CHAPTER V: Wool and Water

Prim caught the shawl as she spoke and looked about for the owner. In another moment, the White Queen came running wildly through the wood with both arms stretched out wide as if she were flying, and Prim very civilly went to meet her with the shawl.

"I'm very glad I happened to be in the way," Prim said as she helped the woman to put on her shawl again.

The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded like "bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter."

Prim thought the old woman's face was familiar, though she could not remember her name. She felt that if there was to be any conversation at all she must manage it herself. So she began rather timidly, "Am I addressing the White Queen?"

"Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing," The Queen said. "It isn't my notion of the thing, at all."

Prim thought it would never do to have an argument at the very beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said, "If your Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I can."

"But I don't want it done at all," groaned the poor Queen. "I've been a-dressing myself for the last two hours."

It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Prim, if she had got someone else to dress her; she was so dreadfully untidy. Every single thing's crooked, Prim thought to herself, and she's all over pins! "May I put your shawl straight for you?" she added aloud.

"I don't know what's the matter with it," the Queen said in a melancholy voice. "It's out of temper, I think. I've pinned it here, and I've pinned it there, but there's no pleasing it."

"It can't go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one side," Prim said, as she gently put it right for her. "And, dear me, what a state your hair is in."

"The brush has got entangled in it," the Queen said with a sigh. "And I lost the comb yesterday."

Prim carefully released the brush and did her best to get the hair into order. As she gently brushed out the woman's bangs, Prim asked, "Please forgive me, your Majesty, but I seem to have forgotten your name."

A puzzled look came over the Queen. "I seem to have forgotten myself. I do remember a long time ago that some used to call me…Wiress, I think."

"Wiress?" repeated Prim. She paused combing the woman's hair as she began to recognize the facial features and the voice. The girl returned to combing and said, "I remember now. You helped my sister."

"Incorrect!" said Wiress with a wry smile. "Your sister helped me. As with most things here, you have it backwards."

Prim simply smiled as she finished untangling the woman's hair, admiring how the woman had not lost any of her eccentric charm. "Come, you look rather better now," she said after altering most of the pins. "But really you should have a lady's maid now that you're a Queen."

"I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure," Wiress said. "Twopence a week and jam every other day."

Prim couldn't help laughing as she said, "I don't want you to hire me, and I don't care for jam."

"It's very good jam," said Wiress.

"Well, I don't want any today, at any rate."

"You couldn't have it if you did want it," Wiress said. "The rule is: Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today."

"It must come sometimes to 'jam today'," Prim objected.

"No, it can't," said Wiress. "It's jam every other day; today isn't any other day, you know."

"I don't understand you," said Prim. "It's dreadfully confusing."

"That's the effect of living backwards," Wiress said kindly. "It always makes one a little giddy at first…."

"Living backwards!" Prim repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing."

"...but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways."

"I'm sure mine only works one way," Prim remarked. "I can't remember things before they happen."

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," Wiress remarked.

"What sort of things do you remember best?" Prim ventured to ask.

"Oh, things that happened the week after next," Wiress replied in a careless tone. "For instance, now," she went on, applying a medical bandage to her finger as she spoke, "there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished, and the trial doesn't even begin till next Wednesday. And of course, the crime comes last of all."

"Suppose he never commits the crime?" said Prim.

"That would be all the better, wouldn't it?" Wiress said as she bound the medical bandage around her finger with a bit of ribbon.

Prim felt there was no denying that. "Of course it would be all the better," she said, "but it wouldn't be all the better his being punished."

"You're wrong there, at any rate," said Wiress. "Were you ever punished?"

"Only for faults," said Prim.

"And you were all the better for it, I know," the peculiar Queen said triumphantly.

"Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for," said Prim, "that makes all the difference."

"But if you hadn't done them," Wiress said, "that would have been better still, better, and better, and better!" Her voice went higher with each "better," till it got quite to a squeak at last.

Prim was just beginning to say, "There's a mistake somewhere—" when the woman began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence unfinished.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Wiress shouted, shaking her hand about as if she wanted to shake it off. "My finger's bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!" Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine that Prim had to hold both her hands over her ears.

"What is the matter?" Prim asked as soon as there was a chance of making herself heard. "Have you pricked your finger?"

"I haven't pricked it yet," Wiress said, "but I soon shall...oh, oh, oh!"

"When do you expect to do it?" Prim asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.

"When I fasten my shawl again," the poor woman groaned out, "the brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!" As she said the words, the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it and tried to clasp it again.

"Take care!" cried Prim. "You're holding it all crooked." And the young girl caught at the brooch; but it was too late; the pin had slipped, and the woman had pricked her finger.

"That accounts for the bleeding, you see," Wiress said to Prim with a smile. "Now you understand the way things happen here."

"But why don't you scream now?" Prim asked, holding her hands ready to put over her ears again.

"Why, I've done all the screaming already," said Wiress. "What would be the good of having it all over again?"

By this time, it was getting light. "The monster mockingjay must have flown away, I think," said Prim. "I'm so glad it's gone. I thought it was the night coming on."

"I wish I could manage to be glad," Wiress said. "Only I never can remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood and being glad whenever you like."

"Only it is so very lonely here," Prim said in a melancholy voice; and at the thought of her loneliness, two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh, don't go on like that," cried the poor woman, her hands wringing in despair. "Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you've come today. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider anything, only don't cry."

Prim could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears. "Can you keep from crying by considering things?' she asked.

"That's the way it's done," Wiress said with great decision. "Nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to begin with; how old are you?"

"I'm seven and a half exactly."

