A Shirt Is a Terrible Thing to Waist

Yesterday I quoted L. Frank Baum’s description in The Patchwork Girl of Oz of a Munchkin boy wearing “a blue ruffled waist.” When I first read that book, I must have glossed over the phrase because:

• John R. Neill’s pictures show Ojo wearing a white shirt with a ruff around his neck.
• I had no idea what a “ruffled waist” might be.

This year, thanks to Google Books, I solved that mystery for myself. In 1897, the American Home Magazine published this picture of a ruffled waist.

Elsewhere in the magazine are examples of a shirt waist, blouse waist, silk waist, Norfolk waist, tucked waist, full waist, draped waist, and military waist.

The magazine also used “waist” to mean a person’s midriff or its circumference, as we still use the term (and once in a metaphor for how “the Chesapeake, like a great arm, reaches up and entwines itself about the waist of Maryland”). But obviously turn-of-that-century readers understood that the word could mean a garment of the sort we’d call a shirt.

Thus, Baum described Ojo wearing a blue ruffled shirt, perhaps with vertical ruffles like this lady. And Neill chose instead to draw Ojo with a ruff around his neck and a plainly sewn, if floppy, white shirt.

Baum used “waist” in similar ways in his other fantasy novels. In Sky Island he described the boy Button-Bright this way: “He wore a blouse waist, a short jacket, and knickerbockers.” And in The Scarecrow of Oz, Button-Bright looks like this: “He was dressed in a brown velvet jacket and knickerbockers, with brown stockings, buckled shoes and a blue shirt-waist that had frills down its front.”

Baum always portrayed Button-Bright as an upper-class, fairly precious (though indestructible) little American boy. His mother or governess (he had both) therefore dressed him in loose, frilly shirts. Or, as his contemporaries would say, waists.

Sky Island Gets Real

From artist Willie Real, here’s another interpretation of the protagonists of L. Frank Baum’s Sky Island.

That’s Trot, Button-Bright, and Cap’n Bill.

Real also shared a picture of this Button-Bright inside the Boolooroo’s treasure chamber, with the blue wolf behind him. Thank goodness he’s carrying a pillow. You can read that chapter of Sky Island here.

“I’ve the right to make new laws, haven’t I?”

For the last two Tuesdays I’ve been following L. Frank Baum’s discussion of governance in the Pink Country in Sky Island. What Polychrome called “the customs of the country, absurd though they may be,” require that:

• the inhabitant with the palest skin must be named monarch.
• the monarch must live in poverty.

Because of the first rule, the book’s heroine, Trot, is made Queen of the Pinks, and because of the second she has to wear a plain pink dress with no flounces and live in a rough hut.

Trot and Button-Bright, with Cap’n Bill and Rosalie the Witch, went to the humble palace, where they had a simple supper of coarse food and slept upon hard beds. In the houses of the City, however, there was much feasting and merrymaking, and it seemed to Trot that the laws of the country which forbade the Queen from enjoying all the good things the people did were decidedly wrong and needed changing.

The next morning Rosalie said to the little girl, “Will you make Tourmaline the Queen again when you go away?”

“I’ll send for her and see about it,” replied Trot. But when Tourmaline arrived at the palace, dressed all in lovely, fluffy robes and with a dainty pink plume in her pink hair, she begged most earnestly not to be made the Queen again.

“I’m having a good time just now after years of worry and uncomfortable living in this uncomfortable old hut of a palace,” said the poor girl, “so it would be cruel for you to make me the servant of the people again and condemn me to want and misery.”

“That seems reason’ble,” replied Trot thoughtfully.

“Rosalie’s skin is just as light a pink as my own,” continued Tourmaline. “Why don’t you make her the Queen?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Trot. Then she turned to Rosalie and asked, “How would you like to rule the Pinkies?”

