第 十三 章 · The Rescue

The Rescue

The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had

been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate

of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle,

where Dorothy’s first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell

them that they were no longer slaves.

There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had been

made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who had

always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a

holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and

dancing.

“If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only with us,”

said the Lion, “I should be quite happy.”

“Don’t you suppose we could rescue them?” asked the girl anxiously.

“We can try,” answered the Lion.

So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would help to

rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would be delighted

to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them free from

bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked as if they

knew the most, and they all started away. They traveled that day and

part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the Tin

Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near him, but the blade

was rusted and the handle broken off short.

The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to

the Yellow Castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the

sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking sober and sorry.

When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the Winkies:

“Are any of your people tinsmiths?”

“Oh, yes. Some of us are very good tinsmiths,” they told her.

“Then bring them to me,” she said. And when the tinsmiths came,

bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she inquired, “Can you

straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him back into

shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?”

The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then answered that

they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So

they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and

worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and

bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body

and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into

his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there

were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as

the Woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all.

When, at last, he walked into Dorothy’s room and thanked her for

rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy

had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his

joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick

and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears

did not need to be wiped away. As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so

often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was

obliged to go out into the courtyard and hold it in the sun till it

dried.

“If we only had the Scarecrow with us again,” said the Tin Woodman,

when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, “I

should be quite happy.”

“We must try to find him,” said the girl.

So she called the Winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and

part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of

which