How Billina the Yellow Hen Came to Change the Name of Her Chicks
Written for Lillie.
Sometimes, once or twice a month, like all girls, whether they are princesses or not, Ozma of Oz liked to go the seashore.
At first, this was a hard thing to make accommodation for, for there were actually very few seashores in Oz, if there were any at all, and Glinda, who was very kind, had tried before to conjure one; but they had a dreadful habit of melting away just when you were enjoying the sun and sand the very most. After Ozma and Dorothy Gale rescued the royal family of Ev from the Nome King, however, the Queen of Ev was quick to help. You see, the nicest seashore anywhere around Oz was the Wheelers' beach, where Dorothy had landed when she came to Oz and met Princess Ozma for the first time. The Wheelers, who had promised not to run after people the way they used to do, had actually grown rather to like Ozma, for she was very gentle and good (and had promised them not to pick lunches and dinner-pails from their trees, but to bring along her own lunches and dinners, instead); and with the Queen of Ev's permission, she was allowed, when she wanted to, to go for a few days and set her tents out on the sand. In the daytime, she would swim in the sea and at night she would watch the sky from her warm place on the beach, and she was very happy. Then, when the few days had passed, she returned to the Emerald City and everyone asked her how the seashore had been, and she waited patiently for the next time when she could go back. This arrangement suited everyone.
When Ozma went, she sometimes took with her the Wizard, who said that when he lived in the United States, he had once been to a place called Atlantic City, and had passed the best few days of his life there; or so he claimed, smiling. For this reason, he liked to visit the seashore occasionally, and Ozma was always happy to take him. Sometimes she took the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, although they were not quite as excited about going, because the Tin Woodman had to be very careful about getting wet, and the sand crabs would burrow inside the Scarecrow's straw when he sat on the sand and make him dreadfully uncomfortable. Once Glinda had actually come along, and enchanted everyone present by turning grains of sand into tiny mirrors, so that the whole beach glittered with the reflection of the stars.
There was someone, however, who always, always came with Ozma; and that was Billina the Yellow Hen. She liked the taste of sand crabs, and of the nice little bugs that lived in the shortish dry grass which always grows at the seashore. She liked the sun, and laying her daily egg under while sunning herself nicely; and it was always a great pleasure to her to come to the seashore.
Now, lately, Billina had been feeling a little tired and irritable, and she was more happy than I can say when Ozma declared that she thought it was time, again, to go to the Land of Ev and visit the seashore: she clucked and preened her feathers and found all her present brood of little Dorothys at once, and told Ozma she was ready to go.
Ozma laughed, and told her that she must wait for just a little bit, while everything was made ready.
That meant that it was another day or two before Ozma's waggon, drawn by the Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion, was ready to be taken through Oz and across the desert with Glinda's magic carpet; and another day or two before it reached the edge of Oz, for Princess Ozma liked to visit with the people of her land as she went through it; and another day before they were finally arrived and the tents set up, and the Wheelers had been greeted, and the Queen of Ev and her ten children had come to pay a visit, and the Princess Langwidere and her maid Nanda had also finished visiting. By this time, Billina was more than a little out of sorts, and very sulky, so early the next morning she left her Dorothys with the Hungry Tiger, who mourned once again his terrible conscience, and went out to peck about in the further part of the beach.
Once she was ought of sight of the tents, Billina began to feel a little better. After all, they had finally arrived, it must be admitted; the visiting was over, and the children were safe; and there were sand crabs and bugs enough to satisfy anyone. The sun was warm, and the sea was lovely.
She wandered further, clucking softly to herself, and quite contented now. It was several hours before she thought of going back, and when she did, she started along slowly, enjoying herself. She was so busy scanning the far-off end of the sea, a thin black line against the end of the sky, that for a little while she didn't notice the big shape of something lying on the beach right in front of her.
Billina cocked her head to one side. Her black eyes glittered. Then she hopped forward, flapping her wings slightly, and approached the something. As she got closer, it was easy to see what it was. It was a girl, older than Ozma, perhaps, but not too much, with long fair hair and a pretty white face. She was thin and soaking wet, and her eyes were open just the smallest bit. When the girl saw Billina, she made a soft croaking noise down in her throat.
"What on earth are you doing here?" Billina clucked, settling into the sand in front of her face.
"I--pray, what art--"
"Child, you'll have to speak more clearly than that. I'm a Hen. What are you?"
"'Tis a dream. The salt-water hath maddened me," whispered the girl harshly, moving a little as though she meant to push herself up. Billina clucked impatiently.
"Do stop moving! For heaven's sake, I don't know what good you that will do. Did you fall overboard a ship?"
The girl moved her head slightly in a nod, still staring at Billina.
"Are you hungry?"
The girl nodded again.
