12. How they Matched the Fuddles

The Emerald City of Oz

by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy and her fellow travelers rode away from the Cuttenclip
village and followed the indistinct path as far as the sign-post.
Here they took the main road again and proceeded pleasantly through
the pretty farming country. When evening came they stopped at a
dwelling and were joyfully welcomed and given plenty to eat and good
beds for the night.

Early next morning, however, they were up and eager to start,
and after a good breakfast they bade their host good-bye and climbed
into the red wagon, to which the Sawhorse had been hitched all night.
Being made of wood, this horse never got tired nor cared to lie down.
Dorothy was not quite sure whether he ever slept or not, but it was
certain that he never did when anybody was around.

The weather is always beautiful in Oz, and this morning the air
was cool and refreshing and the sunshine brilliant and delightful.

In about an hour they came to a place where another road
branched off. There was a sign-post here which read:

This way to Fuddlecumjig

"Oh, here is where we turn," said Dorothy, observing the
sign.

"What! Are we going to Fuddlecumjig?" asked the Captain
General.

"Yes; Ozma thought we might enjoy the Fuddles. They are said to
be very interesting," she replied.

"No one would suspect it from their name," said Aunt Em. "Who
are they, anyhow? More paper things?"

"I think not," answered Dorothy, laughing; "but I can't say
'zactly, Aunt Em, what they are. We'll find out when we get
there."

"Perhaps the Wizard knows," suggested Uncle Henry.

"No; I've never been there before," said the Wizard. "But I've
often heard of Fuddlecumjig and the Fuddles, who are said to be the
most peculiar people in all the Land of Oz."

"In what way?" asked the Shaggy Man.

"I don't know, I'm sure," said the Wizard.

Just then, as they rode along the pretty green lane toward
Fuddlecumjig, they espied a kangaroo sitting by the roadside. The
poor animal had its face covered with both its front paws and was
crying so bitterly that the tears coursed down its cheeks in two tiny
streams and trickled across the road, where they formed a pool in a
small hollow.

The Sawhorse stopped short at this pitiful sight, and Dorothy
cried out, with ready sympathy:

"What's the matter, Kangaroo?"

"Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!" wailed the Kangaroo; "I've lost my
mi--mi--mi--Oh, boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!"--

"Poor thing," said the Wizard, "she's lost her mister. It's
probably her husband, and he's dead."

"No, no, no!" sobbed the kangaroo. "It--it isn't that. I've
lost my mi--mi--Oh, boo, boo-hoo!"

"I know," said the Shaggy Man; "she's lost her mirror."

"No; it's my mi--mi--mi--Boo-hoo! My mi--Oh, Boo-hoo!" and the
kangaroo cried harder than ever.

"It must be her mince-pie," suggested Aunt Em.

"Or her milk-toast," proposed Uncle Henry.

"I've lost my mi--mi--mittens!" said the kangaroo, getting it
out at last.

"Oh!" cried the Yellow Hen, with a cackle of relief. "Why
didn't you say so before?"

"Boo-hoo! I--I--couldn't," answered the kangaroo.

"But, see here," said Dorothy, "you don't need mittens in this
warm weather."

"Yes, indeed I do," replied the animal, stopping her sobs and
removing her paws from her face to look at the little girl
reproachfully. "My hands will get all sunburned and tanned without
my mittens, and I've worn them so long that I'll probably catch cold
without them."

"Nonsense!" said Dorothy. "I never heard of any kangaroo
wearing mittens."

"Didn't you?" asked the animal, as if surprised.

"Never!" repeated the girl. "And you'll probably make yourself
sick if you don't stop crying. Where do you live?"

"About two miles beyond Fuddlecumjig," was the answer.
"Grandmother Gnit made me the mittens, and she's one of the
Fuddles."

"Well, you'd better go home now, and perhaps the old lady will
make you another pair," suggested Dorothy. "We're on our way to
Fuddlecumjig, and you may hop along beside us."