“I wouldn’t like it,” replied the Witch with a smile. “The Queen is the poorest and most miserable creature in all the kingdom, and I’m sure I don’t deserve such a fate. I’ve always tried to be a good witch and to do my duty.”

Trot thought this over quite seriously for a time. Then one of her quaint ideas came to her—so quaint that it was entirely sensible. “I’m the Queen of the Pinkies just now, am I not?” she asked.

“Of course,” answered Rosalie. “None can dispute that.”

“Then I’ve the right to make new laws, haven’t I?”

“I believe so.”

“In that case,” said the girl, “I’m goin’ to make a law that the Queen shall have the same food an’ the same dresses an’ the same good times that her people have; and she shall live in a house jus’ as good as the houses of any of her people, an’ have as much money to spend as anybody. But no more. The Queen can have her share of ever’thing ’cordin’ to the new law, but if she tries to get more than her share, I’ll have the law say she shall be taken to the edge an’ pushed off. What do you think of that law, Rosalie?”

“It’s a good law and a just one,” replied the Witch approvingly. So Trot sent for the Royal Scribbler, who was a very fat Pinky with large, pink eyes and curly pink hair, and had him carefully write the new law into the Great Book of Laws. The Royal Scribbler wrote it very nicely in pink ink, with a big capital letter at the beginning and a fine flourish at the end.

Trot then makes Rosalie her successor as queen because, she explains, “you’ve got more sense than Tourmaline has and your powers as a witch will help you protect the people.” That perpetuates the benevolent dictatorship usually found in children’s fairylands.

Baum thus had Trot institute equality between the governor and the governed, but not interfere with a law that conferred elite status on the color of a person’s skin. Did that reflect the dominant values among American progressives in 1912, when Sky Island was published?

Baum’s Sky Island is one of the books highlighted in the program at the Winkie Convention, which starts this Friday in Asilomar, California. I’ll moderate a panel on Oz blogs on Sunday morning.

Queen by the Color of Her Skin

A week ago, I quoted the passage from Sky Island in which L. Frank Baum revealed how the Queen of the Pink Country must live in poverty in exchange for her authority. But how does one become queen?

A later chapter explores that aspect of the country’s governance. As the Pinkies plan to toss our heroes off the island because “They do not harmonize with our color scheme,” Polychrome the Rainbow’s Daughter (introduced in The Road to Oz) arrives and starts to research their laws:

Polychrome began turning over the leaves, while the others all watched her anxiously and in silence. “Here,” she said presently, “is a Law which reads as follows: ‘Everyone in the Pink Country is entitled to the protection of the Ruler and to a house and a good living, except only the Blueskins. If any of the natives of the Blue Country should ever break through the Fog Bank, they must be driven back with sharp sticks.’ Have you read this Law, Tourmaline?”

“Yes,” said the Queen, “but how does that apply to these strangers?”

“Why, being in the Pink Country, as they surely are, and not being Blueskins, they are by this Law entitled to protection, to a home and good living. The Law does not say ‘Pinkies,’ it says any who are in the Pink Country.” . . .

“I am indeed relieved to have you interpret the Law in this way,” declared Tourmaline. “I knew it was cruel to throw these poor people over the edge, but that seemed to us the only thing to be done.”

“It was cruel and unjust,” answered Polychrome as sternly as her sweet voice could speak. “But here,” she added, for she had still continued to turn the leaves of the Great Book, “is another Law which you have also overlooked. It says, ‘The person, whether man or woman, boy or girl, living in the Pink Country who has the lightest skin shall be the Ruler—King or Queen—as long as he or she lives, unless someone of a lighter skin is found, and this Ruler’s commands all the people must obey.’ Do you know this Law?”

“Oh yes,” replied Tourmaline. “That is why I am the Queen. You will notice my complexion is of a lighter pink than that of any other of my people.”

“Yes,” remarked Polychrome, looking at her critically, “when you were made Queen without doubt you had the lightest-colored skin in all the Pink Country. But now you are no longer Queen of the Pinkies, Tourmaline.”

