Part 3 (2/2)
”If we knew,” replied Dorothy severely, ”we wouldn't be standing here doing nothing.”
Just then two boys entered the courtyard and approached the group of girls. One boy was dressed in the fantastic Munchkin costume--a blue jacket and knickerbockers, blue leather shoes and a blue hat with a high peak and tiny silver bells dangling from its rim--and this was Ojo the Lucky, who had once come from the Munchkin Country of Oz and now lived in the Emerald City. The other boy was an American from Philadelphia and had lately found his way to Oz in the company of Trot and Cap'n Bill. His name was b.u.t.ton-Bright; that is, everyone called him by that name and knew no other. b.u.t.ton-Bright was not quite as big as the Munchkin boy, but he wore the same kind of clothes, only they were of different colors. As the two came up to the girls, arm in arm, b.u.t.ton-Bright remarked, ”h.e.l.lo, Dorothy. They say Ozma is lost.”
”WHO says so?” she asked.
”Ev'rybody's talking about it in the City,” he replied.
”I wonder how the people found it out,” Dorothy asked.
”I know,” said Ojo. ”Jellia Jamb told them. She has been asking everywhere if anyone has seen Ozma.”
”That's too bad,” observed Dorothy, frowning.
”Why?” asked b.u.t.ton-Bright.
”There wasn't any use making all our people unhappy till we were dead certain that Ozma can't be found.”
”Pshaw,” said b.u.t.ton-Bright, ”it's nothing to get lost. I've been lost lots of times.”
”That's true,” admitted Trot, who knew that the boy had a habit of getting lost and then finding himself again, ”but it's diff'rent with Ozma. She's the Ruler of all this big fairyland, and we're 'fraid that the reason she's lost is because somebody has stolen her away.”
”Only wicked people steal,” said Ojo. ”Do you know of any wicked people in Oz, Dorothy?”
”No,” she replied.
”They're here, though,” cried Sc.r.a.ps, dancing up to them and then circling around the group. ”Ozma's stolen; someone in Oz stole her; only wicked people steal; so someone in Oz is wicked!”
There was no denying the truth of this statement. The faces of all of them were now solemn and sorrowful. ”One thing is sure,” said b.u.t.ton-Bright after a time, ”if Ozma has been stolen, someone ought to find her and punish the thief.”
”There may be a lot of thieves,” suggested Trot gravely, ”and in this fairy country they don't seem to have any soldiers or policemen.”
”There is one soldier,” claimed Dorothy.
”He has green whiskers and a gun and is a Major-General, but no one is afraid of either his gun or his whiskers, 'cause he's so tender-hearted that he wouldn't hurt a fly.”
”Well, a soldier is a soldier,” said Betsy, ”and perhaps he'd hurt a wicked thief if he wouldn't hurt a fly. Where is he?”
”He went fis.h.i.+ng about two months ago and hasn't come back yet,”
explained b.u.t.ton-Bright.
”Then I can't see that he will be of much use to us in this trouble,”
sighed little Trot. ”But p'raps Ozma, who is a fairy, can get away from the thieves without any help from anyone.”
”She MIGHT be able to,” answered Dorothy reflectively, ”but if she had the power to do that, it isn't likely she'd have let herself be stolen.
So the thieves must have been even more powerful in magic than our Ozma.”
There was no denying this argument, and although they talked the matter over all the rest of that day, they were unable to decide how Ozma had been stolen against her will or who had committed the dreadful deed.
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