Mouse

“ The mouse promised to deliver the granaries, for by a lucky chance she was the queen of mice, a fair, plump, pretty little mouse, the most delicate little lady that ever scampered merrily across the floors, scratched between the walls, and gave utterance to little cries of joy at finding nuts, meal, and crumbs of bread in her path ”

“ The engraving represents the field mouse, an animal which sometimes makes great havoc with the farmer's grain. The common domestic mouse is perhaps better known. He is generally, and I think I may say justly, regarded as a pest in the house where he becomes a tenant. But he is an interesting animal, after all. I love to watch him—the sly little fellow—nibbling his favorite cheese, his keen black eye looking straight at me, all the time, as if to read by my countenance what sort of thoughts I had about his mouseship. How much at home he always contrives to make himself in a family! ”

“ Had the harvest mouse ever seen a windmill, he would assuredly have concluded that a young one had escaped, and was walking in ever-narrowing circuits, round the field. The mist lifted further, and he saw the thing more clearly. Its great red arms swung dark against the sky, gathering the corn in a giant’s grasp to feed its ravenous cutters. Round and round the field it went. Each time as it travelled to the distant corners the mouse dropped down to earth; each time as it thundered close at hand, he dashed like lightning up the [Pg 134] stalk to look. ”

“ Now the cat knew full well how fond the mouse was of the barley-field, and she used to keep watch amongst the tall stems, creeping stealthily about with her tail in the air and her green eyes glistening, expecting any moment to see the poor little mouse darting hastily along. The cat never dreamt that any danger could come to her, and she trod down the barley, making quite a clear path through it. ”

“ All day long the happy pair enjoyed each other’s company aloft, leaping from corn-ear to thistle-head, from thistle-head to poppy, and back again to corn-ear, feasting, frivolling, stalking bluebottles. Their life was one long revel in the sunshine; for the harvest mouse has this distinction also, that, like a Christian, he loves the blue of the sky and sleeps at night.
frivolling.
[Pg 130] But he is wise in his generation, and lives far from the haunts of men. You must be quieter than a mouse if you want to see him. ”

“ All the country mice put on their skates, made of beech-nuts, with crooked pins for runners, and began to caper about in a great way. The vain young city mouse then fastened on his, which were tiny apple-seeds beautifully polished, and strapped with gray horse-hairs. ”

“ This handiwork of the white-footed or deer mouse can be found in almost every field or tangle of undergrowth; the nest of a field sparrow or catbird being used as a foundation and thickly covered over and tightly thatched with leaves. Now and then, even in mid-winter, we may find the owner at home, and as the weasel is the most bloodthirsty, so the deer mouse is the most beautiful and gentle of all the fur-coated folk of our woods. ”

“ The harvest mouse is the smallest and perhaps the prettiest of all the rodents. Its back is tan color, brightening on the sides and legs, while all the under part of the body is snow-white and silky. It is not much over an inch long, has bright eyes, and a long, hairy tail; it lives upon grain, and constructs one of the prettiest of nests for a home. Laying together, with their long leaves, three or four stalks of wheat, oats, or barley, the harvest mouse weaves of grass and leaves a round, beautiful nest, about as large as that of a titmouse. ”

“ The child, entering the dark room at night, hummed a tune to hide his fear and frightened a mouse who was playing in a far corner. The mouse ran blindly under the child's foot and the child, believing the mouse was his grandmother's ball of wool, gave it a vigorous kick and killed it. ”

“ Raises a lorgnette to her eyes, rises, and turns gracefully to the left. At this moment a tin mouse on wheels is sent whizzing toward her from behind the curtain. She jumps on the chair, gathering her skirts about her, and screaming. A foppish youth comes from the book in affected excitement, and attacks the mouse with his umbrella. ”

“ Even to-day they may be read with unfeigned pleasure, for their humorous and human studies of character, for their unostentatious pictures of nature, of the little nest of the field mouse, the moors, the stubble fields, the warm storeroom of the burgess's house, where the town mouse has her hole, and for the unaffected sympathy with our wild kindred of fur and feather. ”

