There's no way to please them. As if it were not hard work to hatch the
eggs, but I must watch for snakes night and day! Why I haven't had a
wink of sleep these three weeks!"

"It's too bad for you to be so much put out," said Al-ice, who be-gan to
see what it meant.

"And just as I had built my nest in this high tree," the bird went on,
rais-ing its voice to a shriek, "and just as I thought I should be free
of them at last, they must needs fall down from the sky! Ugh! Snake!"

"But I'm not a snake, I tell you!" said Al-ice. "I'm a--I'm a--"

"Well! What are you?" said the bird. "I can see you will not tell me the
truth!"

"I--I'm a lit-tle girl," said Al-ice, though she was not sure what she
was when she thought of all the chang-es she had gone through that day.

"I've seen girls in my time, but none with such a neck as that!" said
the bird. "No! no! You're a snake; and there's no use to say you're not.
I guess you'll say next that you don't eat eggs!"

"Of course I eat eggs," said Al-ice, "but girls eat eggs quite as much
as snakes do, you know."

"I don't know," said the bird, "but if they do, why then they're a kind
of snake, that's all I can say."

This was such a new thing to Al-ice that at first, she did not speak,
which gave the bird a chance to add, "You want eggs now, I know that
quite well."

"But I don't want eggs, and if I did I should-n't want yours. I don't
like them raw."

"Well, be off, then!" said the bird as it sat down in its nest.

Al-ice crouched down through the trees as well as she could, for her
neck would twist round the boughs, and now and then she had to stop to
get it off. At last, she thought of the mush-room in her hands, and set
to work with great care, to take a small bite first from the right hand,
then from the left, till at length she brought her-self down to the
right size.

It was so long since she had been this height, that it felt quite
strange, at first, but she soon got used to it.

"Come, there's half my plan done now!" she said. "How strange all these
things are! I'm not sure one hour, what I shall be the next! I'm glad
I'm back to my right size: the next thing is, to get in-to that
gar-den--how is that to be done, I should like to know?" As she said
this, she saw in front of her, a small house, not more than four feet
high. "Who lives there?" thought Al-ice, "it'll not do at all to come
up-on them this size: why I should scare them out of their wits!"

So