The Essential Works of L. Frank Baum. L. Frank Baum

surprised.

      “Never!” repeated the girl. “And you’ll probably make yourself sick if you don’t stop crying. Where do you live?”

      “About two miles beyond Fuddlecumjig,” was the answer. “Grandmother Gnit made me the mittens, and she’s one of the Fuddles.”

      “Well, you’d better go home now, and perhaps the old lady will make you another pair,” suggested Dorothy. “We’re on our way to Fuddlecumjig, and you may hop along beside us.”

      So they rode on, and the kangaroo hopped beside the red wagon and seemed quickly to have forgotten her loss. By and by the Wizard said to the animal:

      “Are the Fuddles nice people?”

      “Oh, very nice,” answered the kangaroo; “that is, when they’re properly put together. But they get dreadfully scattered and mixed up, at times, and then you can’t do anything with them.”

      “What do you mean by their getting scattered?” inquired Dorothy.

      “Why, they’re made in a good many small pieces,” explained the kangaroo; “and whenever any stranger comes near them they have a habit of falling apart and scattering themselves around. That’s when they get so dreadfully mixed, and it’s a hard puzzle to put them together again.”

      “Who usually puts them together?” asked Omby Amby.

      “Any one who is able to match the pieces. I sometimes put Grandmother Gnit together myself, because I know her so well I can tell every piece that belongs to her. Then, when she’s all matched, she knits for me, and that’s how she made my mittens. But it took a good many days hard knitting, and I had to put Grandmother together a good many times, because every time I came near, she’d scatter herself.”

      “I should think she would get used to your coming, and not be afraid,” said Dorothy.

      “It isn’t that,” replied the kangaroo. “They’re not a bit afraid, when they’re put together, and usually they’re very jolly and pleasant. It’s just a habit they have, to scatter themselves, and if they didn’t do it they wouldn’t be Fuddles.”

      The travelers thought upon this quite seriously for a time, while the Sawhorse continued to carry them rapidly forward. Then Aunt Em remarked:

      “I don’t see much use our visitin’ these Fuddles. If we find them scattered, all we can do is to sweep ‘em up, and then go about our business.”

      “Oh, I b’lieve we’d better go on,” replied Dorothy. “I’m getting hungry, and we must try to get some luncheon at Fuddlecumjig. Perhaps the food won’t be scattered as badly as the people.”

      “You’ll find plenty to eat there,” declared the kangaroo, hopping along in big bounds because the Sawhorse was going so fast; “and they have a fine cook, too, if you can manage to put him together. There’s the town now—just ahead of us!”

      They looked ahead and saw a group of very pretty houses standing in a green field a little apart from the main road.

      “Some Munchkins came here a few days ago and matched a lot of people together,” said the kangaroo. “I think they are together yet, and if you go softly, without making any noise, perhaps they won’t scatter.”

      “Let’s try it,” suggested the Wizard.

      So they stopped the Sawhorse and got out of the wagon, and, after bidding good bye to the kangaroo, who hopped away home, they entered the field and very cautiously approached the group of houses.

      So silently did they move that soon they saw through the windows of the houses, people moving around, while others were passing to and fro in the yards between the buildings. They seemed much like other people from a distance, and apparently they did not notice the little party so quietly approaching.

      They had almost reached the nearest house when Toto saw a large beetle crossing the path and barked loudly at it. Instantly a wild clatter was heard from the houses and yards. Dorothy thought it sounded like a sudden hailstorm, and the visitors, knowing that caution was no longer necessary, hurried forward to see what had happened.

      After the clatter an intense stillness reigned in the town. The strangers entered the first house they came to, which was also the largest, and found the floor strewn with pieces of the people who lived there. They looked much like fragments of wood neatly painted, and were of all sorts of curious and fantastic shapes, no two pieces being in any way alike.

      They picked up some of these pieces and looked at them carefully. On one which Dorothy held was an eye, which looked at her pleasantly but with an interested expression, as if it wondered what she was going to do with it. Quite near by she discovered and picked up a nose, and by matching the two pieces together found that they were part of a face.

      “If I could find the mouth,” she said, “this Fuddle might be able to talk, and tell us what to do next.”

      “Then let us find it,” replied the Wizard, and so all got down on their hands and knees and began examining the scattered pieces.

      “I’ve found it!” cried the Shaggy Man, and ran to Dorothy with a queer-shaped piece that had a mouth on it. But when they tried to fit it to the eye and nose they found the parts wouldn’t match together.

      “That mouth belongs to some other person,” said Dorothy. “You see we need a curve here and a point there, to make it fit the face.”

      “Well, it must be here some place,” declared the Wizard; “so if we search long enough we shall find it.”

      Dorothy fitted an ear on next, and the ear had a little patch of red hair above it. So while the others were searching for the mouth she hunted for pieces with red hair, and found several of them which, when matched to the other pieces, formed the top of a man’s head. She had also found the other eye and the ear by the time Omby Amby in a far corner discovered the mouth. When the face was thus completed, all the parts joined together with a nicety that was astonishing.

      “Why, it’s like a picture puzzle!” exclaimed the little girl. “Let’s find the rest of him, and get him all together.”

      “What’s the rest of him like?” asked the Wizard. “Here are some pieces of blue legs and green arms, but I don’t know whether they are his or not.”

      “Look for a white shirt and a white apron,” said the head which had been put together, speaking in a rather faint voice. “I’m the cook.”

      “Oh, thank you,” said Dorothy. “It’s lucky we started you first, for I’m hungry, and you can be cooking something for us to eat while we match the other folks together.”

      It was not so very difficult, now that they had a hint as to how the man was dressed, to find the other pieces belonging to him, and as all of them now worked on the cook, trying piece after piece to see if it would fit, they finally had the cook set up complete.

      When he was finished he made them a low bow and said:

      “I will go at once to the kitchen to prepare your dinner. You will find it something of a job to get all the Fuddles together, so I advise you to begin on the Lord High Chigglewitz, whose first name is Larry. He’s a bald-headed fat man and is dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, a pink vest and drab breeches. A piece of his left knee is missing, having been lost years ago when he scattered himself too carelessly. That makes him limp a little, but he gets along very well with half a knee. As he is the chief personage in this town of Fuddlecumjig, he will be able to welcome you and assist you with the others. So it will be best to work on him while I’m getting your dinner.”

      “We will,” said the Wizard; “and thank you very much, Cook, for the suggestion.”

      Aunt Em was the first to discover a piece of the Lord High Chigglewitz.

      “It seems to me like a fool business, this matching folks together,” she remarked; “but as we haven’t anything to do till dinner’s ready,