But she does not do this all at once. She attends to her business night after night and comes direct to those who long for her most.
So it happened that, on the very night when she arrived, she went straight to the anemones, who stood in their green wraps and could no longer curb their impatience.
And one, two, three! There they stood in newly-ironed whitefrocks and looked so fresh and pretty that the starlings sang their finest songs for sheer joy at the sight of them.
"Oh, how lovely it is here!" said the anemones. "How warm the sun is! And how the birds are singing! It is a thousand times better than last year."
But they say this every year, so it doesn't count.
Now there were many others who went quite off their heads when they saw that the anemones were out. There was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays right away; and then there was the beech, who was highly offended:
"Aren't you coming to me soon, Dame Spring?" he said. "I am a much more important person than those silly anemones and really I can no longer control my buds."
"Coming, coming!" replied Dame Spring. "But you must give me a little time."
She went on through the wood. And, at every step, more anemones appeared. They stood in thick bevies around the roots of the beech and modestly bowed their round heads to the ground.
"Look up freely," said Dame Spring, "and rejoice in Heaven's bright sun. Your lives are but short, so you must enjoy them while they last."
The anemones did as she told them. They stretched themselves and spread their white petals to every side and drank as muchsunshine as they could. They pushed their heads against one another and twined their stalks together and laughed and were wonderfully happy.
"Now I can wait no longer," said the beech and burst into leaf.
Leaf after leaf crept out of its green covering and spread out and fluttered in the wind. The whole green crown arched itself like a mighty roof above the earth.
"Good heavens, is it evening so soon?" asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.
"No, this is death," said Dame Spring. "Now you're over. It's the same with you as with the best in this world. All must bud, blossom and die."
"Die?" cried some of the small anemones. "Must we die so soon?"
And some of the large anemones turned quite red in the face with anger and arrogance:
"We know all about it!" they said. "It's the beech that's killing us. He steals the sunshine for his own leaves and grudges us a single ray. He's a nasty, wicked thing."
They stood and scolded and wept for some days. Then Dame Spring came for the last time through the wood. She still had the oaks and some other querulous old fellows to visit:
"Lie down nicely to sleep now in the ground," she said to the anemones. "It's no use kicking against the pricks. Next year, I will come again and wake you to new life."
And some of the anemones did as she told them. But others continued to stick their heads in the air and grew up so ugly and lanky that they were horrid to look at:
"Fie, for shame!" they cried to the beech-leaves. "It's you that are killing us."
'FIE, FOR SHAME!' THEY CRIED TO THE BEECH-LEAVES. 'IT'S YOU THAT ARE KILLING US.''FIE, FOR SHAME!' THEY CRIED TO THE BEECH-LEAVES. 'IT'S YOU THAT ARE KILLING US.'
But the beech shook his long boughs, so that the brown husks fell to the ground:
"Wait till autumn, you little blockheads," he said and laughed. "Then you'll just see."
The anemones could not understand what he meant. But, when they had stretched themselves as far as they could, they cracked in two and withered.
Summer was past and the farmer had carted his corn home from the field.
The wood was still green, but darker; and, in many places, yellow and red leaves appeared among the green ones. The sun was tired after his hot work during the summer and went to bed early.
At night, winter stole through the trees to see if his time would soon come. When he found a flower, he kissed her politely and said:
"Well, well, are you there still? I am glad to see you. Stay where you are. I am a harmless old man and wouldn't hurt a fly."
But the flower shuddered at his kiss and the bright dew-drops hanging from her petals froze to ice at the same moment.
Winter went oftener and oftener through the wood. He breathed upon the leaves, till they turned yellow, or upon the ground, till even the anemones, who lay below in the earth, waiting for Dame Spring to come again as she had promised, could feel his breath and shuddered right down to their roots:
"Oh dear, how cold it is!" they said to one another. "How ever shall we last through the winter? We are sure to die before it is over."
"Now my time has come," said winter. "Now I need no longer steal round like a thief in the night. From to-morrow, I shall look every one straight in the face and bite his nose and make his eyes run with tears."
At night, the storm broke loose.
