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Then she squeaked three times in a particular manner which only mice understand and which means that they would like to talk to the individual concerned. And, when she had waited some time, sure enough the wood-mouse appeared: "Good-morning, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "To what do I owe the honour of this visit? It is ages since I saw you last."
Some time ago, during the moonlit nights of several months, I kept watch, near a "set" inhabited by half-a-dozen badgers, a vixen and her cubs, a rabbit and her numerous progeny, and a solitary little buck wood-mouse, whose close acquaintanceship I made after I had captured him in a butterfly-net placed as a spring-trap above his narrow run-way in the grass.
The dormouse came from halfway up the hazel, and the wood-mouse came from its roots. They, too, had been three days weather bound; but they were not hungry. Each had its winter store to draw upon.
Then, one morning, the house-mouse went out through the hole to the wood. It was at the time when the cat got her morning milk, so she thought there was a chance of peace and no danger. She ran a good way off over the snow, right to the foot of the big beech, where she knew that Cousin Wood-Mouse had her nest.
The black rat peered under the lower rung of a gate into a straw-yard, and heard the rustlings of little folk field-vole, bank-vole, and wood-mouse who had gone before him.
The snow was crusted over with hoar frost, and the bare forest trees were hung with icicles. The cunning fox, the 'possum and the 'coon, crept shivering from their dens; but the shy, gray rabbit, and the tiny, brown wood-mouse, still nestled in their holes.
"Our cousin must be awfully hungry," said the house-mouse. "Or perhaps he has a big family." "Both," said the wood-mouse. "Both. He is awfully greedy and he always has the house full of children. Well, that doesn't concern us: it's his affair.
This is the first time, so far as I know, that I have had the pleasure of seeing you out here. You don't care much for nature, I believe." "Give me food! Give me food!" screamed the black rat. "I'm awfully sorry that you are hungry," said the wood-mouse. "Unfortunately I have just eaten my last nut. As you see, here's the shell.
Soon after the rabbits appeared, the wood-mouse timidly peeped around the corner of the entrance, and, seeing nothing of his enemy, the brown owl, disappeared, with a rustle, among the dead leaves that filled a hollow where the old, disused workings of the "set" had "shrunk."
Down that tunnel drummed the bank-vole, seeking to foul his trail with just any other creature; and, the highway being, as I have said, a sort of public affair, he met first a mouse gone astray, then a mole asleep, then a long-tailed wood-mouse, then a short-tailed field-vole, then a shrew about as big as your little finger.
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