Part 2
Really Wizard
It was some days later that Lizzie again entered the bookshop. She did love books, and seeing another assistant and not the strange one from her last visit, she spent a happy half an hour browsing. It was only when she went to pay for her books that she noticed that he was actually there. He smiled at her, peering through his glasses, "Ah, Alice wasn't it?"
"No, Lizzie," she said before she could stop herself.
"Ah yes, Lizzie, you were looking at Alice. Excellent book, you should read L. Frank Baum next."
"I didn't read Alice, I told you I'd read it before."
"Pays re-reading, I find, and Baum?"
"The Wizard of Oz?"
"That's it and many others. I am sure it will excite you."
"I've read it!" said Lizzie. "It's a children's book. Pleasant but hardly exciting."
The young man smiled. "We'll see, we'll see." He picked up Lizzie's books and rang up the till.
Lizzie was somewhat taken aback by his strange remark.
Closing the door as she left, Lizzie saw him staring after her, a slightly unnerving young man, in his black shirt and yellow tie. Lizzie did not like him one little bit.
Dreaming again, Lizzie looked about her. Where was she? She looked down at herself, no it was not Alice's dress; Alice did not wear a faded gingham frock with checks of white and blue and silver shoes. She reached up and took off a pink sunbonnet and looked at it. The sun sure was hot.
She was standing just outside a wooden cottage, or shack, and she could see there were several roads near by. She looked idly at them and turned to inspect the cottage when something about the roads suddenly struck her. Not so much about the roads as one particular road, it was not metalled but paved and it was paved with yellow bricks. Yellow bricks!
"I'm in Oz! What fun!"
So Lizzie skipped off down the Yellow Brick Road, the shack forgotten, singing happily to herself "Follow, follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road..."
She saw how pretty the country was about her, and realized she was in the land of the Munchkins. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. The houses of the Munchkins were odd-looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the favorite color.
When she had gone several miles she thought she would stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road and sat down. There was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far away she saw a Scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from the ripe corn.
Lizzie leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully at the Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw, with eyes, nose, and mouth painted on it to represent a face. An old, pointed blue hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin, was perched on his head, and the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, which had also been stuffed with straw. While Lizzie was looking earnestly into the queer, painted face of the Scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her. She thought she must have been mistaken at first, for scarecrows never wink; but presently the figure nodded its head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and walked up to it.
"Good day," said the Scarecrow, in a rather husky voice.
"How do you do?"
"I'm not feeling well," said the Scarecrow, with a smile, "for it is very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows."
"Can't you get down?" asked Lizzie.
"No, for this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away the pole I shall be greatly obliged to you."
Lizzie reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole, for, being stuffed with straw, it was quite light.
"Thank you very much," said the Scarecrow, when he had been set down on the ground. "I feel like a new man."
"Who are you and what are you?" asked the Scarecrow as stretched himself and yawned. "And where are you going?"
"My name is Lizzie, I am a girl and I am going to the Emerald City to see the great wizard."
"I thought perhaps you were a girl," he said.
"Why, don't you know?" she returned, in surprise.
"No, indeed. I don't know anything. You see, I am stuffed, so I have no brains at all," he answered sadly.
"Oh," said Lizzie, "I'm awfully sorry for you.
"Do you think," he asked, "if I go to the Emerald City with you, that Oz would give me some brains?"
"I cannot tell," she returned, "but you may come with me, if you like. If Oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off than you are now."
They walked back to the road. Lizzie helped him over the fence, and they started along the path.
The Scarecrow was interested in why Lizzie, in her role as Dorothy, wanted to go to see the Wizard and find a way back to Kansas.
He listened carefully, and said, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."
"That is because you have no brains," answered the girl. There is no place like home, you see." Lizzie asked the Scarecrow how he came to be made.
"My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. Luckily, when the farmer made my head, one of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that I heard what was going on. There was another Munchkin with him, a funny looking one, no blue on him at all. He was dressed in yellow and black. Looked quite out of place.
The first thing I heard was the farmer saying, "How do you like those ears?"
"They aren't straight," answered the other.
"Never mind,'" said the farmer. "They are ears just the same," which was true enough.