The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alice in Wonderland, by J.C. Gorham
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Title: Alice in Wonderland
Retold in Words of One Syllable
Author: J.C. Gorham
Release Date: October 16, 2006 [EBook #19551]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALICE IN WONDERLAND ***
Produced by Chuck Greif, Jason Isbell and The Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration]
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
RETOLD IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE
By MRS. J.C. GORHAM
_FULLY ILLUSTRATED_
A.L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1905
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
CHAPTER II.
THE POOL OF TEARS
CHAPTER III.
A RACE
CHAPTER IV.
THE RABBIT SENDS IN A BILL
CHAPTER V.
A CATERPILLAR TELLS ALICE WHAT TO DO
CHAPTER VI.
PIG AND PEPPER
CHAPTER VII.
A MAD TEA PARTY
CHAPTER VIII.
THE QUEEN'S CROQUET GROUND
CHAPTER IX.
THE MOCK TURTLE
CHAPTER X.
THE LOBSTER DANCE
CHAPTER XI.
WHO STOLE THE TARTS?
CHAPTER XII.
ALICE ON THE STAND
CHAPTER I.
DOWN THE RAB-BIT HOLE.
Al-ice had sat on the bank by her sis-ter till she was tired. Once or
twice she had looked at the book her sis-ter held in her hand, but there
were no pict-ures in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice,
"with-out pict-ures?" She asked her-self as well as she could, for the
hot day made her feel quite dull, if it would be worth while to get up
and pick some dai-sies to make a chain. Just then a white rab-bit with
pink eyes ran close by her.
[Illustration]
That was not such a strange thing, nor did Alice think it so much out of
the way to hear the Rab-bit say, "Oh dear! Oh, dear! I shall be late!"
But when the Rab-bit took a watch out of its pock-et, and looked at it
and then ran on, Al-ice start-ed to her feet, for she knew that was the
first time she had seen a Rab-bit with a watch. She jumped up and ran to
get a look at it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large
rab-bit hole near the hedge.
As fast as she could go, Al-ice went down the hole af-ter it, and did
not once stop to think how in the world she was to get out.
The hole went straight on for some way and then turned down with a sharp
bend, so sharp that Al-ice had no time to think to stop till she found
her-self fall-ing in what seemed a deep well.
She must not have moved fast, or the well must have been quite deep, for
it took her a long time to go down, and as she went she had time to look
at the strange things she passed. First she tried to look down and make
out what was there, but it was too dark to see; then she looked at the
sides of the well and saw that they were piled with book-shelves; here
and there she saw maps hung on pegs. She took down a jar from one of the
shelves as she passed. On it was the word _Jam_, but there was no jam in
it, so she put it back on one of the shelves as she fell past it.
"Well," thought Al-ice to her-self, "af-ter such a fall as this, I shall
not mind a fall down stairs at all. How brave they'll all think me at
home! Why, I wouldn't say a thing if I fell off the top of the house."
(Which I dare say was quite true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall nev-er come to an end? "I should like
to know," she said, "how far I have come by this time. Wouldn't it be
strange if I should fall right through the earth and come out where the
folks walk with their feet up and their heads down?"
Down, down, down. "Di-nah will miss me to-night," Al-ice went on.
(Di-nah was the cat.) "I hope they'll think to give her her milk at
tea-time. Di-nah, my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are
no mice in the air, but you might catch a bat, and that's much like a
mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats?" And here Al-ice must have gone
to sleep, for she dreamed that she walked hand in hand with Di-nah, and
just as she asked her, "Now, Di-nah, tell me the truth, do you eat
bats?" all at once, thump! thump! down she came on a heap of sticks and
dry leaves, and the long fall was o-ver.
Al-ice was not a bit hurt, but at once jumped to her feet. She looked
up, but all was dark there. At the end of a long hall in front of her
the white rab-bit was still in sight. There was no time to be lost, so
off Al-ice went like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, "Oh,
my ears, how late it is!" then it was out of sight. She found she was in
a long hall with a low roof, from which hung a row of light-ed lamps.
There were doors on all sides, but when Al-ice had been all round and
tried each one, she found they were all locked. She walked back and
forth and tried to think how she was to get out. At last she came to a
stand made all of glass. On it was a ti-ny key of gold, and Al-ice's
first thought was that this might be a key to one of the doors of the
hall, but when she had tried the key in each lock, she found the locks
were too large or the key was too small--it did not fit one of them. But
when she went round the hall once more she came to a low cur-tain which
she had not seen at first, and when she drew this back she found a small
door, not much more than a foot high; she tried the key in the lock, and
to her great joy it fit-ted!
[Illustration]
Al-ice found that the door led to a hall the size of a rat hole; she
knelt down and looked through it in-to a gar-den of gay flow-ers. How
she longed to get out of that dark hall and near those bright blooms;
but she could not so much as get her head through the door; "and if my
head would go through," thought Al-ice, "it would be of no use, for the
rest of me would still be too large to go through. Oh, how I wish I
could shut up small! I think I could if I knew how to start."
There seemed to be no use to wait by the small door, so she went back to
the stand with the hope that she might find a key to one of the large
doors, or may-be a book of rules that would teach her to grow small.
This time she found a small bot-tle on it ("which I am sure was not here
just now," said Al-ice), and tied round the neck of the bot-tle was a
tag with the words "Drink me" printed on it.
It was all right to say "Drink me," but Al-ice was too wise to do that
in haste: "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see if it's marked
'poi-son' or not," for she had been taught if you drink much from a
bot-tle marked 'poi-son,' it is sure to make you sick. This had no such
mark on it, so she dared to taste it, and as she found it nice (it had,
in fact, a taste of pie, ice-cream, roast fowl, and hot toast), she soon
drank it off.
"How strange I feel," said Al-ice. "I am sure I am not so large as I
was!"
And so it was; she was now not quite a foot high, and her face light-ed
up at the thought that she was now the right size to go through the
small door and get out to that love-ly gar-den.
[Illustration]
Poor Al-ice! When she reached the door she found that she had left the
key on the stand, and when she went back for it, she found she could by
no means reach it. She could see it through the glass, and she tried her
best to climb one of the legs of the stand, but it was too sleek, and
when she was quite tired out, she sat down and cried.
"Come, there's no use to cry like that!" Al-ice said to her-self as
stern as she could speak. "I tell you to leave off at once!"
Soon her eyes fell on a small glass box that lay on the floor. She
looked in it and found a tiny cake on which were the words "Eat me,"
marked in grapes. "Well, I'll eat it," said Al-ice, "and if it makes me
grow tall, I can reach the key, and if it makes me shrink up, I can
creep un-der the door; so I'll get out some way."
So she set to work and soon ate all the cake.
CHAPTER II.
THE POOL OF TEARS.
"How strange! Oh my!" said Al-ice, "how tall I am, and all at once, too!
Good-by, feet." (For when she looked down at her feet they seemed so far
off, she thought they would soon be out of sight.) "Oh, my poor feet,
who will put on your shoes for you now, dears? I'm sure I shan't do it.
I shall be a great deal too far off to take care of you; you must get on
the best way you can; but I must be kind to them," thought Al-ice, "or
they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a pair
of new shoes each, Christ-mas."
She stopped to think how she would send them. "They must go by the
mail," she thought; "and how fun-ny it'll seem to send shoes to one's
own feet. How odd the ad-dress will look!
AL-ICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.,
Hearth-rug,
Near the Fire.
(With Al-ice's love.)
[Illustration]
Oh dear, there's no sense in all that."
Just then her head struck the roof of the hall; in fact she was now more
than nine feet high, and she at once took up the small key and went back
to the door.
Poor Al-ice! It was as much as she could do, when she lay down on one
side, to look through to the gar-den with one eye: but to get through
was not to be hoped for, so she sat down and had a good cry.
"Shame on you," said Al-ice, "a great big girl like you" (she might well
say this) "to cry in this way! Stop at once, I tell you!" But she went
on all the same, and shed tears till there was a large pool all round
her, and which reached half way down the hall.
[Illustration]
At last she heard the sound of feet not far off, then she dried her eyes
in great haste to see who it was. It was the White Rab-bit that had come
back, dressed in fine clothes, with a pair of white kid gloves in one
hand, and a large fan in the oth-er. He trot-ted on in great haste, and
talked to him-self as he came, "Oh! the Duch-ess, the Duch-ess! Oh!
won't she be in a fine rage if I've made her wait?"
Al-ice felt so bad and so in need of help from some one, that when the
Rab-bit came near, she said in a low tim-id voice, "If you please,
sir--" The Rab-bit started as if shot, dropped the white kid gloves and
the fan and ran off in-to the dark as fast as his two hind feet could
take him.
Al-ice took up the fan and gloves and as the hall was quite hot, she
fanned her-self all the time she went on talk-ing. "Dear, dear! How
queer all things are to-day! Could I have been changed in the night? Let
me think: was I the same when I got up to-day? Seems to me I didn't feel
quite the same. But if I'm not the same, then who in the world am I?"
Then she thought of all the girls she knew that were of her age, to see
if she could have been changed for one of them.
"I'm sure I'm not A-da," she said, "for her hair is in such long curls
and mine doesn't curl at all; and I'm sure I can't be Ma-bel, for I know
all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a lit-tle! Then, she's
she, and I'm I, and--oh dear, how strange it all is! I'll try if I know
all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve,
and four times six is thir-teen, and four times sev-en is--oh dear! that
is not right. I must have been changed for Ma-bel! I'll try if I know
'How doth the lit-tle--'" and she placed her hands on her lap, as if
she were at school and tried to say it, but her voice was hoarse and
strange and the words did not come the same as they used to do.
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Al-ice, and her eyes
filled with tears as she went on, "I must be Ma-bel af-ter all, and I
shall have to go and live in that po-ky house and have next to no toys
to play with, and oh! such hard things to learn. No, I've made up my
mind; if I'm Ma-bel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use for them to
put their heads down and say, 'Come up, dear!' I shall look up and say,
'Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then if I like it, I'll come
up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm some one else'--but, oh dear,"
cried Al-ice with a fresh burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their
heads down! I am so tired of this place!"
As she said this she looked down at her hands and saw that she had put
on one of the Rab-bit's white kid gloves while she was talk-ing. "How
can I have done that?" she thought. "I must have grown small once more."
She got up and went to the glass stand to test her height by that, and
found that as well as she could guess she was now not more than two feet
high, and still shrink-ing quite fast. She soon found out that the cause
of this, was the fan she held and she dropped it at once, or she might
have shrunk to the size of a gnat.
Al-ice was, at first, in a sad fright at the quick change, but glad that
it was no worse. "Now for the gar-den," and she ran with all her speed
back to the small door; but, oh dear! the door was shut, and the key lay
on the glass stand, "and things are worse than ev-er," thought the poor
child, "for I nev-er was so small as this, nev-er! It's too bad, that it
is!"
As she said these words her foot slipped, and splash! she was up to her
chin in salt wa-ter. At first she thought she must be in the sea, but
she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept
when she was nine feet high.
[Illustration]
"I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Al-ice as she swam round and tried
to find her way out. "I shall now be drowned in my own tears. That will
be a queer thing, to be sure! But all things are queer to-day."
