Читать книгу Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened - John Aikin - Страница 5

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A young mouse lived in a cupboard where sweetmeats were kept; she dined every day upon biscuit, marmalade, or fine sugar. Never had any little mouse lived so well. She had often ventured to peep at the family while they sat at supper; nay, she had sometimes stolen down on the carpet, and picked up the crumbs, and nobody had ever hurt her. She would have been quite happy, but that she was sometimes frightened by the cat, and then she ran trembling to the hole behind the wainscot. One day she came running to her mother in great joy. “Mother,” said she, “the good people of this family have built me a house to live in; it is in the cupboard: I am sure it is for me, for it is just big enough: the bottom is of wood, and it is covered all over with wires! and I dare say they have made it on purpose to screen me from that terrible cat, which ran after me so often; there is an entrance just big enough for me, but puss cannot follow; and they have been so good as to put in some toasted cheese, which smells so deliciously, that I should have run in directly and taken possession of my new house, but I thought I would tell you first, that we might go in together, and both lodge there to-night, for it will hold us both.”

“My dear child,” said the old mouse, “it is most happy that you did not go in, for this house is called a trap, and you would never have come out again, except to have been devoured, or put to death in some way or other. Though man has not so fierce a look as a cat, he is as much our enemy, and has still more cunning.”