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- Title: The Tale of Two Bad Mice
- Author: Beatrix Potter
- THE TALE OF TWO BAD MICE
- ONCE upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's-house; it was red
- brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front
- door and a chimney.
- IT belonged to two Dolls called Lucinda and Jane; at least it belonged
- to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals.
- Jane was the Cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner
- had been bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings.
- THERE were two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding, and some
- pears and oranges.
- They would not come off the plates, but they were extremely beautiful.
- ONE morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll's
- perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet.
- Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner
- near the fire-place, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.
- Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment, and then popped it in again.
- Tom Thumb was a mouse.
- A MINUTE afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and
- when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on
- the oilcloth under the coal-box.
- THE doll's-house stood at the other side of the fire-place. Tom Thumb
- and Hunca Munca went cautiously across the hearthrug. They pushed the
- front door--it was not fast.
- TOM THUMB and Hunca Munca went upstairs and peeped into the
- dining-room. Then they squeaked with joy!
- Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table! There were tin
- spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly-chairs--all _so_
- convenient!
- TOM THUMB set to work at once to carve the ham. It was a beautiful
- shiny yellow, streaked with red.
- The knife crumpled up and hurt him; he put his finger in his mouth.
- "It is not boiled enough; it is hard. You have a try, Hunca Munca."
- HUNCA MUNCA stood up in her chair, and chopped at the ham with another
- lead knife.
- "It's as hard as the hams at the cheesemonger's," said Hunca Munca.
- THE ham broke off the plate with a jerk, and rolled under the table.
- "Let it alone," said Tom Thumb; "give me some fish, Hunca Munca!"
- HUNCA MUNCA tried every tin spoon in turn; the fish was glued to the
- dish.
- Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the
- floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel--bang, bang,
- smash, smash!
- The ham flew all into pieces, for underneath the shiny paint it was
- made of nothing but plaster!
- THEN there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and
- Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears and the
- oranges.
- As the fish would not come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot
- crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not burn either.
- TOM THUMB went up the kitchen chimney and looked out at the top--there
- was no soot.
- WHILE Tom Thumb was up the chimney, Hunca Munca had another
- disappointment. She found some tiny canisters upon the dresser,
- labelled--Rice--Coffee--Sago--but when she turned them upside down,
- there was nothing inside except red and blue beads.
- THEN those mice set to work to do all the mischief they
- could--especially Tom Thumb! He took Jane's clothes out of the chest of
- drawers in her bedroom, and he threw them out of the top floor window.
- But Hunca Munca had a frugal mind. After pulling half the feathers out
- of Lucinda's bolster, she remembered that she herself was in want of a
- feather bed.
- WITH Tom Thumb's assistance she carried the bolster downstairs, and
- across the hearth-rug. It was difficult to squeeze the bolster into the
- mouse-hole; but they managed it somehow.
- THEN Hunca Munca went back and fetched a chair, a book-case, a
- bird-cage, and several small odds and ends. The book-case and the
- bird-cage refused to go into the mouse-hole.
- HUNCA MUNCA left them behind the coal-box, and went to fetch a cradle.
- HUNCA MUNCA was just returning with another chair, when suddenly there
- was a noise of talking outside upon the landing. The mice rushed back
- to their hole, and the dolls came into the nursery.
- WHAT a sight met the eyes of Jane and Lucinda!
- Lucinda sat upon the upset kitchen stove and stared; and Jane leant
- against the kitchen dresser and smiled--but neither of them made any
- remark.
- THE book-case and the bird-cage were rescued from under the
- coal-box--but Hunca Munca has got the cradle, and some of Lucinda's
- clothes.
- SHE also has some useful pots and pans, and several other things.
- THE little girl that the doll's-house belonged to, said,--"I will get
- a doll dressed like a policeman!"
- BUT the nurse said,--"I will set a mouse-trap!"
- SO that is the story of the two Bad Mice,--but they were not so very
- very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke.
- He found a crooked sixpence under the hearthrug; and upon Christmas
- Eve, he and Hunca Munca stuffed it into one of the stockings of Lucinda
- and Jane.
- AND very early every morning--before anybody is awake--Hunca Munca
- comes with her dust-pan and her broom to sweep the Dollies' house!
- THE END.
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