UNCLE WIGGILY AND TWEEDLEDUM
"Are you in, Uncle Wiggily?" asked a voice at the hollow stump bungalow
one morning, and the rabbit gentleman looked up to see Alice from
Wonderland standing on the door sill.
"Yes, of course I'm in, my dear," he answered. "Can't you see me?"
"I can't be sure of anything I see," answered the little girl with
flaxen hair, "especially since I've been having so many queer
adventures. I used to think I saw the Cheshire cat, when it was only his
grin smiling at me. And maybe now I'm only looking at your ears, or tall
silk hat, and thinking it's you."
"No, I'm here all right," answered the bunny. "Is there anything I can
do for you?"
"Yes," answered Alice. "I'd like you to come for a walk with me. I
haven't much longer time to stay with you, and I want to have all the
fun I can."
"Are you going away?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I have very soon to go back in the book where I belong," answered
Alice. "But no matter. Come now, and we'll go look for an adventure."
So Alice and Uncle Wiggily started off over the fields and through the
woods, and they had not gone very far before they suddenly heard, among
the trees, some voices crying:
"You did it!"
"No, I didn't!"
"Yes, you did; you know you did!"
"No, I didn't! I know I didn't!"
"Well, we'll have to have a battle, anyhow!"
And then came a sound as if some one was beating a carpet with a fishing
pole and voices cried:
"Oh! Oh, dear! Ouch! Oh, how it hurts!"
"My, what in the world can that be?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "It sounds
like an adventure all right."
"I think it is," answered Alice. "It's probably Tweedledum and
Tweedledee fighting."
"Fighting? Tweedledee and Tweedledum?" asked the surprised bunny.
"Oh, it's only in fun," laughed Alice, "and they have to do it because
it's that way in the book, for if they didn't things wouldn't come out
right. Yes, there they are." And she pointed off through the trees,
where Uncle Wiggily saw two round, fat, little boys, dressed exactly the
same, and looking so like one another that no one could tell them apart,
except when they were together--just like twins, you know.
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" called Alice to the two queer fat chaps.
They were as round as barrels, both of them. Uncle Wiggily noticed that
on the collar of one was the word DUM, while on the other was the word
DEE.
"Tweedle, the rest of their name, is on the back of their collars,"
Alice explained. "As it's the same for both, they didn't need it in
front."
Then the fat boys turned around, like tops slowly spinning, and, surely
enough, on the back of the white collar of each were letters spelling
TWEEDLE.
"I'm glad to see you," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I heard you--sort
of--er--well, you know," he went on, diffident-like, not wishing to say
he had heard the brothers quarreling.
"Oh, it's all right, we do that every day," said Tweedledee.
"And, contrariwise, twice on Sunday," added Tweedledum. "We have to for
the verse about us says:
"'Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
"'Just then down flew a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar barrel,
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.'"
"Only we weren't really frightened," said Tweedledee. "We just made
believe so, and laughed at the crow. And I didn't really spoil
Tweedledum's nice new rattle, for here it is now," and taking his arm
down from around his brother's neck he took the rattle from his pocket
and shook it, making a noise like a drum.
And, just as he did that, all of a sudden, out from behind a big stump
came--not a monstrous crow, but the bad old skillery-scalery alligator,
who cried:
"Ah, ha! At last I have him! Now I'll get that Uncle Wiggily Longears
chap! Ah, ha!" and he made a grab for the gentleman bunny.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Alice. "Please don't hurt Uncle Wiggily!"
"Yes, I shall!" snapped the 'gator. "I'll bumble him and mumble him,
that's what I'll do."
"Oh, no you won't!" exclaimed Tweedledum, wabbling toward the alligator
as Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, waddled when he walked.
"I won't what?" asked the 'gator.
"You won't bumble or mumble Uncle Wiggily. First you have to catch me!"
"Pooh! That's easily done," snapped the alligator. "You are so fat that
you can't run any more than a rubber ball."
"Will you promise to let Uncle Wiggily alone until you catch me?" asked
Tweedledum, eagerly.
"I promise," said the alligator smiling to himself, for he thought he
could easily catch the fat twin, and his promise wouldn't count.
"Then here I go! Catch me!" suddenly cried Tweedledum. And with that he
stretched out on the ground and began to roll down hill in the woods.
And as he was fat and round he rolled as fast as a rubber ball, and he
rolled so fast (ever so much faster than if he had run) that when the
alligator raced after him, as he had promised he would do, why the bad
double-jointed skillery-scalery creature got all out of breath and
couldn't bumble or mumble a strawberry, to say nothing of Uncle Wiggily.
And the 'gator didn't catch the fat boy either.
So Tweedledum, rolling down hill that way, which he could do much better
than walking or running, saved the bunny uncle from the alligator, and
Mr. Longears was very glad, and so was Alice.
And if the knife and fork don't go to the candy store, just when supper
is ready, and make the spoon holder wait for them before eating the ice
cream, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Tweedledee.