good breakfast, smoking hot.

"You two miss a great deal by not eating," he said to his companions.

"It is true," responded the Scarecrow. "We miss suffering from hunger,
when food cannot be had, and we miss a stomach-ache, now and then."

As he said this, the Scarecrow glanced at the Tin Woodman, who nodded
his assent.

All that second day they traveled steadily, entertaining one another the
while with stories of adventures they had formerly met and listening to
the Scarecrow recite poetry. He had learned a great many poems from
Professor Wogglebug and loved to repeat them whenever anybody would
listen to him. Of course Woot and the Tin Woodman now listened, because
they could not do otherwise--unless they rudely ran away from their
stuffed comrade.

One of the Scarecrow's recitations was like this:

"What sound is so sweet
As the straw from the wheat
When it crunkles so tender and low?
It is yellow and bright,
So it gives me delight
To crunkle wherever I go.

"Sweet, fresh, golden Straw!
There is surely no flaw
In a stuffing so clean and compact.
It creaks when I walk,
And it thrills when I talk,
And its fragrance is fine, for a fact.

"To cut me don't hurt,
For I've no blood to squirt,
And I therefore can suffer no pain;
The straw that I use
Doesn't lump up or bruise,
Though it's pounded again and again!

"I know it is said
That my beautiful head
Has brains of mixed wheat-straw and bran,
But my thoughts are so good
I'd not change, if I could,
For the brains of a common meat man.

"Content with my lot,
I'm glad that I'm not
Like others I meet day by day;
If my insides get musty,
Or mussed-up, or dusty,
I get newly stuffed right away."

[Illustration]

The Loons of Loonville

[Illustration]

CHAPTER 4

Toward evening, the travelers found there was no longer a path to guide
them, and the purple hues of the grass and trees warned them that they
were now in the Country of the Gillikins, where strange peoples dwelt in
places that were quite unknown to the other inhabitants of Oz. The
fields were wild and uncultivated and there were no houses of any sort
to be seen. But our friends kept on walking even after the sun went
down, hoping to find a good place for Woot the Wanderer to sleep; but
when it grew quite dark and the boy