Five Mice in a Mouse-trap.

by Laura E. Richards.

CHAPTER I.

THE MAN IN THE MOON.

CHILDREN, down on the planet which you call Earth, allow me to introduce myself to you! I am the Man in the Moon. I have no doubt that you know a good deal about me, in an indirect way, and that your nurses have told you all sorts of nonsense about my inquiring the way to Norwich--as if I didn't know the way to Norwich! and various things equally sensible. But now I am going to tell you a little about myself, and a great deal about _yourselves_, and about everything in general. In short, I am going to write you a book, and this is the beginning of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PATCHKO'S FATHER.]

You see, I live very quietly up here, very quietly indeed, with only my dog to bear me company. He is a good dog, and very funny sometimes, but still I have a good deal of time on my hands, and nothing amuses me so much as to watch all that is going on down on your planet, and see what people in general, and children in particular, are doing, every day and all day. You may wonder how I can see so far, and see distinctly, but that is easily explained. I have a great, monstrous mirror, which is--oh! well, if I were to tell you how big it is, you would not believe me, so I will only say that it is very big indeed. This mirror has also the advantage of being a very strong magnifying gla.s.s, and as I can tip it in any direction I please, you will easily understand that I can see just what is going on in any part of the world that I happen to be interested in. For instance, Tommy Tiptop, the gla.s.s was tipped towards New York this morning, and I saw you take away your little sister's stick of candy, you greedy boy! Yes, and I saw you put in the closet for it, too, so that was well ended. Children are the same, I find, all the world over, for it was only yesterday that a little boy in Kamschatka (an ugly little Tartar he is, and not so very unlike you), named Patchko, while his father was out hunting, took away a tallow candle from his sister, which seemed just as good to her as the barley sugar did to little Katie.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But, children all, I beg your pardon! I am not writing this book for Tommy Tiptop, and I hope that most of the boys who read it will be better than he is. I do want, however, to tell you about some children of whom I am very particularly fond, and whom most of you do not know.

These children live in the town of Nomatterwhat, which, as you are probably aware, is in the State of Nomatterwhere, which again is, or really ought to be, one of the United States of America. Perhaps these are Indian names; similarly, perhaps they are not. There are five of these children, and I call them my Five Mice; and the queer house that they live in I call the Mouse-trap. They are such funny children! I watch them sometimes all day long, their pranks are so amusing; and then when night comes, I slide down a moonbeam and sit by their pillows, and tell them stories and sing them songs. Ah! they like that, you may believe! And you all shall hear the stories and songs too, if you like, for I will write them down. So now, children all, listen! in America, Jennie and Johnny; in France, Marie and Emil; in Germany, Gretchen and Hans; in Italy, t.i.ta and Nanni; in Kamschatka, Patchko and Tinka. Listen all, great and small, to the old

MAN IN THE MOON

CHAPTER II.

THE MOUSE-TRAP.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MANY years ago, _very_ many years as you would think, though the time seems short enough for me, there came to the little village (as it then was), of Nomatterwhat, an old man. He was a very queer old man, and n.o.body knew where he came from, or anything about him, except what he told them himself; and that was very little besides the fact that his name was Jonas Junk, that he had come to Nomatterwhat because he chose to come, and that he would stay exactly as long as it pleased him and no longer. The good people of the village, finding him such a very gruff and crusty old fellow, thought it best to let him alone; and this being exactly what old Jonas Junk wanted, he was well satisfied. Apparently what he wanted beside was to build a house for himself: at all events, that is what he did. He bought a large piece of ground and built a high wall all round it, and put the ugliest and most vicious looking iron spikes that you can imagine all along the top of the wall. Then he chose the sunniest and most sheltered spot he could find on the place, and there the old man built his house. Well, to be sure, what a queer house it was! in the first place, there were three separate flights of stairs, one for old Jonas himself, one for his cat, and one for his dog. His own staircase was very easy, with broad low steps, and two landings, though the distance was very short from the first story to the second; but the poor cat and dog must have had a hard time of it. The other two staircases were so crooked it seemed as if the carpenter must have built them in his sleep, and have had the nightmare to boot. Each step was set at a different angle from the one below it; and they were high, and steep, and dark--ugh! I don't like to think about them. I remember I tried to send a moonbeam down the cat's stairs once, through a little skylight over the landing; and the poor thing got lost and wandered about for an hour before it could find its way back again. There's a flight of stairs for you! and everything else in the house was just as queer. There were large rooms and small rooms, long rooms and square rooms; there were cupboards everywhere, you never saw so many cupboards in your life. Some close to the floor so that you b.u.mped your head in looking into them, others so high up in the wall that nothing short of a step-ladder could reach them; cupboards in the chimneys, and cupboards under the stairs; yes, there was no end to them.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Well, Jonas Junk furnished his house, and there he lived for many a year, with his dog and his cat, and n.o.body else. All the ground about the house he made into a beautiful garden, full of pear trees and apple trees and all kinds of fruit trees. People used to say, by the way, that the reason these apple trees were so crooked, was because they tried to look like old Jonas himself; but I don't know how that was. Certainly, Jonas was not a beauty, and I am sorry to say the boys were disposed to make fun of him whenever he ventured out of his queer house into the village. "But what has all this to do with mice and a mouse-trap, you ask?" Patience! patience! we are coming to that very soon. I am an old man, older than all of you and all your great-grandmothers put together, so you must let me tell my story in my own way. If Jonas Junk had lived on till to-day, his house would never have been turned into a mouse-trap; but one dark night, you see, he fell down the dog's stairs and broke his neck, and there was an end of him. For a long time n.o.body lived in his house, and the garden was all going to rack and ruin, when one fine day a gentleman from a neighboring town came to see the old house and took a great fancy to it; and finally he bought it, cat-stairs, dog-stairs, cupboards, garden and all.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Now this gentleman happened to be Uncle Jack, the uncle and guardian of the Five Mice, whose father and mother were dead; and then it was, when he came to live in it with his five nephews and nieces, and Mrs. Posset the nurse, and Susan the cook, and Thomas the gardener, then it was, I say, that the old Junk-shop, as the villagers called it was turned into the most delightful house in the world, which I call my MOUSE-TRAP.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIBBLE BRIGHTEYES FLUFF PUFF AND DOWNY]

