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原文:
The WONDER CLOCK
By
Howard Pyle.
I PUT on my dream-cap one day and stepped into Wonderland.
Along the road I jogged and never dusted my shoes, and all the time the
pleasant sun shone and never burned my back, and the little white clouds floated
across the blue sky and never let fall a drop of rain to wet my jacket. And by
and by I came to a steep hill.
I climbed the hill, though I had more than one tumble in doing it, and there,
on the tip-top, I found a house as old as the world itself.
That was where Father Time lived; and who should sit in the sun at the door,
spinning away for dear life, but Time's Grandmother herself; and if you would
like to know how old she is you will have to climb to the top of the church
steeple and ask the wind as he sits upon the weather-cock, humming the tune of
Over-yonder song to himself.
"Good-morning," says Time's Grandmother to me.
"Good-morning," says I to her.
"And what do you seek here?" says she to me.
"I come to look for odds and ends," says I to her.
"Very well," says she; "just climb the stairs to the garret, and there you
will find more than ten men can think about."
"Thank you," says I, and up the stairs I went. There I found all manner of
queer forgotten things which had been laid away, nobody but Time and his
Grandmother could tell where.
Over in the corner was a great, tall clock, that had stood there silently
with never a tick or a ting since men began to grow too wise for toys and
trinkets.
But I knew very well that the old clock was the
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!