Just then she heard a splash in the pool a lit-tle way off, and she swam
near to make out what it was; at first she thought it must be a whale,
but when she thought how small she was now, she soon made out that it
was a mouse that had slipped in the pond.
"Would it be of an-y use now to speak to this mouse? All things are so
out-of-way down here, I should think may-be it can talk, at least
there's no harm to try." So she said: "O Mouse, do you know the way out
of this pool? I have swum here till I'm quite tired, O Mouse!" The Mouse
looked at her and seemed to her to wink with one of its small eyes, but
it did not speak.
"It may be a French Mouse," thought Al-ice, so she said: "Où est ma
chatte?" (Where is my cat?) which was all the French she could think of
just then. The Mouse gave a quick leap out of the wa-ter, and seemed in
a great fright, "Oh, I beg your par-don," cried Al-ice. "I quite for-got
you didn't like cats."
"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a shrill, harsh voice. "Would you
like cats if you were me?"
"Well, I guess not," said Al-ice, "but please don't get mad. And yet I
wish I could show you our cat, Di-nah. I'm sure you'd like cats if you
could see her. She is such a dear thing," Al-ice went on half to
her-self as she swam round in the pool, "and she sits and purrs by the
fire and licks her paws and wash-es her face--and she is such a nice
soft thing to nurse--and she's a fine one to catch mice--Oh, dear!"
cried Al-ice, for this time the Mouse was in a great fright and each
hair stood on end. "We won't talk of her if you don't like it."
"We talk!" cried the Mouse, who shook down to the end of his tail. "As
if _I_ would talk of such low, mean things as cats! All rats hate them.
Don't let me hear the name a-gain!"
"I won't," said Al-ice, in great haste to change the theme. "Are you
fond--of--of dogs?" The mouse did not speak, so Al-ice went on: "There
is such a nice dog near our house, I should like to show you! A ti-ny
bright-eyed dog, you know, with oh! such long cur-ly brown hair! And
it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its
meat and do all sorts of things--I can't tell you half of them. And it
kills all the rats, and m--oh dear!" cried Al-ice in a sad tone, "I've
made it mad a-gain!" For the Mouse swam off from her as fast as it could
go, and made quite a stir in the pool as it went.
So she called it in a soft, kind voice, "Mouse dear! Do come back and we
won't talk of cats or dogs if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard
this it turned round and swam back to her; its face was quite pale (with
rage, Al-ice thought), and it said in a low, weak voice, "Let us get to
the shore, and then I'll tell you why it is I hate cats and dogs."
It was high time to go, for the pool was by this time quite crowded with
the birds and beasts that had slipped in-to it. Al-ice led the way and
they all swam to the shore.
CHAPTER III.
A RACE.
They were a queer look-ing crowd as they stood or sat on the bank--the
wings and tails of the birds drooped to the earth; the fur of the beasts
clung close to them, and all were as wet and cross as could be.
[Illustration]
The first thought, of course, was how to get dry. They had a long talk
a-bout this, and Al-ice joined with, them as if she had known them all
her life. But it was hard to tell what was best.
"What I want to say," at last spoke up the Do-do, "is that the best
thing to get us dry would be a race."
"What kind of race?" asked Al-ice, not that she much want-ed to know,
but the Do-do had paused as if it thought that some one ought to speak,
and no one else would say a word. "Why," said the Do-do, "the best way
to make it plain is to do it." (And as you might like to try the thing
some cold day, I'll tell you how the Do-do did it.)
First it marked out a race-course in a sort of ring (it didn't care much
for the shape), and then all the crowd were placed on the course, here
and there. There was no "One, two, three, and here we go," but they ran
when they liked and left off when they liked, so that no one could tell
when the race was ended. When they had been running half an hour or so
and were all quite dry, the Do-do called out, "The race is o-ver!" and
they all crow-ded round it and and asked, "But who has won?"
This the Do-do could not, at first, tell, but sat for a long time with
one claw pressed to its head while the rest wait-ed, but did not speak.
At last the Do-do said, "All have won and each must have a prize."
"But who is to give them?" all asked at once.
"Why, she of course," said the Do-do, as it point-ed to Al-ice with one
long claw; and the whole par-ty at once crowd-ed round her as they
called out, "A prize, a prize!"
Al-ice did not know what to do, but she pulled from her pock-et a box of
lit-tle cakes (by a strange, good luck they did not get wet while she
was in the pool) and hand-ed them round as priz-es. There was one
a-piece all round.
"But she must have a prize, you know," said the Mouse.
"Of course," the Do-do said. "What else have you got?" he went on as he
turned to Al-ice.
"A thim-ble," said Al-ice looking quite sad.
"Hand it here," said the Do-do.
Then they all crowd-ed round her once more, while the Do-do hand-ed the
thim-ble back to Al-ice and said, "We beg that you accept this fine
thim-ble;" and when it had made this short speech they all cheered.
Al-ice thought the whole thing quite fool-ish, but they all looked so
grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think what to
say she bowed and took the thim-ble, while she looked as staid as she
could.
[Illustration]
The next thing was to eat the cakes: this caused some noise, as the
large birds said they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked
and had to be pat-ted on the back. It was o-ver at last and they sat
down in a ring and begged the Mouse to tell them a tale.
"You said you would tell us why you hate cats and dogs," said Al-ice.
"Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, as it turned to Al-ice
with a sigh.
"It is a long tail, I'm sure," said Al-ice, look-ing down at the Mouse's
tail; "but why do you call it sad?"
"I shall not tell you," said the Mouse, as it got up and walked off.
"Please come back and tell us your tale," called Al-ice; and all joined
in, "Yes, please do!" but the Mouse shook its head and walked on and was
soon out of sight.
"I wish I had our Di-nah here, I know I do!" said Al-ice. "She'd soon
fetch it back."
"And who is Di-nah, if I may dare to ask such a thing?" said one of the
birds.
Al-ice was glad to talk of her pet. "Di-nah's our cat; and she's such a
fine one to catch mice, you can't think. And oh, I wish you could see
her chase a bird! Why she'll eat a bird as soon as look at it!"
This speech caused a great stir in the par-ty. Some of the birds rushed
off at once; one old jay wrapped it-self up with care and said, "I must
get home; the night air doesn't suit my throat!" and a wren called out
to her brood, "come, my dears! It's high time you were all in bed."
Soon they all moved off and Al-ice was left a-lone.
"I wish I hadn't told them of Di-nah," she said to her-self. "No one
seems to like her down here, and I'm sure she's the best cat in the
world! Oh, my dear Di-nah! Shall I ev-er see you an-y more?" And here
poor Al-ice burst in-to tears, for she felt ver-y sad and lone-ly. In a
short time she heard the pat-ter of feet, and she looked up with the
hope that the Mouse had changed its mind and come back to tell his "long
and sad tale."
CHAPTER IV.
THE RAB-BIT SENDS IN A BILL.
It was the White Rab-bit who trot-ted back a-gain. It looked from side
to side as it went as if it had lost some-thing; and Al-ice heard it say
to it-self, "The Duch-ess! The Duch-ess! Oh, my dear paws! She'll get my
head cut off as sure as rats are rats! Where can I have lost them!"
Al-ice guessed at once that he was in search of the fan and the pair of
white kid gloves, and like the good girl that she was, she set out to
hunt for them, but they were not to be found. All things seemed to have
changed since her swim in the pool; the great hall with the glass stand
and the lit-tle door--all were gone. Soon the Rab-bit saw Al-ice and
called out to her, "Why, Ann, what are you out here for? Run home at
once, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!" And Al-ice
was in such a fright that she ran off and did not wait to tell it who
she was.
"He took me for his house-maid," she said to her-self as she ran. "What
will he think when he finds out who I am! But I must take him his fan
and gloves--that is if I can find them."
As she said this she came to a small neat house on the door of which was
a bright brass plate with the name W. Rab-bit on it. She ran up-stairs
in great fear lest she should meet Ann and be turned out of the house
be-fore she had found the fan and gloves.
"How queer it seems that I should do things for a Rab-bit! I guess
Di-nah'll send me to wait on her next!"
[Illustration]
By this time she had made her way to a ti-dy room with a ta-ble near the
wall, and on it, as she had hoped, a fan and two or three pairs of small
white kid gloves. She took up the fan and a pair of gloves, and turned
to leave the room, when her eye fell up-on a small bot-tle that stood
near. There was no tag this time with the words "Drink me," but Al-ice
put it to her lips. "I know I am sure to change in some way, if I eat or
drink any-thing; so I'll just see what this does. I do hope it'll make
me grow large a-gain, for I'm quite tired of this size," Al-ice said to
her-self.
It did as she had wished, for in a short time her head pressed the roof
so hard she couldn't stand up straight. She put the bot-tle down in
haste and said, "That's as much as I need--I hope I shan't grow an-y
more--as it is, I can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk so
much!"
But it was too late to wish that! She grew and grew, till she had to
kneel down on the floor; next there was not room for this and she had to
lie down. Still she grew and grew and grew till she had to put one arm
out the window and one foot up the chim-ney and said to her-self, "Now I
can do no more, let come what may." There seemed no sort of chance that
she could ev-er get out of the room.
"I wish I was at home," thought poor Al-ice, "where I wouldn't change so
much, and where I didn't have to do things for mice and rab-bits. I wish
I hadn't gone down that rab-bit hole--and yet--and yet--it's queer, you
know, this sort of life! When I used to read fair-y tales, I thought
they were just made up by some one, and now here I am in one my-self.
When I grow up I'll write a book a-bout these strange things--but I'm
grown up now," she added in a sad tone, "at least there's no room to
grow an-y more here."
She heard a voice out-side and stopped to list-en.
"Ann! Ann!" said the voice, "fetch me my gloves, quick!" Then came the
sound of feet on the stairs. Al-ice knew it was the Rab-bit and that it
had come to look for her. She quaked with fear till she shook the house.
Poor thing! She didn't think that she was now more than ten times as
large as the Rab-bit, and that she had no cause to be a-fraid of it.
Soon the Rab-bit came to the door and tried to come in, but Al-ice's arm
pressed it so hard the door would not move. Al-ice heard it say, "Then
I'll go round and get in at the win-dow."
[Illustration:]
"That you won't!" thought Al-ice; then she wait-ed till she heard the
Rab-bit quite near the win-dow, then spread out her hand and made a
snatch in the air. She did not get hold of it, but she heard a shriek
and a fall.
Next came an an-gry voice--the Rab-bit's--"Pat! Pat! Where are you?" And
then a voice which was new to her, "Sure then, I'm here! Dig-ging for
apples, yer hon-or!"
"Dig-ging for ap-ples, in-deed!" said the Rab-bit. "Here! Come and help
me out of this! Now, tell me, Pat, what's that in the win-dow?"
"Sure it's an arm, yer hon-or"
"An arm, you goose! Who-ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole
win-dow!"
"Sure it does, yer hon-or; but it's an arm for all that."
"Well, it has no right there; go and take it out!"
For a long time they seemed to stand still, but now and then Al-ice
could hear a few words in a low voice, such as, "Sure I don't like it,
yer hon-or, at all, at all!"
"Do as I tell you, you cow-ard!" and at last she spread out her hand and
made a snatch in the air. This time there were two lit-tle shrieks.