"And you've been lying in the sun. That does only bad to humans, you know. Stay there and I'll find you something to eat." Billina hopped up and into the wetter sand closer to the water, where she began pecking about and scratching, digging up the biggest sand crabs. While she was hard at work, catching them in her beak and hurrying them up into a pile near the girl's head, she laid her morning egg, clucking so loudly that the girl moved enough to put her hands to her head and wrinkle the part of her face above her eyes in an unhappy way. Once the egg was laid, however, Billina proudly added it to the pile. "There!" she clucked proudly. "There's some food you can eat."
"Your egg?" the girl croaked.
"I don't need it," Billina told her. "If you'd like, I'll break it for you."
The girl nodded again, and Billina chipped at the egg with her beak until she had made a hole in it, and then split it open with her feet, catching the inside part in one half of the shell. The girl took it after that, and ate it. Billina nodded approvingly.
"Little Dorothy says that humans can't eat things raw, but when one is starving, I don't think that matters. Have some of these little crabs now. I think they're wonderful."
The girl did as she was told.
She was able to sit up a little after she had eaten, resting on her arms. She looked rather sick, but she didn't quite stare at Billina any longer, and she could talk, as long as it was slowly and in a low voice.
"I am Viola, and my father was Sebastian of Messaline," she told Billina. "My brother Sebastian and I did think to cross the sea to a new home, for our father hath been dead these many years, but--but our vessel--there was a storm at sea. Our ship hath sunk, and my brother with it. I am alone now."
"Don't be silly," said Billina. "I'm right here."
The girl--Viola--smiled weakly. "'Tis true; but I am not yet certain you are not a spectre. Perhaps I do but dream you. Salt-water doth bring madness upon those who drink it, and I feel I have swallowed half the ocean in these last few days."
"Ridiculous. I'm as real as you are. I'm more real, in fact, because I know I'm real. Suppose you're just something I'm imagining. How do you know you're not a figment of my imagination?"
"Oh, pray--don't. My head doth ache already."
"Very well; but you stop talking nonsense." Secretly, though, Billina could not help feeling very fond and protective of the poor girl. She was just like a little chick, like one of Billina's Dorothys, lost and hungry and too little to know where she was, as far as Billina was concerned. "What will you do now? I can take you back to Ozma and she can send you wherever you wanted to go with her Magic Belt."
"Nay, nay. 'Tis not that I want. But tell me--what may a maiden do here on these shores?"
"Why--I suppose you could come and live somewhere. Lots of people here are farmers, you know, and lots of people do useful things, like mending shoes or making machine creatures or taking care of the animals who can't look out for themselves."
"Is there no lady I might serve?"
"There's--" Billina began, and then suddenly she stopped. You see, Oz and all the countries around it make up a land of stories, and things happen there which are meant to be told, to be passed down in books or from one family to another; it is a land of stories, and someone who lives there for any time begins to be able to see the story of things. Now Billina had lived in Oz for a year or two by now, and she knew very well that the poor girl who had washed up on the beach was not really meant to be part of the story of Oz: she belonged to another story. It was really rather plain to Billina, and she clucked at herself severely for not realising it before. The girl needed to go.
Billina was surprised to realise that she felt very bothered about that. She didn't exactly want the girl to go. She wanted to keep her. Well, the girl had eaten her egg! Billina could take care of her, just like one of her Dorothys, and then nobody would need to worry about the girl getting too hungry or being lonely without her brother or any terrible thing of that nature. She would be safe with Billina.
No, no, no, Billina told herself severely. The girl must go.
"There's the Princess Langwidere," Billina continued, resettling her feathers with displeasure and trying to sound as though she'd only paused to consider. "But she's very vain and disagreeable (she once threatened to fry me for breakfast!), and she already has a little maid called Nanda, so I don't suppose she'd need you. No, I'm afraid not."
"What will I do?"
"I suppose you'll have to go home," said Billina. Her cackling voice sounded a little funny, because she was putting into it the sounds of both reluctant and hopeful at the same time, and the girl seemed to notice. She looked at Billina gently. "How will you do that?"
"You must put me back into the sea."
"Now, how am I do to that?" asked Billina. "I'm only a hen. Besides, humans drown."
"My brother. I will return to my brother."
Billina cocked her head again and looked at the girl with her sharp black eyes. The girl, suddenly, reached out weakly and touched her, stroked her golden feathers, and whispered,--
"A bit of wood, and I might float. Then thou shouldst not fear for my safety."
