Chapter: It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking
anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; Alice heard it
muttering to itself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my
fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are
ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a
moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid-gloves
and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were
nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her swim in
the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door,
had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called to her, in an angry tone,
"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!"

"He took me for his housemaid!" said Alice, as she ran off. "How
surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!" As she said this, she
came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass
plate with the name "W. RABBIT" engraved upon it. She went in without
knocking and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the
real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the
fan and gloves.

By this time, Alice had found her way into a tidy little room with a
table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny
white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was
just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle
that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her
lips, saying to herself, "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for,
really, I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!"

Before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing
against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
broken. She hastily put down the bottle, remarking, "That's quite
enough--I hope I sha'n't grow any more."

Alas! It was too late to wish that! She went on growing and growing and
very soon she had to kneel down on the floor. Still she went on growing,
and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window and one foot
up the chimney, and said to herself, "Now I can do no more, whatever
happens. What _will_ become of me?"

[Illustration]

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect
and she grew no larger. 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 a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was
the Rabbit coming to look for her and she trembled till she shook the
house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large
as the Rabbit and had no reason to be afraid of it.

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door and tried to open it; but as
the door opened inwards and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it,
that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself, "Then I'll
go 'round and get in at the window."

"_That_ you won't!" thought Alice; and after waiting till she fancied
she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her
hand and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything,
but she heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of broken glass,
from which she concluded that it was just 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 had never heard before, "Sure then, I'm here! Digging
for apples, yer honor!"

"Here! Come and help me out of this! Now tell me, Pat, what's that in
the window?"

"Sure, it's an arm, yer honor!"

"Well, it's got no business there, at any rate; go and take it away!"

There was a long silence after this and Alice could only hear whispers
now and then, and 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. "I wonder what they'll do next!" thought Alice.
"As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they _could_!"

She waited for some time without hearing anything more. At last came a
rumbling of little cart-wheels and the sound of a good many voices all
talking together. She made out the words: "Where's the other ladder?
Bill's got the other--Bill! Here, Bill! Will the roof bear?--Who's to go
down the chimney?--Nay, _I_ sha'n't! _You_ do it! Here, Bill! The master
says you've got to go down the chimney!"

Alice drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could and waited till
she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling about in the chimney
close above her; then 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!"
then the Rabbit's voice alone--"Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then
silence and then another confusion of voices--"Hold up his head--Brandy
now--Don't choke him--What happened to you?"

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, "Well, I hardly know--No
more, thank ye. I'm better now--all I know is, something comes at me
like a Jack-in-the-box and up I goes like a sky-rocket!"

After a minute or two of silence, they began moving about again, and
Alice heard the Rabbit say, "A barrowful will do, to begin with."

"A barrowful of _what_?" thought Alice. But she had not long to doubt,
for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the
window and some of them hit her in the face. Alice noticed, with some
surprise, that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they
lay on the floor and a bright idea came into her head. "If I eat one of
these cakes," she thought, "it's sure to make _some_ change in my size."

So she swallowed one of the cakes and was delighted to find that she
began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through
the door, she ran out of the house and found quite a crowd of little
animals and birds waiting outside. They all made a rush at Alice the
moment she appeared, but she ran off as hard as she could and soon found
herself safe in a thick wood.

[Illustration: "The Duchess tucked her arm affectionately into
Alice's."]

"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she
wandered about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size again; and the
second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I suppose I
ought to eat or drink something or other, but the great question is
'What?'"

Alice looked all around her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but
she could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or
drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near
her, about the same height as herself. She stretched herself up on
tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a
large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its arms
folded, quietly smoking a long hookah and taking not the smallest notice
of her or of anything else.

 This chapter opens with Alice again running into the White Rabbit. The Rabbit is running back toward Alice because he has lost his Gloves and Fan Alice doesn't have them though, so she can't help him. But then the Rabbit mistakes Alice for his maid and commands her back to his cottage for the items in question. Still operating as a child, Alice immediately responds to the authority in his voice and runs back to the cottage to get the Gloves and the Fan. In the cottage Alice doesn't find the items in question, but instead she finds another bottle of liquid, which, though it has no label directing her to do so, she drinks. And she grows. And she gets herself stuck in the cottage because she is too big. And there, in the cottage, her too personalities have a bit of an argument until the Rabbit shows up calling out for his maid, Mary Ann. The Rabbit tries to get in, but Alice fills the house so completely that the doors are jammed. Then the Rabbit is terrified by her giant arm and calls to his Gardener, Pat, for assistance. Then they summon more help with ladders. Then there is an argument about who should climb to the roof and go down the chimney and it is decided that Bill should do it . Alice hears scrambling in the chimney, decides that that is Bill and she kicks him out . Once Bill is ejected, the Rabbit calls out that house must be burned to the ground. Alice finally speaks up, threatening to sic Dinah on the lot of them. There is silence at that point. The group finally decided to throw in a barrowful of pebbles through a window. The pebbles hit Alice in the face. But then the pebbles turned into cakes, and Alice ate a few, and she shrank. Normal sized, Alice exits the cottage and is chased by the assembled animals. Luckily she is able to make her escape into a dense wood. While in the wood Alice comes upon a puppy that is very large, much larger than she. Or perhaps Alice is too small again. She can't decide. She tries to avoid the puppy for fear of being trampled, but she is sad that she can't play with the puppy. Again she decides to grow up so that she can enjoy these things she is coming upon. At this point she looks around for things to eat or drink, but instead she comes upon a caterpillar on a mushroom smoking a hookah. Little can be said about this chapter symbolically. The story returns to some standard themes about adults and children Also, the puppy in the end further illustrates how Alice can't enjoy her childhood completely when she is a child because the need to grow up is too great. It seems that big or small, Alice is out of place: a good metaphor for Adolescence where no one seems happy with the size they are or the way things are going.

