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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The escape of Alice, by Vincent
-Starrett
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The escape of Alice
-       A Christmas fantasy
-
-Author: Vincent Starrett
-
-Release Date: December 22, 2022 [eBook #69601]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-             produced from images generously made available by The
-             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF ALICE ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                          A Christmas Fantasy
-
-
-
-
-                          The Escape of Alice
-
-                          A Christmas Fantasy
-
-                                  By
-
-                           Vincent Starrett
-
-
-                            [Illustration]
-
-
-                         PRIVATELY PRINTED AT
-                         CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA FOR
-                         THE FRIENDS OF LUTHER
-                         ALBERTUS AND ELINORE
-                         TAYLOR BREWER CHRISTMAS
-                         NINETEEN NINETEEN
-
-
-
-
-                            Copyright 1919
-                          By Vincent Starrett
-
-
-
-
-                            TO OUR FRIENDS
-
-
-It has been well said, that a friend in need is a friend indeed.
-
-Such a friend, Vincent Starrett, of Chicago, has proven to be to us.
-
-Last year, more to our regret than to the regret of our friends, we
-were compelled reluctantly to forego the pleasure and privilege of
-holding a session with them around our fireplace or beneath our reading
-lamp.
-
-And a similar situation was imminent at this Christmas time――when our
-good fairy, Mr. Starrett, one morning dropped on our desk _The Escape
-of Alice_ with the cheerful message, “It is yours, Brewer, for your
-Christmas booklet, if you want it.”
-
-So here it is――a pleasant Christmas fantasy――sent to our friends of old
-and to some new ones, with all the best greetings of the season.
-
-                                                          THE BREWERS
-
-December 25 1919
-
-
-
-
-                          THE ESCAPE OF ALICE
-
-
-The red linen covers opened slightly, and a little girl slipped out,
-leaving behind her a curious vacancy in one of the familiar pictures
-signed with Mr. Tenniel’s initials. She looked about her with bright,
-alert eyes, hoping no one had been a witness to her desertion, and then
-carefully began to climb down. She need not have alarmed herself, for
-she was no bigger than a minute, and clearer eyes than those of the
-rheumatic old antiquarian who kept the shop would have been needed to
-comprehend her departure. Fortunately, the shelf onto which she had
-emerged was not high, and by exercising great caution the little girl
-was able to reach the floor without mishap.
-
-Still watching the old man closely, she reached a hand into the pocket
-of her print dress and produced a few crumbs of cake, which she
-immediately ate. Almost instantly she began to grow, and, in a moment,
-from a tiny little mite of three or four inches, she had shot up into
-as tall a schoolgirl of thirteen as the proudest parent could wish. The
-ascent, indeed, was so rapid that before she quite realized what had
-happened, there was her head on a level with the shelf upon which, only
-an instant before, she had been standing; and there was the prison
-from which she had escaped. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” read
-the gold letters over the door.
-
-She plucked the volume from its place, and advanced with it toward the
-guardian of the bookshop.
-
-“If it is not too high,” said Alice, “I think I shall take this.”
-
-The old bookseller, whose wits had been woolgathering for many years,
-would not have admitted for worlds that he had not heard her enter the
-shop. He took the book from her hand.
-
-“You choose wisely,” he said, and patted the red covers lovingly.
-“Alice――the ageless child! It is one of the greatest compendiums of
-wit and sense in literature. There are only two books to match it. You
-shall have it for fifteen cents, for it is far from new, and I see what
-I had not noticed before, that the frontispiece is missing.”
-
-“And what are the other two?” asked Alice, eagerly.
-
-“When you are older you will read them,” said the old bookman. “They
-are called ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘The Pickwick Papers’.”
-
-Then very suddenly Alice blushed, for she remembered that she could not
-pay. Timidly, she handed back the red-covered volume.
-
-“I am sorry,” she said, “but I have no money. I don’t know why I was so
-stupid as to come away without any.”
