Author’s Note

My friends the children are responsible for this new “Oz Book,” as they were for the last one, which was called The Land of Oz.  Their sweet little letters plead to know “more about Dorothy”; and they ask:  “What became of the Cowardly Lion?” and “What did Ozma do afterward?”—­meaning, of course, after she became the Ruler of Oz.  And some of them suggest plots to me, saying:  “Please have Dorothy go to the Land of Oz again”; or, “Why don’t you make Ozma and Dorothy meet, and have a good time together?” Indeed, could I do all that my little friends ask, I would be obliged to write dozens of books to satisfy their demands.  And I wish I could, for I enjoy writing these stories just as much as the children say they enjoy reading them.

Well, here is “more about Dorothy,” and about our old friends the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and about the Cowardly Lion, and Ozma, and all the rest of them; and here, likewise, is a good deal about some new folks that are queer and unusual.  One little friend, who read this story before it was printed, said to me:  “Billina is real Ozzy, Mr. Baum, and so are Tiktok and the Hungry Tiger.”

If this judgment is unbiased and correct, and the little folks find this new story “real Ozzy,” I shall be very glad indeed that I wrote it.  But perhaps I shall get some more of those very welcome letters from my readers, telling me just how they like “Ozma of Oz.”  I hope so, anyway.

L. FRANK BAUM.

Macatawa, 1907.

1.  The Girl in the Chicken Coop

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.