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!_ [Illustration] Table of Contents. PAGE I. Bearskin 1 II. The Water of Life 15 III. How One Turned his Trouble to Some Account 27 IV. How Three Went out into the Wide World 39 V. The Clever Student and the Master of Black Arts 49 VI. The Princess Golden-Hair and the Great Black Raven 63 VII. Cousin Greylegs, the Great Red Fox, and Grandfather Mole 77 VIII. One Good Turn Deserves Another 89 IX. The White Bird 105 X. How the Good Gifts were Used by Two 121 XI. How Boots Befooled the King 135 XII. The Step-mother 149 XIII. Master Jacob 161 XIV. Peterkin and the Little Grey Hare 175 XV. Mother Hildegarde 189