Ellie rubbed her eyes. She stretched and stood up from the moss. There was no one in the hut, so the girl went outside. The Scarecrow and the Tiger were sitting on the doorstep, Toto was chasing squirrels in the forest, Taffy and Kaggi-Carr were talking, and Nikita was shooting arrows at a tree-practicing accuracy.
"Oh, our lady is awake," Nikita said when he saw the girl. — I found a stream nearby, so you can wash and drink."
"Thank you," the girl said. "By the way, where did you learn to shoot like that?" I guess this isn't the first time you've held a bow.
"You're right," Nikita said, shooting another arrow at the makeshift target. — I've been shooting for a few years.
- By the way, why do you need water? "For what?" asked the Scarecrow.
"Wash and drink." A dry bite doesn't go down your throat, " Ellie told him.
"Ugh, how uncomfortable it is to be made of meat and bones! — Yes, " said the Scarecrow thoughtfully. — You must sleep, eat, and drink. However, you have a brain, and for them you can endure all this inconvenience.
Ellie found the stream Nikita had mentioned nearby and had breakfast, since the others had already eaten. The company was about to go to the yellow road, when they suddenly heard a groan in the forest.
"What is it?" Ellie asked fearfully.
"I have no idea," Nikita said. "Let's go and see, shall we?" But just in case, it is better to arm yourself.
Nikita took out his sword, the Scarecrow took out his pole, and the Tiger was flooded with the aura of the elements. The groan came again. The friends began to make their way through the thicket. Soon they saw a figure among the trees. Ellie ran up and stopped with a cry of surprise. The others ran up and immediately stopped with their mouths wide open.
A man made entirely of iron was standing by a chipped tree, a metal axe held high in his hands. His head, arms and legs were attached to an iron torso on hinges; on his head, instead of a cap, there was a copper funnel, and a tie around his neck was also made of iron. The man stood motionless, his eyes wide.
Toto, barking furiously, tried to bite the stranger's leg and jumped back with a yelp: he almost broke his teeth on the iron leg.
"What an outrage! he complained. — How can you give a decent dog iron legs?"..
"It must be the scarecrow of the woods," said the Scarecrow. — What I don't understand is, what is it guarding here?"
"Did you moan?" Taffy asked.
"Yes..." said the iron man. — No one has come to help me for a year…
— What should I do?" Ellie asked, touched by the stranger's plaintive voice.
— My joints are rusted and I can't move. But if you lubricate me, I'll be as good as new. You'll find an oil can on a shelf in my hut.
The Scarecrow did not want to let the girl go alone into the dark forest.
"I can get the oil can myself," he said. — Just tell me what an oilcan should look like." I've never seen her in my life.
The Scarecrow knew that help was needed. It seems that this poor iron man had a worse time than he did when he was just a scarecrow and couldn't get off the pole.
"The oil can looks like a teapot, only smaller," Nikita tried to explain. "You've probably never seen a teapot, either." The oilcan is small, and it should have a long spout.
Contrary to the boy's misgivings, the Scarecrow had seen a teapot-the farmer who made it liked to drink tea, and had just been drinking it when he created the scarecrow. So the straw man decided that he could recognize the oilcan if he saw it.
The Scarecrow reached the hut fairly quickly. And here is an object that looks very much like a teapot. The oil can was as dusty as the rest of it, but the Scarecrow hoped the oil hadn't gone bad.
Very soon, he returned to his friends and gave the oil can to Nikita to check it, after which he began to question the iron man:
"Tell me, friend," said the Scarecrow, " is a year long?"
"You bet!" A year is a long, long time! That's three hundred and sixty-five days.
"Three hundred... sixty... five..." repeated the Scarecrow. — Is that more than four?"
"How stupid you are! iron man replied, laughing. "You don't know how to count at all, do you?"
"You're wrong! "No," said the Scarecrow, proudly. — I'm very good at counting!" And he began to count, counting off his fingers. - My master made me-one. I had a fight with Kaggi-Carr on field-two! The hurricane knocked me off my stake-three! I met my friends and protected them from the crows-four! And nothing else has happened to me, so there is no need to count further!
Iron man was so surprised that he couldn't even say anything. At this time, Nikita prepared and checked the oil can.
— Where to lubricate? "What is it?" he asked.
"The neck first," said iron man.
And Nikita oiled the neck, but it was so rusty that he and the Scarecrow had to turn their heads left and right for a long time, until the neck stopped creaking.
"Now, please, hands!"
And Nikita began to lubricate the joints of his hands, and the Scarecrow gently raised and lowered the poor fellow's hands until they were really as good as new. Then the iron man took a deep breath and dropped the axe.
"Wow, that's good," he said. — I picked up the axe before it rusted, and I'm glad I can get rid of it at last. Now, give me the oil can, and I'll oil my feet, and I'll be all right."
After greasing his feet so that he could move them freely, Iron Man thanked his friends many times, because he was very polite.
— I would have stood here until I was reduced to iron dust." You saved my life. Who are you?
— I'm Ellie, and these are my friends…
- Nikita!
- Toto!
"Taffy!
- Elemental Tiger!
"Scarecrow! I'm stuffed with straw!
"I can tell from your conversation," said the Iron Man. "And welcome, legendary defender of our country." My name is Tin Woodman. But how did you get here?
"We're going to the Emerald City to see the Great Wizard Goodwin, and we spent the night in your cabin," Ellie said.
— Why are you going to see Goodwin?"
"I want Goodwin to take me back to Kansas, to my mom and dad," Ellie said.
