The Oz Series
Chapter 32
Part of the The Marvelous Land of Oz: Tip's Rebellion and the Return of Ozma arc.
What happens
Anxious to rejoin Jack and the Saw-Horse, Tip walks half the distance to the Emerald City before finding himself hungry with his crackers and cheese all eaten. He comes upon a girl sitting by the roadside in a strikingly brilliant costume: an emerald-green silken waist and a skirt of four colors (blue front, yellow left, red back, purple right) fastened with four correspondingly colored buttons. Her pretty face wears an expression of discontent and defiance. Eating a sandwich and hard-boiled egg from a lunch basket, she stands, brushes off crumbs, and tells Tip to carry the basket and help himself to its contents, which he does while following her.
The girl walks with swift, decisive strides suggesting she is a great personage. When Tip asks her name she identifies herself as General Jinjur, commander of the Army of Revolt in a secret war. She reveals her army is composed entirely of girls and has assembled about a mile away from all parts of the Land of Oz; this is the day they will conquer His Majesty the Scarecrow and wrest away his throne. Her reasons are that the Emerald City has been ruled by men long enough, that its gems would better serve as jewelry, and that the King's treasury money could buy every girl in her army new gowns.
Tip warns that war is terrible and many may be slain, but Jinjur insists the war will be pleasant since no man would harm a girl, and there is not an ugly face in her army. She dismisses the King's Army as old and feeble, noting the Soldier with the Green Whiskers spent his strength growing whiskers his wife has half pulled out, and that while people feared the Wonderful Wizard, no one fears the Scarecrow. They reach a forest clearing where fully four hundred young women are gathered gaily as if for a picnic, divided into four companies dressed like Jinjur, distinguished by which colored strip is in front (blue for Munchkin, red for Quadling, yellow for Winkie, purple for Gillikin girls) and by the top button color, all wearing green waists for the Emerald City. Their only weapons are two glittering knitting-needles each stuck through her back hair.
Jinjur mounts a tree stump and addresses her army, declaring their great Revolt against the men of Oz to conquer the Emerald City, dethrone the Scarecrow King, seize thousands of gems, rifle the royal treasury, and gain power over their oppressors. The girls form four companies and march toward the Emerald City, with Tip following, carrying baskets, wraps, and packages entrusted to him. At the green granite walls the Guardian of the Gate, carrying keys on a golden chain and unaware of any threat, greets the girls pleasantly. Jinjur demands surrender; the astonished Guardian refuses, calling it against the law, and tells the girls to go home to their mothers.
When the Guardian rings for the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, the girls surround him, drawing knitting-needles and jabbing near his cheeks and eyes until he howls for mercy; Jinjur takes his keys. At the gateway the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, the Royal Army of Oz, points his long gun at Jinjur but admits it is not loaded and that he has forgotten where he hid the powder and shot. Jinjur announces the gun is unloaded, the rebels cheer and rush him, and the Soldier, too afraid of women to fight, turns and runs through the gate toward the royal palace. The Emerald City is captured without a drop of blood spilled, and the Army of Revolt becomes an Army of Conquerors.
Who is in play
- Tip
- General Jinjur
- Jack Pumpkinhead
- Saw-Horse
- Scarecrow
- Army of Revolt
- City of Emeralds
- Land of Oz
- Munchkins
- Guardian of the Gates
- the soldier with the green whiskers
- the Land of the South
- Gillikins
- Winkies
- Quadlings