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smoke, pursued by Toto. Aunty Em followed with a broom made of twigs.

    "Shoo! Shoo!" she said in a high voice.

    "He won't hurt them, Aunty Em!" said Dorothy.

    Aunty Em brought the broom down on Toto with a crackling of twigs. He yelped and rolled over. She whupped him again, and he kicked up dust and shot under the house.

    "Henry, get a rope," said Aunty Em.

    "Got to take care of the mule, Em."

    The house rested about a foot off the ground on thick beams. Toto peered out from between them, quivering. Dorothy saw his eyes.

    Aunty Em sighed and caught an escaping wisp of hair. "Dorothy," she said, sounding somewhat more kindly. "Your dog is going to have to learn to stay away from the hens. Now let's get you inside."

    Aunty Em held up her arms and lifted Dorothy down. She walked back to the house, holding Dorothy's hand. "We're going to have to tie Toto up, Dorothy. Just for a while. He can't go inside, or we'll never keep things clean, and he'll just have to learn not to worry the livestock." Aunty Em lifted Dorothy up to the level of the front door, and then looked into her eyes. "Do you understand, Dorothy?"

    "Yes, Ma'am," murmured Dorothy, scowling, confused.

    "Well, in you go," said Aunty Em, giving Dorothy's hand a rousing shake. "Let's have some food and get you cleaned up. Henry, please to see to the dog."

    Then Dorothy saw inside the house. "Oh no!" she grizzled. It wasn't nice. There was only one room, and it was dark, with only one window with no curtains.

    "Guess it isn't St. Louis," said Aunty Em. She flung open the door of an iron stove, red with rust, and lit two tallow candles. Immediately there was a smell of burned fat.

    In the flickering light, Dorothy saw that inside, the walls were made of thick raw logs. There was a worn throw rug over a wooden floor, and a bare table and bare chairs; there was a wardrobe and a table with a chipped china basin and long handles on which towels hung. The chimney and fireplace occupied one entire side of the room, but were empty and cold. There was a bed crammed into one corner, and a blanket hung across the room. On the other side of it was a pile of straw.

    Dorothy thought of Toto, who was still under the house. She felt disloyal being here. She wanted to hide, too, under the house.

    Aunty Em took a deep breath and then sighed, a long, high, showy kind of sigh that she meant Dorothy to hear. She had decided to be nice.

    "Well," she said, animated. "What have we got here but some nice stew! I think there's probably a little child somewhere who has had a very long day. Maybe she'd like something to eat."

    Dorothy was not hungry, but she said, "Yes please, Ma'am."

    "What a nicely brought up little child she is," said Aunty Em, still piping.

    "Can Toto have some too?"

    Aunty Em managed to chuckle. "Heh," she said. "This is people stew, Dorothy. We got special food for dogs."

    Aunty Em passed her the stew. It was brown, in a brown cracked bowl. Aunty Em leaned over to peer, grinning, into Dorothy's face as she took a spoonful.

    "There!" Aunty Em said, soothing.

    The meat was hard and dry in the middle and very, very salty, and there were bubbles of salty fat in the gravy, and there were no vegetables with the meat. Dorothy's mother had always eaten lots of crisp vegetables, lots of fresh fruit, like she could never get enough of it. Dorothy was going to ask for some, but looked around, and saw there was no fruit or vegetables. Dorothy chewed and swallowed. But she couldn't lie. She couldn't say it was nice.

    "It's greasy," she whispered. If this was what they fed people in Kansas, what did they feed dogs?

    Aunty Em tried to be nice. "Well," she said, with another drawn-out sigh. "How about some nice hot cornbread to soak it up? Fresh-made this morning." She didn't wait for an answer. She turned away smartly, and began to saw away at the bread. Dorothy could see she was still mad. Aunty Em dropped the bread on her plate from high up. The bread was bright