The Road to Oz | Page 6

says there's
ALWAYS something happening to me; but I've always come home
safe at the last. So perhaps he'll take comfort and think I'll come home
safe this time."
"I'm sure you will," said the shaggy man, smilingly nodding at her.
"Good little girls never come to any harm, you know. For my part, I'm
good, too; so nothing ever hurts me."
Dorothy looked at him curiously. His clothes were shaggy, his boots
were shaggy and full of holes, and his hair and whiskers were shaggy.

But his smile was sweet and his eyes were kind.
"Why didn't you want to go to Butterfield?" she asked.
"Because a man lives there who owes me fifteen cents, and if I went to
Butterfield and he saw me he'd want to pay me the money. I don't want
money, my dear."
"Why not?" she inquired.
"Money," declared the shaggy man, "makes people proud and haughty.
I don't want to be proud and haughty. All I want is to have people love
me; and as long as I own the Love Magnet, everyone I meet is sure to
love me dearly."
"The Love Magnet! Why, what's that?"
"I'll show you, if you won't tell any one," he answered, in a low,
mysterious voice.
"There isn't any one to tell, 'cept Toto," said the girl.
The shaggy man searched in one pocket, carefully; and in another
pocket; and in a third. At last he drew out a small parcel wrapped in
crumpled paper and tied with a cotton string. He unwound the string,
opened the parcel, and took out a bit of metal shaped like a horseshoe.
It was dull and brown, and not very pretty.
"This, my dear," said he, impressively, "is the wonderful Love Magnet.
It was given me by an Eskimo in the Sandwich Islands--where there are
no sandwiches at all--and as long as I carry it every living thing I meet
will love me dearly."
"Why didn't the Eskimo keep it?" she asked, looking at the Magnet
with interest.
"He got tired of being loved and longed for some one to hate him. So
he gave me the Magnet and the very next day a grizzly bear ate him."

"Wasn't he sorry then?" she inquired.
"He didn't say," replied the shaggy man, wrapping and tying the Love
Magnet with great care and putting it away in another pocket. "But the
bear didn't seem sorry a bit," he added.
"Did you know the bear?" asked Dorothy.
"Yes; we used to play ball together in the Caviar Islands. The bear
loved me because I had the Love Magnet. I couldn't blame him for
eating the Eskimo, because it was his nature to do so."
"Once," said Dorothy, "I knew a Hungry Tiger who longed to eat fat
babies, because it was his nature to; but he never ate any because he
had a Conscience."
"This bear," replied the shaggy man, with a sigh, "had no Conscience,
you see."
The shaggy man sat silent for several minutes, apparently considering
the cases of the bear and the tiger, while Toto watched him with an air
of great interest. The little dog was doubtless thinking of his ride in the
shaggy man's pocket and planning to keep out of reach in the future.
At last the shaggy man turned and inquired, "What's your name, little
girl?"
"My name's Dorothy," said she, jumping up again, "but what are we
going to do? We can't stay here forever, you know."
"Let's take the seventh road," he suggested. "Seven is a lucky number
for little girls named Dorothy."
"The seventh from where?"
"From where you begin to count."
So she counted seven roads, and the seventh looked just like all the
others; but the shaggy man got up from the ground where he had been

sitting and started down this road as if sure it was the best way to go;
and Dorothy and Toto followed him.

2. Dorothy Meets Button-Bright
The seventh road was a good road, and curved this way and that--
winding through green meadows and fields covered with daisies and
buttercups and past groups of shady trees. There were no houses of any
sort to be seen, and for some distance they met with no living creature
at all.
Dorothy began to fear they were getting a good way from the
farm-house, since here everything was strange to her; but it would do
no good at all to go back where the other roads all met, because the
next one they chose might lead her just as far from home.
She kept on beside the shaggy man, who whistled cheerful tunes to
beguile the journey, until by and by they followed a turn in the road
and saw before them a big chestnut tree making a