-
-“Money!” cried the antiquarian. “Did I ask you money for this book?
-Forgive me! It is a habit I have fallen into for which I am very
-sorry. Money is the least important thing in the world. Only the
-worthless things are to be had for money. Those things which are beyond
-price――thank God!――are to be had for the asking. Take it, child!
-Tomorrow is Christmas day. I should be grieved indeed if there were no
-_Alice_ for you on Christmas day――as grieved as if there were no Santa
-Claus.”
-
-There was something so unearthly about this strange old man that Alice
-wondered if she were not yet in Wonderland. With a sobriety quite out
-of keeping with her usually merry disposition, she thanked him and went
-forth into the snow-clad streets.
-
-                   *       *       *       *       *
-
-The plethora of Santa Clauses spending the holiday week-end in the city
-bewildered Alice, and now, after a long afternoon in the hurly-burly
-of metropolitan life, she was becoming tired. The number of Santa
-Clauses resident upon earth appalled her, and the extravagance of their
-promises, while pleasant enough, almost frightened her. Without any
-questions asked――even her address, which, had it been requested, would
-have taxed her wits rather severely――they accepted her commissions and
-guaranteed immediate delivery. The final excursion through the great
-department stores had been adventurous and diverting, but now――toward
-nightfall――was becoming monotonous, what with its profusion of Kris
-Kringles and street hawkers, and its babble of eleventh hour shoppers.
-It was like witnessing a really thrilling movie drama for the second
-time, thought Alice, who had initiated herself into the delights of
-moving-picture entertainment for the first time that day, and wondered
-at its remarkable duplication. By five o’clock the little girl knew
-just what each and every Santa Claus was going to say to her, and what
-was coming next, and that one――at least――of the three remaining Santas
-would want to kiss her. She had been kissed almost to death, as it was,
-and that was beginning to bore her, too.
-
-It occurred to Alice, who was a shrewd little girl and not one of your
-bleating lambs, that Santa Claus, despite his profusion――or because of
-it――might be something of an old fraud, after all. She was entirely
-certain that not one of him resembled the jolly old saint of her mental
-picture. The cottony fellow at Wanacooper’s was not a bit red and
-chubby, nor very jovial either; and she hoped that the others――at the
-Emporium, and the Bargain Store, and the Bon Marché――would agree more
-sympathetically, as to corpulence, with the merry and very dear old
-gentleman of her favorite poem.
-
-She repeated the first lines, softly, under her breath:
-
-    _’Twas the night before Christmas,
-      And all through the house
-    Not a creature was stirring,
-      Not even a mouse...._
-
-Well, that was not not surprising. Obviously, all the creatures who
-might otherwise have been stirring about the house on the night before
-Christmas were crowding and jostling each other in department stores,
-buying useless presents for people they didn’t like. Alice thought it
-odd that this hadn’t occurred to her before. It made the beginning of
-the poem quite clear.
-
-The Santa Claus at the Emporium was entirely surrounded by children.
-Entirely surrounded? Why not? The schoolroom definition of an island
-is authority for it: “An island is a body of land entirely surrounded
-by water.” Sticklers for accuracy will have it that the “entirely” is
-extraneous. If, they say, if he――or it――that is, Santa Claus or the
-island――is surrounded by anything (whether water or children), he――or
-it――is surrounded, and that is all there is to it. Not “entirely
-surrounded”; just surrounded. Happily, Alice knew nothing of this.
-As for us, we are nothing if not independent, and care nothing for
-grammarians――nothing at all. The Santa Claus at the Emporium was
-entirely surrounded by children, just like all his duplicates, and, in
-the midst of an alarming racket, was writing long lists of juvenile
-wants in a big bookkeeper’s ledger. The big bookkeeper was nowhere
-about, and so the old fellow went right ahead, just as if it had been
-his own ledger, and filled as many columns as a child wished, in the
-most amiable manner in the world. He was the nicest Santa Claus Alice
-had yet seen.
