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Updated: August 18, 2024
"Good-morning, cousin, and the same to you," said the house-mouse. "One doesn't go out for one's pleasure at this time of year." "No, indeed, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "I always stay indoors, except just to take a mouthful of fresh air and throw out the shells. Look, here is my dust-heap." Quite a little pile of nut-and acorn-shells lay outside the mouse-hole.
"No, I haven't," said the wood-mouse. "What's he called? Is he a smart fellow?" "She's called the brown rat. It's a she," replied the house-mouse. "And she really was very smart at first. She came in the packing-case in which we get our groceries every year from the shop in Copenhagen. It is a great big case, full of the most delicious things you can think of.
I hope your outing will agree with you better than our black cousin's did with her. For she fell down and died where she lay." "Cousin me no cousins!" said the brown rat. "It's awful the way you people out here in the country brag about relationship. What's become of the house-mouse?" "She's run home," said the wood-mouse.
"Oh, you needn't think it's much better out here!" said the wood-mouse. "There's a new young forester come; and he's a terror!" "I know," said the house-mouse. "He came down with the rat-catcher. Jens fetched them at the station." "But the rat-catcher went back again," said the wood-mouse. "The young forester stayed here and is still here; and I don't expect he will ever go.
In subsequent years other swarms came to the same place. Apparently, every swarm of bees, before it leaves the parent hive, sends out exploring parties to look up the future home. The woods and groves are searched through and through, and no doubt the privacy of many a squirrel and many a wood-mouse is intruded upon.
The leader counts 3 to the credit of the girl who first sees a squirrel, 2 for the girl who sees the second one, and 1 for every succeeding squirrel discovered by any member of the party. A bird counts 6, if identified 12. A wood-mouse counts 4, when identified 8. A deer 20, beaver 12, muskrat 8, chipmunk 10, porcupine 14, eagle 30, mink 16, rabbit 1.
The house-mouse looked at it and sighed: "What a lot you've eaten already!" she said. "And I daresay you have a great deal more down there in your store-room." "No, that I haven't!" said the wood-mouse. "I shall be glad if I can get through the rest of the winter on half-rations. If my own child were suffering want, I could not give it so much as a nut. Times are awfully bad."
One day, the mouse was sitting outside the hole that led to the wood. It was in the month of August and it was warm and pleasant and she sat basking in the sun with the greatest enjoyment, the more so as she had just given birth to seven blind children, which is no joke, as any mother will tell you. And, as she sat there, the wood-mouse came out of her house under the root of the beech.
The air was filled with the faint cool smell of ferns, and on every side were great masses of them, clumps of splendid ostrich-ferns, waving their green plumes in stately pride; miniature forests of the graceful brake, beneath whose feathery branches the wood-mouse and other tiny forest-creatures roamed secure; and in the very road-way, trampled under old Nancy's feet, delicate lady-fern, and sturdy hart's-tongue, and a dozen other varieties, all perfect in grace and sylvan beauty.
The house-mouse was silent for a moment, out of respect for the other's emotion. And presently the wood-mouse began to speak of her own accord: "The field-mouse is our cousin, cousin, our own first cousin. There's no denying the fact. But I must confess that I think she does the family no credit. She is preposterously greedy. And her absurd gluttony injures all of us.
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