"I should like to know what they'll do next! As to their threats to pull
me out, I on-ly wish they could. I'm sure I don't want to stay in here."
She wait-ed for some time, but all was still; at last came the noise of
small cart wheels and the sound of voi-ces, from which she made out the
words, "Where's the oth-er lad-der? Why, I hadn't to bring but one;
Bill's got the oth-er. Bill, fetch it here, lad! Here, put 'em up at
this place. No, tie 'em first--they don't reach half as high as they
should yet--oh, they'll do. Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will
the roof bear? Mind that loose slate--oh, here it comes! Look out. (A
loud crash.)--Now who did that? It was Bill, I guess--Who's to go down
the chim-ney? Nay, I shan't! You do it!--That I won't then!--Bill's got
to go down--Here, Bill, you've got to go down the chim-ney!"
"Oh, so Bill's got to come down, has he?" said Al-ice to her-self. "Why,
they seem to put all the work on Bill. I wouldn't be in Bill's place for
a good deal; this fire-place is small, to be sure, but I think I can
kick some."
She drew her foot as far down as she could, and wait-ed till she heard a
small beast (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) come scratch!
scratch! down the chim-ney quite close to her; then she said to
her-self: "This is Bill," gave one sharp kick and wait-ed to see what
would hap-pen next.
[Illustration]
The first thing she heard was, "There goes Bill!" then the Rab-bit's
voice, "Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then all was still, then the
voices--"Hold up his head--Wine now--Don't choke him--How was it, old
fel-low? What sent you up so fast? Tell us all a-bout it!"
Last came a weak voice ("That's Bill," thought Al-ice), "Well, I don't
know--no more, thank'ye, I'm not so weak now--but I'm a deal too shocked
to tell you--all I know is, a thing comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box,
and up I goes like a rocket."
"So you did, old fel-low," said the oth-ers.
"We must burn the house down," said the Rab-bit's voice, and Al-ice
called out as loud as she could, "If you do, I'll set Di-nah at you!"
At once all was still as death, and Al-ice thought, "What will they do
next? If they had an-y sense, they'd take the roof off."
Then she heard the Rab-bit say, "One load will do to start with."
"A load of what?" thought Al-ice, but she had not long to doubt, for
soon a show-er of small stones came in at the win-dow, and some of them
hit her in the face. "I'll put a stop to this," she said to her-self,
and shout-ed out, "You stop that, at once!" A-gain all was still as
death.
Al-ice saw that the stones all changed to small cakes as they lay on the
floor, and a bright thought came to her. "If I eat one of these cakes,"
she said, "it is sure to make some change in my size; and as it can't
make me larg-er, I hope it will change me to the size I used to be."
So she ate one of the cakes and was glad to see that she shrank quite
fast. She was soon so small that she could get through the door, so she
ran out of the house and found quite a crowd of beasts and birds in the
yard. The poor liz-ard, Bill, was in the midst of the group, held up by
two guin-ea pigs, who gave it some-thing to drink out of a bot-tle. They
all made a rush at Al-ice, as soon as she came out, but she ran off as
hard as she could, and was soon safe in a thick wood.
"The first thing I've got to do," said Al-ice to her-self, as she walked
round in the wood, "is to grow to my right size again; and the next
thing is to find my way to that love-ly gar-den. I think that will be
the best plan."
It was a fine scheme, no doubt, and well planned, but the hard thing was
that she did not in the least know how she should start to work it out;
and while she peered round through the trees, a sharp bark just o-ver
her head made her look up in great haste.
[Illustration]
A great pup-py looked down at her with large round eyes, stretched out
one paw and tried to touch her. "Poor thing!" said Al-ice in a kind tone
and tried hard to show it that she wished to be its friend, but she was
in a sore fright, lest it should eat her up.
Al-ice could not think what to do next, so she picked up a bit of stick
and held it out to the pup-py. It jumped from the tree with a yelp of
joy as if to play with it; then Al-ice dodged round a large plant that
stood near, but the pup-py soon found her and made a rush at the stick
a-gain, but tum-bled head o-ver heels in its haste to get hold of it.
Al-ice felt that it was quite like a game with a cart horse, and looked
at each turn to be crushed 'neath its great feet. At last, to her joy,
it seemed to grow tired of the sport and ran a good way off and sat down
with its tongue out of its mouth and its big eyes half shut.
This seemed to Al-ice a good time to get out of its sight, so she set
out at once and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till
the pup-py's bark sound-ed quite faint.
[Illustration]
"And yet what a dear pup-py it was," said Al-ice, as she stopped to rest
and fanned her-self with a leaf: "I should have liked so much to teach
it tricks, if--if I'd been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I've got to
grow up a-gain! Let me see--how am I to do it? I guess I ought to eat or
drink some-thing, but I don't know what!"
Al-ice looked all round her at the blades of grass, the blooms, the
leaves, but could not see a thing that looked like the right thing to
eat or drink to make her grow.
There was a large mush-room near her, a-bout the same height as she was,
and when she had looked all round it, she thought she might as well look
and see what was on the top of it. She stretched up as tall as she
could, and her eyes met those of a large blue cat-er-pil-lar that sat on
the top with its arms fold-ed, smok-ing a queer pipe with a long stem
that bent and curved round it like a hoop.
CHAPTER V.
A CAT-ER-PIL-LAR TELLS ALICE WHAT TO DO.
The Cat-er-pil-lar looked at Al-ice, and she stared at it, but did not
speak. At last, it took the pipe from its mouth and said, "Who are you?"
Al-ice said, "I'm not sure, sir, who I am just now--I know who I was
when I left home, but I think I have been changed two or three times
since then."
"What do you mean by that?" asked the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"I fear I can't tell you, for I'm sure I don't know, my-self; but to
change so man-y times all in one day, makes one's head swim."
"It doesn't," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Well, may-be you haven't found it so yet," said Al-ice, "but when you
have to change--you will some day, you know--I should think you'd feel
it queer, won't you?"
"Not a bit," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Well, you may not feel as I do," said Al-ice; "all I know is, it feels
queer to me to change so much."
"You!" said the Cat-er-pil-lar with its nose in the air. "Who are you?"
Which brought them back to the point from which they start-ed. Al-ice
was not pleased at this, so she said in as stern a voice as she could,
"I think you ought to tell me who you are first."
"Why?" said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
As Al-ice could not think what to say to this and as it did not seem to
want to talk, she turned a-way.
"Come back!" said the Cat-er-pil-lar. "I have some-thing to say to you!"
Al-ice turned and came back.
"Keep your tem-per," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Is that all?" asked Al-ice, while she hid her an-ger as well as she
could.
"No," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
Al-ice wait-ed what seemed to her a long time, while it sat and smoked
but did not speak. At last, it took the pipe from its mouth, and said,
"So you think you're changed, do you?"
"I fear I am, sir," said Al-ice, "I don't know things as I once did--and
I don't keep the same size, but a short while at a time."
"What things is it you don't know?"
"Well, I've tried to say the things I knew at school, but the words all
came wrong."
"Let me hear you say, 'You are old, Fath-er Wil-liam,'" said the
Cat-er-pil-lar.
Al-ice folded her hands, and be-gan:--
[Illustration]
"'You are old, Fath-er Wil-liam,' the young man said,
'And your hair has be-come ver-y white,
And yet you stand all the time on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
"'In my youth,' Fath-er Wil-liam then said to his son,
'I feared it might in-jure the brain;
But now that I know full well I have none,
Why, I do it a-gain and a-gain.'
"'You are old,' said the youth, 'shall I tell you once more?
And are now quite as large as a tun;
Yet you turned a back som-er-set in at the door--
Pray, tell me now, how was that done?'
[Illustration]
"'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his gray locks.
I kept all my limbs ver-y sup-ple
By the use of this oint-ment--one shil-ling the box--
Al-low me to sell you a coup-le.'
"'You are old,' said the youth, and your jaws are too weak
For an-y thing tough-er than su-et;
Yet you ate up the goose, with the bones and the beak:
Pray, how did you man-age to do it?'
[Illustration]
"'In my youth,' said his fath-er, 'I took to the law
And ar-gued each case with my wife;
And the ver-y great strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has last-ed the rest of my life.'
"'You are old,' said the youth; 'one would hard-ly sup-pose
That your eye was as stead-y as ev-er;
Yet you bal-ance an eel on the end of your nose--
What makes you al-ways so clev-er?'
[Illustration]
"'I have re-plied to three ques-tions, and that is e-nough,'
Said the fath-er; 'don't give your-self airs!
Do you think I can lis-ten all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down-stairs!'"
"That is not said right," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Not quite right, I fear," said Al-ice, "some of the words are
changed."
"It is wrong from first to last," said the Cat-er-pil-lar; then did not
speak for some time. At last it said, "What size do you want to be?"
"Oh, I don't care so much as to size, but one does'nt like to change so
much, you know."
"I don't know," it said.
Al-ice was too much vexed to speak, for she had nev-er, in all her life,
been talked to in that rude way.
"Do you like your size now?" asked the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Well, I'm not quite so large as I would like to be," said Al-ice;
"three inch-es is such a wretch-ed height to be."
"It is a good height, in-deed!" said the Cat-er-pil-lar, and reared
it-self up straight as it spoke. (It was just three inch-es high.)
"But I'm not used to it!" plead-ed poor Al-ice. And she thought, "I wish
the things wouldn't be so ea-sy to get mad!"
"You'll get used to it in time," the Cat-er-pil-lar said, and put the
pipe to its mouth, and Al-ice wait-ed till it should choose to speak. At
last it took the pipe from its mouth, yawned once or twice, then got
down from its perch and crawled off in the grass. As it went it said,
"One side will make you tall, and one side will make you small.
"One side of what?" thought Al-ice to her-self.
"Of the mush-room," said the Cat-er-pil-lar, just as if it had heard her
speak; soon it was out of sight.
Al-ice stood and looked at the mush-room a long time and tried to make
out which were the two sides of it; as it was round she found this a
hard thing to do. At last she stretched her arms round it as far as they
would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.
"And now which is which?" she said to her-self, and ate a small piece of
the right-hand bit, to try what it would do. The next mo-ment she felt
her chin strike her foot with a hard blow.
She was in a sore fright at this quick change, but she felt that there
was no time to be lost as she was shrink-ing so fast; so she set to work
at once to eat some from the left hand bit.
* * * * *
"Come, my head's free at last!" said Al-ice, with great joy, which
changed to fear when she found that her waist and hands were no-where to
be seen. All she could see when she looked down was a vast length of
neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves
that lay far be-low her.
"What can all that green stuff be?" said Al-ice. "And where has my waist
got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you?" She moved
them as she spoke; the green leaves shook as if to let her know her
hands were there, but she could not see them.
As there seemed to be no chance to get her hands up to her head, she
tried to get her head down to them and was pleased to find that her neck
would bend a-bout like a snake. Just as she had curved it down and meant
to dive in the sea of green, which she found was the tops of the trees
'neath which she had been walk-ing, a sharp hiss made her draw back in
haste. A large bird had flown in-to her face, and struck her with its
wings.
"Snake! snake!" screamed the bird.
"I'm not a snake," said Al-ice. "Let me a-lone!"
