SWEETEST SUSAN MEETING HER REFLECTION
Sweetest Susan stepped before the looking-glass, and her reflection walked out to meet her. Drusilla now came forward, and her image stepped forth, looking somewhat scared and showing the whites of its eyes. Mrs. Meadows went to the looking-glass, gave it a sudden turn on its pivots, and carried it into the house.
All this happened so rapidly that the children hardly had time to be surprised, but now that the looking-glass had been carried away and they were left with their reflections, their shadows, their images (or whatever it was), they didn’t know what to do, or say, or think. They could only look at each other in dumb astonishment. Drusilla was the first to break the silence. In her surprise she had moved quickly back a few steps, and her image, which had come out of the looking-glass, had as quickly moved forward and toward her a few steps.
“Don’t come follerin’ atter me!” she cried excitedly. “Kaze ef you do, you’ll sho’ git hurted. I ain’t done nothin’ ’t all ter you. I ain’t gwine ter pester you, an’ I ain’t gwine ter let you pester me. I tell you dat now, so you’ll know what ter ’pen’ on.”
“Don’t move! Please don’t move!” cried Sweetest Susan to Buster John. “If you do I can’t tell you apart. I won’t know which is which. That wouldn’t be treating me right nor Mamma, either.”
Naturally, the children were in a great predicament when Mrs. Meadows came back. She saw the trouble at once, and began to laugh. It was funny to see Buster John and Sweetest Susan and Drusilla standing there staring first at the Looking-Glass children and then at themselves, not daring to move for fear they would get mixed up with their doubles. The Looking-Glass children stared likewise, first at themselves and then at the others.
“What is the matter?” Mrs. Meadows asked. “Why don’t you go and play with one another and make friends? It isn’t many folks that have the chance you children have got.”
“I don’t feel like playing,” said Sweetest Susan. “I’m afraid we’ll get mixed up so that nobody will know one from the other.”
“Why, there’s all the difference in the world,” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows, trying hard not to laugh. “The Looking-Glass children are all left-handed. You have a flower on the left side of your hat, the other Susan has a flower on the right side of hers. Your brother there has buttons on the right side of his coat; the other John has buttons on the left side. There is a flaw in the looking-glass, and Drusilla, being a little taller than you two, was just tall enough for the end of her nose to be even with the flaw. That’s the reason the other Drusilla’s nose looks like it had been mashed with a hammer.”