“ It is a mouse which, hidden behind my bookcase, makes an infernal noise about twelve o'clock at night, the hour at which I dedicate myself to my work. It is he who destroys everything within the reach of his nails or teeth, who must have in his body more letters than a printing press and more paper than a paper-mill. ”

“ As we look and listen, a shadowless something hovers overhead, and, looking upward, we see a gray screech owl silently hanging on beating wings. His sharp ears have caught the muffled sound; his eyes search out the tangle, but the yellow-throat is out of reach. The little hunter drifts away into the blackness, the song ends and the sharp squeak of a mouse startles us. We rise slowly from our cramped position and quietly leave the mysteries of the night. ”

“ These lines intersect and cross at every conceivable angle, and as the meadow mice clan are ever friendly toward one another, any particular mouse seems at liberty to traverse these miles of mouse alleys. ”

“ Tiny field mouse, that turn’d up nose vixen the shrew,
The harvest mouse, fresh from a settler’s rick,
Were condemn’d by the great ones as not of their clique;
These reclined round a mole hill, and each dipp’d his paw
In a cocoa-nut bowl fill’d with rice, “en pillau.”
And the harvest mouse took most exceeding great pains
To squeak them a stanza in honour of grains.
[p24]
MOUSE’S SONG.
“An ear of corn, a grain of rice,
Banquet rich for simple mice;
A leaf his bed, a hole his house,
Who could hurt a harmless mouse? ”

“ The city mouse lives in a house;—
The garden mouse lives in a bower,
He's friendly with the frogs and toads,
And sees the pretty plants in flower.
The city mouse eats bread and cheese;—
The garden mouse eats what he can;
We will not grudge him seeds and stocks,
Poor little timid furry man.
Christina G. Rossetti.
The Robin to His Mate
Said Robin to his pretty mate,
"Bring here a little hay;
Lay here a stick and there a straw,
And bring a little clay.
"And we will build a little nest,
Wherein you soon shall lay
Your little eggs, so smooth, so blue;
Come, let us work away. ”

“ Please to imagine two small serpents, one beginning on the tail of a white mouse, and one on the head, and each pulling his own way, and the mouse very much alive all the time, with the middle of him madly writhing. ”

“ All have enormous mouths, so that a mouse can be swallowed quite easily. When excited they inflate their bodies like balloons and utter bull-like bellows. At other times they are heard to cry like infants. ”

“ Only their food is quite different, and when they come out in the twilight of the summer’s evening, the mouse is on the look out for acorns, nuts, grains, and roots, which it gnaws off with its sharp chisels, while the shrew is chasing worms and insects, or cracking tiny snails with its pointed teeth. ”

“ Not dangerous like the skunk, or brave like the raccoon, or big like the bear, the least of the Sleepers is the best-looking of them all. Shy and solitary, the gentle little jumping mouse is as dainty as he looks. His fur is lead, overlaid with gold deepening to a dark brown on the back, and like the deer-mouse he wears a snowy silk waistcoat and stockings. His strength is in his powerful crooked hind-legs, and his length in his silky tail, which occupies five of his eight inches. Given one jump ahead of any foe that runs, springs, flies, or crawls, and Mr. Jumping Mouse is safe. ”

“ Well, if he in the night kills the smallest mouse that ever squeaked, what a clatter he does kick up! He keeps my wife and me awake for hours; and sometimes—now this is so like Whig—to catch a [Pg 3] mouse not worth a fardin’, he’ll bring down a row of plates or a teapot or a punch-bowl worth half-a-guinea. And in the morning when he shows us the measly little mouse, doesn’t he put up his back and purr as loud as a bagpipe, and walk in and out my legs, for all the world as if the mouse was a dead rhinoceros. ”

“ He is known to the farmer as the "deer mouse," to the naturalist as the white-footed mouse,—a very beautiful creature, nocturnal in his habits, with large ears, and large, fine eyes, full of a wild, harmless look. ”

