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: —
"'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?'
"'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?'
"'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?'
"'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.
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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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?"
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