Those assembled were so startled by this statement that they gazed at the Rainbow’s Daughter in astonishment for a time. Then Tourmaline asked, “Why not, your Highness?”

“Because here is one lighter in color than yourself,” pointing to Trot. “This girl is, by the Law of the Great Book, the rightful Queen of the Pinkies, and as loyal citizens you are all obliged to obey her commands. Give me that circlet from your brow, Tourmaline.” Without hesitation Tourmaline removed the rose-gold circlet with its glittering jewel and handed it to Polychrome, who turned and placed it upon Trot's brow. Then she called in a loud, imperative voice, “Greet your new Queen, Pinkies!”

Trot Griffith thus follows Dorothy Gale in overturning the governments of about half the countries she visits. And she becomes queen herself, not simply putting one of her companions on the throne.

But, as last week’s extract showed, it’s a hard life being Queen of the Pinkies.

COMING UP: Queen Trot’s reforms.

(Incidentally, Baum’s incomplete sentence in the last paragraph above was itself mistranscribed in the electronic text of Sky Island that circulated since at least 2003 and is the basis of some reprints. The line is corrected in the latest Project Gutenberg text released on 15 Mar 2012.)

What We Can Learn from Tourmaline the Poverty Queen

L. Frank Baum’s 1912 fantasy novel Sky Island is one of the themes of the Winkie Convention taking place in California later this month. In that book, Baum continued his pattern of cheekily examining how nations organize themselves politically. As usual, he presented the governors of those nations as monarchs, simplifying the world to match how most children experience it. But he discarded the west’s traditional hereditary way of choosing rulers.

On the blue side of the island, the Boolooroo is supposed to rule for only 300 years, and is further be term-limited by the 600-year ceiling on his life. And on the pink side of the island:

The Queen gazed upon our friends with evident interest. She smiled—a little sadly—at Trot, seemed to approve Button-Bright’s open, frank face, and was quite surprised because Cap’n Bill was so much bigger than her own people. “Are you a giant?” she asked the sailor in a soft, sweet voice.

“No, your Majesty,” he replied, “I’m only—“

“Majesty!” she exclaimed, flushing a deeper pink. “Are you addressing that word to me?”

“O’ course, ma’am,” answered Cap’n Bill. “I’m told that’s the proper way to speak to a Queen.”

“Perhaps you are trying to ridicule me,” she continued, regarding the sailor’s face closely. “There is nothing majestic about me, as you know very well. Coralie, do you consider ‘majesty’ a proper word to use when addressing a Queen?” she added, appealing to the Pinky woman.

“By no means,” was the prompt reply.

“What shall I call her, then?” inquired Cap’n Bill.

“Just Tourmaline. That is her name, and it is sufficient,” said the woman.

“The Ruler of a country ought to be treated with great respec’,” declared Trot a little indignantly, for she thought the pretty little queen was not being properly deferred to.

“Why?” asked Tourmaline curiously.

“Because the Ruler is the mos’ ’risticratic person in any land,” explained the little girl. “Even in America ever’body bows low to our President, an’ the Blueskins are so ’fraid o’ their Boolooroo that they tremble whenever they go near him.”

“But surely that is all wrong,” said Tourmaline gravely. “The Ruler is appointed to protect and serve the people, and here in the Pink Country I have the full power to carry out the laws. I even decree death when such a punishment is merited. Therefore I am a mere agent to direct the laws, which are the Will of the People, and am only a public servant obliged constantly to guard the welfare of my subjects.”

“In that case,” said Button-Bright, “you’re entitled to the best there is to pay for your trouble. A powerful ruler ought to be rich and to live in a splendid palace. Your folks ought to treat you with great respect, as Trot says.”

