rk her direction. She was
running at full speed, as dainty a little harvest mouse as ever crossed
a cornfield.

[Illustration: HER FRONT WAS OF THE PUREST WHITE, AND TWISTED IN A DAINTY
CURVE TO MATCH HER FEATURES.]

Her coat was of the softest fawn-chestnut; sharply contrasted with her
pure white front, and twisted in a dainty curve to match her features.
Her feet and tiny claws were the pink of a sea-shell. Her eyes were small
(harvest mice have small eyes), but they were very gentle. As she sighted
him, she swung lightly up a thistle stem, and sat for a moment balanced on
the head. Evidently he was not altogether uninteresting.

[Illustration: HER EYES WERE SMALL, BUT THEY WERE VERY GENTLE.]

* * * * *

Far into the evening he pressed his suit. When the inevitable rival
mouse appeared, half the sun's disk was already masked by the hedgerow.
Ungainly, straggling shadows spread across the field, dark bars across a
lurid crimson ground. Never was finer _mise-en-scene_ for such a conflict.
They fought on the very summits of the stalks, and the sun just managed to
see the finish.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NEVER WAS FINER _MISE-EN-SCENE_ FOR SUCH A CONFLICT.]

They built the nest together. It was his part to bite the long ribbon
leaves from their sockets, hers to soften them and knot them and plait
them until they formed a neat, compact, and self-coherent sphere.

Nine cornstalks formed the scaffolding. Six inches from the ground she
built between them a fragile grass-blade platform. Then she started on
the nest itself. Her only tools were her fore-paws, tail, and teeth. The
latter she employed to soften stiff material. The weaving she did from
below upwards by pure dexterity of hand and tail. For six hours she worked
indefatigably, and in six hours it was finished. But it was not meant to
live in; it was merely a nursery. All day long the happy pair enjoyed each
other's company aloft, leaping from corn-ear to thistle-head, from
thistle-head to poppy, and back again to corn-ear, feasting, frivolling,
stalking bluebottles. Their life was one long revel in the sunshine; for
the harvest mouse has this distinction also, that, like a Christian, he
loves the blue of the sky and sleeps at night.

[Illustration: FRIVOLLING.]

But he is wise in his generation, and lives far from the haunts of men.
You must be quieter than a mouse if you want to see him.

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