"Run for the cellar!" Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him.

Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole.

Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt.
When she was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor.
Then a strange thing happened.
The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air.

Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.
The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone.

In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather.
It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily.