“Phew!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, when he was sure that little Mr. Thimblefinger had finished. “That beats anything I ever heard.”
“I’m glad you like it,” said Mr. Thimblefinger.
“Oh, hold on there!” protested Mr. Rabbit, “you are going too fast. I never said I liked it. I said it beat any story I ever heard, and so it does,—for length. I didn’t know that such a little chap could be so long-winded. It was such a long story that I’ve forgotten what the moral ought to be.”
“Why, I thought you said you didn’t believe much in stories that had morals tacked1 to them,” remarked Mrs. Meadows.
“No doubt I did,” replied Mr. Rabbit,—“No doubt I did. But this story was long enough to have a dozen morals cropping out in different places, like dog fennel in a cow pasture.”
“Well,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, “there was a moral or two in the story, but I didn’t call attention to them in the telling, and I’ll not dwell on them now.”
“I thought it was a tolerably fair story,” said Buster John, yet with a tone of doubt.
“Oh, I thought it was splendid all the way through,” said Sweetest Susan.
“There are some stories that are hard to tell,” suggested Mrs. Meadows. “They go in such a rambledy-wambledy way that it’s not easy to keep the track of them. I remember I once heard Chickamy Crany Crow trying to repeat a story that she heard the Looking-glass Children tell. I never found head nor tail to it, but I sat and listened almost without shutting my eyes.”
“What was the story?” asked Sweetest Susan.
In reply, Mrs. Meadows said she would call Chickamy Crany Crow, and ask her to tell it. As usual, Chickamy Crany Crow was off at play with Tickle-My-Toes. They both came when Mrs. Meadows called them, and Chickamy Crany Crow, after some persuasion3, began to tell the story.
“One day,” she said, brushing her hair behind her ears with her fingers, “I wanted to see the Looking-glass Children. Tickle-My-Toes was off playing by himself, and I was lonesome; so I went to the Looking-glass, whirled it around in its frame, and waited for the children to come out. But they didn’t come. I called them, but they made no answer. I went close to the Glass, and looked in. At first, I couldn’t see anything; but after a while I saw, away off in the Glass, one of the children,—the one they all say looks like me. I called her; but she was so far off in the Glass that she couldn’t hear me, and, as she had her face turned the other way, she couldn’t see me.
“After so long a time, she came up to the frame of the Glass, and then stepped out and sat down on the ground. I saw she had been crying.
“Says I, ‘Honey, what in the world is the matter?’ I always call her Honey when we are by ourselves.
“Says she, ‘There’s enough the matter. I’m e’en about scared to death, and I expect that all the other children in this Looking-glass are either captured, or killed, or scared to death.’
“Says I, ‘Why didn’t you holler for help?’
“Says she, ‘What good would that have done? You all could help us very well on dry land, out here, but how could you have helped us in the Looking-glass, when you can’t even get in at the door? I’ve seen you try to follow us, but you’ve always failed. You stop at the Glass, and you can’t get any farther.’
“Says I, ‘You are right about that; but if we outside folks can’t get in the Glass to play with you and keep you company, how can anybody or anything get in there to scare you and hurt you?’
“Says she, ‘The thing that scared us has been in there all the time. It was born in there, I reckon, but I’ve never seen it before; and I tell you right now I never want to see it again.’
“Says I, ‘What sort of a thing is it?’
“Says she in a whisper, ‘It’s the Woog!‘
“‘The what?’ says I.
“‘The Woog!‘ says she.
“Says I, ‘It’s new to me. I never heard of it before.’
“Says she, ‘To hear of it is as close as you want to get to it.’
“Why, I heard of the Woog in my younger days,” remarked Mr. Thimblefinger. “I thought the thing had gone out of fashion.”
“Don’t you believe a word of it,” said Chickamy Crany Crow. “It’s just as much in fashion now as ever it was, especially at certain seasons of the year. The little girl in the Looking-glass—I say little girl, though she’s about my size and shape—told me all about it; and as she lives in the same country with the Woog, she ought to know.”
“What did she say about it?” asked Buster John, who had a vague idea that he might some day be able to organize an expedition to go in search of the Woog.
“Well,” replied Chickamy Crany Crow, “she said this,—she said that she and the other children were sitting under the shade of a bazzle-bush in the Looking-glass, telling fairy stories. It had come her turn to tell a story, and she was trying to remember the one about the little girl who had a silk dress made out of a muscadine skin, when all of a sudden there was a roaring noise in the bushes near by. While they were shaking with fright, a most horrible monster came rushing out, and glared at them, growling4 all the while. It wore great green goggles5. Its hair stood out from its head on all sides, except in the bald place on top, and its ears stuck out as big as the wings of a buzzard.
“‘Do you know who I am?’ it growled6. ‘No, you don’t; but I’ll show you. I am the Woog. Do you hear that? The Woog! Don’t forget that. What did I hear you talking about just now? You were talking about fairies. Don’t say you weren’t, for I heard you.’
“‘Well,’ says one of the Looking-glass Children, ‘what harm is there in that?’
“‘Harm!’ screamed the Woog. ‘Do you want to defy me? I have caught and killed and crushed and smoked out all the fairies that ever lived on the earth, except a few that have hid themselves in this Looking-glass country. What harm, indeed!—a pretty question to ask me, when I’ve spent years and years trying to run down and smother7 out the whole fairy tribe.’
“The Looking-glass Children,” Chickamy Crany Crow continued, “told the Woog that they didn’t know there was any harm in the fairies themselves, or in talking about them. The Woog paid no attention to their apologies. He just stood and glared at them through his green goggles, gnashing his te............