"Snake, I say, Snake!" cried the bird, then add-ed with a kind of sob,
"I've tried all ways, but I can-not suit them."
"I don't know what you mean," said Al-ice.
The bird seemed not to hear her, but went on, "I've tried the roots of
trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried a hedge; but those snakes!
There's no way to please them. As if it were not hard work to hatch the
eggs, but I must watch for snakes night and day! Why I haven't had a
wink of sleep these three weeks!"
"It's too bad for you to be so much put out," said Al-ice, who be-gan to
see what it meant.
"And just as I had built my nest in this high tree," the bird went on,
rais-ing its voice to a shriek, "and just as I thought I should be free
of them at last, they must needs fall down from the sky! Ugh! Snake!"
"But I'm not a snake, I tell you!" said Al-ice. "I'm a--I'm a--"
"Well! What are you?" said the bird. "I can see you will not tell me the
truth!"
"I--I'm a lit-tle girl," said Al-ice, though she was not sure what she
was when she thought of all the chang-es she had gone through that day.
"I've seen girls in my time, but none with such a neck as that!" said
the bird. "No! no! You're a snake; and there's no use to say you're not.
I guess you'll say next that you don't eat eggs!"
"Of course I eat eggs," said Al-ice, "but girls eat eggs quite as much
as snakes do, you know."
"I don't know," said the bird, "but if they do, why then they're a kind
of snake, that's all I can say."
This was such a new thing to Al-ice that at first, she did not speak,
which gave the bird a chance to add, "You want eggs now, I know that
quite well."
"But I don't want eggs, and if I did I should-n't want yours. I don't
like them raw."
"Well, be off, then!" said the bird as it sat down in its nest.
Al-ice crouched down through the trees as well as she could, for her
neck would twist round the boughs, and now and then she had to stop to
get it off. At last, she thought of the mush-room in her hands, and set
to work with great care, to take a small bite first from the right hand,
then from the left, till at length she brought her-self down to the
right size.
It was so long since she had been this height, that it felt quite
strange, at first, but she soon got used to it.
"Come, there's half my plan done now!" she said. "How strange all these
things are! I'm not sure one hour, what I shall be the next! I'm glad
I'm back to my right size: the next thing is, to get in-to that
gar-den--how is that to be done, I should like to know?" As she said
this, she saw in front of her, a small house, not more than four feet
high. "Who lives there?" thought Al-ice, "it'll not do at all to come
up-on them this size: why I should scare them out of their wits!"
So she ate some of the right hand bit, a-gain and did not dare to go
near the house till she had brought her-self down to nine inch-es high.
CHAPTER VI.
PIG AND PEP-PER.
For a while Al-ice stood and looked at the house and tried to think what
to do next, when a foot-man ran out of the wood (from the way he was
dressed, she took him to be a foot-man; though if she had judged by his
face she would have called him a fish) and knocked at the door with his
fist. A foot-man with a round face and large eyes, came to the door.
Al-ice want-ed to know what it all meant, so she crept a short way out
of the wood to hear what they said.
[Illustration]
The Fish-Foot-man took from un-der his arm a great let-ter and hand-ed
it to the oth-er and said in a grave tone "For the Duch-ess; from the
Queen." The Frog-Foot-man said in the same grave tone, "From the Queen,
for the Duch-ess." Then they both bowed so low that their heads touched
each oth-er.
All this made Al-ice laugh so much that she had to run back to the wood
for fear they would hear her, and when she next peeped out the
Fish-Foot-man was gone, and the oth-er sat on the ground near the door
and stared up at the sky.
Al-ice went up to the door and knocked.
"There's no sort of use for you to knock," said the Foot-man, "I'm on
the same side of the door that you are, and there is so much noise in
the room that no one could hear you." There was, in-deed, a great noise
in the house--a howl-ing and sneez-ing, with now and then a great crash,
as if a dish or a pot had been bro-ken to piec-es.
"Please, then," said Al-ice, "how am I to get in?"
"There might be some sense in your knock-ing," the Foot-man went on, "if
we were not both on the same side of the door. If you were in the room,
you might knock and I could let you out, you know." He looked up at the
sky all the time he was speak-ing, which Al-ice thought was quite rude.
"But per-haps he can't help it," she thought, "his eyes are so near the
top of his head. Still he might tell me what I ask him--How am I to get
in?" she asked.
"I shall sit here," the Foot-man said, "till to-mor-row--"
Just then the door of the house flew o-pen and a large plate skimmed out
straight at his head; it just grazed his nose and broke on one of the
trees near him. "--or next day, may-be," he went on in the same tone as
if he had not seen the plate.
[Illustration]
"How am I to get in?" Al-ice asked as loud as she could speak.
"Are you to get in at all?" he said. "That's the first thing, you know."
It was, no doubt; but Al-ice didn't like to be told so.
The Foot-man seemed to think this a good time to say a-gain, "I shall
sit here on and off, for days and days."
"But what am I to do?" said Al-ice.
"Do what you like," he said.
"Oh, there's no use to try to talk to him," said Al-ice; "he has no
sense at all." And she o-pened the door and went in.
The door led right in-to a large room that was full of smoke from end to
end: the Duch-ess sat on a stool and held a child in her arms; the cook
stood near the fire and stirred a large pot which seemed to be full of
soup.
"There's too much pep-per in that soup!" Al-ice said to her-self as well
as she could for sneez-ing. There was too much of it in the air, for the
Duch-ess sneezed now and then; and as for the child, it sneezed and
howled all the time.
A large cat sat on the hearth grin-ning from ear to ear.
"Please, would you tell me," said Al-ice, not quite sure that it was
right for her to speak first, "why your cat grins like that?"
"It's a Che-shire cat," said the Duch-ess, "and that's why. Pig!"
She said the last word so loud that Al-ice jumped; but she soon saw that
the Duch-ess spoke to the child and not to her, so she went on:
"I didn't know that Che-shire cats grinned; in fact, I didn't know that
cats could grin."
"They all can," said the Duch-ess; "and most of 'em do."
"I don't know of an-y that do," Al-ice said, quite pleased to have some
one to talk with.
"You don't know much," said the Duch-ess; "and that's a fact."
Al-ice did not at all like the tone in which this was said, and thought
it would be as well to speak of some-thing else. While she tried to
think of what to say, the cook took the pot from the fire, and at once
set to work throw-ing things at the Duch-ess and the child--the tongs
came first, then pots, pans, plates and cups flew thick and fast through
the air. The Duch-ess did not seem to see them, e-ven when they hit her;
and the child had howled so loud all the while, that one could not tell
if the blows hurt it or not.
"Oh, please mind what you do!" cried Al-ice, as she jumped up and down
in great fear, lest she should be struck.
"Hold your tongue," said the Duch-ess; then she be-gan a sort of song to
the child, giv-ing it a hard shake at the end of each line.
At the end of the song she threw the child at Al-ice and said, "Here,
you may nurse it a bit if you like; I must go and get read-y to play
cro-quet with the Queen," and she left the room in great haste. The cook
threw a pan after her as she went, but it just missed her.
Al-ice caught the child, which held out its arms and legs on all sides,
"just like a star-fish," Al-ice thought. The poor thing snort-ed like a
steam en-gine when she caught it, and turned a-bout so much, it was as
much as she could do at first to hold it.
As soon as she found out the right way to nurse it, (which was to twist
it up in a sort of knot, then keep tight hold of its right ear and left
foot), she took it out in the fresh air. "If I don't take this child
with me," thought Al-ice, "they're sure to kill it in a day or two;
wouldn't it be wrong to leave it here?" She said the last words out
loud, and the child grunt-ed (it had left off sneez-ing by this time).
"Don't grunt," said Al-ice, "that is not at all the right way to do."
The child grunt-ed a-gain and Al-ice looked at its face to see what was
wrong with it. There could be no doubt that it had a turn-up nose, much
more like a snout than a child's nose. Its eyes were quite small too; in
fact she did not like the look of the thing at all.
[Illustration]
"Per-haps that was not a grunt, but a sob," and she looked to see if
there were tears in its eyes.
No, there were no tears. "If you're go-ing to turn in-to a pig, my
dear," said Al-ice, "I'll have no more to do with you. Mind now!" The
poor thing sobbed once more (or grunted, Al-ice couldn't say which).
"Now, what am I to do with this thing when I get it home?" thought
Al-ice. Just then it grunt-ed so loud that she looked down at its face
with some fear. This time there could be no doubt a-bout it--it was a
pig!
So she set it down, and felt glad to see it trot off in-to the wood.
As she turned to walk on, she saw the Che-shire Cat on the bough of a
tree a few yards off. The Cat grinned when it saw Al-ice. It looked like
a good cat, she thought; still it had long claws and large teeth, so she
felt she ought to be kind to it.
[Illustration]
"Puss," said Al-ice, "would you please tell me which way I ought to walk
from here?"
"That de-pends a good deal on where you want to go to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Al-ice.
"Then you need not care which way you walk," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get somewhere," Al-ice add-ed.
"Oh, you're sure to do that if you don't stop," said the Cat.
Al-ice knew that this was true, so she asked: "What sort of peo-ple live
near here?"
"In that way," said the Cat, with a wave of its right paw, "lives a
Hat-ter; and in that way," with a wave of its left paw, "lives a March
Hare. Go to see the one you like; they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go where mad folks live," said Al-ice.
[Illustration]
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat, "we're all mad here. I'm mad.
You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad!" asked Al-ice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
Al-ice didn't think that proved it at all, but she went on; "and how do
you know that you are mad?"
"First," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"
"Yes."
"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you know a dog growls when it's angry,
and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and
wag my tail when I'm an-gry. So you see, I'm mad."
"I say the cat purrs; I do not call it a growl," said Al-ice.
"Call it what you like," said the Cat. "Do you play cro-quet with the
Queen to-day?"
"I should like it, but I haven't been asked yet," said Al-ice.
"You'll see me there," said the Cat, then fa-ded out of sight.
Al-ice did not think this so queer as she was now used to strange
things. While she still looked at the place where it had been, it came
back a-gain, all at once.
"By-the-by, what be-came of the child?" it asked.
"It turned in-to a pig," Al-ice said.
"I thought it would," said the Cat, then once more fa-ded out of sight.
Al-ice wait-ed a while to see if it would come back, then walked on in
the way in which the March Hare was said to live.
"I've seen Hat-ters," she said to her-self; "so I'll go to see the March
Hare." As she said this, she looked up, and there sat the Cat on a
branch of a tree.
"Did you say pig, or fig?" asked the Cat.
"I said pig; and I wish you wouldn't come and go, all at once, like you
do; you make one quite gid-dy."
"All right," said the Cat; and this time it faded out in such a way that
its tail went first, and the last thing Al-ice saw was the grin which
stayed some time af-ter the rest of it had gone.
"Well, I've seen a cat with-out a grin," thought Al-ice; "but a grin
with-out a cat! It's the strang-est thing I ev-er saw in all my life!"
She soon came in sight of the house of the March Hare; she thought it
must be the right place, as the chim-neys were shaped like ears, and the
roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not
like to go too near while she was so small; so she ate a small piece
from the left-hand bit of mush-room, and raised her-self to two feet
high. Then she walked up to the house, though with some fear lest it
should be mad as the Cat had said.
