Pig and Pepper

    When Alice was not too big to go through the door, she went up to it. The house was very noisy in- side.

    There's no bell," she told herself, "and nobody would hear a bell. There's too much noise."

    She opened the door and went in.

    She wanted to cover her ears because of the noise, but she could not do that in front of the Duchess.

    The Duchess was sitting on a very small chair. She had a baby in her arms. The cook was at the fire, making soup in a very big pot.

    "There's too much pepper in that soup," Alice said to herself. It was hard to say anything because the pepper made her sneeze so much. Even the Duchess was sneezing, and the baby sneezed and cried without stopping.

    The cook was not sneezing, but she was making a great noise with the cooking things-crash! bang! smash!

    There was a very big cat, too, and it was not sneezing. It was sitting near the fire, and it had a grin from ear to ear on its face.

    "Can girls speak first to duchesses, or must they wait for the duchesses to speak to them?" Alice wondered.

    The Duchess did not speak, so Alice asked: "Please tell me why your cat grins like that."

    " It's a Cheshire cat," said the Duchess, " and that's why. Pig !" She shouted the last word, and Alice jumped. But the Duchess was shouting at the baby, and not at Alice. So Alice spoke again.

    "I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grin. I have never seen any cat grinning."

    "They all can," said the Duchess, "and most of them do."

    "I didn't know that." Alice said.

    "You don't know much!"

    Alice thought, "I must think of something new to speak about." But just then the cook took the soup pot off the fire and began to throw things at the Duchess. One thing came through the air after another: pots, jars, irons, knives. Some of the things hit the Duchess and the baby. The Duchess did nothing, and the baby was making so much noise that it could not make any more.

    "Oh, please don't throw any more things at the baby." Alice cried. "You'll hit its pretty nose."

    "It isn't your baby," the Duchess said, and she began to sing to it. After every line she gave it a great shake. The words were:

    Speak roughly to your little boy,

    And beat him when he sneezes:

    He only does it to annoy,

    Because he knows it teases.

    Perhaps those were not the words. It was hard for Alice to hear them because the baby was making so much noise.

    "Here!" the Duchess said. "You can have the baby for a time if you like." As she was speaking, she threw the baby to Alice, adding, "I must get ready to play croquet with the Queen," and going quickly out of the room. The cook threw a pot after her, but it did not hit her.

    Alice caught the baby, but it was hard to make it stay still in her arms. She took it out of the house, and after a time it stopped sneezing. It did not stop crying, but it began to make noises like a baby pig. Its eyes were becoming very small, and its nose was changing and becoming more like a pig's nose.

    "It is a pig!" Alice told herself. She put it down on the ground, and it ran happily away, making pig noises.

    Alice looked round her. She jumped a little when she saw the Cheshire Cat sitting in one of the trees near her.

    The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice.

    "It looks kind," she thought, "but perhaps it will get angry quickly like all the people and animals here." So she tried to speak in a pleasing way.

    "Cheshire Cat, dear," she said.

    Its grin grew bigger. not smaller, so she knew that it was pleased.

    "Will you tell me, please," she said, "which way I must o from here?"

    " Yes," said the Cat, " but mustn't you tell me where you want to go?"

    "Well, any place――" Alice began.

    "Then you can go any way," the Cat said.

    "――if it is a place," Alice said.

    " If you walk that way, you'll get to a Hatter's house. Hatters make hats, you know. And if you walk that way, you'll find a March Hare. The Hatter's mad, and the March Hare's mad."

    " But I don't want to meet mad people," Alice said.

    Oh, there's no way not to meet them. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

    "How do you know I'm mad?" Alice asked.

    "You must be mad," the Cat said. "Everybody who comes here is mad. Are you going to play croquet with the Queen today?"

    "That would be very nice," said Alice, "but nobody has asked me yet."

    "You'll see me there," the Cheshire Cat said.

    It did not go away, but it was not there any more. It just disappeared. Alice did not wonder about this, but she was still looking at the place when it appeared again. " What happened to the baby?" it asked.

    "It became a pig," Alice said.

    "I thought it would," said the Cat, and disappeared again.

    Alice waited. "Perhaps it will appear again," she thought. But it did not appear, and she began to walk towards the March Hare's home.

    "I have seen hatters before," she said to herself. "I would like to see a March Hare. This is May, not march, so perhaps the March Hare isn't very mad."

    Just then, she looked up, and there was the Cheshire Cat again, sitting in another tree.

    "Did you say pig, or fig?" said the Cat.

    "I said pig," Alice answered. "And please stop appearing and disappearing so quickly. I don't like it."

    The Cat disappeared a little at a time. The last part that Alice could see was its grin. It was there after the other parts had gone.

    " I have seen a cat without a grin very many times," Alice thought. "but a grin without a cat! I never saw anything like that before."

    When the Cheshire Cat's grin had gone, Alice began to walk again towards the March Hare's house. She saw it through the trees, and it was not so small as the Duchess's house. Alice had the bits of mushroom in her pockets. She quickly ate a little of the bit that made her bigger. Then she walked towards the house.

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