The Sea Fairies

Books by L. Frank Baum

Illustrated by John R. Neill

Each book handsomely bound in artistic pictorial cover. $1.25 per volume

THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ

Mr. Baum is the most inventive writer of fairy tales in all the world to-day. The "Oz" stories teem with favorites new and old, for children miss any old character and immediately demand reinstatement, so, after long experience, Mr. Baum brought along the old and created new ones for each succeeding book, until now "THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ" assembles more characters than possibly any other children's book contains.

16 full-page pictures in four colors and green bronze, 100 black-and-white illustrations. Stunning Jacket in four colors and aluminum and green bronze.

THE ROAD TO OZ

Tells how to reach the Magic City of Oz over a road leading through lands of many colors, peopled with odd characters, and surcharged with adventure suitable for the minds and imaginations of young children. The manufacture represents an entirely new idea--the paper used is of various colors to indicate the several countries traversed by the road leading to Oz and the Emerald City.

Unique and gorgeous Jacket in colors and gold.

THE LAND OF OZ

An account of the adventures of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Animated Saw-Horse, the Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, the Gump and many other delightful characters.

Nearly 150 black-and-white illustrations and sixteen full-page pictures in colors.

OZMA OF OZ

The story tells "more about Dorothy," as well as those famous characters, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, and something of several new creations equally delightful, including Tiktok the machine man, the Yellow Hen, the Nome King and the Hungry Tiger.

Forty-one full-page colored pictures; twenty-two half pages in color and fifty black-and-white text pictures.

DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ

In this book Dorothy, with Zeb, a little boy friend, and Jim, the Cab Horse, are swallowed up in an earthquake and reach a strange vegetable land, whence they escape to the land of Oz, and meet all their old friends. Among the new characters are Eureka, Dorothy's Pink Kitten, and the Nine Tiny Piglets.

Gorgeously illustrated with sixteen full color pages and numerous black-and-white pictures.

JOHN DOUGH AND THE CHERUB

A whimsical tale portraying the exciting adventures of the Gingerbread Man and his comrade, Chick the Cherub, in the "Palace of Romance," the "Land of the Mifkets," "Highland and Lowland," and other places.

Forty full-page colored pictures; twenty colored pictorial chapter headings; 100 black-and-white text pictures.

To Judith _of_ Randolph, Massachusetts. ]

THE SEA FAIRIES

BY

L. FRANK BAUM

AUTHOR OF THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ, DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ, OZMA OF OZ, THE ROAD TO OZ, THE LAND OF OZ, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

JOHN R. NEILL

CHICAGO THE REILLY & BRITTON CO. PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1911 BY L. FRANK BAUM.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The oceans are big and broad. I believe two-thirds of the earth's surface is covered with water. What people inhabit this water has always been a subject of curiosity to the inhabitants of the land. Strange creatures come from the seas at times, and perhaps in the ocean depths are many, more strange than mortal eye has ever gazed upon.

This story is fanciful. In it the sea people talk and act much as we do, and the mermaids especially are not unlike the fairies with whom we have learned to be familiar. Yet they are real sea people, for all that, and with the exception of Zog the Magician they are all supposed to exist in the ocean's depths.

I am told that some very learned people deny that mermaids or sea-serpents have ever inhabited the oceans, but it would be very difficult for them to prove such an assertion unless they had lived under the water as Trot and Cap'n Bill did in this story.

I hope my readers who have so long followed Dorothy's adventures in the Land of Oz will be interested in Trot's equally strange experiences. The ocean has always appealed to me as a veritable wonderland, and this story has been suggested to me many times by my young correspondents in their letters. Indeed, a good many children have implored me to "write something about the mermaids," and I have willingly granted the request.

L. FRANK BAUM.

_Hollywood, 1911._

LIST OF CHAPTERS

CHAPTER

1--TROT AND CAP'N BILL 11

2--THE MERMAIDS 20

3--THE DEPTHS OF THE DEEP BLUE SEA 33

4--THE PALACE OF QUEEN AQUAREINE 44

5--THE SEA SERPENT 56

6--EXPLORING THE OCEAN 63

7--THE ARISTOCRATIC CODFISH 76

8--A BANQUET UNDER WATER 92

9--THE BASHFUL OCTOPUS 100

10--AN UNDISCOVERED ISLAND 110

11--ZOG THE TERRIBLE, AND HIS SEA DEVILS 120

12--THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 128

13--PRISONERS OF THE SEA MONSTER 140

14--CAP'N JOE AND CAP'N BILL 153

15--THE MAGIC OF THE MERMAIDS 163

16--THE TOP OF THE GREAT DOME 179

17--THE QUEEN'S GOLDEN SWORD 187

18--A DASH FOR LIBERTY 201

19--KING ANKO TO THE RESCUE 207

20--THE HOME OF THE OCEAN MONARCH 214

21--KING JOE 228

22--TROT LIVES TO TELL THE TALE 235

_Chap. 1._]

"Nobody," said Cap'n Bill, solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale."

"Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's face.

They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that grew just at the edge of the bluff. Below them rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific. A little way behind them was the house, a neat frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees. Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast--was the village, overlooking a pretty bay.

Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree, to sit and watch the ocean below them. The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two. Once Cap'n Bill had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schooner that plied along the coast; and in those days Charlie Griffiths, who was Trot's father, had been the Captain's mate. But ever since Cap'n Bill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths had been the captain of the little schooner while his old master lived peacefully ashore with the Griffiths family.

This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor became very fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she grew big enough to walk she took so many busy little steps every day that both her mother and Cap'n Bill nicknamed her "Trot," and so she was thereafter mostly called.

It was the old sailor who taught the child to love the sea--to love it almost as much as he and her father did--and these two, who represented the "beginning and the end of life" became firm friends and constant companions.

"Why hasn't anybody seen a mermaid and lived?" asked Trot, again.

"'Cause mermaids is fairies, an' ain't meant to be seen by us mortal folk," replied Cap'n Bill.

"But if anyone happens to see 'em, what then, Cap'n?"

"Then," he answered, slowly wagging his head, "the mermaids give 'em a smile an' a wink, an' they dives into the water an' gets drownded."

"S'pose they know how to swim, Cap'n Bill?"

"That don't make any diff'rence, Trot. The mermaids live deep down, an' the poor mortals never come up again."

The little girl was thoughtful for a moment.

"But why do folks dive in the water when the mermaids smile an' wink?" she asked.

"Mermaids," he said, gravely, "is the most beautifulest creatures in the world--or the water, either. You know what they're like, Trot; they's got a lovely lady's form down to the waist, an' then the other half of 'em's a fish, with green an' purple an' pink scales all adown it."

"Have they got arms, Cap'n Bill?"

"'Course, Trot; arms like any other lady. An' pretty faces that smile an' look mighty sweet an' fetchin'. Their hair is long an' soft an' silky, an' floats all around 'em in the water. When they comes up atop the waves they wring the water out 'n their hair and sing songs that go right to your heart. If anybody is unlucky enough to be 'round jes' then, the beauty o' them mermaids an' their sweet songs charm 'em like magic; so's they plunge into the waves to get to the mermaids. But the mermaids haven't any hearts, Trot, no more 'n a fish has; so they laughs when the poor people drown, an' don't care a fig. That's why I says, an' I says it true, that nobody never sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale."

"Nobody?" asked Trot.

"Nobody a tall."

"Then how do you know, Cap'n Bill?" asked