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01 - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum · Adventure Books Library

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  Chapter one, The Cyclone. Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas
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  Prairies with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who
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  was the farmer's wife. Their house was small for the lumber to build it
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  had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a
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  floor, and a roof, which made one room, and this room contained
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  a rusty looking cook stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table,
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  three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had
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  a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.
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  There was no garret at all, and no cellar, except a small
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  hole dug in the ground called a Cyclone cellar, where the family could go
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  in case one of those great whirlwinds arose mighty enough to crush any building in
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  its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the
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  floor, from which a ladder led down into the small dark hole. When
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  Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the
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  great gray prairie. On every side. Not a tree nor a house broke
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  the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in
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  all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass with
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  little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the
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  sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray
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  color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the
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  sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house
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  was as dull and gray as everything else. When aunt Em came there to
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  live, she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had
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  changed her too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them
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  a sober gray. They had also taken the red from her cheeks and lips,
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  and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt and never smiled.
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  Now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her,
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  aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream
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  and press her hands upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears.
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  And she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything
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  to laugh at. Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till
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  night, and did not know what joy was. He was gray also from
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  his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn,
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  and rarely spoke. It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh and saved her from
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  growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray. He was
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  a little black dog with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled
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  merrily on either side of his funny wee nose. Toto played all day long,
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  and Dorothy played with him and loved him dearly to day. However they
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  were not playing, Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the
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  sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with
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  Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was
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  washing the dishes. From the far north, they heard a low wail of
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  the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see with a long grass bowed
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  in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the
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  air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way, they
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  saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction. Also Suddenly Uncle Henry stood
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  up. There's a cyclone coming, em, he called to his wife,
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  I'll go look after the stalk. Then he ran toward the sheds where the
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  cows and horses were kept. Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the
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  door. One glance told her of the danger close at hand. Quick Dorothy,
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  she screamed, run for the cellar. Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms
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  and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him. Aunt
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  Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed
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  down the ladder into the small dark hole. Dorothy caught Toto at last and
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  started to follow her aunt When she was half way across the room, there
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  came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that
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  she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor. Then a strange
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  thing happened. The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through
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  the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.
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  North and south winds met where the house stood and made it the exact center
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  of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone, the air is generally
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  still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house
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  raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of
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  the cyclone, and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as
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  easily as you could carry a feather. It was very dark, and the
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  wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily after
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  the first few whirls around, and another one time when the house tipped badly,
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  she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in
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  a cradle. Toto did not like it. He ran about the room now
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  here now there, barking loudly, but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor
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  and waited to see what would happen. Once Toto got too near the open
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  trap door and fell in, and at first the little girl thought she had
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  lost him, But soon she saw one of his ears sticking up through the
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  hole, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that
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  he could not fall. She crept to the hole, caught total by the
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  ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward closing the trap door
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  so that no more accidents could happen. Hour after hour passed away, and
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  slowly Dorothy got over her fright, but she felt quite lonely, and the
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  wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. At first,
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  she wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house fell again,
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  But as the hours passed and nothing terrible happened, she stopped whirrying and
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  resolved to wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last,
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  she crawled over the swaying floor to her bed and lay down upon it,
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  and Toto followed and laid down beside her. In spite of the swaying of
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  the house and the wailing of the wind, Dorothy soon closed her eyes and
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  fell fast asleep.