"Let me see you make a clean sweep of things," said winter.
And the storm obeyed his orders. He tore howling through the wood and shook the branches till they creaked and broke. Any that were at all decayed fell down and those that held on had to twist and turn to every side.
"Away with all that finery!" howled the storm and tore off the leaves. "This is no time to dress yourselves up. Soon there will be snow on the branches: that's another story."
All the leaves fell terrified to the ground, but the storm did not let them lie in peace. He took them round the waist and waltzed with them over the field, high up in the air and into the wood again, swept them together into great heaps and scattered them once more to every side, just as the fit seized him.
Not until the morning did the storm grow weary and go down.
"Now you can have peace forthistime," he said. "I am going down till we have our spring-cleaning. Then we can have another dance, if there are any of you left by then."
And the leaves went to rest and lay like a thick carpet over the whole earth.
The anemones felt that it had grown delightfully warm:
"I wonder if Dame Spring can have come yet?" they asked one another.
"I haven't my buds ready!" cried one of them.
"No more have I! No more have I!" exclaimed the others in chorus.
But one of them took courage and just peeped out above the ground.
"Good-morning!" cried the withered beech-leaves. "It's rather too early, young lady: if only you don't come to any harm!"
"Isn't that Dame Spring?" asked the anemone.
"Not just yet," replied the beech-leaves. "It's we, the green leaves you were so angry with in the summer. Now we have lost our brightness and have not much left to make a show of. We have enjoyed our youth and had our fling, you know. And now we are lying here and protecting all the little flowers in the ground against the winter."
"And meanwhile I am standing and freezing in my bare branches," said the beech, crossly.
The anemones talked about it down in the earth and thought it very nice:
"Those dear beech-leaves!" they said.
"Mind you remember it next summer, when I come into leaf," said the beech.
"We will, we will!" whispered the anemones.
For that sort of thing is promised, but the promise is never kept.
There was once a beautiful wood, filled with thousands of slender trunks and with singing and whispering in her dark tree-tops.
She was surrounded by field and meadow; and there the farmer had built his house. And field and meadow were good and green; and the farmer was hard-working and grateful for the crops which he brought home. But the wood stood like a lady of the manor, high above them all.
In the winter-time the fields lay flat and miserable, the meadow was merely one great lake with ice upon it and the farmer sat huddled in the chimney-corner; but the wood just stood straight and placid with her bare branches and let the weather storm and snow as it pleased. In the spring, both meadow and field turned green and the farmer came out and began to plough and sow. But the wood burst forth into so great a splendour that no one could hope to describe it: there were flowers at her feet and sunshine in her green tree-tops; the song of the birds echoed in even the smallest bush; and perfume and bright colours and gaiety reigned here and there and everywhere.
Now it happened, one summer's day, while the wood stood waving her branches, that she set eyes upon a funny brown thingwhich was spreading itself over the hills towards the west and which she had never seen before:
"What sort of fellow are you?" asked the wood.
"I am the heath," said the brown thing.
"I don't know you," said the wood, "and I don't like you: you are so ugly and black, you don't look like the field or the meadow or anything that I know. Can you bud into leaf? Can you blossom? Can you sing?"
"Indeed I can," said the heath. "In August, when your leaves begin to look dark and tired, my flowers will come out. Then I am purple, purple from end to end, and more beautiful than anything you have ever seen."
"You're a braggart!" said the wood; and the conversation dropped.
Next year, the heath had crept a little way down the hill, towards the wood. The wood saw this, but said nothing. She thought it beneath her dignity to talk to such an ugly fellow; but, in her heart of hearts, she was afraid. Then she made herself greener and prettier and looked as if there were nothing the matter.
But, every year, the heath came nearer. He had now covered all the hills and lay just outside the fence of the wood.
"Be off!" said the wood. "You annoy me. Take care you don't touch my fence!"
"I'm coming over your fence," said the heath. "I'm coming into you, to eat you up and destroy you."
