The best farmer in all Oz was Uncle Henry, who was Dorothy's own uncle, and who now lived near the Emerald City with his wife Aunt Em. Uncle Henry taught the Oz people how to grow the finest vegetables and fruits and grains and was of much use to Ozma in keeping the Royal Storehouses well filled. He, too, was a counsellor. The reason I mention the little Wizard of Oz last is because he was the most important man in the Land of Oz. He wasn't a big man in size, but he was a big man in power and intelligence and second only to Glinda the Good in all the mystic arts of magic. Glinda had taught him, and the Wizard and the Sorceress were the only ones in Oz permitted by law to practice wizardry and sorcery, which they applied only to good uses and for the benefit of the people. The Wizard wasn't exactly handsome but he was pleasant to look at. His bald head was as shiny as if it had been varnished; there was always a merry twinkle in his eyes and he was as spry as a schoolboy. Dorothy says the reason the Wizard is not as powerful as Glinda is because Glinda didn't teach him all she knows, but what the Wizard knows he knows very well and so he performs some very remarkable magic. The ten I have mentioned assembled, with the Scarecrow and Glinda, in Ozma's throne room, right after dinner that evening, and the Sorceress told them all she knew of the plight of Ozma and Dorothy. "Of course we must rescue them," she continued, "and the sooner they are rescued the better pleased they will be; but what we must now determine is how they can be saved. That is why I have called you together in council." "The easiest way," remarked the Shaggy Man, "is to raise the sunken island of the Skeezers to the top of the water again." "Tell me how?" said Glinda. "I don't know how, your Highness, for I have never raised a sunken island." "We might all get under it and lift," suggested Professor Wogglebug. "How can we get under it when it rests on the bottom of the lake?" asked the Sorceress. "Couldn't we throw a rope around it and pull it ashore?" inquired Jack Pumpkinhead. "Why not pump the water out of the lake?" suggested the Patchwork Girl with a laugh. "Do be sensible!" pleaded Glinda. "This is a serious matter, and we must give it serious thought." "How big is the lake and how big is the island?" was the Frogman's question. "None of us can tell, for we have not been there." "In that case," said the Scarecrow, "it appears to me we ought to go to the Skeezer country and examine it carefully." "Quite right," agreed the Tin Woodman. "We-will-have-to-go-there-any-how," remarked Tik-Tok in his jerky machine voice. "The question is which of us shall go, and how many of us?" said the Wizard. "I shall go of course," declared the Scarecrow. "And I," said Scraps. "It is my duty to Ozma to go," asserted the Tin Woodman. "I could not stay away, knowing our loved Princess is in danger," said the Wizard. "We all feel like that," Uncle Henry said.