Chapter XXIII
Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish
Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the
Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion
shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best
shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.
When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a
big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.
She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in
color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was pure
white but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl.
“What can I do for you, my child?” she asked.
Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her to
the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful
adventures they had met with.
“My greatest wish now,” she added, “is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt
Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will
make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they
were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it.”
Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving
little girl.
“Bless your dear heart,” she said, “I am sure I can tell you of a way to get
back to Kansas.” Then she added, “But, if I do, you must give me the Golden
Cap.”
“Willingly!” exclaimed Dorothy; “indeed, it is of no use to me now, and
when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times.”
“And I think I shall need their service just those three times,” answered
Glinda, smiling.
Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the
Scarecrow, “What will you do when Dorothy has left us?”
“I will return to the Emerald City,” he replied, “for Oz has made me its
ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross
the hill of the Hammer-Heads.”
“By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to
carry you to the gates of the Emerald City,” said Glinda, “for it would be a
shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler.”
“Am I really wonderful?” asked the Scarecrow.
“You are unusual,” replied Glinda.
Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked, “What will become of you when
Dorothy leaves this country?”
He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, “The Winkies
were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked
Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to the
Country of the West, I should like nothing better than to rule over them
forever.”
“My second command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda “will be that
they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brain may not be so
large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he
is—when you are well polished—and I am sure you will rule the Winkies
wisely and well.”
Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, “When Dorothy
has returned to her own home, what will become of you?”
“Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads,” he answered, “lies a grand old
forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If I could
only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily there.”
“My third command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda, “shall be to
carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden Cap,
I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter
be free for evermore.”
The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good
Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed:
“You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet told
me how to get back to Kansas.”
“Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,” replied Glinda. “If
you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the
very first day you came to this country.”
“But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!” cried the
Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s cornfield.”
“And I should not have had my lovely heart,” said the Tin Woodman. “I
might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.”
“And I should have lived a coward forever,” declared the Lion, “and no
beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.”
“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these good
friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is
happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should like to go back to
Kansas.”
“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “have wonderful powers. And
one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any
place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of
an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and
command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”
“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me back to
Kansas at once.”
She threw her arms around the Lion’s neck and kissed him, patting his big
head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way
most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the
Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was
crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.
Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a
good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to
her friends and herself.
Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last
good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying:
“Take me home to Aunt Em!”
Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see
or feel was the wind whistling past her ears.
The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly
that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she
was.
At length, however, she sat up and looked about her.
“Good gracious!” she cried.
For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her was
the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried away the
old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and Toto had
jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking furiously.
Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver
Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the
desert.
