The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse Part 3

At first Master Meadow Mouse did not answer Mr. Crow when the old gentleman called down the tunnel that led to the nest beneath the sod.

But soon Master Meadow Mouse remembered that Mr. Crow could get no more than his bill inside the hole. And then Master Meadow Mouse found his voice again.

"I don't want to go above ground," he said. "Can't you talk to me, where I am?"

"It's not easy to do that," Mr. Crow grumbled. "I have to speak too loud; and my voice is hoa.r.s.e to-day."

"Stick your bill into my tunnel as far as it will go," Master Meadow Mouse suggested. "Then you won't have to shout. I could hear a whisper if you'd do as I say."

Old Mr. Crow thrust his bill down the hole.

"I don't like this," he croaked. "I can't see you."

"That's because you're shutting out all the light," Master Meadow Mouse explained.

"I doubt it," said Mr. Crow angrily. "I believe you've drawn a curtain across the other end of this tunnel. And I can't talk to anybody through a curtain. I _refuse_ to injure my voice trying to talk with anybody that won't give me a more friendly welcome when I call on him."

"Talk away!" Master Meadow Mouse urged his caller. "There's nothing between us to keep me from hearing you. Nothing but a foot of air!"

"Ah!" Mr. Crow cried. "I _knew_ you had something in that tunnel. Remove the air at once, sir, or I'll go away and leave you."

"If his bill wasn't so hard--if it was as soft as the Kitten's nose--I'd bite it," Master Meadow Mouse thought.

And while he was thinking, all at once a shaft of light trickled inside his house. Old Mr. Crow had gone grumbling on his way.

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8

Moses Mouse

MASTER MEADOW MOUSE felt ill at ease. Now that the gra.s.s had been cut from the meadow he began to think he didn't care to live there any longer. After his adventure with old Mr. Crow, Master Meadow Mouse scarcely dared stray from his dooryard in the daytime. Anybody, almost, could see him as he crept through the stubble.

At night he ventured further from home. And once he went even as far as the farmyard.

To his surprise he found that the gra.s.s in Farmer Green's yard was longer than he had ever seen it. Earlier in the summer, when Master Meadow Mouse visited that spot, he had been afraid to cross the lawn because it was clipped so short. But now he could creep through the thick green carpet and n.o.body could see him, unless a waving gra.s.s blade happened to catch somebody's eye. Everybody at the farmhouse had been too busy with haying to spend any time running a lawn mower.

Why not move to the farmyard? The thought came into Master Meadow Mouse's head. It seemed to him that the farmyard would be a fine place to live. There was grain scattered here and there, where somebody had fed the hens. There was the duck pond near-by, when he wanted a swim.

"I'll come!" Master Meadow Mouse decided. "I'll come--if I can find a good place for a nest."

Thereupon he began to look about for a site for his new home. And it wasn't long before he had found one that suited him. When he saw the woodpile he squeaked with delight.

"The very place!" he cried. "I'll begin to built my nest to-night."

So he set to work. He carried dead leaves and dried gra.s.s to the woodpile and started to make a snug home for himself in a s.p.a.ce between the logs, well inside the heap of wood. And he had just crept from a c.h.i.n.k and stood under the stars when a tiny voice greeted him with a cry, "What ho, stranger!"

Master Meadow Mouse looked around. And there on a stick of wood just behind him was a plump gray person. The newcomer looked the least bit like Master Meadow Mouse himself, except that his tail was ever so much longer.

"I'm Moses Mouse and I live in the farmhouse," said the gray gentleman.

"I'm Master Meadow Mouse and I'm going to live in this woodpile," said the reddish-brown chap in reply.

"That's good news," Moses Mouse remarked. "But you must look out for Miss Snooper," he added.

"Who is she?" Master Meadow Mouse asked his new friend.

"Miss Snooper--" Moses Mouse explained--"Miss Snooper is our name for Miss Kitty Cat. She lives in the farmhouse. And when she isn't indoors she's usually prowling about the yard."

To the great astonishment of Moses Mouse, the short-tailed stranger seemed in no wise startled by his news.

"Huh!" Master Meadow Mouse exclaimed. "If this Miss Snooper--as you call her--bothers me, I'll serve her as I did one of her kittens."

"What did you do to the kitten?" Moses Mouse inquired with great interest.

"I bit her nose," said Master Meadow Mouse.

Moses Mouse gazed at him with horror.

"Don't try that on the old lady!" he cried. "If you do, you'll be sorry."

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9

Miss Snooper

MOSES MOUSE, who lived in the farmhouse, had warned Master Meadow Mouse.

He had warned him to look out for Miss Snooper's nose.

Master Meadow Mouse did not pay any great attention to his new friend's advice. He was building himself a new home in Farmer Green's woodpile.

And he went about his work as if there wasn't a cat within a hundred miles.

Then, one day, he caught a glimpse of Miss Snooper. He peeped out from a c.h.i.n.k in the woodpile and saw her sitting on a stick of wood. She was so near him that Master Meadow Mouse could have leaped upon her back in one spring.

But he didn't do that. He gazed at her with round eyes, for Miss Snooper looked very fierce, especially when she opened her mouth and showed her sharp teeth as she yawned. Master Meadow Mouse saw that she was a quite different creature from the awkward kitten whom he had bitten on the nose earlier in the summer.