“Oh, Frank! That’s wonderful news!”
“We just have to invest a small sum of money,” he said. “About two hundred dollars. To pay for the illustrations and printing, of course. You needn’t worry—” Frank interrupted himself, his words tumbling over each other in excitement. “We don’t have to come up with all of it. We can take out a small loan and ask the illustrator to pitch in half the money. We’ll earn it back before you know it, and probably make money to boot! Oh, and Maud!” he said, embracing her and twirling her around until they dizzily collapsed in a heap on the sofa. “It’s going to be a real, true book. With a cover, and pages, and my name on the spine!”
“You have to pay them?” Maud said. “But why? Shouldn’t they pay you for all the work you’ve done?”
“Oh, not to worry, darling. They will! They will! Royalties on every copy we sell. The investment is just to help the publisher defray the cost of the printing. It’s just a small company…” He stopped, and a flicker of worry crossed his face. “Tell me, darling? Do you think it’s too much?”
In truth, when he’d said two hundred dollars, Maud had felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The only money she’d set aside was intended for the boys’ Christmas presents. But every argument she could marshal and every doubt she would normally have expressed died on her lips. It was her turn to believe in him. To take him and his story on faith.
* * *
—
AS CHRISTMAS 1899 APPROACHED, the last holiday of the century, Maud took an envelope out of the top drawer of her dresser and looked at its meager contents with dismay. Since emptying out her emergency fund to help Frank pay for the book, she had managed to pull together only three dollars and fifty-seven cents. Hardly enough to allow for a Christmas goose! Certainly not enough to purchase a single gift. Frank had told Maud repeatedly that initial orders for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had been strong for the Christmas season. He was feeling hopeful. But that was his nature. And hope would not buy Christmas presents.
When she saw little Kenneth, forehead puckered in concentration, carefully writing out a list for Santa in his childish blocky print, she finally had to say something. Tentatively, she asked, “Frank, what if you went to the publisher and asked for a little something to tide us over? If the orders are so good, surely they could spare a bit to help us through Christmas…? I remember my mother’s publishers sometimes did that.”
“But, Maud, I can’t ask. They won’t give me money before the book’s even gone on sale. Once they’ve sold some copies, they’ll pay me.”
“But the money we spent…” Maud said softly. “I haven’t been able to save much since. I just don’t want to disappoint the boys…”
Frank looked so pained that Maud was sorry she had mentioned it. If they had no money for presents, they’d just have to find other ways to make the season festive. They’d done without plenty of times before.
“Never mind, Frank,” she said, squeezing his arm. “We’ll have a wonderful Christmas anyway.”
Then, when Christmas was only a week away, Frank came in, holding one hand behind his back. Maud knew that look on his face. He was bringing her a surprise, a peace offering. She put down her iron and looked up into his eyes.
“Frank, what is that behind your back?”
“I asked for that advance, like you said, Maudie dear,” Frank replied. A wide grin split his face from ear to ear.
“Oh, Frank, thank goodness! It’s the last Christmas of the century, and I know we’ve had lean ones, but I was just hoping to have a little bit of extra money. Now that the boys are growing, they want more things.”
With a flourish, Frank drew his hand from behind his back and laid a bank check on the ironing board.
Maud peered over to look at it, hoping against hope that the amount would be at least fifty dollars.
She read the words aloud: “?‘Three thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars?’?” Her voice shook.
“Three thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars!” Frank said.
He flung his arms around her and didn’t let go until the scent of the scorching iron got their attention. For the first time in her life, Maud had burned a hole in a perfectly good shirt.
* * *
—
ON CHRISTMAS EVE 1899, Frank pulled out all the stops. Instead of the customary fir, he had set up four trees, one for each boy, in each corner of the parlor. The children opened their abundant presents with a joy that Maud had not seen since that first Christmas in Aberdeen—and she rested easy, because this time, she knew that those presents were not bought on credit but fully paid for, in cash, with plenty of cushion left in the bank.
At the very end of the evening, after the boys were upstairs and Maud and Frank were sipping eggnog and comparing notes on the evening’s festivities, Frank reached deep into his pocket and produced a small box.
“This is for you, Maud, for all that you’ve endured with me.”
The lid was embossed with the seal of a downtown jewelry shop.
Inside was a sparkling green emerald ring.
“This one’s not made of paste,” he said. “This one will last. And one more thing.” Frank handed Maud a brand-new copy of the book. It was bound in green cloth and stamped with a brilliant design of a red-maned lion and the words The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Maud opened the flyleaf and read:
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY GOOD FRIEND AND COMRADE. MY WIFE.
L.F.B.
CHAPTER
26
HOLLYWOOD
1939
Perhaps, Maud thought, in order to make a truly great story, you’ve got to put an entire life into it—all the heartbreak, all the glory.
Originally, Frank had never intended to write more than one book about the Land of Oz, but words came easily to him, and readers had clamored for more. From Tik-Tok to the Patchwork Girl, Princess Ozma to the Quadlings, the Land of Oz had taken on a life of its own, as Frank penned fourteen sequels, including one that had been taken from a safe-deposit box and published after his death. Frank had tried to end the series after the sixth book. Even as an author, he had the heart of a wanderer. He wanted to write about new and different magical lands. He adopted pen names and wrote more books about other characters and places, but none equaled the stories about Oz or had the staying power. This beautiful, beloved place he had invented had grown to entrap him. At times it had been painful for Maud to watch Frank realize, time and again, that no matter what else he wrote, children still clamored for more Oz! More Oz!
Maud was no writer, but she had always understood one thing: the reason the first book was so beloved was that it started out in an ordinary place and happened to an ordinary girl, and that unlike Frank Baum, most people wanted to visit the strange, the wonderful and beautiful, but for them a visit was enough, and after that, they were content to return home. Even if that place was gray and drab, it was still home.
It had been almost six months since The Wizard of Oz had started filming. Maud had seen so many different things that they blurred in her mind. Her son Robert had telephoned from his citrus farm in Claremont to ask her how the movie was turning out, and she hadn’t known exactly what to say. She had seen the Haunted Forest and the Deadly Poppy Field; she’d seen the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City. She had seen the actors playing the different roles in their costumes and out of them. Even her frantic quest to read the script hadn’t told her what she wanted to know. What would the finished picture be like? Would it have that ineffable, magical, whimsical, serious quality of her dear husband’s book? She hoped, she prayed, but she still didn’t know.
Today, when she entered the sound stage, Maud saw the front side of a wooden house. A chalkboard, propped up against it, identified it as “Uncle Henry and Auntie Em’s Farm.” In the scruffy yard outside, an animal handler was squatting by a large box, feeding corn to a couple of chickens from the palm of his hand. The dog trainer was sitting on a hay bale, holding Toto on his lap. After all this time, Maud was back in “Kansas.” For technical reasons, they were filming the very first scene last.
A loud squawk sent one of the chickens hopping over the side of the cardboard box, almost landing at her feet, as the startled handler jumped up, saying, “Oh, sorry, ma’am!”