"You needn't say 'exactually'," Wiress remarked. "I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day."

"I can't believe that," said Prim.

"Can't you?" Wiress said in a pitying tone. "Try again; draw a long breath and shut your eyes."

Prim laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said Wiress. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again."

The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind blew the White Queen's shawl across a little brook. The woman spread out her arms again and went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in catching it for herself. "I've got it!" she cried in a triumphant tone. "Now you shall see me pin it on again, all by myself."

"Then I hope your finger is better now," Prim said very politely as she crossed the little brook after the Queen.

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"Oh, much better!" cried Wiress, her voice rising to a squeak as she went on. "Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!' The last word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep, that Prim quite started.

She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. Prim rubbed her eyes and looked again. She couldn't make out what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really...was it really a sheep that was sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub as she could, she could make nothing more of it. Prim was in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep sitting in an arm-chair knitting, leaving off every now and then to look at her through a great pair of spectacles.

"What is it you want to buy?" the Sheep said at last, looking up for a moment from her knitting.

"I don't quite know yet," Prim said very gently. "I should like to look all round me first if I might."

"You may look in front of you, and on both sides if you like," said the Sheep, "but you can't look all round you, unless you've got eyes at the back of your head."

But these, as it happened, Prim had not got, so she contented herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to them.

The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things. But the oddest part of it all was that whenever she looked hard at any shelf to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty, though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold.

"Things flow about so here," she said at last in a plaintive tone, after spending a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, which was always in the shelf next, above the one she was looking at. "And this one is the most provoking of all, but I'll tell you what," she added as a sudden thought struck her, "I'll follow it up to the very top shelf of all. It'll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect."

But even this plan failed, the 'thing' went through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it.

"Are you a child or a teetotum?" the Sheep said as she took up another pair of needles. "You'll make me giddy soon if you go on turning round like that." The Sheep was now working with fourteen pairs at once, and Prim couldn't help looking at her in great astonishment.

How can she knit with so many? the puzzled child thought to herself. She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!

"Can you row?" the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke.

"Yes, a little, but not on land...and not with needles—"' Prim was beginning to say when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between banks, so there was nothing for it but to do her best.

"Feather," cried the Sheep as she took up another pair of needles.

This didn't sound like a remark that needed any answer, so Prim said nothing but pulled away. There was something very queer about the water, she thought, as every now and then the oars got stuck in it and would hardly come out again.

"Feather. Feather," the Sheep cried again, taking more needles. "You'll be catching a crab directly."

A dear little crab, thought Prim. I should like that.

"Didn't you hear me say 'Feather'?" the Sheep cried angrily, taking up quite a bunch of needles.

"Indeed I did," said Prim. "You've said it very often...and very loud. Please, where are the crabs?"

"In the water, of course," said the Sheep before sticking some of the needles into her hair as her hands were full. "Feather, I say."

"Why do you say 'feather' so often?" Prim asked at last, rather vexed. "I'm not a bird."

"You are," said the Sheep. "You're a little goose."

This offended Prim a little, so there was no more conversation for a minute or two while the boat glided gently on, sometimes among beds of weeds (which made the oars stick in the water, worse than ever), and sometimes under trees, but always with the same tall river-banks frowning over their heads.

"Oh please, there are some scented rushes," Prim cried in a sudden transport of delight. "There really are, and such beauties."

"You needn't say 'please' to me about 'em," the Sheep said without looking up from her knitting. "I didn't put 'em there, and I'm not going to take 'em away."

"No, but I meant: please, may we wait and pick some?" Prim pleaded. "If you don't mind stopping the boat for a minute."

"How am I to stop it?" said the Sheep. "If you leave off rowing, it'll stop of itself."

So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would till it glided gently in among the waving rushes. And then the little sleeves were carefully rolled up, and the little arms were plunged in elbow-deep to get the rushes a good long way down before breaking them off. And for a while, Prim forgot all about the Sheep and the knitting as she bent over the side of the boat with just the ends of her tangled hair dipping into the water while with bright eager eyes, she caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented rushes.

"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 then that the rushes had begun to fade, losing 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 Prim 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 stuck in the water and wouldn't come out again (so Prim 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 Prim, 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 Prim got back into her place, very much relieved to find herself still in the boat.

"Was it? I didn't see it," said Prim before 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.

"Are there many crabs here?" said Prim.

"Crabs and all sorts of things," said the Sheep. "Plenty of choice; only make up your mind. Now, what do you want to buy?"

"To buy?" Prim echoed in a tone that was half astonished and half frightened, for the oars, and the boat, and the river, had vanished all in a moment, and the young girl was back again in the little dark shop.

"I should like to buy an egg, please," she said timidly. "How do you sell them?"

"Fivepence farthing for one. Twopence for two," the Sheep replied.

"Then two are cheaper than one?" Prim said in a surprised tone, taking out her purse.

"Only you must eat them both if you buy two," said the Sheep.

"Then I'll have one, please," said Prim as she put the money down on the counter. For she thought to herself, They mightn't be at all nice, you know.

The Sheep took the money and put it away in a box. Then she said, "I never put things into people's hands; that would never do. You must get it for yourself."

And so saying, Prim went off to the other end of the shop and set the egg upright on a shelf. I wonder 'why' it wouldn't do? thought Prim as she groped her way among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards the end. "The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let me see; is this a chair? Why, it's got branches, I declare. How very odd to find trees growing here. And actually, here's a little brook. Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw."

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So she went on, wondering more and more at every step as everything turned into a tree the moment she came up to it—and she quite expected the egg to do the same.