“Some mouse has evidently been here before us,” she said, but of course she never guessed that it was her own little son.
The next day the naughty little mouse again popped up to the pantry when his mother was asleep; but at first he could find nothing at all to eat, though there was a most delicious smell of toasted cheese.
Presently he found a dear little wooden house, and there hung the cheese, just inside it.
In ran Greywhiskers, but, oh! “click” went the little wooden house, and mousie was caught fast in a trap.
When the morning came, the cook, who had set the trap, lifted it from the shelf, and then called a pretty little girl to come and see the thief who had eaten her cake.
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Ethel.
“Why, drown him, my dear, to be sure.”
The tears came into the little girl’s pretty blue eyes.
“You didn’t know it was stealing, did you, mousie dear?” she said.
“No,” squeaked Greywhiskers sadly; “indeed I didn’t.”
Cook’s back was turned for a moment, and in that moment tender-hearted little Ethel lifted the lid of the trap, and out popped mousie.
Oh! how quickly he ran home to his mother, and how she comforted and petted him until he began to forget his fright; and then she made him promise never to disobey her again, and you may be sure he never did.
Great-Grandmother’s Wish.
“DID you ever see a fairy, grannie?” said Trots.
“No,” she said, “but my great-grandmother did.”