The Pool of Tears
Alice grew bigger. "How quickly I'm growing!" she said. And then, "Oh!" she cried, as her head hit the ceiling.
"I must go into that garden," she thought. "This hall is too small for me now."She took the little golden key and went quickly to the garden door. She was much too big to go through it.
Poor Alice! She sat down and began to cry again. Because she was so big, the tears that fell from her eyes were very big too. They made a big pool.
"Stop crying!" Alice told herself. "You're a big girl (and she was big -- very big) and you mustn't cry." But she couldn't stop the big tears, and soon there was a pool of tears all round her.
After a time, she heard little feet running towards her, and then she saw the White Rabbit coming back. He had his best clothes on, and he had two very clean white gloves in one hand and a fan in his other hand.
" Oh, the Duchess, the Duchess!" Alice heard him saying. "How angry she'll be because I'm late!"Alice wanted to ask him for help. She tried to speak in her nicest way as she said, "Please--'
The White Rabbit jumped. The word came from the ceiling, and he was afraid. He ran away as quickly as he could, and the gloves and the fan fell from his hands.
Alice took up the very small gloves and the fan. It was hot in the hall, so she began to fan herself with the fan.
"Am I changed?" she wondered. "I was myself yesterday, but things are not the same today. If I'm not me, who am I? I don't want to be my friend Mabel because she doesn't know very much. I know much more than she does," Alice stopped. " Do I know more?" she wondered. "I'll try. I'll try to say four times. Four times one is four. Four times two is eight. Four times three is nine, Four times four is-- Oh!" She began to cry again.
They were only small tears. One of them fell on her hand, and she looked down. There was a glove on the other hand.
She had put one of the White Rabbit's little gloves on.
"How can I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small."She stood up and walked to the table again. "I'll see how big I am," she said.
The table was a long way up. Alice was very small and she was quickly becoming smaller. "The fan!" she thought. "The fan's making me smaller." She threw it down.
"I'm so small that I can go through the door." she thought, and she ran towards it. She had not run far when-splash-she fell into a lot of water. "I have fallen into the sea," she thought.
It wasn't the sea. It was the pool of tears that she had made when she was very big.
"Why did I cry so much?" Alice said.
She heard something splashing about in the pool near her. "It must be a very big fish or sea animal," she thought. But then she remembered that she her- self was very small, and she soon saw that it was a mouse that had fallen into the water.
"I wonder if it can speak," Alice thought. "This place is not the same as home, so I'll speak to it. 0Mouse!" she said. "Do you know the way out of this pool?"There was no answer. "Is it a French mouse?"Alice wondered. She tried to remember some French words. The words that began her school French book were the words for: Where is my cat? So she said them: "Ou est ma chatte?"There was a great splashing, and the Mouse moved away as quickly as he could.
" Oh!" Alice cried. " Please don't be angry! I didn't remember that mice don't like cats.""Don't like cats!" the Mouse said. (He was very angry.) 'Would you like cats if you were me?""No," Alice said. "No. But I think you would like Dinah. She is a nice, dear thing." Alice was speaking mostly to herself. "She never makes a noise, and she's very good. She catches all the mice--Oh! You're angry again! We will not speak about Dinah any more--“"We!" the Mouse cried. "I never speak about cats! I don't want to hear any more about them."Alice quickly tried to speak about other things. "Perhaps--" she said, "perhaps you like dogs?" The Mouse did not answer, so Alice began again: "There is a very nice little dog near our house. You would love it. It likes playing with children, but it works too. Its home is on a farm, and the farmer says that it helps him a lot. It kills all the m -- Oh!"The Mouse was very angry. He splashed his way to the side of the pool and got out of the water. Alice went after him.
There were a lot of animals and birds which had fallen into the pool: a duck, and a dodo, and others with names that Alice did not know. They splashed after Alice and got out of the water. |