-
-He did not immediately notice Alice, who was neither larger nor smaller
-than most of the other children shouting around him; but when he did
-notice her he liked her right away. He liked the old-fashioned way of
-her, and her last century clothes, and from the way she looked at him
-he was sure that _she_, at least, believed in him, and wasn’t dropping
-in just to see how much she could get out of him. And then he hurried,
-so that he could finish quickly with the others and get around to
-Alice. It wasn’t very long until there she was――right up beside him,
-with his dear old whiskers tickling her shell-like ears (one of them,
-anyway), and his pen poised over a perfectly blank page, ready to write
-down anything that Alice asked him to. And his voice, too, was very
-pleasant.
-
-“Now,” said this kindly old saint, adjusting his eyebrows with some
-care, for they were slightly moth-eaten and appeared to be falling
-off――and no wonder, either, for some hundreds of boys and girls had
-been leaning against them all day――“Now,” said this nice old man, “what
-do you wish me to bring _you_ for Christmas, little Golden-hair?”
-
-There was something charming about the way he emphasized the _you_ that
-put Alice at ease immediately. So she told him all about the lovely
-doll, and the darling kitten, and the sweet bird she wanted, and had
-been wanting for a long time, and all about the books she needed with
-which to catch up on the world. For she had been locked away for so
-long that she felt a bit out of date, and such phrases as “League of
-Nations” and “Maple Nut Sundae” simply meant nothing to her, while they
-were the common property of every other girl and boy in the land.
-
-The good-natured old soul wrote them all down very carefully, and then
-kissed Alice just as she had expected he would. He promised faithfully
-to deliver every one of her orders, in person, and warned her about
-seeing that the hearth fire was extinguished before midnight.
-
-“Because promptly at midnight,” he said, “I shall come down the
-chimley.”
-
-Alice giggled at that.
-
-“You mean the chimney, don’t you?” she asked.
-
-“Chimney, indeed!” snorted Santa Claus. “After all these years, don’t
-you think I know the difference between a chimney and a chimley? No,
-sir! I come down a chimley, every time. I’ll leave it to everyone here.”
-
-And turning to the crowd of boys and girls around him, he asked: “How
-do I get into the house, children?”
-
-“Down the chimley!” roared the chorus.
-
-“You see?” said Santa Claus.
-
-Alice did see, and felt very much ashamed of her display of ignorance.
-
-“Never mind,” said Santa Claus, kindly. “But I think,” he added, “you
-had better go with my assistant, and be quite sure we have all these
-things in stock. He’ll be glad to show you around. It’s all free, you
-know. Just look around as long as you like, and if you see anything
-else you want, come right back and tell me about it.”
-
-There was a little boy standing beside Santa Claus, with a metal tag
-on his collar, and the generous old gentleman turned to him and told
-him to go and fetch his――that is, Santa Claus’s――assistant. While Alice
-was waiting, a lot of other children pushed forward, and Alice was
-pretty nearly forgotten. But after a while she heard some one say,
-“He’s coming now. He’ll be here in just a minute, now,” and at the same
-moment she saw Santa Claus’s assistant coming toward her.
-
-He was a sprightly little fellow, and Alice decided to like him. He
-came up in a sort of blue-green light, which danced all around him, and
-without the slightest hesitation Alice took his hand and walked away
-with him.
-
-The little man’s fingers were so cold and hard, though, that Alice was
-surprised, and when she was sure he wasn’t looking she looked him over
-earnestly. After she had done that, she almost screamed, used as she
-was to odd things in Wonderland. For the little man was made of wood.
-Everything was wood, and Alice was holding on to his wooden fingers,
-and he was talking out of his wooden mouth, and the whole affair was
-the most wooden episode Alice could remember. His remarks concerning
-some of the books Alice wanted, the little girl thought, were the most
-wooden thing about him. But the little man’s face was rather nice, for
-it was highly painted in blue and green, and he had bright yellow eyes
-that fairly sparkled with enamel.