Billina knew what she meant, but she was almost too busy clucking softly and being stroked to do anything about it. She wanted very much to care--she did care: but it was confusing. She wanted the girl to stay, but the girl must go. She wanted the girl to go on stroking her, and she didn't care about anything very much as long as the girl's fingers with running through her feathers while she ruffled and resettled them gently; even though, at the same time, she knew that the girl wanted to drown, she knew that perhaps that was how the girl's story was meant to end, and she oughtn't to interfere, whether she wanted anything or not. In fact, Billina was terribly confused, something which she very rarely was. She let out a funny little cluck that sounded almost like a human's sob, but she wasn't at all so upset that she might cry.
"I'll find you a piece of wood, then, Viola. Stay where you are." And she hopped off quickly into the shortish dry grass, searching for a bit of driftwood. Eventually she found one, a nice long plank, and went back to the girl. "I've found one, but it's too big for me to manage. Do you think you can? I don't suppose it will hurt you to move about a bit. It might help."
"Ay, it might." The girl pulled herself up a little, and crawled after Billina, who lead her to the driftwood. Then, with difficulty, she dragged it back to the beach, not stopping until she was lying partly in the water and partly out.
"Would you like a few more sand crabs before you go?" Billina clucked anxiously. "I'm sure you ought not to--"
"Nay. Nay, sweet creature, 'tis all right. I do go after my brother now, and have no need. But stay--a moment--do let me bid thee farewell," said the girl. Her voice was not as scratchy and low as it had been before, but it sounded a little sad and laughing now.
So Billina, who hated getting her feet wet just like all Hens, hopped forward through the surf and came right up next to the girl, who lifted her, with a little trouble, and pressed her close for a moment. Then the girl kissed the top of her head, and Billina fluttered her wings gently and pecked the girl's chin as carefully as she knew how: which is a how a chicken kisses you. The girl laughed quietly.
"Thou hast been good to me, for our short time together. I do think such maddened miracles come but rarely upon men, and I am grateful."
Billina clucked. "There--there is a place around here, not too far off, where you might go."
"What place is that?"
"It's a little island called Illyria. All the people are fools, or that is what Glinda says, but we have cities with fools in them in Oz, and none of the people there ever hurt anyone very much. I daresay it wouldn't be terribly bad if you went there, and they might have a place for you."
She had suddenly realised very much that she did not want the girl to drown.
But Viola laughed again. "'Tis no matter. I think I shall not need a place now."
"Very well.."
"Now I must go. I must not make my brother wait for a moment, and thou, thou poor thing, thou'rt like to get thyself wet, and 'tis no small matter for a creature of your nature. I shall give thee a little toss, and canst thou then fly up to the dry sand?"
"As a matter of fact, I think I can," said Billina, but she sounded very subdued. The girl threw her out, weakly, towards the beach, and Billina fluttered into one of the patches of shortish grass. She got up quickly, resettled her feathers, turned about, and rushed back to the edge of the water just in time to see the girl slowly, with difficulty, but not so much as she'd had before, pushing herself back into the ocean. "Goodbye!" clucked Billina quickly, as loudly as she could.
"Farewell," the girl called back, smiling. Then she got into the deep part of the water, and a wave at once pulled her away, as fast as the Hungry Tiger might pounce if he hadn't got a conscience, and Billina could hardly see her any longer. Chickens are, of course, very short-sighted; so she couldn't see that the girl looked at her until the waves had pulled her away, and the beach disappeared from sight.
Billina sat down in the sand, and made a little burrowed-out hole for herself, and then she began to cluck, sadly, over and over, until Ozma, who had begun to worry over her by now and gone out looking for her herself, came and found her and picked Billina up in her arms.
"Billina!" Ozma cried, stroking her yellow feathers. "Where have you been? Why are you sad, Billina?"
"I'm not sad," said Billina impatiently. "I've just been sitting here. It's good to be alone once in a while, you know, without all my children."
"I suppose it is. Are you ready to come back now?"
"Yes."
So Ozma carried Billina back to the tents, and the rest of the seaside trip went as it usually did, with the next few days spent happily in the sun, Ozma swimming in the ocean, the Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion chasing Wheelers (in fun, of course), and the royal family of Ev visiting now and then for luncheons. Billina was a little quieter than she usually was, which everybody of course noticed, because when a chicken is quiet it is very conspicuous; but nobody made any remark except to ask whether she was under the weather, and put it down to having gotten wet or something of that nature on the first day. After a little while, they went home again.
It was a bit funny, though, after that--but Ozma noticed that every time she went to the seaside, on the first day Billina would disappear, and Ozma would find her again late at the same spot in the sand, and she was always burrowing and clucking sadly. Ozma couldn't understand it at all, but she was a wise princess, and she thought it better not to ask.
As for Billina, she began to name half of her little chicks Dorothy, and half of them Viola instead. Tiktok remarked that he thought some variation was pleasant, and Viola was a pretty name.
And Billina said that it certainly was, and gathered her Dorothys and Violas around her.
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