pails, which were so full and heavy that
the stout branches bent underneath their weight. Some were small and
dark-brown in color; those larger were of a dull tin color; but the
really ripe ones were pails of bright tin that shone and glistened
beautifully in the rays of sunshine that touched them.

Dorothy was delighted, and even the yellow hen acknowledged that she
was surprised.

The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest and
biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground and eagerly
opened it. Inside she found, nicely wrapped in white papers, a ham
sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and
an apple. Each thing had a separate stem, and so had to be picked off
the side of the box; but Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and
she ate every bit of luncheon in the box before she had finished.

"A lunch isn't zactly breakfast," she said to Billina, who sat beside
her curiously watching. "But when one is hungry one can eat even
supper in the morning, and not complain."

"I hope your lunch-box was perfectly ripe," observed the yellow hen, in
a anxious tone. "So much sickness is caused by eating green things."

"Oh, I'm sure it was ripe," declared Dorothy, "all, that is, 'cept the
pickle, and a pickle just HAS to be green, Billina. But everything
tasted perfectly splendid, and I'd rather have it than a church picnic.
And now I think I'll pick a dinner-pail, to have when I get hungry
again, and then we'll start out and 'splore the country, and see where
we are."

"Haven't you any idea what country this is?" inquired Billina.

"None at all. But listen: I'm quite sure it's a fairy country, or such
things as lunch-boxes and dinner-pails wouldn't be growing upon trees.
Besides, Billina, being a hen, you wouldn't be able to talk in any
civ'lized country, like Kansas, where no fairies live at all."

"Perhaps we're in the Land of Oz," said the hen, thoughtfully.

"No, that can't be," answered the little girl; "because I've been to
the Land of Oz, and it's all surrounded by a horrid desert that no one
can cross."

"Then how did you get away from there again?" asked Billina.

"I had a pair of silver shoes, that carried me through the air; but I
lost them," said Dorothy.

"Ah, indeed," remarked the yellow hen, in a tone of unbelief.

"Anyhow," resumed the girl, "there is no seashore near the Land of Oz,
so this must surely be some other fairy country."