_Wonder Clock_;
so down I took the key and wound it—gurr! gurr! gurr!
Click! buzz! went the wheels, and then—tick-tock! tick-tock! for the
Wonder Clock is of that kind that it will never wear out, no matter how
long it may stand in Time’s garret.
Down I sat and watched it, for every time it struck it played a pretty
song, and when the song was ended—click! click!—out stepped the drollest
little puppet-figures and went through with a dance, and I saw it all
(with my dream-cap upon my head).
But the Wonder Clock had grown rusty from long standing, and though now
and then the puppet-figures danced a dance that I knew as well as I know
my bread-and-butter, at other times they jigged a step I had never seen
before, and it came into my head that maybe a dozen or more puppet-plays
had become jumbled together among the wheels back of the clock-face.
So there I sat in the dust watching the Wonder Clock, and when it had
run down and the tunes and the puppet-show had come to an end, I took
off my dream-cap, and—whisk!—there I was back home again among my books,
with nothing brought away with me from that country but a little dust
which I found sticking to my coat, and which I have never brushed away
to this day.
Now if you also would like to go into Wonderland, you have only to hunt
up your dream-cap (for everybody has one somewhere about the house), and
to come to me, and I will show you the way to Time’s garret.
That is right! Pull the cap well down about your ears.
* * * * *
Here we are! And now I will wind the clock. Gurr! gurr! gurr!
_Tick-tock! tick-tock!_
[Illustration]
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