Then the wood laughed till all her leaves quivered:
"So that's what you mean to do, is it?" she said. "If only you can manage it! I'm afraid that you will find me too big a mouthful. I daresay you think I'm a bit of a field or meadow, which one can walk over in a couple of strides. But I'm the most powerful and important person in the neighbourhood, you may as well know. I shall soon sing my song to you; then perhaps you will change your ways of thinking."
Then the wood began to sing. All the birds sang; and the flowers raised their heads and sang too. The smallest leaf hummed with the rest, the fox stopped in the middle of eating a fat chicken and beat time with his brush, the wind blew through the branches and played an organ accompaniment to the song of the wood:
"Merrier meeting was never yetThan the festal wood discloses,When wood-ruff nestles by violetIn a cluster of sweet wild roses."Small birds in the brake fly up and downNor ever a bird flies singleAnd the woodman twines for his lass a crownWhere berries and beech commingle."Roe, fox and hare hold revel all,Thro' flowerage the wee worm glances;There great and small a-dancing fallAnd the sun up in Heaven dances."
"What do you say to that?" asked the wood.
The heath said nothing. But, next year, he came over the fence.
"Are you mad?" screamed the wood. "Why, I forbade you to cross the fence!"
"You are not my mistress," said the heath. "I am doing as I said I would."
Then the wood called the red fox and shook her branches so that a quantity of beech-mast fell upon him and remained hanging in his skin:
"Run across to the heath, Foxie, and scatter the beech-mast out there!" said the wood.
"Right you are!" said the fox and jogged away.
And the hare did the same and the marten and the mouse. And the crow lent a hand, for old acquaintance' sake, and the wind took hold and blew and shook the branches till the mast flew far out into the heath.
"That's it!" said the wood. "Now let's see what comes ofthat."
"Yes, let us!" said the heath.
A certain time passed and the wood grew green and withered and the heath spread more and more and they did not talk to each other. But, one fine spring day, tiny little new-born beeches and oaks peeped up from the ground round about in the heather.
"What do you say now?" asked the wood, triumphantly. "My trees shall grow year after year, till they become tall and strong. Then they shall close their tops over you: no sun shall shine, no rain shall fall upon you; and you shall die, as a punishment for your presumption."
But the heath shook his black twigs earnestly:
"You don't know me," he said. "I am stronger than you think. Your trees will never turn green in me. I have bound the earth under me as firm as iron and your roots can't go through it. Just wait till next year! Then the little fellows you are so pleased with will all be dead."
"You're lying," said the wood.
But she was frightened.
Next year, it happened as the heath had said. The little oaks and beeches died as one tree. And now a terrible time came for the wood. The heath spread more and more; on every side there was heather instead of violets and anemones. None of the young trees grew up, the bushes withered,the old trees began to die in their tops, and it was a general calamity.
"It's no longer at all pleasant in the wood," said the nightingale. "I think I shall build somewhere else."
"Why, there's hardly a decent tree left to live in!" said the crow.
"The ground has become so hard that it's no longer possible to dig one's self a proper hole and burrow," said the fox.
The wood was at her wits' end. The beech stretched his branches to the sky in an appeal for help and the oak wrung his in silent despair.
"Sing your song once more!" said the heath.
"I have forgotten it," replied the wood, gloomily. "And my flowers are withered and my birds have flown away."
"Then I will sing," said the heath.
And he sang:
"A goodly song round the moorland goesWhen the sun in the east leaps clearer;And like blood or fire the heather glowsAs to autumn the woods draw nearer."All day on the moor will the cotton-grassWeave its white, long bands together;And softly the snake and the adder passThrough the stems of the tufted heather."On swinging tussock the lapwing leaps,Lark's note above plover's swelling,As the crook-backed cotter in silence creepsFrom his lonely moorland dwelling."
Gradually, as the years passed, things looked worse and worse for the wood. The heath spread farther and farther, until it reached the other end of the wood. The great trees died and toppled down as soon as the storm took a fair hold of them: then they lay and rotted and the heather grew over them. There were now only half a score of the oldest and strongest trees left; but they were altogether hollow and had quite thin tops.
"My time is over, I must die," said the wood.
"Well, I told you so beforehand," replied the heath.