CHAPTER VII.
A MAD TEA-PARTY.
There was a ta-ble set out, in the shade of the trees in front of the
house, and the March Hare and the Hat-ter were at tea; a Dor-mouse sat
be-tween them, but it seemed to have gone to sleep.
The ta-ble was a long one, but the three were all crowd-ed at one
cor-ner of it. "No room! No room!" they cried out as soon as they saw
Al-ice. "There's plen-ty of room," she said, and sat down in a large
arm-chair at one end of the table.
"Have some wine," the March Hare said in a kind tone.
Al-ice looked all round the ta-ble, but there was not a thing on it but
tea. "I don't see the wine," she said.
"There isn't an-y," said the March Hare.
"Then it wasn't po-lite of you to ask me to have wine," said Al-ice.
"It wasn't po-lite of you to sit down when no one had asked you to have
a seat," said the March Hare.
"I didn't know it was your ta-ble," said Al-ice; "it's laid for more
than three."
"Your hair wants cut-ting," said the Hat-ter. He had looked hard at
Al-ice for some time, and this was his first speech.
"You should learn not to speak to a guest like that," said Al-ice; "it
is ve-ry rude."
The Hat-ter stretched his eyes quite wide at this; but all he said was,
"Why is a rav-en like a desk?"
[Illustration]
"Come, we shall have some fun now," thought Al-ice. "I think I can guess
that," she added out loud.
"Do you mean that you think you can find out the an-swer to it?" asked
the March Hare.
"I do," said Al-ice.
"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.
"I do," Al-ice said; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the
same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hat-ter. "Why, you might just as
well say, 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"
"You might just as well say," added the March Hare, that 'I like what I
get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like'!"
"You might just as well say," added the Dor-mouse, who seemed to be
talk-ing in his sleep, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing
as 'I sleep when I breathe'!"
"It is the same with you," said the Hat-ter.
No one spoke for some time, while Al-ice tried to think of all she knew
of rav-ens and desks, which wasn't much.
The Hat-ter was the first to speak. "What day of the month is it?" he
said, turn-ing to Al-ice. He had his watch in his hand, looked at it and
shook it now and then while he held it to his ear.
Al-ice thought a-while, and said, "The fourth."
"Two days wrong!" sighed the Hat-ter. "I told you but-ter wouldn't suit
this watch," he add-ed with a scowl as he looked at the March Hare.
"It was the best but-ter," the March Hare said.
"Yes, but some crumbs must have got in," the Hat-ter growled; "you
shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife."
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it; then dipped it in-to his
cup of tea and looked at it a-gain; but all he could think to say was,
"it was the best but-ter, you know."
"Oh, what a fun-ny watch!" said Al-ice. "It tells the day of the month
and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!"
"Why should it?" growled the Hat-ter.
"Does your watch tell what year it is?"
"Of course not," said Al-ice, "but there's no need that it should, since
it stays the same year such a long time."
"Which is just the case with mine," said the Hat-ter; which seemed to
Al-ice to have no sense in it at all.
"I don't quite know what you mean," she said.
"The Dor-mouse has gone to sleep, once more," said the Hat-ter, and he
poured some hot tea on the tip of its nose.
The Dor-mouse shook its head, and said with its eyes still closed, "Of
course, of course; just what I want-ed to say my-self."
"Have you guessed the rid-dle yet?" the Hat-ter asked, turn-ing to
Al-ice.
"No, I give it up," she said. "What's the an-swer?"
"I do not know at all," said the Hat-ter.
"Nor I," said the March Hare.
Al-ice sighed. "I think you might do bet-ter with the time than to waste
it, by ask-ing rid-dles that have no an-swers."
"If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't say 'waste _it_.' It's
_him_."
"I don't know what you mean," Al-ice said.
"Of course you don't!" said the Hat-ter with a toss of his head. "I dare
say you nev-er e-ven spoke to Time."
"May-be not," she said, "but I know I have to beat time when I learn to
sing."
"Oh! that's it," said the Hat-ter. "He won't stand beat-ing. Now if you
kept on good terms with him, he would do an-y-thing you liked with the
clock. Say it was nine o'clock, just time to go to school; you'd have
but to give a hint to Time, and round goes the clock! Half-past one,
time for lunch."
"I wish it was," the March Hare said to it-self.
[Illustration]
"That would be grand, I'm sure," said Al-ice: "but then--I shouldn't be
hun-gry for it, you know."
"Not at first, per-haps, but you could keep it to half-past one as long
as you liked," said the Hat-ter.
"Is that the way you do?" asked Al-ice.
The Hat-ter shook his head and sighed. "Not I," he said. "Time and I
fell out last March. It was at the great con-cert giv-en by the Queen of
Hearts and I had to sing:
'Twin-kle, twin-kle, lit-tle bat!
How I wonder what you're at!'
You know the song, per-haps?"
"I've heard some-thing like it," said Alice.
"It goes on, you know," the Hat-ter said, "in this way:
'Up a-bove the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky,
Twin-kle, twin-kle----'"
Here the Dor-mouse shook it-self and sang in its sleep, "twin-kle,
twin-kle, twin-kle, twin-kle----" and went on so long that they had to
pinch it to make it stop.
"Well, while I sang the first verse," the Hat-ter went on, "the Queen
bawled out 'See how he mur-ders the time! Off with his head!' And ev-er
since that, he won't do a thing I ask! It's al-ways six o'clock now."
A bright thought came in-to Al-ice's head. "Is that why so man-y tea
things are put out here?" she asked.
"Yes, that's it," said the Hat-ter with a sigh: "it's al-ways tea-time,
and we've no time to wash the things."
"Then you keep mov-ing round, I guess," said Al-ice.
"Just so," said the Hat-ter; "as the things get used up."
"But when you come to the place where you started, what do you do then?"
Al-ice dared to ask.
"I'm tired of this," yawned the March Hare. "I vote you tell us a tale."
"_I_ fear I don't know one," said Al-ice.
"I want a clean cup," spoke up the Hat-ter.
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dor-mouse moved in-to his place; the
March Hare moved in-to the Dor-mouse's place and Al-ice, none too well
pleased, took the place of the March Hare. The Hat-ter was the on-ly one
to get an-y good from the change; and Al-ice was a good deal worse off,
as the March Hare had up-set the milk-jug in-to his plate.
"Now, for your sto-ry," the March Hare said to Al-ice.
"I'm sure I don't know,"--Alice be-gan, "I--I don't think--"
"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hat-ter.
[Illustration]
This was more than Al-ice could stand; so she got up and walked off, and
though she looked back once or twice and half hoped they would call
af-ter her, they didn't seem to know that she was gone. The last time
she saw them, they were trying to put the poor Dor-mouse head first
in-to the tea-pot.
"Well, I'll not go there a-gain," said Al-ice as she picked her way
through the wood. "It's the dull-est tea-par-ty I was ev-er at in all my
life."
As Al-ice said this, she saw that one of the trees had a door that led
right in-to it. "That's strange!" she thought; "but I haven't seen a
thing to-day that isn't strange. I think I may as well go in at once."
And in she went.
Once more she found her-self in a long hall, and close to the lit-tle
glass stand. She took up the lit-tle key and un-locked the door that led
to the gar-den. Then she set to work to eat some of the mush-room which
she still had with her. When she was a-bout a foot high, she went
through the door and walked down the lit-tle hall; _then_--she found
herself, at last, in the love-ly garden, where she had seen the bright
blooms and the cool foun-tains.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE QUEEN'S CRO-QUET GROUND.
A large rose tree stood near the gar-den gate. The blooms on it were
white, but three men who seemed to be in great haste were paint-ing them
red. Al-ice thought this a strange thing to do, so she went near-er to
watch them. Just as she came up to them, she heard one of them say,
"Look out now, Five! Don't splash paint on me like that!"
"I couldn't help it," said Five, "Six knocked my arm."
On which Six looked up and said, "That's right, Five! Don't fail to lay
the blame on some one else."
"You needn't talk," said Five. "I heard the Queen say your head must
come off."
"What for?" asked the one who spoke first.
"What is that to you, Two?" said Six.
"It is much to him and I'll tell him," said Five. "He brought the cook
tu-lip roots for on-ions."
Six flung down the brush and said, "Well, of all the wrong things--"
Just then his eyes chanced to fall on Al-ice, who stood and watched
them, and he checked him-self at once; Five and Two looked round al-so,
and all of them bowed low.
"Would you tell me, please," said Al-ice, "why you paint those ros-es?"
Five and Six did not speak, but looked at Two, who said in a low voice,
"Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red
rose tree, and by mis-take a white one was put in, and if the Queen was
to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you
see, Miss, we are hard at work to get it paint-ed, so that she may
not--" Just then Five, who had stood and watched the gate for some time,
called out, "The Queen! the Queen!" and the three men at once threw
them-selves flat up-on their fa-ces. Al-ice heard the tramp of feet and
looked round, glad if at last she could see the Queen.
[Illustration]
First came ten sol-diers with clubs; these were all shaped like the
three men at the rose tree, long and flat like cards, with their hands
and feet at the cor-ners; next came ten men who were trimmed with
di-a-monds and walked two and two like the sol-diers. The ten chil-dren
of the King and Queen came next; and the little dears came with a skip
and a jump hand in hand by twos. They were trimmed with hearts.
Next came the guests, most of whom were Kings and Queens. Al-ice saw
the White Rab-bit, with them. He did not seem at ease though he smiled
at all that was said. He didn't see Al-ice as he went by. Then came the
Knave of Hearts with the King's crown on a red vel-vet cush-ion; and
last of all came The King and Queen of Hearts.
[Illustration]
At first Al-ice thought it might be right for her to lie down on her
face like the three men at the rose tree, "but what would be the use of
such a fine show," she thought, "if all had to lie down so that they
couldn't see it?" So she stood where she was and wait-ed.
When they came to where she stood, they all stopped and looked at her,
and the Queen said in a stern voice, "Who is this?" She spoke to the
Knave of Hearts, who bowed and smiled but did not speak.
"Fool!" said the Queen with a toss of her head; then she turned to
Al-ice and asked, "What's your name, child?"
"My name is Al-ice, so please your ma-jes-ty," said Al-ice, but she
thought to her-self, "Why they're a mere pack of cards. I need have no
fears of them."
"And who are these?" asked the Queen, as she point-ed to the three men
who still lay round the rose tree; for you see as they all lay on their
faces and their backs were the same as the rest of the pack, she could
not tell who they were.
"How should I know?" said Al-ice, and thought it strange that she should
speak to a Queen in that way.
The Queen turned red with rage, glared at her for a mo-ment like a wild
beast, then screamed, "Off with her head! Off--"
"Non-sense!" said Al-ice, in a loud, firm voice, and the Queen said no
more.
The King laid his hand on the Queen's arm and said, "Think, my dear, she
is but a child!"
The Queen turned from him with a scowl and said to the Knave, "Turn them
o-ver!"
The Knave did so, with one foot.
"Get up!" said the Queen in a shrill loud voice, and the three men
jumped up, at once, and bowed to the King, and Queen and to the whole
crowd.
"Leave off that!" screamed the Queen; "you make me gid-dy." Then she
turned to the rose tree and asked, "What have you been do-ing here?"