So they rode on, and the kangaroo hopped beside the red wagon
and seemed quickly to have forgotten her loss. By and by the Wizard
said to the animal:

"Are the Fuddles nice people?"

"Oh, very nice," answered the kangaroo; "that is, when they're
properly put together. But they get dreadfully scattered and mixed
up, at times, and then you can't do anything with them."

"What do you mean by their getting scattered?" inquired
Dorothy.

"Why, they're made in a good many small pieces," explained the
kangaroo; "and whenever any stranger comes near them they have a
habit of falling apart and scattering themselves around. That's when
they get so dreadfully mixed, and it's a hard puzzle to put them
together again."

"Who usually puts them together?" asked Omby Amby.

"Any one who is able to match the pieces. I sometimes put
Grandmother Gnit together myself, because I know her so well I can
tell every piece that belongs to her. Then, when she's all matched,
she knits for me, and that's how she made my mittens. But it took a
good many days hard knitting, and I had to put Grandmother together a
good many times, because every time I came near, she'd scatter
herself."

"I should think she would get used to your coming, and not be
afraid," said Dorothy.

"It isn't that," replied the kangaroo. "They're not a bit
afraid, when they're put together, and usually they're very jolly and
pleasant. It's just a habit they have, to scatter themselves, and if
they didn't do it they wouldn't be Fuddles."

The travelers thought upon this quite seriously for a time,
while the Sawhorse continued to carry them rapidly forward. Then
Aunt Em remarked:

"I don't see much use our visitin' these Fuddles. If we find
them scattered, all we can do is to sweep 'em up, and then go about
our business."

"Oh, I b'lieve we'd better go on," replied Dorothy. "I'm
getting hungry, and we must try to get some luncheon at Fuddlecumjig.
Perhaps the food won't be scattered as badly as the people."

"You'll find plenty to eat there," declared the kangaroo,
hopping along in big bounds because the Sawhorse was going so fast;
"and they have a fine cook, too, if you can manage to put him
together. There's the town now--just ahead of us!"

They looked ahead and saw a group of very pretty houses standing
in a green field a little apart from the main road.

"Some Munchkins came here a few days ago and matched a lot of
people together," said the kangaroo. "I think they are together yet,
and if you go softly, without making any noise, perhaps they won't
scatter."

"Let's try it," suggested the Wizard.

So they stopped the Sawhorse and got out of the wagon, and,
after bidding good bye to the kangaroo, who hopped away home, they
entered the field and very cautiously approached the group of
houses.

So silently did they move that soon they saw through the windows
of the houses, people moving around, while others were passing to and
fro in the yards between the buildings. They seemed much like other
people from a distance, and apparently they did not notice the little
party so quietly approaching.

They had almost reached the nearest house when Toto saw a large
beetle crossing the path and barked loudly at it. Instantly a wild
clatter was heard from the houses and yards. Dorothy thought it
sounded like a sudden hailstorm, and the visitors, knowing that
caution was no longer necessary, hurried forward to see what had
happened.

After the clatter an intense stillness reigned in the town. The
strangers entered the first house they came to, which was also the
largest, and found the floor strewn with pieces of the people who
lived there. They looked much like fragments of wood neatly painted,
and were of all sorts of curious and fantastic shapes, no two pieces
being in any way alike.

They picked up some of these pieces and looked at them
carefully. On one which Dorothy held was an eye, which looked at her
pleasantly but with an interested expression, as if it wondered what
she was going to do with it. Quite near by she discovered and picked
up a nose, and by matching the two pieces together found that they
were part of a face.

"If I could find the mouth," she said, "this Fuddle might be
able to talk, and tell us what to do next."

"Then let us find it," replied the Wizard, and so all got down
on their hands and knees and began examining the scattered pieces.

"I've found it!" cried the Shaggy Man, and ran to Dorothy with a
queer-shaped piece that had a mouth on it. But when they tried to
fit it to the eye and nose they found the parts wouldn't match
together.

"That mouth belongs to some other person," said Dorothy. "You
see we need a curve here and a point there, to make it fit the
face."

