"Stop a bit! Cousin!" said the house-mouse. "Let us talk it over first!... Perhaps we can hit upon something or other!..."
But it was too late. The black rat stretched out her four legs and was dead and gone.
"Lord!" said the wood-mouse. "To think that she should go and die like that before our eyes! If you fall to the cat now and I to the owl and if the young forester destroys the field-mouse, then there won"t be a single member of all our big family left."
"Yes, there will be: I"m here," said a deep, gruff voice close by.
"Gracious!" said the house-mouse and jumped right into the air. "There"s the brown rat!"
And there he was. The brown rat stood and mumbled with his snout and sniffed at the dead black cousin, while keeping an eye upon the wood-mouse, who retreated a little farther still into her hole.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Good-afternoon, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "Welcome to the country.
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. "I believe she was afraid of you, which surprises me, for you look so good and kind."
"Thank you," said the brown rat. "I always appreciate a friendly word.
I"m as hungry as the d.i.c.kens. Have you something or other you can treat me to? I don"t care what: I eat anything."
"Very sorry," said the wood-mouse. "Unfortunately, I have eaten up everything and have to starve myself for the remainder of the winter.
The house-mouse got a couple of nuts out of me and the black rat the rest of my store. If you had come earlier, there would have been a morsel for you as well, perhaps."
"I think I will pay you a visit in your rooms," said the brown rat. "Or you can come up here for a bit and chat to me. I have never seen you, though we are cousins."
"Oh, we have become cousins now?" said the wood-mouse, laughing. "A little while ago, we were not. But thank you all the same. My hole, unfortunately, is too narrow for you to get through. And I don"t feel equal to going out again to-day. I should catch my death of cold. As for my appearance, you have only to think of a pretty little, nice, fat mouse. Then you have me."
"Yes, if only I had you!" said the brown rat. "Then I should eat you straight away. But you are too clever for me."
Then he began to nibble at the dead black rat.
"What"s this?" said the wood-mouse. "Are you eating your dead cousin?"
"Yes, I can"t help her not being alive!" said the rat.
A little after, the black rat was gone, bones and all. The brown rat sat and licked his lips. Then he ran home to the forester"s house.
The wood-mouse sat in her hole and thought it all over:
"Well, bless my soul, after all, what"s the objection? The house-mouse will fall to the cat and I to the owl or the fox and the field-mouse to the young forester. Whereas the black rat has remained in the family."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END]
BRISTOL: BURLEIGH LTD., AT THE BURLEIGH PRESS