Chương Chương 1 · The Girl in the Chicken Coop

. The Girl in the Chicken Coop

The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples

across its surface. Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples

until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became

billows. The billows rolled dreadfully high: higher even than the tops

of houses. Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall

trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great

billows were like deep valleys.

All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean,

which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever,

resulted in a terrible storm, and a storm on the ocean is liable to cut

many queer pranks and do a lot of damage.

At the time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon the

waters. When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and

bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped sidewise--first one way

and then the other--and was jostled around so roughly that even the

sailor-men had to hold fast to the ropes and railings to keep

themselves from being swept away by the wind or pitched headlong into

the sea.

And the clouds were so thick in the sky that the sunlight couldn't get

through them; so that the day grew dark as night, which added to the

terrors of the storm.

The Captain of the ship was not afraid, because he had seen storms

before, and had sailed his ship through them in safety; but he knew

that his passengers would be in danger if they tried to stay on deck,

so he put them all into the cabin and told them to stay there until

after the storm was over, and to keep brave hearts and not be scared,

and all would be well with them.

Now, among these passengers was a little Kansas girl named Dorothy

Gale, who was going with her Uncle Henry to Australia, to visit some

relatives they had never before seen. Uncle Henry, you must know, was

not very well, because he had been working so hard on his Kansas farm

that his health had given way and left him weak and nervous. So he

left Aunt Em at home to watch after the hired men and to take care of

the farm, while he traveled far away to Australia to visit his cousins

and have a good rest.

Dorothy was eager to go with him on this journey, and Uncle Henry

thought she would be good company and help cheer him up; so he decided

to take her along. The little girl was quite an experienced traveller,

for she had once been carried by a cyclone as far away from home as the

marvelous Land of Oz, and she had met with a good many adventures in

that strange country before she managed to get back to Kansas again.

So she wasn't easily frightened, whatever happened, and when the wind

began to howl and whistle, and the waves began to tumble and toss, our

little girl didn't mind the uproar the least bit.

"Of course we'll have to stay in the cabin," she said to Uncle Henry

and the other passengers, "and keep as quiet as possible until the

storm is over. For the Captain says if we go on deck we may be blown

overboard."

No one wanted to risk such an accident as that, you may be sure; so all

the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin, listening to the

shrieking of the storm and the creaking of the masts and rigging and

trying to keep from bumping into one another when the ship tipped

sidewise.

Dorothy had almost fallen asleep when she was aroused with a start to

find that Uncle Henry was missing. She couldn't imagine where he had

gone, and as he was not very strong she began to worry about him, and

to fear he might have been careless enough to go on deck. In that case

he would be in great danger unless he instantly came down again.

The fact was that Uncle Henry had gone to lie down in his little

sleeping-berth, but Dorothy did not know that. She only remembered

that Aunt Em had cautioned her to take good care of her uncle, so at

once she decided to go on deck and find him, in spite of the fact that

the tempest was now worse than ever, and the ship was plunging in a

really dreadful manner. Indeed, the little girl found it was as much

as she could do to mount the stairs to the deck, and as soon as she got

there the wind struck her so fiercely that it almost tore away the

skirts of her dress. Yet Dorothy felt a sort of joyous excitement in

defying the storm, and while she held fast to the railing she peered

around through the gloom and thought she saw the dim form of a man

clinging to a mast not far away from her. This might be her uncle, so

she called as loudly as she could:

"Uncle Henry! Uncle Henry!"

But the wind screeched and howled so madly that she scarce heard her

own voice, and the man certainly failed to hear her, for he did not

move.

Dorothy decided she must go to him; so she made a dash forward, during

a lull in the storm, to where a big square chicken-coop had been lashed

to the deck with ropes. She reached this place in safety, but no

sooner had she seized fast hold of the slats of the big box in which

the chickens were kept than the wind, as if enraged because the little

girl dared to resist its power, suddenly redoubled its fury. With a

scream like that of an angry giant it tore away the ropes that held the

coop and lifted it high into the air, with Dorothy still clinging to

the slats. Around and over it whirled, this way and that, and a few

moments later the chicken-coop dropped far away into the sea, where the

big waves caught it and slid it up-hill to a foaming crest and then

down-hill into a deep valley, as if it were nothing more than a

plaything to keep them amused.

Dorothy had a good ducking, you may be sure, but she didn't lose her

presence of mind even for a second. She kept tight hold of the stout

slats and as soon as she could get the water out of her eyes she saw

that the wind had ripped the cover from the coop, and the poor chickens

were fluttering away in every direction, being blown by the wind until

they looked like feather dusters without handles. The bottom of the

coop was made of thick boards, so Dorothy found she was clinging to a

sort of raft, with sides of slats, which readily bore up her weight.

After coughing the water out of her throat and getting her breath

again, she managed to climb over the slats and stand upon the firm

wooden bottom of the coop, which supported her easily enough.

"Why, I've got a ship of my own!" she thought, more amused than

frightened at her sudden change of condition; and then, as the coop

climbed up to the top of a big wave, she looked eagerly around for the

ship from which she had been blown.

It was far, far away, by this time. Perhaps no one on board had yet

missed her, or knew of her strange adventure. Down into a valley

between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another

crest the ship looked like a toy boat, it was such a long way off.

Soon it had entirely disappeared in the gloom, and then Dorothy gave a

sigh of regret at parting with Uncle Henry and began to wonder what was

going to happen to her next.

Just now she was tossing on the bosom of a big ocean, with nothing to

keep her afloat but a miserable wooden hen-coop that had a plank bottom

and slatted sides, through which the water constantly splashed and

wetted her through to the skin! And there was nothing to eat when she

became hungry--as she was sure to do before long--and no fresh water to

drink and no dry clothes to put on.

"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "You're in a pretty

fix, Dorothy Gale, I can tell you! and I haven't the least idea how

you're going to get out of it!"

As if to add to her troubles the night was now creeping on, and the

gray clouds overhead changed to inky blackness. But the wind, as if

satisfied at last with its mischievous pranks, stopped blowing this

ocean and hurried away to another part of the world to blow something

else; so that the waves, not being joggled any more, began to quiet

down and behave themselves.

It was lucky for Dorothy, I think, that the storm subsided; otherwise,

brave though she was, I fear she might have perished. Many children,

in her place, would have wept and given way to despair; but because

Dorothy had encountered so many adventures and come safely through them

it did not occur to her at this time to be especially afraid. She was

wet and uncomfortable, it is true; but, after sighing that one sigh I

told you of, she managed to recall some of her customary cheerfulness

and decided to patiently await whatever her fate might be.

By and by the black clouds rolled away and showed a blue sky overhead,

with a silver moon shining sweetly in the middle of it and little stars

winking merrily at Dorothy when she looked their way. The coop did not

toss around any more, but rode the waves more gently--almost like a

cradle rocking--so that the floor upon which Dorothy stood was no

longer swept by water coming through the slats. Seeing this, and being

quite exhausted by the excitement of the past few hours, the little

girl decided that sleep would be the best thing to restore her strength

and the easiest way in which she could pass the time. The floor was

damp and she was herself wringing wet, but fortunately this was a warm

climate and she did not feel at all cold.

So she sat down in a corner of the coop, leaned her back against the

slats, nodded at the friendly stars before she closed her eyes, and was

asleep in half a minute.