-
-“Let’s see,” said the wooden man. “Dolls were first on the list,
-weren’t they? Well, here we are. We call this room ‘The Kingdom of
-Dolls,’ although as a matter of fact it is ruled by a Queen, and never
-did have a King, because the Queen is rather old and nobody will marry
-her. And as she won’t allow any of the other dolls to marry until she
-herself finds a King, it makes it hard for the younger ones.”
-
-“Dear me,” said Alice. “Do you suppose I might get a peep at the Queen,
-without being seen?”
-
-“Easy enough,” said the wooden man, “for there she is――that long-haired
-doll with the purple robe. She likes to be looked at, and I need hardly
-remark that her hair is false. She’s awfully stuck up, though, and we
-won’t tarry long, for she’d only snub us.”
-
-“What a funny crown she is wearing,” laughed Alice, turning her head to
-look back.
-
-“You may well say so,” said the wooden man, ironically, “for it is made
-of kistletoe. She never takes it off!”
-
-“Kistletoe!” said Alice, and then, forgetting her humiliating experience
-about the chimley, “Don’t you mean mistletoe?”
-
-“No, I mean kistletoe,” replied the wooden man, rather impatiently.
-“Everybody knows what kistletoe is. But then, perhaps you are too
-young. When you are older you will know more.”
-
-“I’m thirteen,” said Alice, with proper dignity.
-
-“Thirteen!” shrieked the wooden man, so loudly that Alice felt sure
-she had offended again. “What a dreadfully unlucky number! I should be
-frightened to death to be thirteen. How long have you been thirteen?”
-
-“Nearly two months now,” Alice confessed, miserably. Then she
-brightened. “But everybody has to be thirteen sometime. Weren’t you
-ever thirteen?”
-
-“Never!” declared the wooden man, firmly. “When my thirteenth birthday
-approached, I tore off an entire year of the calendar, and passed
-right into my fourteenth year. Of course, there was a fearful row
-about it! But it’s really just like skipping a grade at school. If
-you’re smart enough you can do it. We have some very nice calendars,”
-he added, professionally.
-
-Alice was frankly bewildered, but she had forgotten her wounded
-dignity. In a moment her attention was attracted by a succession of
-melodious sounds, ending on a queer upward inflection that seemed to
-leave the phrase unfinished, and hanging in the air.
-
-“Do listen!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that too sweet? It sounds like a
-bird singing.”
-
-“Most birds do,” said the wooden man, drily. “That’s your bird,” he
-added, more politely. “You asked for a bird, you know.”
-
-“But why does it end its song so abruptly?” asked Alice. “It doesn’t
-seem to finish.”
-
-“Confinement,” answered the little guide, briefly. “Its cage is too
-small. Its notes only reach the top of the cage, and then echo back
-into its own ears, which naturally surprises it into silence. It’s too
-bad, for it’s losing its upper register. It once sang very well.”
-
-“I shall let it go when I get it,” declared Alice, with decision.
-
-“You may do as you please, of course,” agreed the wooden man, “but
-you’ll only be wanting another one, next Christmas.”
-
-They hurried forward, pressing through the crowd about the cage. It
-was humorous the way the people fell back on either side of the wooden
-man’s sharp-elbows. What they saw, when they reached the cage, was a
-beautiful yellow bird with black wings, and big black eyes, swinging
-and singing on a perch of gold.
-
-“Wound up too tightly,” muttered the wooden man. “One of the monkeys
-has been monkeying with the key.”
-
-With a ferocious glare at the children around him, he reached in a
-hand, and Alice heard a sharp click. The bird stopped singing in the
-middle of a note. Then the wooden man lifted the little creature from
-its perch and brought it forth with as little concern as if it were
-made of wood, too.
