Alice in Wonderland, Retold in Words of One Syllable

"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.

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," 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!"

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."

"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.