The Royal Book of Oz
'"
"I'm not!" Dorothy shook her head positively.
"Oh, everyone in America can claim that!" said the Professor easily.
"Nick Chopper!"
Now up rose our old friend the Tin Woodman, who had also been discovered by Dorothy on her first trip to the Fairyland of Oz.
"You were a man of meat at one time and a woodman by trade?" queried Professor Wogglebug, poising his pen in the air.
"I am a Tin Woodman, and you may enter me in your book under the name of Smith, for a tin Smith made me, and as Royal Emperor of the Winkies, I do not care to go back to my meat connections," said the Tin Woodman in a dignified voice.
The company applauded, and the Cowardly Lion thumped the floor with his tail.
"Smith is a very good name. I can work up a whole chapter on that," smiled the Professor. The Tin Woodman had once been a regular person, but a wicked witch enchanted his ax, and first it chopped off one leg, then the other, and next both arms and his head. After each accident, Nick went to a tinsmith for repairs, and finally was entirely made of tin. Nowhere but in Oz could such a thing happen. But no one can be killed in this marvelous country, and Nick, with his tin body, went gaily on living and was considered so distinguished that the Winkies had begged him to be their Emperor.
"Scraps!" called the Professor as Nick sat stiffly down beside Dorothy.
The Patchwork Girl pirouetted madly to the front. Putting one finger in her mouth, she sang:
"I'm made of patches, as you see.
A clothes tree is my family tree
But, pshaw! It's all the same to me!"
A clothes tree? Even Professor Wogglebug grinned. Who could help laughing at Scraps? Made of odd pieces of goods and brought to life by the powder of life, the comical girl was the jolliest person imaginable.
"Put me down as a man of me-tal!" drawled Tik-Tok the copper man as the laugh following Scraps' rhyme had subsided. Tik-Tok was still another of Dorothy's discoveries, and this marvelous machine man, guaranteed to last a thousand years, could think, walk, and talk when properly wound.
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There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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