Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 5: Wool and Water (continued)

`I only hope the boat won't tipple over!' she said to herself. Oh, WHAT a lovely one! Only I couldn't quite reach it.' `And it certainly DID seem a little provoking (`almost as if it happened on purpose,' she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that she couldn't reach.

`The prettiest are always further!' she said at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.

What mattered it to her just than that the rushes had begun to fade, and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very little while--and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet-- but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious things to think about.

They hadn't gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars got fast in the water and WOULDN'T come out again (so Alice explained it afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle of it caught her under the chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks of `Oh, oh, oh!' from poor Alice, it swept her straight off the seat, and down among the heap of rushes.

However, she wasn't hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep went on with her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had happened. `That was a nice crab you caught!' she remarked, as Alice got back into her place, very much relieved to find herself still in the boat.

`Was it? I didn't see it,' Said Alice, peeping cautiously over the side of the boat into the dark water. `I wish it hadn't let go--I should so like to see a little crab to take home with me!' But the Sheep only laughed scornfully, and went on with her knitting.