THE STORY OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Once a sunny afternoon when humming bees and warm winds made her drowsy, Alice lay in the shade of a great tree. The dear little girl's drooping eyes had almost shut, when suddenly she saw a white rabbit with pink eyes. As he scurried past he looked at a watch which he took from his pocket. Then he hurried faster than ever, as though he had to catch a train; and after him ran Alice, for she had never seen so strange a thing as a rabbit with a watch, nor one with a pocket to put it in.
Through a tunnel she followed him into a high room hung with lamps and lined with big doors. A small three-legged table made all of shining glass stood in the center of the room. On it was a little golden key, but the locks on the doors were large and the key fitted none of them. Behind a curtain she found a door just 15 inches high. Of course she couldn't go through it, even when the golden key had opened it, for she was much too large; but by stooping she could see the dearest little garden, all tiny trees and flowers and lovely grass and splashing fountains.
So many queer things had happened that it didn't surprise Alice a bit to find a bottle lying on the table with the words DRINK ME printed in large plain letters. She looked carefully to see if Poison was on the label, too, but it wasn't, so she drank! " What a curious feeling!" said Alice. " I must be shutting up like a telescope." The Ups and Downs of Alice Which indeed she was. She shrunk and shrunk until she was only ten inches high. She was small enough then to go through the little door into the little garden. But where was the golden key? Sev eral feet above her, shining through the glass of the table! Oh dear! She wasn't tall enough to reach it! Alice was so vexed that she cried. Then, being a sensible little girl, she looked about her to see what could be done. And there, right beside her, lay a cake, with EAT ME spelled on its top with currants.
" Curioser and curioser!" cried Alice. "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!" For as she ate the cake she grew so tall that she never expected to see her feet again.
She could easily reach the key now, but what was the use? Only by lying on her side, and putting one eye up very close to the tiny door, could she even see into the garden.
Great girl as she suddenly was, she cried and cried until she heard the patter of feet. There was the White Rabbit again, and looking quite worried, And he was in such a hurry that he dropped his gloves and fan as he disappeared. Sadly Mice picked them up. She had hoped that the White Rabbit would help her.
Looking down at her once distant feet she saw them coming nearer and nearer, and she dropped the fan just in time to keep herself from going out al together, like a candle. She was now so small that when she fell into the pool of tears which she had just shed, she had to swim to keep from drowning.
She sat on the bank to dry in the queerest company.
There were small birds, a mouse, and many creatures that she had never seen before. The Dodo, a great bird with a clumsy beak, suggested a Caucus-race as a good way of getting dry.
What a Funny Kind of a Race! He marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no " One, two, three, and away!" but they all began running when they liked and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over, until the Dodo said it was.
Quite without warning Mice found herself alone in a strange place, but the White Rabbit, who was entirely unafraid of this little girl who was now no bigger than he, sent her to fetch his gloves. She found them in his cunning little house. But unfor tunately she also found a bottle, and without stopping to think she drank its contents.
And there she was big again ! Perfectly e-nor-mous! She was so big that she had to put an arm out of the window, and a foot up the chimney, because there was no room for them in the house. Finding her in this terrifying state, the White Rabbit nearly jumped out of his skin. He and the gardeners tried every way to get Alice out of the tiny house. Finally they began throwing pebbles through the window. As these turned to cakes, which Alice ate, she soon shrunk enough to run out of the house and hide in a forest.