room. On the other side of it was a pile of straw.
Dorothy thought of Toto, who was still under the house. She felt disloyal being here. She wanted to hide, too, under the house.
Aunty Em took a deep breath and then sighed, a long, high, showy kind of sigh that she meant Dorothy to hear. She had decided to be nice.
'Well,' she said, animated. 'What have we got here but some nice stew! I think there's probably a little child somewhere who has had a very long day. Maybe she'd like something to eat.'
Dorothy was not hungry, but she said, 'Yes please, Ma'am.'
'What a nicely brought up little child she is,' said Aunty Em, still piping.
'Can Toto have some too?'
Aunty Em managed to chuckle. 'Heh,' she said. 'This is people stew, Dorothy. We got special food for dogs.'
Aunty Em passed her the stew. It was brown, in a brown cracked bowl. Aunty Em leaned over to peer, grinning, into Dorothy's face as she took a spoonful.
'There!' Aunty Em said, soothing.
The meat was hard and dry in the middle and very, very salty, and there were bubbles of salty fat in the gravy, and there were no vegetables with the meat. Dorothy's mother had always eaten lots of crisp vegetables, lots of fresh fruit, like she could never get enough of it. Dorothy was going to ask for some, but looked around, and saw there was no fruit or vegetables. Dorothy chewed and swallowed. But she couldn't lie. She couldn't say it was nice.
'It's greasy,' she whispered. If this was what they fed people in Kansas, what did they feed dogs?
Aunty Em tried to be nice. 'Well,' she said, with another drawn-out sigh. 'How about some nice hot cornbread to soak it up? Fresh-made this morning.' She didn't wait for an answer. She turned away smartly, and began to saw away at the bread. Dorothy could see she was still mad. Aunty Em dropped the bread on her plate from high up. The bread was bright yellow.
From under the house came a low, warning growl.
'Nice doggy. Nice doggy,' Uncle Henry was saying outside the front door. Dorothy's back was toward it. She didn't dare look around.
'You just eat up, honey,' said Aunty Em. 'I'll go make sure Toto's happy.'
Dorothy heard Em's boots on the floor. Dorothy sat still and tried to swallow the meat and she chewed the bread, and it went round and round in her mouth, rough and gritty. She began to weep silently and slowly, listening to what they were doing to Toto.
'He's gone right under!' grunted Henry.
'Well, hook him out with the broom,' Aunty Em was whispering.
Dorothy did nothing. If she had been big and brave she would have done something. She would have hit Aunty Em with the broom and called Toto and walked away and never come back. But she knew what the world was like, now. It was like that train ride. Here, at least, she would be fed.
'Got him,' said Henry.
Aunty Em came back in, smiling at Dorothy. 'It's going to rain, soon,' she said. 'Oh, you can smell it in the wind. We need that rain. And you, young lady. You need a bath.'
Dorothy nodded, solemnly. She did. She liked baths. The water was hot, and it smelled nice, and she always felt pretty afterward. Aunty Em kept smiling. She pulled a big metal tub out of the corner, and poured a kettle into it. The water was boiling. Dorothy heard the ringing sound of the water as it hit the metal. It was a sound she had always liked. It was a sound from home.
'You want to get ready, Dorothy?'
'Yes, Ma'am.' Outside, Toto began to bark. He went on barking.
'Toto's always quiet when you let him inside,' said Dorothy, unbuttoning her dress.
'He'll bring in the dust, Dorothy,' explained Aunty Em. 'Here now.' She pulled off the dress. Dorothy heard boots.
'Henry, please! Can't you see the little lady is engaged in her toilet?' Aunty Em was still trying to sound nice. The joke was an adult joke, made for adults, the kind of joke a child wouldn't understand. Dorothy, her head covered by the white fairy dress, could only hear Henry grunt and stomp away.
Dorothy was going to test the water with her toe. Aunty Em snatched her up and lowered her into the bath.
It was hot, far too hot. 'Ow!' yelped Dorothy. The heat seared into her. 'Ow, ow, ow,' she danced back and forth in the tub and tried to climb out. Aunty Em held her in.
'It's hot!' wailed Dorothy. Em stuck her hand in.
'It is not too hot, Dorothy.'
It was. Very suddenly Dorothy and Em were wrestling. Dorothy jumping, leaping, trying to keep out of the water, held by Em's hands.
'All right!' said Aunty Em. She pulled Dorothy out. Dorothy stood naked, rubbing her shins.
'It was so too hot!' Didn't she know that adults and children felt heat differently? Her mama knew that.
Bath time here was not going to be nice. Aunty Em stopped smiling. She dumped a pail of cold water into the tub. 'Now let's try again,' said Aunty Em. She didn't let Dorothy climb in by herself, but yanked her up and dropped