-
-“Oh!” cried Alice, in distress. “You mustn’t hurt the bird! It wasn’t
-its fault that somebody monkeyed with the key.”
-
-The word _monkeyed_ puzzled her, but she supposed it was all right,
-since that was what the wooden man had said.
-
-But the wooden man only laughed and held out the bird for her
-inspection. Then Alice saw that it was not a real bird at all, but was
-made of thin metal so skilfully painted as to look real.
-
-“You forget this is Toyland,” grinned the wooden man. “This bird is no
-more real than I am, than these children are――than you are!”
-
-“Ain’t I real?” asked Alice, in alarm. Quickly correcting herself, she
-said: “Am I not real?”
-
-“Real enough,” said the wooden man, casually. “A real nuisance,” he
-muttered, under his breath; but fortunately Alice did not hear this
-rude remark. He continued, more pleasantly: “Oh, the bird is real
-enough, too. But it’s been wound up too tightly. It doesn’t know what
-it is singing, or why it is singing. It lacks a soul.”
-
-This remark was too deep for Alice, so she made no reply. After a
-minute, she asked:
-
-“Aren’t there any more animals?”
-
-“Birds aren’t animals,” sneered the wooden man, and then he was very
-much ashamed of himself. “I beg your pardon,” he said, contritely. “I
-had forgotten you are only thirteen.” (He shuddered as he mentioned
-the sinister number.) “Well, yes, there is the Performing Pony, and
-the Whistling Toad, and the Talking Dog, and the Teddy Bear, and the
-Laughing Hyena, and the Sorrowful Snake, and the Ingenious Ibex, and
-the Loquacious Lynx, and――Oh, we have quite a menagerie!”
-
-He looked quizzically at Alice, and suddenly began to sing:
-
-    _O, ferocious and atrocious is the beast they call the lynx;
-    And fierce his howl, and black his scowl, and red his jowl,
-        methinks...._
-
-“You have a very nice voice,” said Alice, as the singer paused.
-
-“I wish you wouldn’t interrupt,” snapped the wooden man. “First you
-want to hear about the animals, and then you don’t.” He stopped short.
-“Do you really like my voice?” he asked eagerly. Then his head drooped
-woodenly, for he saw that Alice was no longer paying attention.
-
-“I haven’t much of a voice myself,” mused the little girl, “but I think
-I could speak a piece.”
-
-“Let’s hear it,” urged the wooden man. And moment Alice heard herself
-reciting:
-
-    _I thought I heard a parson swear
-      Because his eyes were sore;
-    I turned around, and saw it was
-      The watchdog’s honest snore.
-    “Alas,” he whispered, tearfully,
-      “That two times two is four!”_
-
-    _I thought I saw a mastodon
-      Upon the pantry shelf;
-    I looked again, and saw it was
-      A picture of myself.
-    “O dear,” I said, “the albatross
-      Is eating all the pelf!”_
-
-“What’s pelf?” demanded the wooden man, critically.
-
-“Pelf is――I think it’s something to eat,” explained Alice. “But I
-didn’t have to say pelf, could have said elf, or delf――”
-
-“Or skjelf!” jeered the wooden man. “Poetic license is a dangerous
-thing for a girl of thirteen. I shall see that yours is revoked at
-once.”
-
-Alice began to cry with shame and humiliation.
-
-“There, there,” cried the wooden man, ashamed of himself again. “I was
-only plaguing you. You rhyme beautifully――much better than I do. Now,
-let’s go and see P. D.”
-
-“P. D.?” queried Alice, drying her tears. “Who is P. D.?”
-
-“Why the Plausible Donkey, to be sure,” laughed the wooden man. “You
-said you wanted to see some more animals.”
-
-“Why don’t you call him D. P.?” asked Alice, after a moment, as they
-walked toward the menagerie.
-
-“Why?” The wooden man seemed suspicious.
