The Lost Princess of Oz | Page 7

"we cannot do that, for the
Great Book of Records has also disappeared!"



CHAPTER 3

OF CAYKE THE COOKIE COOK
One more important theft was reported in the Land of Oz that eventful
morning, but it took place so far from either the Emerald City or the
castle of Glinda the Good that none of those persons we have
mentioned learned of the robbery until long afterward.
In the far southwestern corner of the Winkie Country is a broad
tableland that can be reached only by climbing a steep hill, whichever
side one approaches it. On the hillside surrounding this tableland are no
paths at all, but there are quantities of bramble bushes with sharp
prickers on them, which prevent any of the Oz people who live down
below from climbing up to see what is on top. But on top live the Yips,
and although the space they occupy is not great in extent, the wee
country is all their own. The Yips had never--up to the time this story
begins--left their broad tableland to go down into the Land of Oz, nor
had the Oz people ever climbed up to the country of the Yips.
Living all alone as they did, the Yips had queer ways and notions of
their own and did not resemble any other people of the Land of Oz.
Their houses were scattered all over the flat surface; not like a city,
grouped together, but set wherever their owners' fancy dictated, with
fields here, trees there, and odd little paths connecting the houses one
with another. It was here, on the morning when Ozma so strangely
disappeared from the Emerald City, that Cayke the Cookie Cook
discovered that her diamond-studded gold dishpan had been stolen, and
she raised such a hue and cry over her loss and wailed and shrieked so
loudly that many of the Yips gathered around her house to inquire what
was the matter.
It was a serious thing in any part of the Land of Oz to accuse one of
stealing, so when the Yips heard Cayke the Cookie Cook declare that
her jeweled dishpan had been stolen, they were both humiliated and
disturbed and forced Cayke to go with them to the Frogman to see what
could be done about it. I do not suppose you have ever before heard of
the Frogman, for like all other dwellers on that tableland, he had never
been away from it, nor had anyone come up there to see him. The
Frogman was in truth descended from the common frogs of Oz, and

when he was first born he lived in a pool in the Winkie Country and
was much like any other frog. Being of an adventurous nature, however,
he soon hopped out of his pool and began to travel, when a big bird
came along and seized him in its beak and started to fly away with him
to its nest. When high in the air, the frog wriggled so frantically that he
got loose and fell down, down, down into a small hidden pool on the
tableland of the Yips. Now that pool, it seems, was unknown to the
Yips because it was surrounded by thick bushes and was not near to
any dwelling, and it proved to be an enchanted pool, for the frog grew
very fast and very big, feeding on the magic skosh which is found
nowhere else on earth except in that one pool. And the skosh not only
made the frog very big so that when he stood on his hind legs he was as
tall as any Yip in the country, but it made him unusually intelligent, so
that he soon knew more than the Yips did and was able to reason and to
argue very well indeed.
No one could expect a frog with these talents to remain in a hidden
pool, so he finally got out of it and mingled with the people of the
tableland, who were amazed at his appearance and greatly impressed by
his learning. They had never seen a frog before, and the frog had never
seen a Yip before, but as there were plenty of Yips and only one frog,
the frog became the most important. He did not hop any more, but
stood upright on his hind legs and dressed himself in fine clothes and
sat in chairs and did all the things that people do, so he soon came to be
called the Frogman, and that is the only name he has ever had. After
some years had passed, the people came to regard the Frogman as their
adviser in all matters that puzzled them. They brought all their
difficulties to him, and when he did not know anything, he pretended to
know