Thread by @crabcrawler1

THREAD: On Beyond Zebra!

By Dr. Seuss

(some people requested the pictures on the immediate inside cover. ok.)

"Said Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell, my very young friend who is learning to spell: "The A is for Ape. And the B is for Bear. The C is for Camel. The H is for Hare. The M is for Mouse. And the R is for Rat. I know all the twenty-six letters like that...""

""...through to Z is for Zebra. I know them all well." said Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell. "So now I know everything anyone knows from beginning to end. From the start to the close. Because Z is as far as the alphabet goes.""

"The he almost fell flat on his face on the floor when I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more! A letter he never had dreamed of before! And I said, "You can stop, if you want, with the Z because most people stop with the Z but not me!""

^"In the places I go there are things that I see that I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!"

"My alphabets starts with this letter called YUZZ. It's the letter I use to spell Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz. You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond Z and start poking around!"

"So, on beyond Zebra! Explore! Like Columbus! Discover new letters! Like WUM is for Wumbus, my high-spouting whale who lives high on a hill and who never comes down 'til it's time to refill."

^" So, on beyond Z! It's high time you were shown that you really don't know all there is to be known."

"Then just step a step further past Wum is for Wumbus and there you'll find UM. And the Um is for Umbus a sort of a cow, with one head and one tail, but to milk this great cow you need more than one pail! She has ninety-eight faucets that give milk quite nicely."

^"Perhaps ninety-nine. I forget just precisely. And, boy! She is something most people don't see because most people stop at the Z but not me!"

"I ramble, I scramble through swampf and through swumpf where the letters get better. Like letters like HUMPF. There's a real handy letter. What's handy about it ...? You just can't spell Humpf-Humpf-a-Dumpfer without it."

"If you stay home with Zebra, you're stuck in a rut. But on beyond Zebra, you're anything but! Why, I know a fine fancy letter called FUDDLE. I use it in spelling Miss Fuddle-dee-Duddle. And, oh! What a bird-of-a-bird-of-a-bird-of!"

^"Her tail is the longest that's ever been heard of. So long and so fancy she'd be in a fix if she didn't have helpers. It takes about six to tag along, hoisting Miss Fuddle-dee-Duddle's wonderful tail out of muddle-dee-puddles."

"And GLIKK is for Glikker who lives in wild weeds and spends his time juggling fresh cinnamon seeds which he's usually able to find in great number excepting, of course,..."

^ "...in the month of SeptUmber when cinnamon seeds aren't around in great number. So that month he juggles with seeds of cucumber."

"And NUH is the letter I use to spell Nutches who live in small caves, known as Nitches, for hutches. These Nutches have troubles, the biggest of which is the fact there are many more Nutches than Nitches."

^"Each Nutch in a Nitch knows that some other Nutch would live to move into his Nitch very much. So each Nutch in a Nitch has to watch that small Nitch or Nutches who haven't got Nitches will snitch."

"Then we go on to SNEE. And the SNEE is for Sneedle a terrible kind of ferocious mos-keedle whose hum-dinger stinger is sharp as a needle. The Sneedle's too tough to be killed with a smack so he has to be hunted on elephant back. And your eyes and the..."

^"...elephant's have to be keen and you have to aim fast and you have to hit clean and the bullet you shoot is a stale navy bean that you've dunked for three weeks in old sour kerosene which is awfully hard work. So it's easy to see why most people stop at the Z. But not me!"

"When you go beyond Zebra, who knows ..? There's no telling what wonderful things you might find yourself spelling! Like QUAN is for Quandary, who lives on a shelf in a hole in the ocean alone by himself and he worries, each day, from the dawn's early light, and he..."

"...worries, just worries, far into the night. He just stands there and worries. He simply can't stop... is his top-side his bottom? Or bottom-side top?"

"And THNAD is for Thnaders and oh, are they sad, oh! The big one, you see, has the smaller one's shadow. The shadow the small Thnadner has should be his. I don't understand it, but that's how it is. A terrible mix-up in shadows! Gee-Whizz!"

"And SPAZZ is a letter I use to spell Spazzim a beast who belongs to the Nazzim of Bazzim. Handy for traveling. That's why he has 'im. More easy to pack than a suitcase or grip, those horns carry all that he needs on a trip:"

^"A thread and a needle for mending his socks, his tooth brush, a cup, and two three-handed clocks. And his velvet umbrella, his vegetable chopper, and also his gold-plated popping-corn popper and a grasshopper cage for his favorite grass hopper."

"And FLOOB is for Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs who bounce in the water like blubbery tubs. They're no good to eat. You can't cook 'em like steaks. But they're handy in crossing small oceans and lakes."

"And ZATZ is the letter I use to spell Zatz-it whose nose is so high that 'most nobody pats it and patting his lonely old nose is the least that a fellow could do for this fine friendly beast so,..."

^"...to get there and do it, I built an invention: the three-seater Zatz-it nose-patting extension. If you try to drive one, you'll certainly see why most people stop at the Z but not me!"

"And JOGG is my letter for spelling Jogg-oons who doodle around in the far desert dunes just doodle around, crooning very sad tunes about peppermint, peanuts and pebbles and prunes and paint pots, and polka dots, pin heads and pigs..."

^"...and their grandmother's grandfather's step-sister's wigs. So you see! There's no end to the things you might know, depending how far beyond Zebra you go!"

"I've a letter called FLUNN. And the FLUNN is for Flunnel a softish nice fellow who hides in a tunnel. He only comes out of his hole, I'm afraid, when the right kind of softish nice music is played on a kind of a hunting horn called the o'Grunth."

^"And to learn how to play it takes month after month of practising, practising. Isn't much fun-th. And, besides, it's quite heavy. Weighs about a tun-th. That's why few people bother to play the o'Grunth so the Flunnel's been out of his tunnel just one-th."

"And 'way, 'way past Z is a letter called ITCH and the ITCH is for Itch-a-pods, animals which race around back and forth, forth and back, through the air on a very high sidewalk between HERE and THERE. They're afraid to stay THERE."

^"They're afraid to stay HERE. They thing THERE is too Far. They think HERE is too NEAR. And since HERE is too NEAR and out THERE is too FAR they are too scared to roost where-so-ever they are."

"There's a letter called YEKK. And the YEKK is for Yekko who howls in an underground grotto in Gekko. These Yekkos love echoes, and this is their motto: "For best Yekko echoes, try Gekko, our grotto!"

"Oh, the things you can find if you don't behind! On a world near the sun live two brothers called VROOMS who, strangely enough, are built sort of like brooms and they're stuck all alone up there high in the blue and so, to kill time, just..."

^"... for something to do each one of these fellows takes turns with the other in sweeping the dust off his world with his brother."

"And HI! is my letter for High Gargel-orum. For getting me places real fast, I'm all for 'em. They puffle along and their brakes never squeak and they run every hour every day of the week from the town of North Nubb to the town of East Ounce, making stops at..."

^"...West Bunglefield, Yupster and Jounce and at Ipswich and Nipswich and, also, South Bounce and another small town that's too hard to pronounce.

"The places I took him! I tried to tell Young Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell a few brand-new wonderful words he might spell. I led him around and I tried hard to show there are things beyond Z that most people don't know."

^"I took him past Zebra. As far as I could. And I think, perhaps, maybe I did him some good..."

"Because, finally, he said: "this is really great stuff! And I guess the old alphabet ISN'T enough!""

"NOW the letters he uses are something to see! Most people still stop at the Z... but not HE!"

THE END.

^"THEN**"

I made a typo and feel ashamed. Alas life will go on!

(alphabet*. Life STILL goes on even after two typos.)