-
-“Democratic Party,” giggled Alice; and then stopped as she caught sight
-of the wooden man’s face, which was contorted with pain. “I beg your
-pardon,” she added, hastily.
-
-But the wooden man wouldn’t speak another word until they had arrived
-at the Donkey Shelter, when he became cheerful once more.
-
-“Let me introduce you to the Plausible Donkey,” he said, gallantly.
-
-“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Donkey,” said Alice, timidly. “What beautiful
-eyes you have.”
-
-“The better to see you with, my child,” quoted the Plausible Donkey,
-just to show that he was not such a donkey as he looked. “What can I do
-for you to-day?”
-
-“Can you sing?” asked Alice, innocently.
-
-“Heavens!” groaned the wooden man, in her ear. “Now you’ve done it! He
-has no more voice than a crow!”
-
-But the Plausible Donkey was pleased by the question.
-
-“It is not surprising that you do not know my ability in that respect,”
-he smiled, “since this is your first visit. The fact is――” He blushed
-modestly. “The fact is, I am descended from that notable singer,
-Maxwelton.”
-
-“Maxwelton!” echoed Alice, in surprise. “I thought that was a song.”
-
-“It was originally,” the Plausible Donkey said plausibly. “My ancestor
-was named after the song because his brays were bonnie.”
-
-“Oh,” said Alice, politely; but the wooden man snickered and spoiled it
-all.
-
-“You’re making fun of me,” she cried, with tears in her voice, “and I
-don’t want to hear you sing now.”
-
-She hurried away, leaving the wooden man to apologize as best he could
-for Alice’s impoliteness. He was puffing mightily when he overtook her.
-
-“I think we’ve had enough of animals,” he said between gasps. “Let’s
-go over and see the books.” It was evident, even to Alice, that he was
-getting tired of his charge.
-
-They were in the book department before they knew it――before Alice
-knew it, at any rate. All around them were books――heaps and heaps of
-them――on tables and shelves, and piled on long counters, and hung up in
-booths; and in the very center of the immense room, whose horizon could
-not be seen for the stacks of books, was a great American Eagle, made
-entirely of books, the work of the chief window-dresser, who was a very
-literary man.
-
-“Have you ‘The Young Visiters’?” asked Alice.
-
-“Young visitors!” echoed the wooden man. “Santa Claus has dozens of
-them――hundreds――every day. Thousands, I guess!”
-
-“Silly! It’s a book,” said Alice. “It was written by a friend of mine,
-Daisy Ashford, when she was only nine years old.”
-
-The wooden man looked very suspiciously at his charge.
-
-“Nobody could write a book at nine,” he said with finality.
-
-“Daisy could, and did,” declared Alice.
-
-“Nobody could get it published, anyway,” sneered the wooden man. “Of
-course, anybody could write one.”
-
-“And she had it published, and here it is!” cried Alice, triumphantly.
-She snatched a book from a long counter, and presented it to her
-companion.
-
-The wooden man cautiously took it, turned it over, and handed it back.
-
-“Where does it say she is only nine years old?” he demanded.
-
-“In the preface, of course,” answered Alice. “She’s older now, but she
-was only nine when she wrote it.”
-
-She whirled over the leaves until she found the place.
-
-“There it is! Sir James Barrie himself says so, in the preface.”
-
-“Humph!” said the wooden man. “He probably wrote it himself. And he
-wasn’t nine when he wrote it, either, although he’s pretty childish, at
-that. He’s writing introductions, now, for anybody.”
-
-“He would at least know how to spell visitors, wouldn’t he?”
-
-The wooden man stared at the cover. At sight of the title he was
-visibly shaken.
-
-“It might be a typographical error,” he ventured. “But, if you know
-this Daisy Ashford, what’s her book about?”
-
-“It’s about a man who――who was in love with――with a young woman,”
-lucidly explained Alice. “He was rather an old man, and――”
-
-“Then Barrie wrote it!” interrupted the wooden man. “That ends _that_!”
