The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

Alice turned round, ready to find fault with anybody. “Where’s the servant whose business it is to answer the door?” she began angrily.

  “Which door?” said the Frog.

  Alice almost stamped with irritation at the slow drawl in which he spoke. “This door, of course!”

  The Frog looked at the door with his large dull eyes for a minute: then he went nearer and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying whether the paint would come off; then he looked at Alice.

  “To answer the door?” he said. “What’s it been asking of?”

  He was so hoarse that Alice could scarcely hear him.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “I speaks English, doesn’t I?” the Frog went on. “Or are you deaf? What did it ask you?”

  “Nothing!” Alice said impatiently. “I’ve been knocking at it!”

  “Shouldn’t do that—shouldn’t do that—” the Frog muttered. “Wexes it,3 you know.” Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one of his great feet. “You let it alone,” he panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, “and it’ll let you alone, you know.”

  At this moment the door was flung open, and a shrill voice was heard singing:—

  “To the Looking-Glass world4 it was Alice that said

  ‘I’ve a sceptre in hand, I’ve a crown on my head;

  Let the Looking-Glass creatures whatever they be

  Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!’ ”

  And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus:—

  “Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,

  And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:

  Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea—

  And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!”

  Then followed a confused noise of cheering, and Alice thought to herself, “Thirty times three makes ninety. I wonder if any one’s counting?” In a minute there was silence again, and the same shrill voice sang another verse:—

  “ ‘O Looking-Glass creatures,’ quoth Alice, ‘draw near!

  ’Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear:

  ’Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea

  Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!’ ”

  Then came the chorus again:—

  “Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,

  Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;

  Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine—

  And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!”

  “Ninety times nine!” Alice repeated in despair. “Oh, that’ll never be done! I’d better go in at once—” and in she went, and there was a dead silence the moment she appeared.

  Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among them. “I’m glad they’ve come without waiting to be asked,” she thought: “I should never have known who were the right people to invite.”

  There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White Queens had already taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. Alice sat down in it, rather uncomfortable at the silence, and longing for some one to speak.

  At last the Red Queen began. “You’ve missed the soup and fish,” she said. “Put on the joint!” And the waiters set a leg of mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve a joint before.

  “You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,” said the Red Queen. “Alice—Mutton: Mutton—Alice.” The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.

  “May I give you a slice?” she said, taking up the knife and fork, and looking from one Queen to the other.

  “Certainly not,” the Red Queen said very decidedly: “it isn’t etiquette to cut5 any one you’ve been introduced to. Remove the joint!” And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.

  “I won’t be introduced to the pudding, please,” Alice cried rather hastily, “or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?”

  But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled “Pudding—Alice: Alice—Pudding. Remove the pudding!” and the waiters took it away so quickly that Alice couldn’t return its bow.

  However, she didn’t see why the Red Queen should be the only one to give orders, so, as an experiment, she called out “Waiter! Bring back the pudding!” and there it was again in a moment, like a conjuring trick. It was so large that she couldn’t help feeling a little shy with it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she conquered her shyness by a great effort, and cut a slice and handed it to the Red Queen.

  “What impertinence!” said the Pudding. “I wonder how you’d like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!”

  It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn’t a word to say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp.

  “Make a remark,” said the Red Queen: “it’s ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!”

  “Do you know, I’ve had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me today,” Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed upon her; “and it’s a very curious thing, I think—every poem was about fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re so fond of fishes, all about here?”

  She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. “As to fishes,” she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth close to Alice’s ear, “her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?”

  “Her Red Majesty’s very kind to mention it,” the White Queen murmured into Alice’s other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. “It would be such a treat! May I?”

  “Please do,” Alice said very politely.

  The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice’s cheek. Then she began:—

  “ ‘First the fish must be caught.’

  That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it.

  ‘Next, the fish must be bought.’

  That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it.

  ‘Now cook me the fish!’

  That is easy, and will not take more than a minute.

  ‘Let it lie in a dish!’

  That is easy, because it already is in it.

  ‘Bring it here! Let me sup!’

  It is easy to set such a dish on the table.

  ‘Take the dish-cover up!’

  Ah, that is so hard that I fear I’m unable!

  For it holds it like glue——

  Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle:

  Which is easiest to do,

  Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle?”6

  “Take a minute to think about it, and then guess,” said the Red Queen. “Meanwhile, we’ll drink your health—Queen Alice’s health!” she screamed at the top of her voice, and all the guests began drinking it directly, and very queerly they managed it: some of them put their glasses upon their heads like extinguishers,7 and drank all that trickled down their faces—others upset the decanters, and drank the wine as it ran off the edges of the table—and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly lapping up the gravy, “just like pigs in a trough!” thought Alice.

  “You ought to return thanks in a neat speech,” the Red Queen said, frowning at Alice as she spoke.

  “We must support you, you know,” the White Queen whispered, as Alice got up to do it, very obediently, but a little frightened.

  “Thank you very much,” she whispered in reply, “but I can do quite well without.”

  “That wouldn’t be at all the thing,” the Red Queen said very decidedly: s
o Alice tried to submit to it with a good grace.