But then the men and women began to grow very frightened at the way the heather was using the wood:
"Where am I to get timber for my workshop?" cried the joiner.
"Where am I to get sticks to put under my pot?" screamed the goodwife.
"Where, oh where, are we to get fuel in the winter?" sighed the old man.
"Where am I to stroll with my sweetheart in the spring?" asked the young one.
Then, when they had looked at the poor old trees for a bit, to see if there was anything to be done with them, they took their spades and mattocks and ran up the hills to where the heath began.
"You may as well save yourselves the trouble," said the heath. "I am not to be dug into."
"Alas, no!" sighed the wood; but she was so weak now that no one could hear what she said.
But they did not mind about that. They hewed and hewed right down through the hard shell. Then they carted earth into the holes and manured it; and then they planted some small trees. They tended them and put their faith in them and screened them against the east wind as well as they could.
And, year after year, the small trees grew. They stood like light, green spots in the middle of the black heather; and, when this had gone on for some time, a little bird came and built a nest in one of them.
"Hurrah!" shouted the men. "Now we've got a wood once more."
"No one can hold his own against men," said the heath. "The thing can't be helped. So we'll move on."
But of the old wood there still remained one tree, who had only one green twig in his top. Here a little bird settled and told of the new wood that was growing up on the hill yonder.
"Thank Heaven!" said the old wood. "What one can't do one's self one must leave to the children. If only they're good for something! They look so thin!"
"I daresay you were thin yourself once," said the bird.
The old wood said nothing to this, for at that very moment she was finished; and so, of course, my story is finished too.
Somewhere in the wood, quite close to one another, lived a little company of good friends.
There was the sheep's-scabious, who looked as if she had something on her head, but had not, and the bell-flower, who was so blue and modest. There was the maiden-pink, meeker and redder and gentler than any, and a few blades of grass, who were nice and green, but poor and quite grateful if one as much as looked at them. Then there was some moss, which grew on the old stump of a tree and kept to itself, and there was the hazel-bush, who was the finest of them all, both because he was so big and, especially, because the linnet had built his nest in him.
The friends never had a word.
They all minded their own business and did not stand in one another's way. In the evening, when the day's work was done, they listened to the linnet's song. Or else there would be a creaking in the hazel-bush's branches; and thatwas quite as uncanny as a regular ghost-story. Or else the blades of grass would just whisper softly and nonsensically; but that also is nice to listen to sometimes when you are tired and have nothing on your conscience.
If anything joyful happened to any one of the friends, they all rejoiced. When the maiden-pink and the bell-flower budded, the hazel-bush offered his congratulations, the linnet struck his longest trill and the blades of grass appointed a deputation and bowed respectfully to the ground and each shed a dewy tear of emotion. When the little linnets crept out of the egg, all the friends were as happy as if they themselves had had children.
From out of the wood came the whistling and singing of many birds, but this did not concern the friends. Sometimes a roe would come bounding or a fox sneaking along; and once a frightened hare hid under the hazel-bush, while the guns banged all around and the dogs gave tongue. They would talk about an event like this for days together. But then they lapsed into quietude again; and time wore on to summer.
Then, one morning, the maiden-pink felt strangely unwell.
Her stalks and leaves were slack and she had a regular pain in her roots. Her flowers were so queer and loose, she thought.
When she complained of not being well, the sheep's-scabious and the bell-flower said that it was just the same with them. So did the blades of grass, but that did not count, for they always agreed with any one they were talking to. The moss said nothing, but that did not signify either, for nobody asked him.
"We want rain," said the hazel-bush. "There's nothing else the matter. It doesn't affect me yet, but I suppose it will. You are so short and slender; that's why you feel it first."
The blades of grass nodded and thought that this was remarkably well said on the part of the hazel-bush. The others hung their heads. The linnet sang as best he could to cheer the sick friends.
But sick they were and sick they remained; and it grew worse every day.
"I think I'm dying," said the maiden-pink.
The blades of grass observed, most politely, that they were already half-dead. The hazel-bush was not feeling well either and the linnet thought the air so heavy that he was not at all inclined to sing.