"May it please your ma-jes-ty," said Two, and went down on one knee as
he spoke, "we were try-ing--"
"I see!" said the Queen, who in the mean time had seen that some of the
ros-es were paint-ed red and some were still white. "Off with their
heads!" and the crowd moved on, while three of the sol-diers stayed to
cut off the heads of the poor men, who ran to Al-ice for help.
"They shan't hurt you," she said, as she hid them in a large flow-er pot
that stood near. The three sol-diers walked round and looked for them a
short while, then marched off.
"Are their heads off?" shout-ed the Queen.
"Their heads are gone, if it please your ma-jes-ty," the sol-diers
shouted back.
"That's right!" shouted the Queen. "Can you play cro-quet?" she asked
Al-ice.
"Yes," shouted Al-ice.
"Come on then!" roared the Queen, and Al-ice went on with them.
"It's--it's a fine day!" said a weak voice at her side. It was the White
Rab-bit who peeped up in-to her face.
"Yes," said Al-ice: "where's the Duch-ess?"
"Hush! Hush!" said the Rab-bit, in a low tone. He looked back as he
spoke, then raised up on tip-toe, put his mouth close to her ear and
whis-pered, "She's to have her head cut off."
"What for?" asked Al-ice.
"Did you say, 'What a pit-y!'?" the Rab-bit asked.
"No, I didn't," said Al-ice: "I don't think it's at all a pit-y. I said
'What for?'"
[Illustration]
"She boxed the Queen's ears--" the Rab-bit be-gan. Al-ice gave a lit-tle
scream of joy.
"Oh, hush!" the Rab-bit whis-pered in a great fright. "The Queen will
hear you! You see she came late, and the Queen said--"
"Each one to his place!" shout-ed the Queen in a loud voice, and peo-ple
ran this way and that in great haste and soon each one had found his
place, and the game be-gan.
Al-ice thought she had nev-er seen such a strange cro-quet ground in all
her life: it was all ridges; the balls were live hedge-hogs; the
mal-lets were live birds, and the sol-diers bent down and stood on their
hands and feet to make the arch-es.
At first Al-ice found it hard to use a live bird for a mal-let. It was a
large bird with a long neck and long legs. She tucked it un-der her arm
with its legs down, but just as she got its neck straight and thought
now she could give the ball a good blow with its head, the bird would
twist its neck round and give her such a queer look, that she could not
help laugh-ing; and by the time she had got its head down a-gain, she
found that the hedge-hog had crawled off. Then too there was al-ways a
ridge or a hole in the way of where she want-ed to send her ball; and
she couldn't find an arch in its place, for the men would get up and
walk off when it pleased them. Al-ice soon made up her mind that it was
a ve-ry hard game to play.
The Queen was soon in a great rage, and stamped a-bout, shout-ing "Off
with his head!" or "Off with her head!" with each breath.
Al-ice felt quite ill at ease; to be sure, she had not as yet had cause
to feel the wrath of the Queen, but she knew not how soon it might be
her turn; "and then," she thought, "what shall I do?"
As she was look-ing round for some way to get off with-out be-ing seen,
she saw a strange thing in the air, which she at last made out to be a
grin, and she said to her-self, "It's the Cat; now I shall have some one
to talk to."
"How do you do?" said the Cat as soon as its whole mouth came out.
Al-ice wait-ed till she saw the eyes, then nod-ded. "It's no use to
speak to it till its ears have come, or at least one of them." In a
short time the whole head came in view, then she put down her bird and
told him of the game; glad that she had some one that was pleased to
hear her talk.
"I don't think they are at all fair in the game," said Al-ice with a
scowl; "and they all talk so loud that one can't hear one's self
speak--and they don't have rules to play by; at least if they have, they
don't mind them--and you don't know how bad it is to have to use live
things to play with. The arch I have to go through next walked off just
now to the far end of the ground--and I should have struck the Queen's
hedge-hog, but it ran off when it saw that mine was near!"
"How do you like the Queen?" asked the Cat in a low voice.
"Not at all," said Al-ice, "she's so--" Just then she saw that the Queen
was be-hind her and heard what she said; so she went on, "sure to win
that it's not worth while to go on with the game."
The Queen smiled and passed on.
"Who are you talk-ing to?" said the King, as he came up to Al-ice and
stared at the Cat's head as if it were a strange sight.
"It's a friend of mine--a Che-shire Cat," said Al-ice.
"I don't like the look of it at all," said the King; "it may kiss my
hand if it likes."
"I don't want to," said the Cat.
"Don't be rude; and don't look at me like that," said the King.
"A cat may look at a king," said Al-ice. "I've read that in some book,
but I can't tell where."
"Well, it must get off from here," said the King in a firm voice, and he
called to the Queen, who was near, "My dear! I wish you would see that
this cat leaves here at once!"
The Queen had but one cure for all ills, great or small. "Off with his
head," she said, and did not so much as look round.
"I'll fetch the sol-dier my-self," said the King, and rushed off.
Al-ice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game went on.
She heard the Queen's voice in the dis-tance, as she screamed with rage,
"Off with his head! He has missed his turn!" Al-ice did not like the
look of things at all, for the game was so mixed she could not tell when
her turn came; so she went off to find her hedge-hog.
She came up with two hedge-hogs in a fierce fight, and thought now was a
good time to strike one of them, but her mal-let was gone to the oth-er
side of the ground, and she saw it in a weak sort of way as it tried to
fly up in-to a tree.
By the time she had caught the bird and brought it back, the fight was
o-ver, and both hedge-hogs were out of sight. "I don't care much,"
thought Al-ice, "for there is not an arch on this side the ground." So
she went back to have some more talk with her friend.
When she reached the place, she found quite a crowd round the Cat. The
King and the Queen and the sol-dier who had come with the axe, to cut
off the Cat's head, were all talking at once, while all the rest stood
with closed lips and looked quite grave.
As soon as they saw Al-ice, they want-ed her to say which one was right,
but as all three spoke at once, she found it hard to make out what they
said.
[Illustration]
The sol-dier said that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a
bod-y to cut it off from; that he had nev-er had to do such a thing, and
he wouldn't be-gin it now, at his time of life.
The King said that all heads could be cut off, and that you weren't to
talk non-sense.
The Queen said, if some-thing wasn't done in less than no time, heads
should come off all round. (It was this last threat that had made the
whole crowd look so grave as Al-ice came up.)
Al-ice could think of nothing else to say but, "Ask the Duch-ess, it is
her Cat."
"Fetch her here," the Queen said to the sol-dier, and he went off like
an ar-row.
The Cat's head start-ed to fade out of sight as soon as he was gone, and
by the time he had come back with the Duch-ess, it could not be seen at
all; so the King and the man ran up and down look-ing for it, while the
rest went back to the game.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MOCK TUR-TLE.
"You can't think how glad I am to see you once more, you dear old
thing!" said the Duch-ess as she took Al-ice's arm, and they walked off
side by side.
Al-ice was glad to see her in such a fine mood, and thought to her-self
that the Duch-ess might not be so bad as she had seemed to be when they
first met.
Then Al-ice fell in-to a long train of thought as to what she would do
if she were a Duch-ess.
She quite lost sight of the Duch-ess by her side, and was star-tled when
she heard her voice close to her ear.
"You have some-thing on your mind, my dear, and that makes you for-get
to talk. I can't tell you just now what the mor-al of that is, but I
shall think of it in a bit."
"Are you sure it has one?" asked Al-ice.
"Tut, tut, child!" said the Duch-ess; "all things have a mor-al if you
can but find it." And she squeezed up close to Al-ice's side as she
spoke.
Al-ice did not much like to have the Duch-ess keep so close, but she
didn't like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.
"The game is not so bad now," Al-ice said, think-ing she ought to fill
in the time with talk of some kind.
"'Tis so," said the Duch-ess, "and the mor-al of that is--'Oh, 'tis
love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!'"
"Some one said, it's done by each one mind-ing his own work," said
Al-ice.
"Ah! well, it means much the same thing," said the Duch-ess, then
add-ed, "and the mor-al of that is--'Take care of the sense and the
sounds will take care of themselves.'"
[Illustration]
"How she likes to find mor-als in things," said Al-ice.
"Why don't you talk more and not think so long?" asked the Duch-ess.
"I've a right to think," said Al-ice in a sharp tone, for she was tired
and vexed.
"Just as much right," said the Duch-ess, "as pigs have to fly; and the
mor--"
But here the voice of the Duch-ess died out in the midst of her pet
word, "mor-al," and Al-ice felt the arm that was linked in hers shake as
if with fright. Al-ice looked up and there stood the Queen in front of
them with her arms fold-ed, and a dark frown up-on her face.
"A fine day, your ma-jes-ty!" the Duch-ess be-gan in a weak voice.
"Now, I warn you in time," shout-ed the Queen, with a stamp on the
ground as she spoke; "ei-ther you or your head must be off, and that in
a-bout half no time! Take your choice!"
The Duch-ess took her choice and was gone in a mo-ment.
"Let's go on with the game," the Queen said to Al-ice; and Al-ice was in
too great a fright to speak, but went with her, back to the cro-quet
ground.
The guests had all sat down in the shade to rest while the Queen was
a-way, but as soon as they saw her they rushed back to the game; while
the Queen said if they were not in their pla-ces at once, it would cost
them their lives.
All the time the game went on the Queen kept shout-ing, "Off with his
head!" or "Off with her head!" so that by the end of half an hour there
was no one left on the grounds but the King, the Queen, and Al-ice.
Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Al-ice, "Have
you seen the Mock Tur-tle yet?"
"No," said Al-ice, "I don't know what a Mock-tur-tle is."
"It is a thing Mock Tur-tle Soup is made from," the Queen said.
"I've nev-er seen or heard of one," Alice said.
"Come on then, and he shall tell you his sto-ry," said the Queen.
As they walked off, Al-ice heard the King say in a low tone to those
whom the Queen had doomed to death, "You may all go free!" "Come, that's
a good thing," thought Al-ice, for she felt ver-y sad that all those men
must have their heads cut off.
[Illustration]
They soon came to where a Gry-phon lay fast a-sleep in the sun. (If you
don't know what it is like, look at the pic-ture.) "Up, dull thing!"
said the Queen, "and take this young la-dy to see the Mock Tur-tle. I
must go back now;" and she walked a-way and left Al-ice with the
Gry-phon. Al-ice was by no means pleased with its looks, but she thought
she would be quite as safe with it as she would be with the Queen; so
she wait-ed.
The Gry-phon sat up and rubbed its eyes; then watched the Queen till she
was out of sight; then it laughed. "What fun!" it said, half to it-self,
half to Alice.
"What is the fun?" she asked.
"Why, _she_," it said. "It's all a whim of hers; they nev-er cut off
those heads, you know. Come on."
Soon they saw the Mock Tur-tle sitting sad and lone on a ledge of rock,
and as they came near, Al-ice could hear him sigh as if his heart would
break. "What makes him so sad?" Al-ice asked.
"It's all a whim of his," said the Gry-phon; "he hasn't got no grief,
you know. Come on!"
[Illustration]
So they went up to the Mock Tur-tle, who looked at them with large eyes
full of tears, but did not speak.
