My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and
it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There
was only one danger that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in
my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However,
there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a
rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I
was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a
terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time
to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart.
While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can
love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me
one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.
Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story
of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a
new heart.
All the same, said the Scarecrow, I shall ask for brains instead of
a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had
one.
I shall take the heart, returned the Tin Woodman; for brains do not
make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.
Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her
two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to
Kansas and Aunt Em, it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had
no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted.
What worried her most was that the bread was nearly gone, and another
meal for herself and Toto would empty the basket. To be sure, neither
the Woodman nor the Scarecrow ever ate anything, but she was not made
of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed.
Chapter VI
The Cowardly Lion
27