  (“And they did push so!” she said afterwards, when she was telling her sister the history of the feast. “You would have thought they wanted to squeeze me flat!”)

  In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep in her place while she made her speech: the two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, that they nearly lifted her up into the air. “I rise to return thanks—” Alice began: and she really did rise as she spoke, several inches; but she got hold of the edge of the table, and managed to pull herself down again.

  “Take care of yourself!” screamed the White Queen, seizing Alice’s hair with both her hands. “Something’s going to happen!”

  And then (as Alice afterwards described it) all sorts of things happened in a moment. The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top. As to the bottles, they each took a pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on as wings, and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about in all directions: “and very like birds they look,” Alice thought to herself, as well as she could in the dreadful confusion that was beginning.

  At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh at her side, and turned to see what was the matter with the White Queen; but, instead of the Queen, there was the leg of mutton sitting in the chair. “Here I am!” cried a voice from the soup tureen, and Alice turned again, just in time to see the Queen’s broad good natured face grinning at her for a moment over the edge of the tureen, before she disappeared into the soup.

  There was not a moment to be lost. Already several of the guests were lying down in the dishes, and the soup-ladle was walking up the table towards Alice’s chair, and beckoning to her impatiently to get out of its way.

  “I ca’n’t stand this any longer!” she cried, as she jumped up and seized the table-cloth with both hands: one good pull, and plates, dishes, guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the floor.

  “And as for you,” she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief—but the Queen was no longer at her side—she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her.

  At any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was far too much excited to be surprised at anything now. “As for you,” she repeated, catching hold of the little creature in the very act of jumping over a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, “I’ll shake you into a kitten, that I will!”

  CHAPTER X1

  SHAKING

  She took her off the table as she spoke, and shook her backwards and forwards with all her might.

  The Red Queen made no resistance whatever: only her face grew very small, and her eyes got large and green: and still, as Alice went on shaking her, she kept on growing shorter—and fatter—and softer—and rounder—and——

  CHAPTER XI

  WAKING

  ——and it really was a kitten, after all.

  CHAPTER XII

  WHICH DREAMED IT?

  “Your Red Majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,” Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten respectfully, yet with some severity. “You woke me out of—oh! such a nice dream! And you’ve been along with me, Kitty—all through the Looking-glass world. Did you know it, dear?”

  It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they always purr. “If they would only purr for ‘yes,’ and mew for ‘no,’ or any rule of that sort,” she had said, “so that one could keep up a conversation! But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?”

  On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess whether it meant “yes” or “no.”

  So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. “Now, Kitty!” she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. “Confess that was what you turned into!”

  (“But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said, when she was explaining the thing afterwards to her sister: “it turned away its head, and pretended not to see it: but it looked a little ashamed of itself, so I think it must have been the Red Queen.”)

  “Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice cried with a merry laugh. “And curtsey while you’re thinking what to—what to purr. It saves time, remember!” And she caught it up and gave it one little kiss, “just in honour of its having been a Red Queen.”

  “Snowdrop, my pet!” she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “when will Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason you were so untidy in my dream.——Dinah! Do you know that you’re scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it’s most disrespectful of you.

  “And what did Dinah turn to, I wonder?” she prattled on, as she settled comfortably down, with one elbow on the rug, and her chin in her hand, to watch the kittens. “Tell me, Dinah, did you turn to Humpty Dumpty? I think you did—however, you’d better not mention it to your friends just yet, for I’m not sure.

  “By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been really with me in my dream, there was one thing you would have enjoyed——I had such a quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a real treat. All the time you’re eating your breakfast, I’ll repeat ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ to you; and then you can make believe it’s oysters, dear!

  “Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should not go on licking your paw like that—as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know——Oh, Kitty, do help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw and pretended it hadn’t heard the question.

  Which do you think it was?

  A boat, beneath a sunny sky1

  Lingering onward dreamily

  In an evening of July—

  Children three that nestle near,

  Eager eye and willing ear,

  Pleased a simple tale to hear—

  Long has paled that sunny sky:

  Echoes fade and memories die:

  Autumn frosts have slain July.

  Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

  Alice moving under skies

  Never seen by waking eyes.

  Children yet, the tale to hear,

  Eager eye and willing ear,

  Lovingly shall nestle near.

  In a Wonderland they lie,

  Dreaming as the days go by,

  Dreaming as the summers die:

  Ever drifting down the stream—

  Lingering in the golden gleam—

  Life, what is it but a dream?

  THE END

  AN EASTER GREETING1

  TO

  EVERY CHILD WHO LOVES

  “ALICE.”

  DEAR CHILD,

  Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear, wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

  Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling when one first wakes on a summer morning with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window——when lying lazily, with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunligh
t, the ugly dreams that frightened you when all was dark—to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend, who sends you the beautiful sun?

  Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as “Alice”? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in church and on a Sunday: but I think——nay, I am sure——that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit in which I have written it.

  For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves—to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer——and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the “dim religious light” of some solemn cathedral?

  And if I have written anything to add to those stories of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

  This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your “life in every limb,” and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air——and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and gray-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight——but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the “Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.”