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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 4. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
It was the White Rabbit, walking back slowly, and looking worried as it went, as if it had lost something.
She heard it saying to itself,
"The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll punish me, I'm sure! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?"
Alice guessed quickly that it was looking for the fan and the white kid gloves.
And she kindly began to look for them, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Everything had changed since her swim, the great hall with the glass table and little door had gone.
Very soon the Rabbit saw Alice as she looked, and called to her in an angry voice,
"Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here?"
"Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan!"
"Quick, now!" Alice was so frightened that she ran away at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.
"He took me for his housemaid," she said to herself as she ran.
"How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I'm!"
"But I had better take him his fan and gloves, if I can find them."
She came to a neat little house with a brass plate on the door that read "W. RABBIT".
She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs.
She was afraid she might meet the real Mary Ann and be put out before finding the fan and gloves.
"How strange it seems,"
Alice said to herself, "to be going on errands for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah will be sending me on errands next!".
She began to imagine the sort of thing that would happen.
"'Miss Alice! Come here now, and get ready for your walk!' 'Coming in a minute, nurse!"
"I must see that the mouse doesn't get out.' Only I don't think."
Alice went on, "that they'd let Dinah stay in the house if she began ordering people about like that!".
By this time she had found a tidy little room with a table by the window.
On it, as she had hoped, were a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves.
She took up the fan and a pair of gloves and was just going to leave the room.
Then her eye fell on a little bottle that stood near the mirror.
There was no label this time with the words "DRINK ME," but she opened it and put it to her lips anyway.
"I know something strange is sure to happen,"
She said to herself, "Whenever I eat or drink anything, something strange happens."
"So I'll see what this bottle does. I hope it makes me grow tall again, I'm tired of being small".
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected.
Before she drank half the bottle, her head touched the ceiling and she had to stoop to save her neck.
She quickly put down the bottle, saying "That's quite enough."
"I hope I won't grow any more."
"As it's, I can't get out at the door."
"I do wish I hadn't drunk so much!"
Alas, it was too late to wish that.
She kept growing and growing, and soon had to kneel on the floor.
In another minute there wasn't even room for that.
And she tried lying down with one elbow against the door and the other arm round her head.
She did not stop, she kept on growing bigger and bigger very fast.
As a last way out, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney.
"She said to herself, "Now I can do no more, whatever happens." What will become of me?"
Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she didn't grow any larger.
It was uncomfortable, and since there seemed no chance of her getting out, she felt unhappy.
"It was much nicer at home," thought poor Alice.
"When one wasn't always growing larger and smaller and being told about by mice and rabbits."
"I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit hole."
"And yet it's rather curious, you know, this kind of life!"
"I do wonder what can have happened to me."
"When I used to read fairy tales, I thought that kind of thing never happened, and now here I'm in the middle of one!"
"There should be a book written about me, that there should!"
"And when I grow up, I'll write one."
"But I'm grown up now,"
She added sadly, "at least there's no room to grow up any more here.".
"But then," thought Alice.
"Shall I never get any older than I'm now?"
"That'll be a comfort in one way, never to be an old woman, but then always to have lessons to learn."
"Oh, I wouldn't like that!"
"Oh, you foolish Alice!" she answered herself.
"How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson books!"
So she went on, first walking from one side to the other and talking to herself.
After a few minutes she heard a voice outside and stopped to listen.
"Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice.
"Fetch me my gloves this moment!" Then came the little patter of feet on the stairs.
Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled until she shook the house.
She forgot that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit.
She had no reason to be afraid of it.
Presently the Rabbit came up to the door and tried to open it.
But the door opened inwards and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, so it did not open.
Alice heard it say to itself "Then I'll go round and get in at the window."
"That you won't!" thought Alice.
"Then she waited, thought she heard the Rabbit under the window, and suddenly spread out her hand and snatched at the air."
She didn't catch anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of broken glass.
She thought it was possible it had fallen into a cucumber frame or something of that sort.
Next came an angry voice, the Rabbit's, "Pat! Pat! Where are you?"
And then a voice she hadn't heard before, "Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, your honour!".
"Digging for apples, indeed!" said the Rabbit angrily.
"Here. Come and help me out of this!" There were sounds of more broken glass.
"Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?"
"Sure, it's an arm, your honour!" he said.
"An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!"
"Sure, it does, your honour, but it's an arm for all that."
"Well, it has no business there at all. Go and take it away!"
There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then, such as,
"Sure, I don't like it, your honour, at all, at all!"
"Do as I tell you, you coward!" At last she spread out her hand again and made another snatch in the air.
This time there were two little shrieks and more sounds of broken glass.
"What a number of cucumber frames there must be!" thought Alice.