"I want to go back to Moscow," Nikita said.
— And I want to ask him for a little brain for my straw head, " said the Scarecrow.
"I'm going to ask him for a new height," Taffy said.
— And I'm just going because I love Ellie, and because it's my duty to protect her from her enemies!" Toto said.
"We'll keep you company," Tiger and Kaggi-Carr said.
The Tin Woodman thought deeply.
— Do you think Goodwin can give me a heart?"
"I think it can," said the Tiger. — It's no more difficult for him than it is to give the Scarecrow brains or Taffy growth.
— Well, if you will accept me into your company, I will go with you to the Emerald City and ask Goodwin to give me a heart. After all, having a heart is my most cherished desire!
— Well, then, let's go-that is, come with us, " said the Scarecrow good-naturedly.
The Tin Woodman asked Nikita to fill an old oil can full of oil from the hut and put it in the bottom of his backpack.
— I might get caught in the rain and get rusty, "he said," and I'd be in trouble without an oilcan."…
Then he picked up the axe, put it on his shoulder, and the friends and their new companion walked through the woods to the road paved with yellow bricks.
"By the way, what happened to you?" Kaggi-Carr asked the Woodman. — How come you're out in the woods without your oil can?" Did the rain take you by surprise?
"I suspect that the witch of Gingham here sent the rain upon me," said the Tin Woodman. — She's been bothering me for a long time... ever since my fiancee Vesa's aunt Magda asked her for help. I was once an ordinary man of flesh and blood, and my name was Goode Curley.…
"The evil Gingema has been killed!" The Scarecrow interrupted.
"By whom?"
- Ellie! She came in the Killing House and-krak! krak! - sat on the sorceress's head.
Ellie felt sad. She wasn't particularly pleased to hear that she was being celebrated as a murderer when she hadn't killed anyone! Nikita understood her and said, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder:
"Don't worry, my friend, everything will be fine!"
"I wish it had happened sooner," said the Tin Woodman sadly, and went on, " Old Magda went to Gingham and paid her a basketful of leeches to upset Vesa and me. The witch enchanted my old axe so that it cut off my left leg. I would have been dead long ago — if it hadn't been for our village blacksmith named Strugg. This person can rightly be called a "jack of all trades". He made me an iron leg — which I was able to use as if it were real, as if I had never lost it. The sorceress was not satisfied with this — and again put a spell on my axe. He cut off my other leg, and I went to the Plough, and he made me a new, iron leg. Gingema did not calm down. This time the axe cut off my hands, but the Plough replaced them with iron ones. The fourth time I lost my head, but I got an iron one instead. Gingema never calmed down, and cast the last, most terrible spell — my axe cut my body in half. Once again, Strugg used all his great art to bring me back to life. So I became the Tin Woodman. I was no longer afraid of the axe, for it could no longer harm me. But there was a new danger: my joints might rust from the moisture. I bought an oil can and from time to time oiled my arms, legs, and neck. The sorceress, seeing that neither I nor Vesa were going to back down, one day sent this damned rain that was supposed to kill me, make me rust forever. And if it hadn't been for you, it would have happened, because I forgot to put on my oil that day.
The Scarecrow was genuinely moved by the Tin Woodman's story. His own story was nothing compared to what this man had been through.
"Be my friend," he said, the first thing that came to mind. "If you want to, of course." I'm glad we were able to help you… But what about your fiancee? Couldn't she find you?"
The Scarecrow didn't know much about brides, but he did know that friends were never abandoned.
"She was looking for me," said the Tin Woodman. — She found me rusty and helpless — and to save me, she gave me the kiss of true love, which is credited with miraculous properties. But the miracle never happened. She stood in the rain, tears streaming down her cheeks. Vesa couldn't understand why the kiss didn't work. I think it's because iron man doesn't have a heart — Strug never got it back in my chest.
"As far as I know, Munchkins aren't blacksmiths," Nikita said.
"The Strug is a Winkie from the Purple Country," said the Woodcutter. — They are skilled craftsmen. They can make and fix anything.
— Can we call you Goode?" Taffy asked. — That's your real name."
"Don't," said the Woodcutter. — I'm not the Goode Curley I used to be. I'm used to being called the Tin Woodman.
"I think it's crazy," Nikita said. — Why give up your real name in favor of a nickname?" After all, you still have the same soul. Even if you are made of meat and bone, iron or straw — your soul will remain the same. It is not the material of our body that makes us who we are, but what is inside us.
The Woodman sighed, and tears involuntarily rolled from his eyes.
"Be careful!" — Oh! " cried the Scarecrow, in a fright, and wiped his tears with a blue handkerchief. "You'll rust with tears!"
"Thank you, my friend! "I forgot I wasn't allowed to cry." Water is bad for me in every way... Oh, how terrible it is to stand in the woods for a whole year and think that you have no heart!
"Nothing like being stuck on a stake in the middle of a wheat field," interrupted the Scarecrow. - But, really, you could talk to the crows…
— When I was loved, I was the happiest of men, " continued the Tin Woodman, sighing. — If Goodwin gives me a heart, I'll go back to the Munchkin country and marry Vesa." Maybe she's waiting for me after all…
— And I, "said the Scarecrow stubbornly," still prefer brains: when there are no brains, then there is no need for a heart."
"Well, I need a heart!" The Tin Woodman objected. "Brains don't make you happy, and happiness is the best thing on earth.
The others listened to the argument of their new friends and were silent, as they did not know which of their friends was right after all.