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Show THE GIRL IN THE CHICKEN COOP i The -vind blew hard and poggled the . water of the ocean, sending ripples across Its surface. Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became bil-lows. bil-lows. The billows rolled dreadfully high; higher even than the tops of houses. Some of them, Indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall trees, and seemed llko mountaJns; and the gulfs' between the great billows were like i deep valleys All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean, Which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever, resulted in i a terrible storm, and a storm on theJ ocean Is liable to cut many queer pranks and do a lot of damage. At ihe time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon the wat ers When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and bigger big-ger the ship rolled up and down, anu j lipped sidewise first one way and ! then the other and was jostled around so roughly that even the sailor men had to hold fast to the ropes and railings rail-ings to keep themselves from being swept away by tho wind or pitched headlong into the sea. And the clouds were so thick in the I sky that the sunlight couldn't get thro.igh them; so that the day grew dark as night, which added to the ter I rors of the storm The captain of the ship was not afraid, because he had seen storms be I for.e and had sailed his ship through them in safety; but he knew that bis passenuer- would be in danger n h. tried to stay on deck, so he put them all into the cabin and told them all I to stay there until after the storm was over, and to keep brae heart; I and not be seared and all would be j well with them Now, among these passengers was a 'little Kansas -iri named Dorothy Gale, j who was going with her Uncle Henr I to Australia: to visit some relatives they had never befc-re seen. Uncle ' ii. . i ... ' w el, because he had been working BO hard on his Kansas farm that his health had given way and left him i weak and nervous So he left Aunt Em at home to watch after the hired men and to take care of the farruj, while he traveled far away to Australia I to visit his cousins and have a good I rest. I Dorothy was eager to go with him ;on this journe, and Uncle Henry 'thought she would be good company (and help cheer him up; so he decided jto take her along. The little girl was qu" an experienced traveler, for sho 'had once been carried by a cyclone as j far away from home a? the marvelous j Land of Oz, and she' had met with a I good many adventures in that strange eountry before she managed to get hack to Kansas again. So she wasn't leasilj Inghlened. whatever happened, and when the wind began to howl and j whistle, the waves began to tumble land toss, our little girl ddin't mind the j uproar the least bit. "Of course we will have to stay in the cabin," she said to Uncle Henry and the other passengers, "and keep as quiet as possible until the storm is over. For the captain says if we go on deck we may be blown overboard." No one wanted to risk such an acci- dent as that, you may be sure; so all the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin, listening to the shriek ling of the storm and the creaking of the masts and rigging and trying to keep from bumping into one another when the ship lipped sidewise. Dorothy had almost fallen asleep when she was aroused with a start to find that Uncle Henry was misBing. She couldn't imagine where he had gone, and as he was not very strong she began to worry about him, and to fear he might have been careless enough to go on deck. In that case he would be in great, danger unless he instantly in-stantly came down again. The fact was that Uncle Henry had gone to lie down In his little sleeping-berth, sleeping-berth, but Dorothy did not know that She only remembered that Aunt Em had cautioned her to take good care of her uncle, so at once she decided to go on deck and find him, in spite of the fact that the tempest was now worse I than ever, and the ship was plunging In a really dreadful manner Indeed, j the little cirl found it was as much as i she could do to mount the stairs to this place In safety, but no sooner had she seized fast hoid of the slata of the big box in which the wind, as if enraged en-raged because tho little girl dared to resist its power, suddenly redoubled Its fury. With a scream like that of an angry giant it tore away the ropes that held the coop and lifted it high into tho air, with Dorothy still clinging to the elat6. Around and over it whirled, this way and that, and a few moments later the chicken-coop dropped far i away Into the sea, w here the big waves caught it and slid It up hill to a foaming foam-ing crest and then down hill into a deep valley, as if it were nothing more ; than a plaything to keep them amused. L -rothy had a good ducking, you may be sure, but she didn't lose her pres j ence of mind even for a second Sh kept tight hold of the stout