The Oz Series

Chapter 86

Part of the Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz: The Underground World arc.

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What happens

After breakfast in the Emerald City, Princess Ozma announces a holiday throughout the city in honor of her visitors, centered on the return of the Wizard, a long-time favorite. The plan includes a grand procession through the streets, a performance of the Wizard's wizardries in the great Throne Room, and games and races in the afternoon. The procession is led by the Imperial Cornet Band of Oz in emerald velvet uniforms playing the national air 'The Oz Spangled Banner,' followed by standard bearers carrying the Royal flag, which is divided into four quarters colored sky-blue, pink, lavender, and white with a central emerald-green star, the colors representing the four countries of Oz and the star the Emerald City.

Princess Ozma rides in a gold chariot encrusted with emeralds and diamonds, drawn by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger decorated with pink and blue bows; Ozma wears her royal coronet and Dorothy, riding beside her, wears the Magic Belt she once captured from the Nome King. Following the chariot are the Scarecrow mounted on the Sawhorse, the machine-man Tik-tok (made of burnished copper, wound up by Dorothy, and left by Dorothy in Ozma's charge because he is useless outside a fairy country), the Royal Court Band in white uniforms with diamond buttons playing 'What is Oz without Ozma,' Professor Woggle-Bug with students from the Royal College of Scientific Athletics, and the Tin Woodman leading the Royal Army of Oz of twenty-eight officers with no privates because all had been promoted. Jim the cab-horse follows, driven by Zeb, with the Wizard standing and bowing to the crowd.

In the Throne Room the Wizard performs tricks, first producing a tiny white piglet from beneath his hat and appearing to split it until all nine tiny piglets are visible; when he makes them disappear Ozma expresses regret, so the Wizard pretends to draw one from her hair (secretly from his pocket) and gives it to her, and she promises an emerald collar for it. Thereafter the Wizard always performs the trick with eight piglets. In his room behind the Throne Room the Wizard finds materials he had left before departing in the balloon and prepares new tricks learned from circus jugglers, delighting the audience, who beg him not to leave again; he promises to cancel his engagements before the crowned heads of Europe and America and devote himself to Oz.

After a luncheon at which the Tiger, Lion, and Jim (eating oatmeal from a jeweled golden bowl) are fed, the company goes to a field outside the city gates for games. Zeb wrestles a small elderly Munchkin champion who wears a peaked hat with bells and, despite his small size, throws Zeb three times; Ozma laughs. Zeb then proposes a boxing match, and when he boxes the Munchkin's ears the little Ozite sits down and cries from being hurt, which makes Zeb laugh and comforts him when Ozma laughs at her weeping subject too.

The Scarecrow proposes a race between the Sawhorse and Jim the Cab-horse. Jim, boasting of his Kentucky racehorse breeding, disdains the Sawhorse, who warns the race is unfair only because he never tires. They are unharnessed and started side by side; at Zeb's 'Go!' both leap forward. Jim runs credibly, but the Sawhorse's wooden legs move faster than the wind and it wins far ahead. Enraged and imagining the Sawhorse is laughing at him, Jim kicks his rival, breaking off one of its legs and its left ear. The Hungry Tiger immediately launches itself and strikes Jim, rolling him over, and the Cowardly Lion joins in flanking him with glowing eyes.

Jim apologizes meekly, admitting he was wrong to kick and that the Sawhorse won fairly, asking what a horse of flesh can do against a tireless wooden beast. The Tiger and Lion retreat to Ozma's side, the Lion declaring no one may injure their friends in their presence, and Zeb warns Jim he could be torn to pieces if he loses his temper again. The Tin Woodman cuts a limb with his axe and makes a new leg and ear for the Sawhorse. Ozma removes her coronet and places it on the Sawhorse, proclaiming him Prince of Horses and Champion of his race, declaring all other horses in Oz imitations; she then rides the Sawhorse back to the city at the head of the procession. Jim grumbles that an ordinary horse has no place in a fairy country and tells Zeb it is no place for them, though Zeb notes they are lucky to have escaped the dark cave.

Who is in play

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