Al-ice caught the child, which held out its arms and legs on all sides, "just like a star-fish," Al-ice thought. The poor thing snort-ed like a steam en-gine when she caught it, and turned a-bout so much, it was as much as she could do at first to hold it.
As soon as she found out the right way to nurse it, (which was to twist it up in a sort of knot, then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot), she took it out in the fresh air. "If I don't take this child with me," thought Al-ice, "they're sure to kill it in a day or two; wouldn't it be wrong to leave it here?" She said the last words out loud, and the child grunt-ed (it had left off sneez-ing by this time). "Don't grunt," said Al-ice, "that is not at all the right way to do."
The child grunt-ed a-gain and Al-ice looked at its face to see what was wrong with it. There could be no doubt that it had a turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a child's nose. Its eyes were quite small too; in fact she did not like the look of the thing at all.
"Per-haps that was not a grunt, but a sob," and she looked to see if there were tears in its eyes.
No, there were no tears. "If you're go-ing to turn in-to a pig, my dear," said Al-ice, "I'll have no more to do with you. Mind now!" The poor thing sobbed once more (or grunted, Al-ice couldn't say which).
"Now, what am I to do with this thing when I get it home?" thought Al-ice. Just then it grunt-ed so loud that she looked down at its face with some fear. This time there could be no doubt a-bout it—it was a pig!
So she set it down, and felt glad to see it trot off in-to the wood.
As she turned to walk on, she saw the Che-shire Cat on the bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat grinned when it saw Al-ice. It looked like a good cat, she thought; still it had long claws and large teeth, so she felt she ought to be kind to it.
