So silently did they move that soon they saw through the windows of
the houses, people moving around, while others were passing to and fro
in the yards between the buildings. They seemed much like other
people from a distance, and apparently they did not notice the little
party so quietly approaching.
They had almost reached the nearest house when Toto saw a large beetle
crossing the path and barked loudly at it. Instantly a wild clatter
was heard from the houses and yards. Dorothy thought it sounded like
a sudden hailstorm, and the visitors, knowing that caution was no
longer necessary, hurried forward to see what had happened.
After the clatter an intense stillness reigned in the town. The
strangers entered the first house they came to, which was also the
largest, and found the floor strewn with pieces of the people who
lived there. They looked much like fragments of wood neatly painted,
and were of all sorts of curious and fantastic shapes, no two pieces
being in any way alike.
They picked up some of these pieces and looked at them carefully. On
one which Dorothy held was an eye, which looked at her pleasantly but
with an interested expression, as if it wondered what she was going to
do with it.
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