'Ouch – Ouch!~ repeated the Lion, and leaped backward so suddenly that Dorothy nearly tumbled from his back. At the same time Hank the Mule yelled 'Ouch!''Ouch! Ouch!' repeated the Lion and leaped backward so suddenly that Dorothy nearly tumbled from his back. At the same time, Hank the Mule yelled 'Ouch!' almost as loudly as the Lion had done, and he also pranced backward a few paces.
'It's the thistles,' said Betsy.
'They prick their legs.'
Hearing this, all looked down, and sure enough the ground was thick with thistles, which covered the plain from the point where they stood way up to the walls of the mysterious city. No pathways through them could be seen at all; here the soft grass ended and the growth of thistles began. 'They're the prickliest thistles I ever felt,' grumbled the Lion. 'My legs smart yet from their stings, though I jumped out of them as quickly as I could.'
'Here is a new difficulty,' remarked the Wizard in a grieved tone. 'The city has stopped hopping around, it is true, but how are we to get to it over this mass of prickers?'
'They can't hurt ME,' said the thick-skinned Woozy, advancing fearlessly and trampling among the thistles.
'Nor me,' said the Wooden Sawhorse.
'But the Lion and the Mule cannot stand the prickers,' asserted Dorothy, 'and we can't leave them behind.'
'Must we all go back?' asked Trot.
'Course not!' replied Button-Bright scornfully. 'Always when there's trouble, there's a way out of it if you can find it.'
'I wish the Scarecrow was here,' said Scraps, standing on her head on the Woozy's square back. 'His splendid brains would soon show us how to conquer this field of thistles.'
'What's the matter with YOUR brains?' asked the boy.
'Nothing,' she said, making a flip-flop into the thistles and dancing among them without feeling their sharp points. 'I could tell you in half a minute how to get over the thistles if I wanted to.'
'Tell us, Scraps!' begged Dorothy.
'I don't want to wear my brains out with overwork,' replied the Patchwork Girl.
'Don't you love Ozma? And don't you want to find her?' asked Betsy reproachfully.
'Yes indeed,' said Scraps, walking on her hands as an acrobat does at the circus.
'Well, we can't find Ozma unless we get past these thistles,' declared Dorothy.
Scraps danced around them two or three times without reply. Then she said, 'Don't look at me, you stupid folks. Look at those blankets.'
The Wizard's face brightened at once.
'Why didn't we think of those blankets before?'
'Because you haven't magic brains,' laughed Scraps. 'Such brains as you have are of the common sort that grow in your heads, like weeds in a garden. I'm sorry for you people who have to be born in order to be alive.'
But the Wizard was not listening to her. He quickly removed the blankets from the back of the Sawhorse and spread one of them upon the thistles, just next the grass. The thick cloth rendered the prickers harmless, so the Wizard walked over this first blanket and spread the second one farther on, in the direction of the phantom city. 'These blankets,' said he, 'are for the Lion and the Mule to walk upon. The Sawhorse and the Woozy can walk on the thistles.'
So the Lion and the Mule walked over the first blanket and stood upon the second one until the Wizard had picked up the one they had passed over and spread it in front of them, when they advanced to that one and waited while the one behind them was again spread in front. 'This is slow work,' said the Wizard, 'but it will get us to the city after a while.'
'The city is a good half mile away yet,' announced Button-Bright.
'And this is awful hard work for the Wizard,' added Trot.
'Why couldn't the Lion ride on the Woozy's back?' asked Dorothy.'it's a big, flat back, and the Woozy's mighty strong. Perhaps the Lion wouldn't fall off.'
'You may try it if you like,' said the Woozy to the Lion. 'I can take you to the city in a jiffy and then come back for Hank.'
'I'm – I'm afraid,' said the Cowardly Lion. He was twice as big as the Woozy.
'Try it,' pleaded Dorothy.
'And take a tumble among the thistles?'asked the Lion reproachfully. But when the Woozy came close to him, the big beast suddenly bounded upon its back and managed to balance himself there, although forced to hold his four legs so close together that he was in danger of toppling over. The great weight of the monster Lion did not seem to affect the Woozy, who called to his rider, 'Hold on tight!' and ran swiftly over the thistles toward the city. The others stood on the blanket and watched the strange sight anxiously. Of course, the Lion couldn't 'hold on tight' because there was nothing to hold to, and he swayed from side to side as if likely to fall off any moment. Still, he managed to stick to the Woozy's back until they were close to the walls of the city, when he leaped to the ground. Next moment the Woozy came dashing back at full speed.
'There's a little strip of ground next the wall where there are no thistles,' he told them when he had reached the adventurers once more. 'Now then, friend Hank, see if you can ride as well as the Lion did.'
'Take the others first,' proposed the Mule. So the Sawhorse and the Woozy made a couple of trips over the thistles to the city walls and carried all the people in safety, Dorothy holding little Toto in her arms. The travelers then sat in a group on a little hillock just outside the wall and looked at the great blocks of gray stone and waited for the Woozy to bring Hank to them. The Mule was very awkward, and his legs trembled so badly that more than once they thought he would tumble off, but finally he reached them in safety, and the entire party was now reunited. More than that, they had reached the city that had eluded them for so long and in so strange a manner.
'The gates must be around the other side,' said the Wizard. 'Let us follow the curve of the wall until we reach an opening in it.'
'Which way?' asked Dorothy.
'We must guess that,' he replied. 'Suppose we go to the left. One direction is as good as another.' They formed in marching order and went around the city wall to the left. It wasn't a big city, as I have said, but to go way around it outside the high wall was quite a walk, as they became aware. But around it our adventurers went without finding any sign of a gateway or other opening. When they had returned to the little mound from which they had started, they dismounted from the animals and again seated themselves on the grassy mound.
'It's mighty queer, isn't it?' asked Button-Bright.
'There must be SOME way for the people to get out and in,' declared Dorothy. 'Do you s'pose they have flying machines, Wizard?'
'No,' he replied, 'for in that case they would be flying all over the Land of Oz, and we know they have not done that. Flying machines are unknown here. I think it more likely that the people use ladders to get over the walls.'
'It would be an awful climb over that high stone wall,' said Betsy.
'Stone, is it?' Scraps, who was again dancing wildly around, for she never tired and could never keep still for long.
'Course it's stone,' answered Betsy scornfully. 'Can't you see?'
'Yes,' said Scraps, going closer. 'I can SEE the wall, but I can't FEEL it.' And then, with her arms outstretched, she did a very queer thing. She walked right into the wall and disappeared.
'For goodness sake!' Dorothy, amazed, as indeed they all were.
Chapter 9
THE HIGH COCO-LORUM OF THI
And now the Patchwork Girl came dancing out of the wall again. 'Come on!' she called. 'It isn't there.
There isn't any wall at all.'
