Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (carter reed txt) π
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 t
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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, sirβ" 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, andβoh 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 isβoh dear! that is not right. I must have been changed for Ma-bel! I'll try if I know 'How doth the lit-tleβ'" 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'βbut, 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.
"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: "OΓΉ 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 faceβand she is such a nice soft thing to nurseβand she's a fine one to catch miceβOh, 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 fondβofβof 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 thingsβI can't tell you half of them. And it kills all the rats, and mβoh 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 bankβthe 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.
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.
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,"
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