And, while theywere talking about all this, towards the evening, they heard the same complaint in the whispering that came from the great wood, in the bell of the stag and the bay of the fox and the croak of the frog and the squeak of the mouse in her hole. The ranger and the farmer went past and talked about it; they looked up at the bright sky and shook their heads:
"We shall have no rain to-morrow either," said the ranger. "My small trees are dying."
"And my corn is being blighted," said the farmer.
Next morning, the friends became seriously alarmed when they looked at one another.
They were hardly recognizable, so ill did they appear, with yellow, hanging leaves and faded flowers and dry roots. Only the moss looked as usual.
"Don't you feel anything?" asked the hazel-bush.
"Yes, I do," said the moss. "But it doesn't show in me. I might lie here and be dead for a whole month and all the time look as if I were alive and well. I can't help it."
"I shall go up and look for a cloud," said the linnet.
And he went up in the air, so high that he was quite lost to the others, and he came back and said that there was a cloud far away in the west.
"Ask him to come," said the bell-flower, in a faint voice.
And the linnet flew up again and came back presently with the sad answer that the cloud could not:
"He would like to," said the linnet. "He is tired of hanging up there with all that rain. But he has to wait till the wind comes for him."
"Good-bye," said the maiden-pink. "And thank you for the pleasant time we have had together. I can hold out no longer."
'GOOD-BYE,' SAID THE MAIDEN-PINK.'GOOD-BYE,' SAID THE MAIDEN-PINK.
And then she died. All the friends looked at one another in dismay:
"We must get hold of the wind," said the hazel-bush, who had more life left in him than the others. "Else it will be all up with every one of us."
Next morning early, the wind came stealing along. He came quite slowly, for he too was tired of the intolerable dry heat; but he had to go his rounds for all that.
"Dear Wind," said the sheep's-scabious. "Bring us a little cloud, or we shall all be dead."
"There is no cloud," said the wind.
"That's not true, Wind," said the linnet. "There's a beautiful grey cloud far away in the west."
"Re-ally?" said the wind. "Ah ... I happen to be the east wind just now, so I can't help you."
"Turn round, dear Wind, and bring us the cloud," asked the bell-flower, civilly. "You can blow wherever you please and we shall be grateful to you as long as we live."
"You will earn the thanks of the whole community," said the hazel-bush.
"The whole community," whispered the blades of grass.
"I daresay," said the wind. "But I am not what you take me for. You believe that I am my own master, because I come shifting and shifting about and sometimes blow gently and sometimes hard and am sometimes mild and sometimes keen. But I am merely a dog that comes when his master calls."
"Who is your master then?" asked the linnet. "I will go to him, even if he lives at the end of the earth."
"Ah ... ifthatwere enough!" said the wind. "My master is the sun. I run my race at his behest. When he shines reallystrong anywhere, than I go up with the warm air and fetch cold air from somewhere else and fly with it along the earth. Whether it be east or west does not concern me."
"I don't understand it," said the linnet.
"I don't understand it either," said the wind. "But Idoit!"
Then he went down. And the friends stood and hung their heads and were at their wits' end:
"There is nothing for it but to die," said the sheep's-scabious.
"If I have lived through the winter," said the hazel-bush, "I suppose I can stand this. But it's very hard."
And the bell-flower and the sheep's-scabious, who had never lived through the winter, wondered if it could really be worse than this. And the linnet dreamt of the south, wherehespent the winter; and the blades of grass had quite thrown up the game.
"Can't your branches reach up to the sun?" asked the sheep's-scabious of the hazel-bush.
"Can't you fly up to the sun?" asked the bell-flower of the linnet.
But that they could not do; and the days passed and the wretchedness increased. It was quite silent in the wood. Not a bird chirped, the fox stayed in his hole, the stag lay in the shade and gasped, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and the trees stood with drooping branches, as though they were at a funeral.
Then the bell-flower rang all her bells, as if to ring in death over the wood. It sounded quite still and weak and nevertheless rose high in the air like a prayer:
"My blue bells chime for the rain to fallIn dusty and desolate places,Where buds that should shine and be fragrant allAre pining with pallid faces."
