bite you."
The reason the Lion did not have to do as the Witch wished was
that every night, while the woman was asleep, Dorothy carried him
food from the cupboard. After he had eaten he would lie down on his
bed of straw, and Dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on
his soft, shaggy mane, while they talked of their troubles and
tried to plan some way to escape. But they could find no way to get
out of the castle, for it was constantly guarded by the yellow
Winkies, who were the slaves of the Wicked Witch and too afraid of
her not to do as she told them.
The girl had to work hard during the day, and often the Witch
threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always
carried in her hand. But, in truth, she did not dare to strike
Dorothy, because of the mark upon her forehead. The child did not
know this, and was full of fear for herself and Toto. Once the
Witch struck Toto a blow with her umbrella and the brave little dog
flew at her and bit her leg in return. The Witch did not bleed
where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her
had dried up many years before.
Dorothy's life became very sad as she grew to understand that it
would be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again.
Sometimes she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at
her feet and looking into her face, whining dismally to show how
sorry he was for his little mistress. Toto did not really care
whether he was in Kansas or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was
with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made
him unhappy too.
Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the
Silver Shoes which the girl always wore. Her bees and her crows and
her wolves were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up
all the power of the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of
the Silver Shoes, they would give her more power than all the other
things she had lost. She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if shethings she had lost. She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she
ever took off her shoes, thinking she might steal them. But the
child was so proud of her pretty shoes that she never took them off
except at night and when she took her bath. The Witch was too much
afraid of the dark to dare go in Dorothy's room at night to take
the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the
dark, so she never came near when Dorothy was bathing. Indeed, the
old Witch never touched water, nor ever let water touch her in any
way.
But the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally
thought of a trick that would give her what she wanted. She placed
a bar of iron in the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her
magic arts made the iron invisible to human eyes. So that when
Dorothy walked across the floor she stumbled over the bar, not
being able to see it, and fell at full length. She was not much
hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver Shoes came off; and before
she could reach it, the Witch had snatched it away and put it on
her own skinny foot.
The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her
trick, for as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the
power of their charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her,
even had she known how to do so.
The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes,
grew angry, and said to the Witch, "Give me back my shoe!"
"I will not," retorted the Witch, "for it is now my shoe, and
not yours."
"You are a wicked creature!" cried Dorothy. "You have no right
to take my shoe from me."
"I shall keep it, just the same," said the Witch, laughing at
her, "and someday I shall get the other one from you, too."
This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of
water that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her
from head to foot.
Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear, and then, as
Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall
away.
"See what you have done!" she screamed. "In a minute I shallaway.
"See what you have done!" she screamed. "In a minute I shall
melt away."
"I'm very sorry, indeed," said Dorothy, who was truly frightened
to see the Witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her
very eyes.
"Didn't you know water would be the end of me?" asked the Witch,
in a wailing, despairing voice.
"Of course not," answered Dorothy. "How should I?"
"Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have
the castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, but I never
thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and
end my wicked deeds. Look out—here I go!"
With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted,
shapeless mass and began to spread over the clean boards of the
kitchen floor. Seeing that she had really melted away to nothing,
Dorothy drew another bucket of water and threw it over the mess.
She then swept it all out the door. After picking out the silver
shoe, which was all that was left of the old woman, she cleaned and
dried it with a cloth, and put it on her foot again. Then, being at
last free to do as she chose, she ran out to the courtyard to tell
the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had come to an end, and
that they were no longer prisoners in a strange land.The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch
had been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked
the gate of his prison and set him free. They went in together to
the castle, where Dorothy's first act was to call all the Winkies
together and tell them that they were no longer slaves.
There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had
been made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who
had always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a
holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and
dancing.
"If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only
with us," said the Lion, "I should be quite happy."
"Don't you suppose we could rescue them?" asked the girl
anxiously.
"We can try," answered the Lion.
So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would
help to rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would
be delighted to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them
free from bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked
as if they knew the most, and they all started away. They traveled
that day and part of the next until they came to the rocky plain
where the Tin Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near
him, but the blade was rusted and the handle broken off short.
The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him
back to the Yellow Castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by
the way at the sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking
sober and sorry. When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the
Winkies:
"Are any of your people tinsmiths?"
"Oh, yes. Some of us are very good tinsmiths," they told
her.
"Then bring them to me," she said. And when the tinsmiths came,
bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she inquired, "Can
you straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him
back into shape again, and solder him together where he is
broken?"
The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then