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One day when I was out for my daily constitutional—the totality of my feeble exercise regimen—I came upon a large wall. Climbing over it, I was amazed to see many houses made entirely of china. And they were so small that the biggest of them reached only as high as a Munchkin’s waist! But the strangest things were the people and animals who lived in this queer country. They were all made of china, too, including their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of them was no higher than a Munchkin’s knee!
I began walking through this country of tiny china people, and the first thing I came to was a china milkmaid milking a piebald china cow. As I came near, the cow, startled by the sound of my footfalls, suddenly kicked and knocked over the stool, the pail, and even the milkmaid herself. All fell to the china ground with a great clatter. I was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg off, that the pail was shattered, and that the poor milkmaid had nicked her left elbow. She stood up, bridled, and said to me with asperity, “See what you’ve done? What do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?”
She picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping on three legs. As she walked away the irascible woman kept casting aspersions at me, but at the same time she incessantly stared at her nicked elbow as if obsessed with her infirmity. I must say, in view of my culpable disregard of her cow’s potential reaction to my sudden propinquity, the milkmaid’s censure of me was probably tenable. I felt quite guilty about this little contretemps, and I decided I’d have to be very careful here or I might hurt these pretty little people so badly they would never mend. I imagine this society has a very high rate of attrition from breakage alone!
A little farther on I met a beautifully dressed, perfectly coifed, young Princess, who stopped short as she saw me, then started to run away. I wanted to see more of her, so I ran after her. Then the china girl suddenly turned around and cried out, “Don’t chase me! Don’t chase me! If I run I may fall down and break myself.”
I stopped and, admiring her clear, comely face, asked, “But couldn’t you be mended?”
“Yes, but no one’s ever as pretty after being mended,” she replied. “For example, take our oldest clown. He’s broken himself so many times that he’s been mended in a hundred different places and doesn’t look at all pretty—and that’s made him curmudgeonly. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself.” Indeed, an ancient clown came slowly walking toward us, and even a cursory glance—I didn’t want to be so impolite as to stare—revealed that he
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