-
-“It doesn’t end anything,” cried Alice, almost in tears. “And he
-doesn’t write as many introductions as H. G. Wells, anyway!”
-
-“O-ho!” said the wooden man. “Well?”
-
-“Wells!” said Alice, sharply. “Wells, Wells! How many wells make a
-river?”
-
-“Really,” admonished the wooden man, “you mustn’t get out of temper. I
-don’t like Wells any more than you do. I find it difficult to get to
-the bottom of them....” He fell to singing:
-
-    _Mr. Britling saw it through,
-    That was more than I could do!
-    Central, ring up Heaven’s bells――
-    Get me God, for H. G. Wells._
-
-Alice appeared shocked at this levity.
-
-“You should not be so Leviticus,” she said, “even in a good cause.”
-
-“I don’t mean to be irrelevant,” replied the wooden man. “I was only
-reviewing Mr. Wells in rhyme. Would you like to hear the next verse?
-It’s about Amy Lowell.”
-
-“I don’t believe I’d better,” answered Alice, nervously. “Is she
-anything like Daisy Ashford?”
-
-“They’re not exactly as like as twins,” admitted the wooden man. “Your
-Daisy is rather――er――slender, is she not?”
-
-“Oh, very!”
-
-“Then she’s not,” said the wooden man, with conviction. “I have never
-seen Amy Lowell, but Mr. Bitter Wynner, who was here one day last week,
-told me that he had got up in a street car and offered to be one of
-three men to give Miss Lowell a seat.”
-
-“Dear me!” exclaimed Alice. “She needs some of my cake.”
-
-“Cake?” asked the wooden man.
-
-But Alice, fearing she had betrayed herself, would say no more about it.
-
-“Well,” said the wooden man, “we’ve checked on the doll, and the bird,
-and the books. There was to be a kitten, I believe. That means that
-we’ll have to go back to the menagerie.”
-
-“I won’t go back to the menagerie,” Alice said firmly, “and if the
-kittens are no more polite than the donkeys, I won’t have one.”
-
-“You’ll have to ask Santa Claus to strike it off the list then, or
-you’ll have it sure tomorrow morning. And we’ll have to hustle, too,
-for the old boy closes up at eight o’clock. He went on strike for a
-shorter day, last month――seven hundred of him――and after eight o’clock
-he won’t do a lick of work.”
-
-“Let’s hurry,” cried Alice, breathlessly.
-
-So they hurried back through the teeming aisles, past the Plausible
-Donkey, who brayed after them jeeringly, past the Singing Bird, which
-offered to finish its song if they would only tarry, past the stuck-up
-Queen of the Dolls, who ogled the Wooden Man, shamefully, and at length
-arrived at the cottony dwelling of Santa Claus. But――alas!――the door
-now was closed, and tacked to the outer panel was a large sign, “Gone
-to the Races. Back Next Year.”
-
-“Oh!” said Alice, “isn’t it provoking! Now I shall have to have a
-kitten, after all――and I suppose it will eat the bird, and scratch the
-doll, and tear up the books, and make me angry all day long.”
-
-“No doubt,” said the wooden man, callously.
-
-“But what does he mean by the races?” asked curious Alice.
-
-“The reindeer races,” replied the wooden man. “They race annually on
-Saturn’s race track, and the winning Santa Claus is the boss Santa
-Claus of the year, and makes the rounds on Christmas eve. It doesn’t
-take a minute to get there, and probably by this time the races are
-over.”
-
-“I hope our Santa Claus won, don’t you?” cried Alice.
-
-“What’s the difference?” asked the wooden man. “They all look alike.”
-
-“That’s so,” said Alice, reflectively, “but this one was very nice.”
-
-“They’re paid to be nice,” said the wooden man cynically. “I’m paid to
-be nice. You don’t think I’ve been piloting _you_ round all afternoon
-for fun, do you?”