"Well, it must be here some place," declared the Wizard; "so if
we search long enough we shall find it."

Dorothy fitted an ear on next, and the ear had a little patch of
red hair above it. So while the others were searching for the mouth
she hunted for pieces with red hair, and found several of them which,
when matched to the other pieces, formed the top of a man's head.
She had also found the other eye and the ear by the time Omby Amby in
a far corner discovered the mouth. When the face was thus completed,
all the parts joined together with a nicety that was astonishing.

"Why, it's like a picture puzzle!" exclaimed the little girl.
"Let's find the rest of him, and get him all together."

"What's the rest of him like?" asked the Wizard. "Here are some
pieces of blue legs and green arms, but I don't know whether they are
his or not."

"Look for a white shirt and a white apron," said the head which
had been put together, speaking in a rather faint voice. "I'm the
cook."

"Oh, thank you," said Dorothy. "It's lucky we started you
first, for I'm hungry, and you can be cooking something for us to eat
while we match the other folks together."

It was not so very difficult, now that they had a hint as to how
the man was dressed, to find the other pieces belonging to him, and
as all of them now worked on the cook, trying piece after piece to
see if it would fit, they finally had the cook set up complete.

When he was finished he made them a low bow and said:

"I will go at once to the kitchen to prepare your dinner. You
will find it something of a job to get all the Fuddles together, so I
advise you to begin on the Lord High Chigglewitz, whose first name is
Larry. He's a bald-headed fat man and is dressed in a blue coat with
brass buttons, a pink vest and drab breeches. A piece of his left
knee is missing, having been lost years ago when he scattered himself
too carelessly. That makes him limp a little, but he gets along very
well with half a knee. As he is the chief personage in this town of
Fuddlecumjig, he will be able to welcome you and assist you with the
others. So it will be best to work on him while I'm getting your
dinner."

"We will," said the Wizard; "and thank you very much, Cook, for
the suggestion."

Aunt Em was the first to discover a piece of the Lord High
Chigglewitz.

"It seems to me like a fool business, this matching folks
together," she remarked; "but as we haven't anything to do till
dinner's ready, we may as well get rid of some of this rubbish.
Here, Henry, get busy and look for Larry's bald head. I've got his
pink vest, all right."

They worked with eager interest, and Billina proved a great help
to them. The Yellow Hen had sharp eyes and could put her head close
to the various pieces that lay scattered around. She would examine
the Lord High Chigglewitz and see which piece of him was next needed,
and then hunt around until she found it. So before an hour had
passed old Larry was standing complete before them.

"I congratulate you, my friends," he said, speaking in a
cheerful voice. "You are certainly the cleverest people who ever
visited us. I was never matched together so quickly in my life. I'm
considered a great puzzle, usually."

"Well," said Dorothy, "there used to be a picture puzzle craze
in Kansas, and so I've had some 'sperience matching puzzles. But the
pictures were flat, while you are round, and that makes you harder to
figure out."

"Thank you, my dear," replied old Larry, greatly pleased. "I
feel highly complimented. Were I not a really good puzzle, there
would be no object in my scattering myself."

"Why do you do it?" asked Aunt Em, severely. "Why don't you
behave yourself, and stay put together?"

The Lord High Chigglewitz seemed annoyed by this speech; but he
replied, politely:

"Madam, you have perhaps noticed that every person has some
peculiarity. Mine is to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity
is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you,
whatever you do."

"Now you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a
laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as
well take people as we find them."

"If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and
this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly.

Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it,
and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an
easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found
her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told
her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit
promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another
pair.

Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an
inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at
the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the
guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several
other people together, and this work was so interesting that they
might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard
suggested that they resume their journey.

"But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered,"
said Dorothy, undecided what to do.

"Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or
so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse
themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in
leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will
visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure
you."

"Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired.

"Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there
wouldn't be any fun in it."

They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their
wagon to continue their journey.

"Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em,
thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really
can't see what use they are, at all."

"Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard.
"That is being of use to us, I'm sure."

"I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or
mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad
we visited the Fuddles."