slats and ' Dorothy Afloat in the Hen-coop. the deck, and as soon as she got there the wiud struck her so fiercely that it almost lore away the skirts of her dress. Yet Dorothy felt a sort of joy- j ous excitement in defying the storm, and while she held fast to the railing she peered around through the gloom and ihought she saw the dim form of a man clinging to the mast not far away 'from her This might be her uncle, so she called as loudly as she could "Uncle Henry! I nele Henry!" But 'the wind screeched and howled so madly mad-ly that she scarce heard her own voice, and Ihe man certainly failed to hear her. for he did not move. Dorothv decided she must go to him; so she made a dash forward, during a lull in the storm, to where a big square chicken coop had been lashed to the deck with ropes. She reached as soon as she could go' the watr out rl her eyes she saw that the wind had ripped the cover from the coop, and the poor chickens were fluttering away in every direction, being blown by the j wind until they looked like feather dusters wtihout handles The bottom of the coop was made of thick bo- rds, ( so Dorothy lound she was clinging to a sort of raft, with sides of slats, which readily bore up her weight. After Aft-er coughing the water out of her throat and getting her breath again, she managed man-aged to climb over the slats and stand I upon the firm wooden bottom of the coop, which supported her easily enough. "Why, I've got a ship of my own'" she thought, more amused than Irighi- j ened at her sudden change of condi lion; and then, as the coop climbed up, to the top of a big wave, she lonked eagerly around for the ship from which she bad been blown. It was far, far away, by this time, Perhaps no one on board had yet miss- & I ed her, or knew of her strange adventure. adven-ture. Down into a valley between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another crest tho ship looked like a toy boat, It was such a long way off. Soon it had entirely disappeared dis-appeared in the gloom, and then Doro- a H thy gave a sigh of regret at parting i with Uncle Henry and began to won- I dor what was going to happen to her next. P H Just now she was tossing on the bosom bos-om of a big ocean, with nothing to j keep her afloat but a miserable wooden k 1 hen coop that had a plank bottom and I slatted sides, through which the water I I constantly splashed and wetted her through to the skin. And there was nothing to cat when she became bun-1 bun-1 gry as she w as sure to do before long and no fresh water to drink and no dry clothes to put on. ' Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "You're in a pretty fix, Dorothy Gale, I can tell you, and 1 ha.en't the least idea how you're going go-ing to get out of it!" As If to add to her troubles the night was now creeping on, and the 9m gray clouds overhead changed to inky blackness But the wind, as if satisfied satis-fied at last with its mischievous V I pranks, stopped blowing this ocean il and hurried away to another part of the world to blow something else; so i H i hat ihe wave?, not being joggled any more, began to quiet down and behav'e I themselves. L It was lucky for Dorothy, I think, I that the storm subsided; otherwise, 1 j brave though she was, I fear she .. mlghi have perished. Manv children, in her place, would have wept and given I way to despair; but because Dorothy had encountered so many adventures and came safely through them It did I not occur to her at this time to be especially es-pecially afraid. -She was wet and un comfortable, it is true; but, after sigh ing that one sigh I told you of, she managed to recall some of her custom-ary custom-ary cheerfulness and decided to pa- I I , ticntly await whatever her fate migh'. , I 'ho I r, and by the black clouds rolled i .md showed a blue sky overhead. I with a silver moon shining sweetly in the middle of it and little stars winking wink-ing merrily at Dorothy when sho looked their way The coop did not toss around any more, but rode the waves more gently almost like a cradle rock- ing so that the fhor upon which Dor-othj Dor-othj stood was no longer swept by I water coming through the slats. See-Ing See-Ing ibis, and being quite exhausted by the excitement of the past few hours, be little girl decided that sleep would be the best thing to restore her ,' I sm-nglh and the easiest way in which mt she could pass the Cme. The floor was damp and she was herself wringing wring-ing wet. but fortunately this was a I warm climate and she did no feel at all cold. So she sat down in a corner of : the coop, leaned her back against the slats, nodded at the friendly stars be- -I;.- ' "I'd W asleep in half a minute. IH Editor's Note Our next story "The II Yellow Hen" cr "The Yellow Hen" ! who talks just as wc humans do. Read of Biltina's and Dorothy's venture on the open sea, their landing on some ftH strange land, and the finding of the "Golden Key." What mysteries do you ' suppose this "Golden Key" will un-fold. |