ling piece of cheese
on a queer little stand in a corner. He was just on the point of putting
his teeth into the cheese when the City Mouse saw him.

"Stop! stop!" cried the City Mouse. "That is a trap!"

The little Country Mouse stopped and said, "What is a trap?"

"That thing is a trap," said the little City Mouse. "The minute you
touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head
hard, and you're dead."

The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the
cheese, and he looked at the little City Mouse. "If you'll excuse me,"
he said, "I think I will go home. I'd rather have barley and grain to
eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried
prunes and cheese,--and be frightened to death all the time!"

So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed
all the rest of his life.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The following story of the two mice, with the similar fables of
_The Boy who cried Wolf_, _The Frog King_, and _The Sun_ _and the Wind_,
are given here with the hope that they may be of use to the many
teachers who find the over-familiar material of the fables difficult to
adapt, and who are yet aware of the great usefulness of the stories to
young minds. A certain degree of vividness and amplitude must be added
to the compact statement of the famous collections, and yet it is not
wise to change the style-effect of a fable, wholly. I venture to give
these versions, not as perfect models, of course, but as renderings
which have been acceptable to children, and which I believe retain the
original point simply and strongly.

LITTLE JACK ROLLAROUND[14]

Once upon a time there was a wee little boy who slept in a tiny
trundle-bed near his mother's great bed. The trundle-bed had castors on
it so that it could be rolled about, and there was nothing in the world
the little boy liked so much as to have it rolled. When his mother came
to bed he would cry, "Roll me around! roll me around!" And his mother
would put out her hand from the big bed and push the little bed back and
forth till she was tired. The little boy could never get enough; so for
this he was called "Little Jack Rollaround."

One night he had made his mother roll him about, till she fell asleep,
and even then he kept crying, "Roll me around! roll me around!" His
mother pushed him about in her sleep, until her slumber became too
sound; then she stopped. But Little Jack Rollaround kep