, THE WOOD-MOUSE, THE FIELD-MOUSE, THE BLACK
RAT AND THE BROWN RAT.

1

The house-mouse went about quietly, minding her business.

She lived in the forester's house that lay just on the skirt of the
forest, so that there were woods on one side and fields on the other.
She had a comfortable home behind the wainscot in the forester's
dining-room, right under the window. And the window looked out on the
woods; and then down at the bottom of the wall there was a very tiny
hole, which the house-mouse was just able to squeeze through, so that
she could slip into the woods and home again whenever she pleased.

In this way, the house-mouse had a very enjoyable time; and she had a
good time also with regard to the people she lived with. True, the
forester was a grumpy sort of man, who could not hear the word "mouse"
mentioned without flying into a rage. But he was a very old man and the
house was managed by his daughter. She never forgot the house-mouse;
and this came of a meeting that once took place between the two. One
morning, you must know, the young lady went to the sideboard to get out
the sugar for her father's coffee. And there sat the mouse in the
sugar-basin. She had forgotten the time and gone to sleep. And there she
_was_!

[Illustration]

Of course, she was terribly frightened; and it was worse still when the
girl put out her hand over the sugar-basin, as if to catch her:

"So there you are, Mousie!" she said. "I _thought_ it was you that was
after my sugar! Apart from that, you're a nice little thing. But you
needn't go shaking so terribly in your little grey shoes, for, I assure
you, I have not the least intention of doing you any harm. Perhaps you
have little children, who would starve if you didn't come home to them.
So I'll let you go. But, on the other hand, it will never do for you to
go stealing our sugar. So, when you get down to the floor, run straight
to your hole. I don't know where it is, but, when I find out, I will put
a piece of sugar on the floor outside it, every evening before I go to
bed. And then I will look for the hole through which you got into the
sideboard and stop it up; and then we shall be friends."

When she had made this speech, which was much handsomer than the
speeches which mice are accustomed to hear from human beings, she put
the terrified mouse down on the floor. The mouse at once scudded across
the room and disappeared in her hole under the wainscoting.

"So that