It is not easy to know who heard it; and none of the friends said a word. But, at that moment, they all plainly heard some one speak and then they all knew that it was the sun, whom the hazel-bush could not reach with his branches and whom the linnet could not fly to, but who had heard the bell-flower's plaints:
"I shine as I must and not as I please; and I cannot help you. I am bound to go my course round another sun, who is a thousand times larger and better than I. I cannot swerve a foot's breadth from my road; I cannot send down a single ray according to my own wishes."
"I don't understand it," said the hazel-bush.
"I don't understand it either," said the sun. "But Idoit."
"And I understand that it is all up with a poor sheep's-scabious," said the sheep's-scabious and died then and there.
Then night came and all thought that it would be their last.
But, suddenly, the bell-flower raised her aching head and listened.
She thought she heard a sound as when a drop falls ... now came another ... it smacked down upon a leaf ... and another ... and another....
They all woke up, while the rain poured in torrents.
The poor blades of grass stood up, the unhappy moss tookfresh courage. The linnet began to sing, though it was a dark night. The hazel-bush shook with delight, until he nearly shook the linnet's young out of the nest.
Everything round about in the wood revived. The night was full of happiness. The ranger and the farmer rose from their beds and met in the rain and shook each other by the hand with glad eyes.
It rained the whole night and the day after and the next night and one day more. Sometimes it rained gently and sometimes hard. The ground drank all the water with a thirsty mouth and the roots sucked it greedily out of the ground and leaves and flowers unfolded and stood erect and blithe on slender stalks.
Then came the third day, with sunshine and a blue sky and life and merriment in the wood.
"Well," said the wind and came darting along as though he had never been tired in his life, "do you see, I brought you the rain?"
"Well," said the cloud, who drifted high above, in a light, white summer suit, "did you see how I came with the rain?"
"Well," said the sun and laughed, rounder and warmer than ever, "so you got what you asked me for!"
The friends looked at one another in surprise. But, a little way off, sat the red fox, with his ugly, clever face:
"That's the sort of people they are," he said. "When you ask them for something, they're not at home. But they never forget to call for thanks!"
The house-mouse went about quietly, minding her business.
She lived in the forester's house that lay just on the skirt of the forest, so that there were woods on one side and fields on the other. She had a comfortable home behind the wainscot in the forester's dining-room, right under the window. And the window looked out on the woods; and then down at the bottom of the wall there was a very tiny hole, which the house-mouse was just able to squeeze through, so that she could slip into the woods and home again whenever she pleased.
In this way, the house-mouse had a very enjoyable time; and she had a good time also with regard to the people she lived with. True, the forester was a grumpy sort of man, who could not hear the word "mouse" mentioned without flying into a rage. But he was a very old man and the house was managed by his daughter.She never forgot the house-mouse; and this came of a meeting that once took place between the two. One morning, you must know, the young lady went to the sideboard to get out the sugar for her father's coffee. And there sat the mouse in the sugar-basin. She had forgotten the time and gone to sleep. And there shewas!
Of course, she was terribly frightened; and it was worse still when the girl put out her hand over the sugar-basin, as if to catch her:
"So there you are, Mousie!" she said. "Ithoughtit was you that was after my sugar! Apart from that, you're a nice little thing. But you needn't go shaking so terribly in your little grey shoes, for, I assure you, I have not the least intention of doing you any harm. Perhaps you have little children, who would starve if you didn't come home to them. So I'll let you go. But, on the other hand, it will never do for you to go stealing our sugar. So, when you get down to the floor, run straight to your hole. I don't know where it is, but, when I find out, I will put a piece of sugar on the floor outside it, every evening before I go to bed. And then I will look for the hole through which you got into the sideboard and stop it up; and then we shall be friends."
When she had made this speech, which was much handsomerthan the speeches which mice are accustomed to hear from human beings, she put the terrified mouse down on the floor. The mouse at once scudded across the room and disappeared in her hole under the wainscoting.
"So that's where you live," said the forester's daughter. "That's all right. Now you will see I shall remember my promise."
