it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his
band may thereafter be free for evermore."

The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good
Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed:

"You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet
told me how to get back to Kansas."

"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda.
"If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em
the very first day you came to this country."

"But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!" cried the
Scarecrow. "I might have passed my whole life in the farmer's
cornfield."

"And I should not have had my lovely heart," said the Tin Woodman. "I
might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world."

"And I should have lived a coward forever," declared the Lion, "and no
beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me."

"This is all true," said Dorothy, "and I am glad I was of use to these
good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired,
and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should
like to go back to Kansas."

"The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And
one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to
any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in
the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together
three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go."

"If that is so," said the child joyfully, "I will ask them to carry me
back to Kansas at once."

She threw her arms around the Lion's neck and kissed him, patting his
big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in
a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed
body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face,
and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her
loving comrades.

Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little
girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she
had shown to her friends and herself.

Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last
good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times,
saying:

"Take me home to Aunt Em!"

Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she
could see or feel was the