the next until, weary with fatigue, they at last came to the little, rocky hill where the poor, misshapen Tin Woodman lay. One of the more sedentary Winkies, taking umbrage at having been dragooned into participating, tried to insert a soupçon of sarcasm into the proceedings by humming a dirge. But when its elegiac strains were lost in the wind, he instead panted and wiped a hand across his brow in mock exaggeration and said wryly, “Now I can skip my daily exercise routine for a week!”

When this flippant sally provoked nothing but icy stares of rebuke from his comrades, he stopped short, simpered foolishly, and vowed to himself to make his next pithy one-liner a little more apposite. “Hey, I was just being facetious,” he grumbled.

The other Winkies now lifted the Tin Woodman tenderly in their arms and carefully carried him back to the castle. Dorothy shed a few tears along the way, her thoughts now and then jumping back to a lugubrious funeral cortege she had once witnessed in Kansas.

When they finally arrived at the castle, Dorothy said to the Winkies, “Are any of your people tinsmiths?”

“There’s certainly no dearth of tinsmiths here,” one of the Winkies proudly told her. And the tinsmiths were summoned at once. They soon arrived with a gleaming panoply of metal tools.

One older tinsmith, who seemed to be the chief, was accompanied by a large crew of helpers—some old hands, some mere neophytes. Dorothy inquired of the chief, “Can you straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, bend him back into shape again, and solder him together where he’s broken?”

The old tinsmith carefully assayed the Tin Woodman’s mangled metal skin. Ravaged by time, wind, and rain, it now wore a sickly, green patina. After what seemed like an eternity, the tinsmith suddenly smiled and said elatedly, “I think we can mend him so he’ll be as good as ever!” Dorothy felt a sudden inward thrill.

The tinsmiths worked all day, hammering, soldering, and polishing indefatigably, but to no avail. Redoubling their efforts, they worked through the night, and by morning the Tin Woodman was finally straightened out into his old form and was as good as ever.

When, at last, he saw Dorothy and had profusely thanked her for rescuing him, he wept tears of joy. And Dorothy, smiling beatifically, had to wipe each one carefully from his face so his joints wouldn’t rust. At the same time her own tears fell thick and fast at the joy of seeing her old friend again, but these tears didn’t need to be wiped away.

“If we only had the Scarecrow with us again,” said the Tin Woodman, when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, “I would be quite happy.”

“We must try to find him,” said the girl resolutely.

Once again she called on her friends the Winkies to help her, which they were only too glad to do. They walked all that day and part of the next, circuitously roving fields