“Oh no,” responded Tourmaline quickly. “That would indeed be very wrong. Too much should never be given to anyone. If, with my great power, conferred upon me by the people, I also possessed great wealth, I might be tempted to be cruel and overbearing. In that case my subjects would justly grow envious of my superior station. If I lived as luxuriously as my people do and had servants and costly gowns, the good Pinkies would say that their Queen had more than they themselves, and it would be true. No, our way is best. The Ruler, be it king or queen, has absolute power to rule, but no riches, no high station, no false adulation. The people have the wealth and honor, for it is their due. The Queen has nothing but the power to execute the laws, to adjust grievances and to compel order.”

“What pays you, then, for all your bother?” asked Trot.

“I have one great privilege. After my death a pink marble statue of me will be set up in the Grand Court, with the statues of the other Kings and Queens who have ruled this land, and all the Pinkies in ages to come will then honor me as having been a just and upright queen. That is my reward.”

“I’m sorry for you, ma’am,“ said Cap’n Bill. “Your pay for bein’ a queen is sort o’ like a life-insurance. If don't come due till after you’re dead, an’ then you can’t get much fun out o’ it."

Ironically, the Americans—particularly the little girl Trot—want to treat Queen Tourmaline with more deference than her own society accords her.

American society in Baum’s lifetime had struggled with the Pinkies’ problem of how to motivate government employees to work for the good of the people, resisting the temptation to work for themselves. The solution—the federal civil service system—was instituted in 1871. It promised protection from political shifts in exchange for salaries less volatile than in the private sector, pensions to reduce the motivation to amass money, and respect.

Currently a lot of American governments are cutting back on compensation and breaking contracts to public workers. I fear we’ve forgotten the original reasoning behind that social compact. Civil service systems aren’t perfect and can be exploited, but they’re one of those flawed arrangements that’s nonetheless better than anything else we’ve come up with. As Baum went on to explore, the Pinkies’ solution of an impoverished ruler with no respect until death had its own problems.

COMING UP: Choosing the Queen of the Pink Country.

“We ought to be friends.”

From the first chapter of L. Frank Baum’s Sky Island:

The boy sat down beside her on the flat rock.

“Do you like girls?” asked Trot, making room for him.

“Not very well,” the boy replied. “Some of ’em are pretty good fellows, but not many. The girls with brothers are bossy, an’ the girls without brothers haven’t any ‘go’ to ’em. But the world’s full o’ both kinds, and so I try to take ’em as they come. They can’t help being girls, of course. Do you like boys?”

“When they don’t put on airs or get roughhouse,” replied Trot. “My ’sperience with boys is that they don’t know much, but think they do.”

“That’s true,” he answered. “I don’t like boys much better than I do girls, but some are all right, and—you seem to be one of ’em.”

“Much obliged,” laughed Trot. “You aren’t so bad, either, an’ if we don’t both turn out worse than we seem, we ought to be friends.”

Sky Island is one of Baum’s best novels, and one of the books that will be commemorated at this summer’s Winkie Convention at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California. I plan to be there, moderating a panel on Oz blogs and judging a writing contest or two. I’ve also submitted an unconventional piece for the convention booklet.

One Hundred Years of Sky Island

This year is the centenary of Sky Island, one of L. Frank Baum’s very best fantasy novels. It tells the further adventures of Trot and Cap’n Bill, the little girl and one-legged old sailor Baum introduced in Sea Fairies, with the addition of Button-Bright and Polychrome from The Road to Oz. Unlike those books, Sky Island has a real plot.

However, it didn’t earn Baum as much as he wanted, so for his next fantasy novel he returned to the Oz series. Eventually he merged the two series by bringing Trot, Cap’n Bill, and Button-Bright to the Emerald City, but since Sea Fairies and Sky Island don ’t have the word “Oz” in their title they’ve never attracted so many readers. In the latter case, that’s a shame.

Last May, artist Kevin Merriman posted some unusual character designs for Button-Bright and Trot. Check out the link for his take on Cap’n Bill as well.