hed in
different directions; Dorothy pointed to one, and said:

"That's it, Shaggy Man."

"I'm much obliged, miss," he said, and started along another road.

"Not that one!" she cried; "you're going wrong."

He stopped.

"I thought you said that other was the road to Butterfield," said he,
running his fingers through his shaggy whiskers in a puzzled way.

"So it is."

"But I don't want to go to Butterfield, miss."

"You don't?"

"Of course not. I wanted you to show me the road, so I shouldn't go
there by mistake."

"Oh! Where DO you want to go, then?"

"I'm not particular, miss."

This answer astonished the little girl; and it made her provoked, too,
to think she had taken all this trouble for nothing.

"There are a good many roads here," observed the shaggy man, turning
slowly around, like a human windmill. "Seems to me a person could go
'most anywhere, from this place."

Dorothy turned around too, and gazed in surprise. There WERE a good
many roads; more than she had ever seen before. She tried to count
them, knowing there ought to be five, but when she had counted
seventeen she grew bewildered and stopped, for the roads were as many
as the spokes of a wheel and ran in every direction from the place
where they stood; so if she kept on counting she was likely to count
some of the roads twice.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "There used to be only five roads, highway
and all. And now--why, where's the highway, Shaggy Man?"

"Can't say, miss," he responded, sitting down upon the ground as if
tired with standing. "Wasn't it here a minute ago?"

"I thought so," she answered, greatly perplexed. "And I saw the gopher
holes, too, and the dead stump; but they're not here now. These roads
are all strange--and what a lot of them there are! Where do you
suppose they all go to?"

"Roads," observed the shaggy man, "don't go anywhere. They stay in one
place, so folks can walk on them."

He put his hand in his side-pocket and drew out an apple--quick, before
Toto could bite him again. The little dog got his head out this time
and said "Bow-wow!" so loudly that it made Dorothy jump.

"O, Toto!" she cried; "where did you come from?"

"I brought him along," said the shaggy man.

"What for?" she asked.

"To guard these apples in my pocket, miss, so no one would steal them."

With one hand the shaggy man held the apple, which he began eating,
while with the other hand he pulled Toto out of his pock