“ One peculiarity the rough-legged hawk shares with the little sparrow hawk—that of hanging like a wind-hover in midair, head to the wind, with dangling legs, his keen eyes watching the grass beneath for any sign of a mouse. With a continual rolling flap of the wings he holds himself, hour after hour, over precisely the same spot. At the first glimpse of a mouse he goes down with a perpendicular rush like a falcon, and flounders and flaps around until he has the little victim in his claws.
Judging from my own experience I should consider this the most intelligent of hawks. ”

“ You know how a mouse squeaks when it is mortally frightened. Have you seen, too, a mouse come right toward the cat that’s playing with it, apparently doing as it’s told—‘Come here and be eaten’? I’ve seen that, and interfered more than once; and remembering how I tried to be good to mice, I squeaked out some sort of mouse prayer to the other Thing—the kind one. And at that I was caught away, fell endlessly, until I woke in my own bed, and the rain was driving in. ”

“ The mice are terribly afraid. Now and then a single mouse for a moment escapes the general fear. A mood comes over such a one and a light comes into his eyes. When the noises run through the houses he makes up stories about them. “The horses of the sun are hauling wagon loads of days over the tops of trees,” he says and looks quickly about to see if he has been heard. When he discovers a female mouse looking at him he runs away with a flip of his tail and the female follows. ”

“ The mouse is a prolific mammal, producing from four to six times a year broods of from four to eight young. The mouse makes a cosy nest of straw, bits of paper, feathers, wool or other soft materials, and in this the young are born. The newly born mice are very small and are blind and helpless. They are odd little creatures, being naked and almost transparent. They grow rapidly, being covered with hair in a week, although not opening their eyes for about two weeks. A day or two after their eyes are open they begin to leave the nest, and hunt for food for themselves. ”

“ The mouse belongs to the class Mammalia, or the animals which rear their young by suckling them; to the order Rodentia, or animals whose teeth are adapted for gnawing; to the genus Mus, or Rat kind, and the family of Mus musculus, or domestic mouse. The mouse is a singularly beautiful little animal, as no one who examines it attentively, and without prejudice, can fail to discover. ”

“ Now and then a bold mouse stands upon his hind legs and addresses the others. He declares he will force his way through the walls and conquer the gods who have built the house. “I will kill them,” he declares. “The mice shall rule. You shall live in the light and the warmth. There shall be food for all and no one shall go hungry.” ”

“ DESCRIPTION.—A small mouse with very deep soft fur, very long and silky, of a rich dark brown colour, grizzled and brightly tinged with rufous or rufo-ferruginous towards the tail, and upon the ears conspicuously. In such spirit specimens as I have seen the colour was darker than in life, but the soft silkiness of the fur could be seen to advantage as it floated in the clear liquid; the lower parts are whitish, tinged with fawn; feet with brown hairs above; ears small and hirsute, and the tail is also hairy. ”

“ On again emerging, there it lies as before; and if that mouse was profane, and had a soul to hazard, it would undoubtedly hazard it, and roundly berate that brush through compressed teeth.
It takes but little to set a poor mouse into a perfect fluster. Down rolls a stick of wood from the pile, and Mr. Mouse, nibbling at the other corner of the shed, jumps at least eight feet in the direction of his hole. ”

“ A mouse and a sparrow used to visit that peasant’s barn; every one of God’s days they came about five times, ate all they could, and then went out. The mouse would spring into her hole, and the sparrow fly away to his nest. ”

“ In the beak of each owl was a mouse, or what I took to be such, and when they alighted on the maple I could detect, in the uncertain light, that they did not approach closely to the young birds, but, having removed the mice, which they now held in their claws, they chattered and screamed to their young, in a manner that could only be interpreted as, "Come over here and get your mouse." It was evident that the young owls were to be taught to help themselves, and to practice their power of flight. ”

“ He often noticed the little Mouse sitting with his head peeping out of the hole, but as he was a very kind Farmer, he never hurt the Mouse; and now and then when he was having his own dinner, he would throw the Mouse a bit of cheese.
The Mouse was very grateful to the Farmer, and wondered what he could do to show it. At last he thought of the treasure; for this Mouse was sensible enough to know that Farmers are very pleased to get a golden sovereign now and again. ”