In the evening she put a lump of sugar there and she did so every evening before she went to bed. And, every morning, the mouse had fetched the sugar. And, when, one day, she heard a squeaking behind the wainscot, she guessed that the little mouse had now got children; and, from that day, she put two lumps of sugar for her every evening.
The mouse, therefore, could not complain of the people she lived with and no more she did. Add to this that the only cat that the forester's house contained was an enormous old ginger tom who could no longer either see or hear. He had been there in the forester's wife's day. She was dead now. And, as she had been fond of him, he was allowed to live and eat the bread of charity in the forester's house, though he was no longer of the least use. And, as he could not tolerate other and younger cats, there was no other cat in the place, which of course was a great source of joy to the mouse, who often ran right under the old ginger tomcat's nose, without his noticing her.
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.
"Good-afternoon, cousin," said the house-mouse.
"The same to you, cousin," said the wood-mouse.
"A fine sunny day," said the house-mouse.
"The same to you, cousin," said the wood-mouse.
When they had greeted each other in this fashion, they sat and looked at each other for a little while. The house-mouse moved her big ears to and fro; and the wood-mouse did the same, out of courtesy, but her ears were not nearly so big. On the other hand, she had more hairs in her tail than her cousin, so that pretty well made up for the ears. Then the house-mouse said:
"Life is lovely."
"Do you think so, cousin?" said the wood-mouse.
And she looked as though she were of a very different opinion, but too polite to say so outright.
"Yes, I do, cousin," replied the house-mouse. "I have just got my last seven youngsters off my hands. And every evening the young mistress puts a piece of sugar outside my hole for me. And the forester and the cat are both so old that they positively can't see when I run through the room. And yesterday an old lady arrived whose name is Petronella. And she's as frightened of me as though she were a mouse and I a cat. When she sees me, she screamsand gathers up her skirts and jumps on a chair, old as she is. This amuses the young lady who gives me the sugar immensely, so I like doing it. And, for the matter of that, I needn't even trouble to come out. This morning, I was sitting in my hole while they were drinking tea. Then my young mistress cried, 'There's the mouse!' and in a jiffy Aunt Petronella was up on the chair, though I wasn't there at all. I tell you, it's great fun."
"I daresay, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "And I'm very glad indeed that you've such a good time."
"And haven't you just as good a time?" asked the house-mouse. "Living in the green wood and hearing the birds sing all day long? No cat and no mouse-traps?"
"Yes, it's all right about the birds," said the wood-mouse. "And about the cats too. But you mustn't think on that account, cousin, that this is a sort of paradise. I hear very little of the birds down where I live; and I may as well admit that I don't bother my head about them. Besides, there are one or two awkward customers among them, such as the crow, for instance, and the rook and the jackdaw, who all belong to the same family. Not to speak of the stork and the buzzard, for whom a wood-mouse is a mere mouthful."
"Yes, I know," said the house-mouse. "Well, we all have our worries. And, at any rate, you don't have the cat. She's the trickiest of the lot."
"Is she?" said the wood-mouse. "Well, you may be right. But we have the fox out here, you know, who is pretty cunning, in addition to the marten and the polecats, who are the blood-thirstiest animals that you can think of. No, taken all round, believe me, it's not so pleasant to be a wood-mouse. And it's very likely that what is your good fortune is just my misfortune!"
"Why, how can that be, cousin?" asked the house-mouse. "I can't understand it and I should be sorry to think so."
"Well, you see, it's not a thing thatyoucan help," said the wood-mouse. "Heaven forbid! You have always been a first-rate cousin; I don't deny it for a moment. But I expect the reason why you have a good time is that you live with an old gentleman like your forester. The natural consequence is a cat and a sweet young daughter who gives you sugar. Perhaps it would not be so pleasant for you if the forester died and a new one came who was younger. His wife might be too fond of her sugar to care to give you any. His children might set traps for you and torture you. And he might have a young cat, who would get her claws into you and eat you."
"You are very likely right," said the house-mouse. "All the more reason why I should value my good fortune while it lasts. But, all the same, I can't understand how my good fortune can be your misfortune."