So back they turned and headed for the walled city until it disappeared again, Only to reappear at the right of them. They were constantly getting nearer to it, however, so they kept their faces turned toward it as it flitted here and there to all points of the compass. Presently the Lion, who was leading the procession, halted abruptly and cried out: "Ouch!""What's the matter?" asked Dorothy.
"Ouch -- Ouch!~ repeated the Lion, and leaped backward so suddenly that Dorothy nearly tumbled from his back. At the same time Hank the Mule yelled "Ouch!"almost as loudly as the Lion had done, and he also pranced backward a few paces.
"It's the thistles," said Betsy. "They prick their legs."Hearing this, all looked down, and sure enough the ground was thick with thistles, which covered the plain from the point where they stood way up to the walls of the mysterious city. No pathways through them could be seen at all; here the soft grass ended and the growth of thistles began.
"They're the prickliest thistles I ever felt,"grumbled the Lion. "My legs smart yet from their stings, though I jumped out of them as quick as Icould."
"Here is a new difficulty," remarked the Wizard in a grieved tone. "The city has stopped hopping around, it is true; but how are we to get to it, over this mass of prickers?""They can't hurt me," said the thick-skinned Woozy, advancing fearlessly and trampling among the thistles.
"Nor me," said the Wooden Sawhorse.
"But the Lion and the Mule cannot stand the prickers," asserted Dorothy, "and we can't leave them behind.""Must we all go back?" asked Trot.
"Course not!" replied Button-Bright scornfully.
"Always, when there's trouble, there's a way out of it, if you can find it.""I wish the Scarecrow was here," said Scraps, standing on her head on the Woozy"s square back. "His splendid brains would soon show us how to conquer this field of thistles.""What's the matter with your brains?" asked the boy.
"Nothing," she said, making a flip-flop into the thistles and dancing among them without feeling their sharp points. "I could tell you in half a minute how to get over the thistles, if I wanted to.""Tell us, Scraps!" begged Dorothy.
"I don't want to wear my brains out with overwork,"replied the Patchwork Girl.
"Don't you love Ozma? And don't you want to find her?" asked Betsy reproachfully.
"Yes, indeed," said Scraps, walking on her hands as an acrobat does at the circus.
"Well, we can't find Ozma unless we get past these thistles," declared Dorothy.
Scraps danced around them two or three times, without reply. Then she said:
"Don't look at me, you stupid folks; look at those blankets."The Wizard's face brightened at once.
"Of course!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't we think of those blankets before?""Because you haven't magic brains," laughed Scraps.
"Such brains as you have are of the common sort that grow in your heads, like weeds in a garden. I'm sorry for you people who have to be born in order to be alive."But the Wizard was not listening to her. He quickly removed the blankets from the back of the Sawhorse and spread one of them upon the thistles, just next to the grass. The thick cloth rendered the prickers harmless, so the Wizard walked over this first blanket and spread the second one farther on, in the direction of the phantom city.
"These blankets," said he, "are for the Lion and the Mule to walk upon. The Sawhorse and the Woozy can walk on the thistles."So the Lion and the Mule walked over the first blanket and stood upon the second one until the Wizard had picked up the one they had passed over and spread it in front of them, when they advanced to that one and waited while the one behind them was again spread in front.
