she said to Uncle
Henry and the other passengers, "and keep as quiet as possible
until the storm is over. For the Captain says if we go on deck
we may be blown overboard."
No one wanted to risk such an accident as that, you may be sure;
so all the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin,
listening to the shrieking of the storm and the creaking of the
masts and rigging and trying to keep from bumping into one another
when the ship tipped sidewise.
Dorothy had almost fallen asleep when she was aroused with a start to
find that Uncle Henry was missing. She couldn't imagine where he had
gone, and as he was not very strong she began to worry about him, and
to fear he might have been careless enough to go on deck. In that
case he would be in great danger unless he instantly came down again.
The fact was that Uncle Henry had gone to lie down in his little
sleeping-berth, but Dorothy did not know that. She only remembered
that Aunt Em had cautioned her to take good care of her uncle, so at
once she decided to go on deck and find him, in spite of the fact that
the tempest was now worse than ever, and the ship was plunging in a
really dreadful manner. Indeed, the little girl found it was as much
as she could do to mount the stairs to the deck, and as soon as she
got there the wind struck her so fiercely that it almost tore away the
skirts of her dress. Yet Dorothy felt a sort of joyous excitement in
defying the storm, and while she held fast to the railing she peered
around through the gloom and thought she saw the dim form of a man
clinging to a mast not far away from her. This might be her uncle, so
she called as loudly as she could:
"Uncle Henry! Uncle Henry!"
But the wind screeched and howled so madly that she scarce heard
her own voice, and the man certainly failed to hear her, for he
did not move.
Dorothy decided she must go to him; so she made a dash forward, during
a lull in the storm, to where a big square chicken-coop had been
lashed to the deck with ropes. She reached this place in safety, but
no sooner had she seized fast hold of the slats of the big box in
which the chickens were kept than the wind, as if enraged because the
little girl dared to resist its power, suddenly redoubled its fury.
With a scream like that of an angry giant it tore away the ropes that
held the coop and lifted it high into the air, with Dorothy still
clinging to the slats. Around and over it whirled, this way and that,
and a few moments later the chicken-coop dropped far away into the
sea, where the big waves caught it and slid it up-hill to a foaming
crest and then down-hill into a deep valley, as if it were nothing more than a plaything to keep them amused.
Dorothy had a good ducking, you may be sure, but she didn't loose her
presence of mind even for a second. She kept tight hold of the stout
slats and as soon as she could get the water out of her eyes she saw
that the wind had ripped the cover from the coop, and the poor
chickens were fluttering away in every direction, being blown by the
wind until they looked like feather dusters without handles. The
bottom of the coop was made of thick boards, so Dorothy found she was
clinging to a sort of raft, with sides of slats, which readily bore up
her weight. After coughing the water out of her throat and getting
her breath again, she managed to climb over the slats and stand upon
the firm wooden bottom of the coop, which supported her easily enough.
"Why, I've got a ship of my own!" she thought, more amused than
frightened at her sudden change of condition; and then, as the coop
climbed up to the top of a big wave, she looked eagerly around for the
ship from which she had been blown.
It was far, far away, by this time. Perhaps no one on board had yet
missed her, or knew of her strange adventure. Down into a valley
between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another
crest the ship looked like a toy boat, it was such a long way off.
Soon it had entirely disappeared in the gloom, and then Dorothy gave a
sigh of regret at parting with Uncle Henry and began to wonder what
was going to happen to her next.
Just now she was tossing on the bosom of a big ocean, with nothing to
keep her afloat but a miserable wooden hen-coop that had a plank
bottom and slatted sides, through which the water constantly splashed
and wetted her through to the skin! And there was nothing to eat when
she became hungry--as she was sure to do before long--and no fresh water to drink and no dry clothes to put on.
"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "You're in a pretty fix, Dorothy Gale, I can tell you! and I haven't the least idea how you're going to get out of it!"
As if to add to her troubles the night was now creeping on, and the
gray clouds overhead changed to inky blackness. But the wind, as if
satisfied at last with its mischievous pranks, stopped blowing this
ocean and hurried away to another part of the world to blow something
else; so that the waves, not being joggled any more, began to quiet
down and behave themselves.
It was lucky for Dorothy, I think, that the storm subsided; otherwise,
brave though she was, I fear she might have perished. Many children,
in her place, would have wept and given way to despair; but because
Dorothy had encountered so many adventures and come safely through
them it did not occur to her at this time to be especially afraid.
She was wet and uncomfortable, it is true; but, after sighing that one Sigh I told you of, she managed to recall some of her customary cheerfulness and decided to patiently await whatever her fate might be.
By and by the black clouds rolled away and showed a blue sky overhead,
with a silver moon shining sweetly in the middle of it and little
stars winking merrily at Dorothy when she looked their way. The coop
did not toss around any more, but rode the waves more gently--almost
like a cradle rocking--so that the floor upon which Dorothy stood was
no longer swept by water coming through the slats. Seeing this, and
being quite exhausted by the excitement of the past few hours, the
little girl decided that sleep would be the best thing to restore her
strength and the easiest way in which she could pass the time. The
floor was damp and she was herself wringing wet, but fortunately this
was a warm climate and she did not feel at all cold.
So she sat down in a corner of the coop, leaned her back against the
slats, nodded at the friendly stars before she closed her eyes, and
was asleep in half a minute.
Authors Note...
The Great OZ Node...
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