-
-“Well,” said Alice, with spirit, “I like that! I’m sure if I knew
-who paid you, I’d report you and you wouldn’t get a penny. You don’t
-deserve it, for you haven’t been nice. I shall leave you, this minute.”
-
-“Good-bye,” grinned the wooden man, mockingly. “Close the door after
-you as you go out.”
-
-                   *       *       *       *       *
-
-“That was a very rude wooden man,” thought Alice to herself, as, half
-blinded with tears, she hurried through the snowy streets. “It is very
-evident that he tore off his thirteenth year. That is the year when
-people learn to be polite. And he said I was not real! I never knew
-till I was thirteen how real I was.”
-
-Without quite knowing where she was going, unconsciously her footsteps
-strayed toward the shop of the old bookman, the only friend she had
-found who seemed to be genuine. The precious volume, which once she had
-thought a prison, was safe beneath her arm. Well, she knew now what she
-would do. She would give it back, and if the old man were so kind as to
-let her, she would creep back into the pages, and be happy there again
-forever....
-
-“Poor child,” smiled the old bookman, when she had related her
-adventures, and cried over them. “Indeed he did need his thirteenth
-year. That is the age at which one best appreciates what reality is.
-Once learned, it is a lesson never to be forgotten. To the child of
-thirteen, all things are real if they are beautiful, and all things
-are unreal which are ugly. Anything is real that we want to be real.
-Sensible writers, like Barrie, learn this at thirteen and tear off
-_all_ the remaining years of the calendar. Time passes, but they remain
-thirteen; they improve their style, their appreciation of beautiful
-things deepens, their outlook is broader and finer, but at heart they
-are still children. They have never escaped from their thirteenth year,
-and they never will――and they are very glad about it.”
-
-To this astonishing harangue, Alice had no reply, for truth to tell she
-understood very little of it; but it sounded real, and she liked the
-look on the old bookman’s face as he said it.
-
-“Would you mind, sir,” she timidly asked, “if I were to creep back into
-my book, and hide again on your shelf?”
-
-“Are you quite sure you can manage it?” asked the old man.
-
-“Oh, yes,” said Alice, “for I still have a piece of cake that I brought
-with me. I had two pieces――one to make me grow, and one to make me
-small again. Just watch me!”
-
-Then she took a few crumbs of cake from her pocket and began to eat
-them; and the old bookman standing by, saw her shrink down and down and
-down, until she was such a tiny little thing at his feet that his eyes
-could barely find her.
-
-He picked her up gently, and opened the book lying on the counter.
-
-“You must find the place,” he said: “Do you remember it?”
-
-With a little sigh of relief, Alice slipped into the right picture,
-where, to her great joy, she fitted like a glove――and suddenly the
-picture was complete again, and the old bookman turning the leaves over
-could not find her――there were so many of her, and he did not know
-which one was really _her_.
-
-Suddenly the book fell from his hand, and clattered onto the floor,
-striking his foot as it fell. At the same instant, of course, he awoke,
-sitting in his chair near the old stove. He smiled a little, but was
-not surprised, for he was used to dreaming strange and pleasant dreams.
-As he stooped to pick up the book, a customer entered the store.
-
-“What have you there?” asked the stranger, looking at the book in the
-old man’s hand. “‘Alice in Wonderland?’ Charming thing! What do you ask
-for it?”
-
-“Not this copy,” said the old man, firmly. “This is my personal copy.
-This is one book you cannot buy.”
-
-
-
-
-                    TWO HUNDRED COPIES OF THIS BOOK
-                    WERE PRINTED BY THE TORCH PRESS
-                    CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA IN THE MONTH
-                    OF DECEMBER NINETEEN NINETEEN
-
-
-                   *       *       *       *       *
-
-
- Transcriber’s Notes:
-
- ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
-
- ――Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently
-   corrected.
-
- ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
-
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF ALICE ***
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