"I wonder what they'll do next!"
"As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could!"
"I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!"
She waited for some time without hearing more.
At last she heard a rumbling of little cart wheels and the sound of many voices all talking together.
She made out the words, "Where is the other ladder?"
"Why, I had to bring only one."
"Bill has got the other."
"Bill, fetch it here, lad."
"Here, put them up at this corner."
"No, tie them together first."
"They don't reach half high enough yet."
"Oh, they'll do well enough."
"Don't be particular."
"Here, Bill, catch hold of this rope."
"Will the roof hold?"
"Mind that loose slate."
"Oh, it's coming down."
"Heads below" A loud crash.
"Now, who did that?"
"It was Bill, I think."
"Who's to go down the chimney?"
"Nay, I won't."
"You do it."
"That I won't then."
"Bill is to go down."
"Here, Bill, the master says you're to go down the chimney."
"Oh, so Bill is to come down the chimney, is he?" said Alice to herself.
"They seem to put everything on Bill."
"I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal."
"This fireplace is narrow, to be sure, but I think I can kick a little!"
She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could.
She waited until she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling in the chimney above her.
Then, saying to herself "This is Bill," she gave one sharp kick and waited to see what would happen next.
The first thing she heard was a general chorus of "There goes Bill!"
"The Rabbit cried, "Catch him by the hedge!" Then silence, then many voices, "Hold up his head. Brandy now.
Don't choke him, How was it, old fellow? What happened to you?
"Tell us all about it!"
Last came a little weak squeaking voice, "Well, I hardly know."
"No more thank you."
"I'm better now, but I'm too upset to tell you."
"All I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I go like a sky rocket!"
"So you did, old fellow!" said the others.
"We must burn the house down!" said the Rabbit.
Alice called out as loud as she could, "If you do, I'll set Dinah on you!"
There was silence at once, and Alice thought "I wonder what they'll do next. If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off."
After a minute or two they began moving again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, "A barrowful will do to begin with.".
"'A barrowful of what?' thought Alice, but she didn't have long to doubt."
"The next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some hit her in the face."
"I'll put a stop to this," she said to herself and shouted, "You had better not do that again!" This made another dead silence.
Alice was surprised to see the pebbles turn into little cakes on the floor, and an idea came to her
"If I eat one of these cakes,"
She thought, "it'll make some change in my size, and as it can't make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose.".
So she ate one of the cakes and was glad to find she began to shrink at once.
As soon as she was small enough, she went through the door.
She ran out and found a crowd of small animals and birds waiting outside.
Poor little Lizard Bill was in the middle, being held up by two guinea pigs who were giving it something from a bottle.
They all rushed at Alice the moment she came out.
But she ran as fast as she could and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.
"The first thing I have to do," said Alice to herself as she walked about in the wood.
"Is to grow to my right size again."
"The second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden."
"I think that'll be the best plan."
It was a good plan and very simple, but the only problem was she had no idea how to do it.
While she was looking about among the trees a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up quickly.
A very large puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes and weakly stretching out one paw to touch her.
"Poor little thing," said Alice kindly, and she tried hard to whistle to it.
She was frightened it might be hungry and might try to eat her despite her kindness.
Not knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick and held it out to the puppy.
The puppy jumped up, yelped, rushed at the stick, and pretended to bite it.
Alice hid behind a great thistle to keep from being run over.
When she came out the puppy rushed at the stick again and tumbled over in its hurry to get it.
Alice thought it was very like playing with a cart horse.
She expected every moment to be trampled under its feet.
So she ran round the thistle again.
Then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick.
It ran a little way forward each time and a long way back, barking loudly the whole while.
At last it sat down a good way off, panting with its tongue out and its eyes half shut.
This seemed a good chance for Alice to get away, so she set off at once.
She ran until she was quite tired and out of breath, and until the puppy's bark sounded very faint in the distance.
"And yet what a dear little puppy it was," said Alice as she leaned against a buttercup to rest and fanned herself with a leaf.
"I'd have liked to teach it tricks very much if I had been the right size to do it."
"Oh dear, I have nearly forgotten that I have to grow up again."
"Let me see, how is it to be done?"
"I suppose I must eat or drink something, but the big question is what?"
The big question was certainly what.
Alice looked all around at the flowers and the blades of grass.
She didn't see anything that looked right to eat or drink.
A large mushroom stood near her and was about her height.
She looked under it, on both sides and behind it, then decided to look at its top.
She stood on tiptoe and peeped over the edge of the mushroom.
Her eyes met those of a large blue caterpillar sitting on top with its arms folded.
It was quietly smoking a long hookah and not noticing her or anything else.