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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.

The Emerald City of Oz