"This here young la-dy," said the Gry-phon, "she wants for to know
a-bout your past life, she do."
"I'll tell it to her," said the Mock Tur-tle in a deep, sad tone: "sit
down both of you and don't speak a word till I get through."
So they sat down, and no one spoke for some time.
"Once," said the Mock Tur-tle at last, with a deep sigh, "I was a re-al
Tur-tle. When we were young we went to school in the sea. We were taught
by an old Tur-tle--we used to call him Tor-toise--"
"Why did you call him Tor-toise, if he wasn't one?" Al-ice asked.
"He taught us, that's why," said the Mock Tur-tle: "you are quite dull
not to know that!"
"Shame on you to ask such a sim-ple thing," add-ed the Gry-phon; then
they both sat and looked at poor Al-ice, who felt as if she could sink
into the earth.
At last the Gry-phon said to the Mock Tur-tle, "Drive on, old fellow!
Don't be all day a-bout it!" and he went on in these words:
"Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't think it's true--"
"I didn't say I did not!" said Al-ice.
"You did," said the Mock Tur-tle.
"Hold your tongue," add-ed the Gry-phon.
The Mock Tur-tle went on:
"We were well taught--in fact we went to school each day--"
"I've been to a day school too," said Alice; "you needn't be so proud as
all that."
"Were you taught wash-ing?" asked the Mock Tur-tle.
"Of course not," said Al-ice.
"Ah! then yours wasn't a good school," said the Mock Tur-tle. "Now at
_ours_ they had at the end of the bill, 'French, mu-sic, and
wash-ing--ex-tra.'"
"You couldn't have need-ed it much in the sea," said Al-ice.
"I didn't learn it," said the Mock Tur-tle, with a sigh. "I just took
the first course."
"What was that?" asked Al-ice.
"Reel-ing and Writh-ing, of course, at first," the Mock Tur-tle said.
"An old eel used to come once a week. He taught us to drawl, to stretch
and to faint in coils."
"What was that like?" Al-ice asked.
"Well, I can't show you, my-self," he said: "I'm too stiff. And the
Gry-phon didn't learn it."
"How man-y hours a day did you do les-sons?" asked Al-ice.
"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Tur-tle; "nine the next and so
on."
"What a strange plan!" said Al-ice.
"That's why they're called les-sons," said the Gry-phon: "they les-sen
from day to day."
This was such a new thing to Al-ice that she sat still a good while and
didn't speak. "Then there would be a day when you would have no school,"
she said.
"Of course there would," said the Mock Tur-tle.
"What did you do then?" asked Al-ice.
"I'm tired of this," said the Gry-phon: "tell her now of the games we
played."
CHAPTER X.
THE LOB-STER DANCE.
The Mock Tur-tle sighed, looked at Al-ice and tried to speak, but for a
min-ute or two sobs choked his voice. "Same as if he had a bone in his
throat," said the Gry-phon, and set to work to shake him and punch him
in the back. At last the Mock Tur-tle found his voice and with tears
run-ning down his cheeks, he went on:
[Illustration]
"You may not have lived much in the sea"--("I have-n't," said Al-ice)
"so you can not know what a fine thing a Lob-ster Dance is!"
"No," said Al-ice. "What sort of a dance is it?"
"Why," said the Gry-phon, "you first form in a line on the sea-shore--"
"Two lines!" cried the Mock Tur-tle. "Seals, tur-tles, and so on; then
when you've cleared all the small fish out of the way--"
"That takes some time," put in the Gry-phon.
"You move to the front twice--"
"Each with a lob-ster by his side!" cried the Gry-phon.
"Of course," the Mock Tur-tle said: "move to the front twice--"
"Change and come back in same way," said the Gry-phon.
"Then, you know," the Mock Tur-tle went on, "you throw the--"
"The lob-sters!" shout-ed the Gry-phon, with a bound in-to the air.
"As far out to sea as you can--"
"Swim out for them," screamed the Gry-phon.
"Turn heels o-ver head in the sea!" cried the Mock Tur-tle.
"Change a-gain!" yelled the Gry-phon at the top of his voice.
"Then back to land, and--that's all the first part," said the Mock
Tur-tle.
Both the Gry-phon and the Mock Tur-tle had jumped a-bout like mad things
all this time. Now they sat down quite sad and still, and looked at
Al-ice.
"It must be a pret-ty dance," said Al-ice.
"Would you like to see some of it?" asked the Mock Tur-tle.
"Oh, yes," she said.
"Come, let's try the first part!" said the Mock Tur-tle to the Gry-phon.
"We can do it without lob-sters, you know. Which shall sing?"
"Oh, _you_ sing," said the Gry-phon. "I don't know the words."
So they danced round and round Al-ice, now and then tread-ing on her
toes when they passed too close. They waved their fore paws to mark the
time, while the Mock Tur-tle sang a queer kind of song, each verse of
which end-ed with these words:
"'Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?'"
"Thank you, it's a fine dance to watch," said Al-ice, glad that it was
o-ver at last.
"Now," said the Gry-phon, "tell us a-bout what you have seen and done in
your life."
"I could tell you of the strange things I have seen to-day," said
Al-ice, with some doubt as to their wish-ing to hear it.
"All right, go on," they both cried.
So Al-ice told them what she had been through that day, from the time
when she first saw the White Rab-bit. They came up quite close to her,
one on each side, and sat still till she got to the part where she tried
to say, "You are old, Fath-er Wil-liam," and the words all came wrong.
Then the Mock Tur-tle drew a long breath and said, "That's quite
strange!"
"It's all as strange as it can be," said the Gry-phon.
"It all came wrong!" the Mock Tur-tle said, while he seemed to be in
deep thought. "I should like to hear her try to say some-thing now. Tell
her to be-gin." He looked at the Gry-phon as if he thought it had the
right to make Al-ice do as it pleased.
[Illustration]
"Stand up and say, 'Tis the voice of the Slug-gard,'" said the Gry-phon.
"How they do try to make one do things!" thought Al-ice. "I might just
as well be at school at once." She stood up and tried to re-peat it, but
her head was so full of the Lob-ster Dance, that she didn't know what
she was say-ing, and the words all came ver-y queer, in-deed:
"'Tis the voice of the lob-ster; I heard him de-clare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must su-gar my hair.'
As a duck with its eye-lids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his but-tons, and turns out his toes."
"That's not the way I used to say it when I was a child," said the
Gry-phon.
"Well, I never heard it before," said the Mock Tur-tle, "but there's no
sense in it at all."
Al-ice did not speak; she sat down with her face in her hands, and
thought, "Will things nev-er be as they used to an-y more?"
"I should like you to tell what it means," said the Mock Tur-tle.
"She can't do that," said the Gry-phon. "Go on with the next verse."
"But his toes?" the Mock Tur-tle went on. "How could he turn them out
with his nose, you know?"
"Go on with the next verse," the Gry-phon said once more; "it begins 'I
passed by his gar-den.'"
Al-ice thought she must do as she was told, though she felt sure it
would all come wrong, and she went on:
"I passed by his gar-den and marked with one eye,
How the owl and the oys-ter were shar-ing the pie."
"What _is_ the use of say-ing all that stuff!" the Mock Tur-tle broke
in, "if you don't tell what it means as you go on? I tell you it is all
non-sense."
"Yes, I think you might as well leave off," said the Gry-phon, and
Al-ice was but too glad to do so.
"Shall we try the Lob-ster dance once more?" the Gry-phon went on, "or
would you like the Mock Tur-tle to sing you a song?"
"Oh, a song please, if the Mock Tur-tle would be so kind," Al-ice said
with so much zest that the Gry-phon threw back his head and said, "Hm!
Well, each one to his own taste. Sing her 'Tur-tle Soup,' will you, old
fel-low?"
The Mock Tur-tle heaved a deep sigh, and in a voice choked with sobs,
be-gan his song, but just then the cry of "The tri-al is on!" was heard
a long way off.
"Come on," cried the Gry-phon. He took her by the hand, ran off, and did
not wait to hear the song.
"What trial is it?" Al-ice pant-ed as she ran, but the Gry-phon on-ly
said, "Come on!" and still ran as fast as he could.
CHAPTER XI.
WHO STOLE THE TARTS?
The King and Queen of Hearts were seat-ed on their throne when Al-ice
and the Gry-phon came up, with a great crowd a-bout them. There were all
sorts of small birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards. The
Knave stood in front of them in chains, with a sol-dier on each side to
guard him; and near the King was the White Rab-bit, with a trum-pet in
one hand and a roll of pa-per in the other. In the mid-dle of the court
was a ta-ble with a large dish of tarts on it. They looked so good that
it made Al-ice feel as if she would like to eat some of them. "I wish
they'd get the tri-al done," she thought, "and hand round the pies!" But
there seemed no chance of this, so to pass the time a-way she looked
round at the strange things a-bout her.
This was the first time Al-ice had been in a court of this kind, and she
was quite pleased to find that she knew the names of most things she saw
there. "That's the judge," she thought, "I know him by his great wig."
The judge, by the way, was the King, and as he wore his crown on top of
his wig, he looked quite ill at ease.
"And that's the ju-ry box," thought Al-ice, "and those twelve things"
(she had to say "things," you see, for some of them were beasts and some
were birds), "I guess are the ju-rors." She said this last word two or
three times as she was proud that she knew it; for she was right when
she thought that few girls of her age would have known what it all
meant.
The twelve ju-rors all wrote on slates.
"What can they have to write now?" Al-ice asked the Gry-phon, in a low
tone. "The tri-al has not be-gun yet."
"They're put-ting down their names," the Gry-phon said, "for fear they
should for-get them."
"Stu-pid things!" Al-ice said in a loud voice, but stopped at once, for
the White Rab-bit cried out, "Si-lence in court!" and the King looked
round to make out who spoke.
Al-ice could see quite well that the ju-rors all wrote down "stu-pid
things!" on their slates, she could e-ven make out that one of them
didn't know how to spell "stu-pid" and that he asked the one by his side
to tell him, "A nice mud-dle their slates will be in by the time the
tri-al's ended," thought Al-ice.
One of the ju-rors had a pen-cil that squeaked as he wrote. This, of
course, Al-ice could _not_ stand, so she went round near him, and soon
found a chance to get it from him. This she did in such a way that the
poor ju-ror (it was Bill, the Liz-ard) could not make out at all where
it was, so he wrote with one fin-ger for the rest of the day. Of course,
this was of no use, as it left no mark on the slate.
"Read the charge!" said the King.
On this the White Rab-bit blew three blasts on the trum-pet, and then
from the pa-per in his hand read:
"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a sum-mer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite a-way!"
"The ju-ry will now take the case," said the King.
"Not yet, not yet!" the Rab-bit said in haste. "There is a great deal
else to come first."
[Illustration]
"Call the first wit-ness," said the King, and the White Rab-bit blew
three blasts on the trum-pet, and called out, "First wit-ness."
The first to come was the Hat-ter. He came in with a tea cup in one hand
and a piece of bread and but-ter in the oth-er.
"I beg par-don, your ma-jes-ty," he said, "but I had to bring these in,
as I was not quite through with my tea when I was sent for."
"You ought to have been through," said the King. "When did you be-gin?"
The Hat-ter looked at the March Hare, who had just come in-to court,
arm in arm with the Dor-mouse. "Fourth of March, I think it was," he
said.
