The Scarecrow of Oz. Baum Lyman Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ little man rose and followed them, although both were now too provoked to pay any attention to him.

      “Nothin’ in sight, partner,” reported Cap’n Bill, shading his eyes with his hand; “so we’ll have to stay here for a time, anyhow. It isn’t a bad place, Trot, by any means.”

      “That’s all you know about it!” broke in the little man. "The trees are altogether too green and the rocks are harder than they ought to be. I find the sand very grainy and the water dreadfully wet. Every breeze makes a draught and the sun shines in the daytime, when there’s no need of it, and disappears just as soon as it begins to get dark. If you remain here you’ll find the island very unsatisfactory."

      Trot turned to look at him, and her sweet face was grave and curious.

      “I wonder who you are,” she said.

      “My name is Pessim,” said he, with an air of pride. “I’m called the Observer.”

      “Oh. What do you observe?” asked the little girl.

      “Everything I see,” was the reply, in a more surly tone. Then Pessim drew back with a startled exclamation and looked at some footprints in the sand. "Why, good gracious me!’ he cried in distress.

      "What’s the matter now?’ asked Cap’n Bill.

      “Someone has pushed the earth in! Don’t you see it?”

      “It isn’t pushed in far enough to hurt anything,” said Trot, examining the footprints.

      “Everything hurts that isn’t right,” insisted the man. “If the earth were pushed in a mile, it would be a great calamity, wouldn’t it?”

      “I s’pose so,” admitted the little girl.

      "Well, here it is pushed in a full inch! That’s a twelfth of a foot, or a little more than a millionth part of a mile. Therefore it is one-millionth part of a calamity – Oh, dear! How dreadful!" said Pessim in a wailing voice.

      “Try to forget it, sir,” advised Cap’n Bill, soothingly. “It’s beginning to rain. Let’s get under your shed and keep dry.”

      "Raining! Is it really raining?’ asked Pessim, beginning to weep.

      “It is,” answered Cap’n Bill, as the drops began to descend, “and I don’t see any way to stop it – although I’m some observer myself.”

      “No; we can’t stop it, I fear,” said the man. “Are you very busy just now?”

      “I won’t be after I get to the shed,” replied the sailor-man.

      “Then do me a favor, please,” begged Pessim, walking briskly along behind them, for they were hastening to the shed.

      “Depends on what it is,” said Cap’n Bill.

      “I wish you would take my umbrella down to the shore and hold it over the poor fishes till it stops raining. I’m afraid they’ll get wet,” said Pessim.

      Trot laughed, but Cap’n Bill thought the little man was poking fun at him and so he scowled upon Pessim in a way that showed he was angry.

      They reached the shed before getting very wet, although the rain was now coming down in big drops. The roof of the shed protected them and while they stood watching the rainstorm something buzzed in and circled around Pessim’s head. At once the Observer began beating it away with his hands, crying out:

      “A bumblebee! A bumblebee! The queerest bumblebee I ever saw!”

      Cap’n Bill and Trot both looked at it and the little girl said in surprise:

      “Dear me! It’s a wee little Ork!”

      “That’s what it is, sure enough,” exclaimed Cap’n Bill.

      Really, it wasn’t much bigger than a big bumblebee, and when it came toward Trot she allowed it to alight on her shoulder.

      “It’s me, all right,” said a very small voice in her ear; “but I’m in an awful pickle, just the same!”

      “What, are you our Ork, then?” demanded the girl, much amazed.

      “No, I’m my own Ork. But I’m the only Ork you know,” replied the tiny creature.

      “What’s happened to you?” asked the sailor, putting his head close to Trot’s shoulder in order to hear the reply better. Pessim also put his head close, and the Ork said:

      "You will remember that when I left you I started to fly over the trees, and just as I got to this side of the forest I saw a bush that was loaded down with the most luscious fruit you can imagine. The fruit was about the size of a gooseberry and of a lovely lavender color. So I swooped down and picked off one in my bill and ate it. At once I began to grow small. I could feel myself shrinking, shrinking away, and it frightened me terribly, so that I alighted on the ground to think over what was happening. In a few seconds I had shrunk to the size you now see me; but there I remained, getting no smaller, indeed, but no larger. It is certainly a dreadful affliction! After I had recovered somewhat from the shock I began to search for you. It is not so easy to find one’s way when a creature is so small, but fortunately I spied you here in this shed and came to you at once."

      Cap’n Bill and Trot were much astonished at this story and felt grieved for the poor Ork, but the little man Pessim seemed to think it a good joke. He began laughing when he heard the story and laughed until he choked, after which he lay down on the ground and rolled and laughed again, while the tears of merriment coursed down his wrinkled cheeks.

      “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” he finally gasped, sitting up and wiping his eyes. “This is too rich! It’s almost too joyful to be true.”

      “I don’t see anything funny about it,” remarked Trot indignantly.

      “You would if you’d had my experience,” said Pessim, getting upon his feet and gradually resuming his solemn and dissatisfied expression of countenance. “The same thing happened to me.”

      “Oh, did it? And how did you happen to come to this island?” asked the girl.

      “I didn’t come; the neighbors brought me,” replied the little man, with a frown at the recollection. “They said I was quarrelsome and fault-finding and blamed me because I told them all the things that went wrong, or never were right, and because I told them how things ought to be. So they brought me here and left me all alone, saying that if I quarreled with myself, no one else would be made unhappy. Absurd, wasn’t it?”

      “Seems to me,” said Cap’n Bill, “those neighbors did the proper thing.”

      “Well,” resumed Pessim, "when I found myself King of this island I was obliged to live upon fruits, and I found many fruits growing here that I had never seen before. I tasted several and found them good and wholesome. But one day I ate a lavender berry – as the Ork did – and immediately I grew so small that I was scarcely two inches high. It was a very unpleasant condition and like the Ork I became frightened. I could not walk very well nor very far, for every lump of earth in my way seemed a mountain, every blade of grass a tree and every grain of sand a rocky boulder. For several days I stumbled around in an agony of fear. Once a tree toad nearly gobbled me up, and if I ran out from the shelter of the bushes the gulls and cormorants swooped down upon me. Finally I decided to eat another berry and СКАЧАТЬ