CHAPTER III.

THE MICE.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

NIBBLE, Brighteyes, Fluff, Puff, and Downy the baby. There are the names of the mice, all written out nicely for you, and there in a corner is a glimpse of the mouse-trap. Of course the children have real names, just like other children; but I have given them mouse-names, which I very much prefer to Harry and Bessie, and--but oh! dear, I didn't mean to tell you any of their real names. Nibble is the oldest. He is now a fine bright boy-mouse of twelve, but when he first came to the mouse-trap he was only eight years old, and Brighteyes, the oldest girl-mouse, was seven. Then came Fluff and Puff, the twins, who were just five, and Downy the baby, a fat little fellow of three. You see their ages were quite near enough for them all to be great friends and playmates, and so they were. I never shall forget the day they came. It was a fine bright day in May, and Spring was just awake in the old garden. The short new gra.s.s was like emerald; the old gnarled apple-trees, which certainly did look like Jonas Junk when their branches were bare, had lost all trace of such likeness, for each was crowned with a pink and white snowdrift of blossoms. Down in the neglected flower-beds the crocuses and snowdrops were nodding and whispering to each other. "Yes," they said, "some new people are coming to live in the old house, and there are children among them. Mr. Breeze, the postman, knows all about them, but he could not stop to tell us much this morning, for he was in a hurry. Now we shall be cared for, and watered, and there will be some pleasure in blossoming. When the children come, we will tell them how those vulgar weeds pushed and crowded us last year." And they did tell the children, but children do not understand flower-talk, I find. And yet it is a very simple language. You see, I hear a great deal of flower-gossip, for my moonbeams are sad chatterboxes, and they bring me back all sorts of news when they come home in the morning. How the burglar-bees robbed old Madam Peony, how the daffodils in the long border had been flirting with the regiment of purple flags behind them, when the Tulip family are expected; yes, there is no end to the things I hear. But if I told all I know, everybody would be as wise as I am, so let us go on about the mice. [Ill.u.s.tration: FLUFF AND PUFF.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Well, at about three o'clock in the afternoon of this fine day that I have been describing, a large carriage, drawn by two fine black horses, drove through the old gateway and down the quiet, lovely lane, and stopped in front of the house. The very instant the wheels ceased to turn, the door of the carriage burst open with a crash, and out jumped, rolled, and tumbled my five mice. First came Nibble, in jacket and trousers and cap. One jump out of the carriage, another to the top of a post, and there he was. Next came Brighteyes, all flying, feet and curls and hat and ribbons. Then one of the twins rolled out, and the other tumbled out; and one was hurt, and the other was not. That is always the way with those two children. One is lucky, and one unlucky. Puff always falls on her feet. Fluff always falls on her head. Uncle Jack often calls them Hap and Hazard, and that is the only difference between them.

However, when they got up and shook themselves, I saw that they were very pretty little girls. Now I will make you a picture of them. Yes, I can draw pictures too; in fact, there are very few things that I cannot do if I try. Here they are, Puff and Fluff, two of the dearest mice in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Next a gentleman stepped out of the carriage; a very, very tall gentleman, with very broad shoulders, and very bright eyes. That was Uncle Jack; and he helped Mrs. Posset to get out, for she had Downy asleep in her arms, and he was a pretty good armful. Then Uncle Jack took some bags and bundles out of the carriage; then he turned round and said "Now, children, we will"--There he stopped, for not a child was to be seen, except little fat Downy, fast asleep. Uncle Jack stared about him. Posts, trees, house, but no children. "Sure they're all gone, surr," said John the coachman. "'Twould be as aisy to ketch the wind and kape it still as thim childher." And John never said a truer word in his life. If my mirror were not so big, even I could not have seen them all.

Nibble was up in a tree, of course, picking apple-blossoms, for which he ought to have been whipped. Indeed, the old tree did its best, for it caught him by the leg, and tore a hole in his new trousers, which was shocking to think of. Then he found an old bird's nest; and on the whole, the tree seemed so very "jolly" that he decided to stay there; so that was why Uncle Jack did not see _him_ when he looked round.