"Fifth," said the March Hare.
"Sixth," add-ed the Dor-mouse.
"Write that down," said the King to the ju-ry, and they wrote down all
three dates on their slates, and then added them up and changed the sum
to shil-lings and pence.
"Take off your hat," the King said to the Hat-ter.
"It isn't mine," said the Hat-ter.
"Stole it!" cried the King, as he turned to the jury, who at once wrote
it down.
"I keep them to sell," the Hat-ter added. "I've none of my own. I'm a
hat-ter."
Here the Queen put on her eye-glass-es and stared hard at the Hat-ter,
who turned pale with fright.
"Tell what you know of this case," said the King; "and don't be
nerv-ous, or I'll have your head off on the spot."
This did not seem to calm him at all, he shift-ed from one foot to the
other and looked at the Queen, and in his fright he bit a large piece
out of his tea-cup in place of the bread and but-ter.
Just then Al-ice felt a strange thrill, the cause of which she could not
make out till she saw she had be-gun to grow a-gain.
"I wish you wouldn't squeeze so," said the Dor-mouse. "I haven't room to
breathe."
"I can't help it," said Al-ice; "I'm grow-ing."
"You've no right to grow here," said the Dor-mouse.
"Don't talk such non-sense," said Al-ice. "You know you grow too."
"Yes, but not so fast as to squeeze the breath out of those who sit by
me." He got up and crossed to the oth-er side of the court.
All this time the Queen had not left off star-ing at the Hat-ter, and
just as the Dor-mouse crossed the court, she said to one of the men,
"Bring me the list of those who sang in the last con-cert," on which the
poor Hat-ter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
[Illustration]
"Tell what you know of this case," the King called out a-gain, "or I'll
have your head off, if you do shake."
"I'm a poor man, your ma-jes-ty," the Hat-ter be-gan in a weak voice,
"and I hadn't but just be-gun my tea, not more than a week or so, and
what with the bread and but-ter so thin--and the twink-ling of the
tea--"
"The twink-ling of what?" asked the King.
"It be-gan with the tea," the Hat-ter said.
"Of course twink-ling be-gins with a T!" said the King. "Do you take me
for a dunce? Go on!"
"I'm a poor man," the Hat-ter went on, "and most things twink-led af-ter
that--but the March Hare said--"
"I didn't," said the March Hare in great haste.
"You did," said the Hat-ter.
"I de-ny it," said the March Hare.
"He de-nies it," said the King: "leave out that part."
"Well, I'm sure the Dor-mouse said--" the Hat-ter went on, with a look
at the Dor-mouse to see if he would de-ny it too, but he was fast
a-sleep.
"Then I cut some more bread and--"
"But what did the Dor-mouse say?" asked one of the ju-ry.
"That I can't tell," said the Hat-ter.
"You must tell or I'll have your head off," said the King.
The wretch-ed Hat-ter dropped his cup and bread, and went down on one
knee.
"I'm a poor man," he be-gan.
"You're a poor speak-er," said the King.
Here one of the guin-ea pigs cheered, and one of the men seized him,
thrust him in-to a bag which tied up with strings, and then sat up-on
it.
"If that's all you know, you may stand down," the King said.
"I'm as low as I can get now," said the Hat-ter; "I'm on the floor as it
is."
"Then you may sit down," the King said.
"I'd like to get through with my tea first," said the Hat-ter with a
look at the Queen who still read the list in her hand.
"You may go," said the King, and the Hat-ter left the court in such
haste that he did not e-ven wait to put his shoes on.
"And just take his head off out-side," the Queen add-ed to one of the
sol-diers, but the Hat-ter was out of sight be-fore the man could get to
the door.
"Call the next wit-ness," said the King.
The next to come was the Duch-ess' cook, and Al-ice guessed who it was
by the way the peo-ple near the door sneezed all at once.
[Illustration]
"Tell what you know of this case," said the King.
"Shan't," said the cook.
The King looked at the White Rab-bit, who said in a low voice, "Your
ma-jes-ty must make her tell."
"Well, if I must, I must," said the King with a sad look. He fold-ed his
arms and frowned at the cook till his eyes were al-most out of sight,
then asked in a stern voice, "What are tarts made of?"
"Pep-per, most-ly," said the cook.
"Sug-ar," said a weak voice near her.
"Catch that Dor-mouse," the Queen shrieked out. "Off with his head! Turn
him out of court! Pinch him! Off with his head!"
The whole court ran here and there, get-ting the Dor-mouse turned out,
and by the time this was done, the cook had gone.
"That's all right," said the King, as if he were glad to be rid of her.
"Call the next," and he add-ed in a low tone to the Queen, "Now, my
dear, you must take the next wit-ness in hand; it quite makes my head
ache!"
Al-ice watched the White Rab-bit as he looked o-ver the list. She
thought to her-self, "I want to see what the next witness will be like,
for they haven't found out much yet."
Think, if you can, how she felt when the White Rab-bit read out, at the
top of his shrill lit-tle voice, the name "Al-ice!"
CHAPTER XII.
AL-ICE ON THE STAND.
"Here!" cried Al-ice, but she quite for-got how large she had grown in
the last few min-utes, and jumped up in such haste that the edge of her
skirt tipped the ju-ry box and turned them all out on the heads of the
crowd be-low; and there they lay sprawl-ing a-bout, which made her think
of a globe of gold-fish which she had up-set the week be-fore.
[Illustration]
"Oh, I beg your par-don!" she said, and picked them up and put them
backed in the ju-ry box as fast as she could.
"The tri-al can not go on," said the King in a grave voice, "till all
the men are back in place--all," he said with great force and looked
hard at Al-ice.
She looked at the ju-ry box and saw that in her haste she had put the
Liz-ard in head first and the poor thing was wav-ing its tail in the
air, but could not move. She soon got it out and put it right; "not that
it mat-ters much," she thought; "I should think it would be quite as
much use in the tri-al one way up as the oth-er."
[Illustration]
As soon as their slates and pen-cils had been hand-ed back to them, the
ju-ry set to work to write out an ac-count of their fall, all but the
Liz-ard, who seem-ed too weak to write, but sat and gazed up in-to the
roof of the court.
"What do you know of this case?" the King asked Al-ice.
"Not one thing," said Al-ice.
"Not one thing, at all?" asked the King.
"Not one thing, at all," said Al-ice.
"Write that down," the King said to the ju-ry.
The King sat for some time and wrote in his note-book, then he called
out, "Si-lence!" and read from his book, "Rule For-ty-two. Each one more
than a mile high to leave the court."
All looked at Al-ice.
"I'm not a mile high," said Al-ice.
"You are," said the King.
"Not far from two miles high," add-ed the Queen.
"Well, I shan't go," said Al-ice, "for I know that's a new rule you have
just made."
"It's the first rule in the book," said the King.
"Then it ought to be Rule One," said Al-ice.
The King turned pale and shut his note-book at once.
"The ju-ry can now take the case," he said in a weak voice.
"There's more to come yet, please your ma-jes-ty," said the White
Rab-bit, as he jumped up; "this thing has just been picked up."
"What's in it?" asked the Queen.
"I haven't read it yet," said the White Rab-bit, "but it seems to be a
note from the Knave of Hearts to some one."
"Whose name is on it?" said one of the ju-rors.
"There's no name on it," said the White Rab-bit; he looked at it with
more care as he spoke, and add-ed, "it isn't a note at all; it's a set
of rhymes."
"Please your ma-jes-ty," said the Knave, "I didn't write it, and they
can't prove that I did; there's no name signed at the end."
"If you didn't sign it," said the King, "that makes your case worse. You
must have meant some harm or you'd have signed your name like an hon-est
man."
All clapped their hands at this as it was the first smart thing the King
had said that day.
"That proves his guilt," said the Queen.
"It does not prove a thing," said Al-ice, "Why you don't so much as know
what the rhymes are."
"Read them," said the King.
"Where shall I be-gin, your ma-jes-ty?" the White Rab-bit asked.
"Why at the first verse, of course," the King said look-ing quite grave,
"and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
The White Rab-bit read:
"They told me you had been to her,
And spoke of me to him:
She gave me a good name, in-deed,
But said I could not swim.
"He sent them word that I had gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the mat-ter on
What would be-come of you?
"I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three, or more;
They all came back from him to you,
Though they were mine be-fore.
"My no-tion was, she liked him best,
(Be-fore she had this fit)
This must be kept from all the rest
But him and you and it."
"That's the best thing we've heard yet," said the King, rub-bing his
hands as if much pleased; "so now let the ju-ry--"
"If one of you can tell what it means," said Al-ice (she had grown so
large by this time that she had no fear of the King) "I should be glad
to hear it. I don't think there's a grain of sense in it."
The ju-ry all wrote down on their slates, "She doesn't think there's a
grain of sense in it." But no one tried to tell what it meant.
"If there's no sense in it," said the King, "that saves a world of work,
you know, as we needn't try to find it. And yet I don't know," he went
on, as he spread out the rhymes on his knee, and looked at them with one
eye: "I seem to find some sense in them--'said I could not swim'--you
can't swim, can you?" he added, turn-ing to the Knave.
The Knave shook his head with a sigh. "Do I look like it?" he said.
(Which it was plain he did not, as he was made of card board.)
"All right, so far," said the King, and he went on: "'We know it to be
true'--that's the ju-ry, of course--'I gave her one, they gave him
two'--that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--"
"But it goes on, 'they all came back from him to you,'" said Al-ice.
"Why, there they are," said the King, point-ing to the tarts. "Isn't
that as clear as can be? Then it goes on, 'before she had this fit'--you
don't have fits, my dear, I think?" he said to the Queen.
[Illustration]
"No! no!" said the Queen in a great rage, throw-ing an ink-stand at the
Liz-ard as she spoke.
"Then the words don't fit you," he said, and looked round the court with
a smile. But no one spoke. "It's a pun," he added in a fierce tone, then
all the court laughed.
"Let the ju-ry now bring in their verdict," the King said.
"No! no!" said the Queen. "Sen-tence first--then the ver-dict."
"Such stuff!" said Al-ice out loud. "Of course the ju-ry must make--"
"Hold your tongue!" screamed the Queen.
"I won't!" said Al-ice.
"Off with her head!" shout-ed the Queen at the top of her voice. No one
moved.
"Who cares for you?" said Al-ice. (She had grown to her full size by
this time.) "You are noth-ing but a pack of cards!"
At this the whole pack rose up in the air and flew down up-on her; she
gave a lit-tle scream and tried to beat them off--and found her-self
ly-ing on the bank with her head in the lap of her sis-ter, who was
brush-ing a-way some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees
on to her face.
"Wake up, Al-ice dear," said her sis-ter; "why what a long sleep you
have had!"
"Oh, I've had such a strange dream!" said Al-ice, and then she told her
sis-ter as well as she could all these strange things that you have just
read a-bout; and when she came to the end of it, her sis-ter kissed her
and said: "It was a strange dream, dear, I'm sure; but run now in to
your tea; it's get-ting late."
So Al-ice got up and ran off, think-ing while she ran, as well she
might, what a won-der-ful dream it had been.
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Retold in words of one syllable for young people. Adapted from the
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