Brighteyes, after seeing her brother safely up in the tree, flew off like a bird, here and there and everywhere. First she filled both hands with dandelions. Then she saw a b.u.t.terfly; down went the dandelions; off went her best hat to serve as a b.u.t.terfly-net; and away she went. A pretty chase Master b.u.t.terfly led her, through last year's brambles and this year's mud, until at last he left her high and dry on the top of a fence, and flew off so fast that he was soon out of sight. There I left her too, for I wanted to see what the twin mice were about.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIBBLE IN THE APPLE TREE.]

I looked this way and that, but they were nowhere to be seen. At length I caught a glimpse of something blue, among some very thick bushes. I looked closer, and saw a sight that was truly melancholy. Among these bushes stood a huge old wooden trough, which old Jonas had built to receive the water that bubbled out of a spring close by. So the trough was full of water, and this being the case, of course Fluff the unlucky had fallen into it. How she had done it I do not know, but there she was, splashing about in fine style.

"Give me your hand, Fluffy, and I'll pull you out!" said Puff.

"Oh! no, you can't!" cried poor little Fluff. "You're not any bigger as I am, Puffy, and I'm so wet I feel very heavy."

And no wonder she did, for she had on a long thick coat which was completely soaked. But Puffy was very sure about it. She gave a great pull, and Fluff made a scramble, and out she came, knocking Puff down and tumbling on top of her. Well, they were both wet enough when they got up. Just then a very loud and strange noise was heard. At least, it was strange to me, but the children cried "Oh! the rattle, the rattle!"

and away they scampered towards the house, as fast as they could go.

Poor Uncle Jack! he had been working hard all the afternoon, with John and Thomas, (who had come in a cart with the other servants and the trunks and the dogs), clearing away rubbish and unpacking furniture, while Mrs. Posset and the maids were busy in the house. He had been rather glad to have the children out of the way for a little while, but now that it was six o'clock, and tea was laid in the dining-room, and a bright wood fire blazing in the great open fireplace, he began to wonder where his chickens were.

"Bless me!" he said. "Where is the rattle?" and opening a bag, he took out a huge watchman's rattle, and sprung it briskly, making the strange loud noise that Puff and Fluff had heard down by the spring. Presently he heard a voice, then another, and then another. "Here I am, Uncle!"

"What is the matter, Uncle Jack?" "Hi! supper! come on, Brighteyes!" and up scampered from all directions, the four mice in about as pretty a plight as mice can well be in. Brighteyes was panting for breath and limping, one shoe gone, no hat, and any number of scratches. Puff and Fluff were wet, and muddy, and forlorn beyond description; while with Nibble the only question was, which was bigger, his knickerbockers or the hole in them.

Uncle Jack held up his hands in amazement, and then sat down on a packing-box and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "Oh! you children, you children!" he cried. "This is what comes of bringing you to the country to keep you out of mischief. Go in to Mrs. Posset at once, give her my compliments, and tell her I wish her joy of you. And as soon as you are fit to be seen, come down to supper, or Downy and I will eat it all up."

Away went the mice into the house and upstairs, where Mrs. Posset scolded, and brushed, and washed, and wiped and mended to an alarming extent. The trunk in which Nibble's clothes were packed had not yet arrived, so the young gentleman had to wait after the others were gone down to tea, while Mary, the housemaid, mended his trousers.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Bread and b.u.t.ter and raspberry jam are always good, but they must have seemed particularly good that evening to those five hungry mice. Little Downy soon finished his bowl of bread and milk, and was just thinking about some jam when Mrs. Posset appeared in the doorway. I have a great respect for Mrs. Posset. She is very faithful, and as fond of the mice as if they were her own children; but I do wish she would not wear green and yellow ribbons in her cap. It makes her look so like a stout elderly daffodil, but that is neither here nor there. She appeared in the doorway and looked at Downy. Downy looked at her, but did not move. Then Mrs. Posset said, "Downy come with his Possy, and put on his ittle nightcoatie, and go to his 'ittle beddy-house?" (That's another thing, she always talks to that mouse as if he and she were both idiots). "No!"

said Downy. "Not want any beddy-house. Possy go away!" "Come, Downy,"

said his uncle. "You have had a long day, little man, and bed is the best place for you. Nice bed! I wish I were in mine." "Not nice!" cried Downy. "Naughty bed! take it away! A-a-a-ah!" and the poor little boy, who was really tired out, began to scream and cry l.u.s.tily. "Hush!" cried Uncle Jack hastily. "Hush, Downy! the bed will hear you, and then who knows what may happen?" Downy paused a moment and looked at his uncle in astonishment. "What _do_ you mean, Uncle Jack?" asked Brighteyes. "Beds cannot hear."

"Perhaps their posts are their ears," said Fluff.

"Oh! Fluffy," said Puff, "you _know_ their posts are their legs, so they can't be their ears."

But Uncle Jack looked very grave, and said, "Have you never heard the story of Little w.i.l.l.y and his bed? listen then, and I will tell it to you."