Once upon a time, there was a small, white mouse with light pink ears, tiny paws, and a very small tail. Her name was Minnie the Mouse. She had many friends, but she was very shy, especially in front of strangers, so most of the animals soon forgot that she was even in the neighborhood.
Minnie was very sad about this and turned to her friend, Tilly Giraffe, for advice. “What shall I do, Tilly Giraffe?” she asked in her sweet little voice. “All the other animals have so much fun together while I sit all alone in my hole. Sometimes they come to ask me to go out, but I am so shy I can’t.”
Tilly knew Minnie could wait no longer, for winter was approaching, and her food must be stored for the cold weather.
“Why don’t you go with the rest to see a new Lion Cub that the farmer has bought?” she asked.
“Because I am too shy,” replied Minnie.
“Then don’t be shy,” said Tilly simply. “Go and see him.”
Then Minnie said goodbye to her old friend and hurried away to find the other animals.
She crept up to where they all stood talking in front of a cottage the farmer owned. Just then Tilly came up behind her slowly and gently nudged her.
“Come now, Minnie Mouse,” she said, “you need not be afraid.”
But Minnie lowering her tiny head turned to go again, when all at once the farmer came out of the door leading the most beautiful cub that ever you saw, with yellow fur all down his back and his head, and a long furry black tail.
“Now, children,” said the farmer, “do you all wish to come and see this nice little Lion? You must bow to him and he will answer you. He is very, very friendly.” This was true, for animals never want to hurt when they come to live with Man, and the animals associated with their masters and their friends forever after.
Tilly Giraffe and all her friends marched through the gate, and Minnie Mouse was only half a tail’s length behind the others, but none of them ever saw the Lion except Minnie. She stood blinking at him with all her might and peeping through the gulf between the gate and the latch; the Lion wagged his finger until he saw Minnie Mouce, then he nodded to her.
By this time, all the other animals had turned round to see what had happened, and some of them noticed Minnie at the gate.
The greatest Lion of all, father of all the Lion-Cubs in the world, was there wagging his mane and asking questions of the owners of the property.
He turned to the other animals, knighted them, and left them, but first, his paw reached over to touch the head of Minnie Mouse, who stood at the gate. All the animals moved away from the latch as soon as the King was gone, and clashed against Minnie, who was so tiny they couldn’t see her when her tiny whiskers were closest to the latch. “Where is she? I lost her in the fight,” said Gaffon Gater.
“If they once scratch her little nose she is sure to remember her old friends,” growled the Lion Cub.
“I am here, I am here,” squeaked Minnie Mouse, trying to pull herself together since everybody had trodden on her and the ground all the while. Next day all the friends came to see the Lion-Cub, except Tilly Giraffe; it was too hot, she said, for her knees, poor girl. Minnie Mouse was soon close to the front again, and when the manner of all her friends left her free to approach the other side of the Lion-Cub, she found she was nearly alone except Tilly, half a tail’s length away, and some older animals that she had known for ages at the Farmer’s Barn.
When the dancing began on the second day when the King had returned all the cousinhood was put on the table and Miss Ailsa Squirrel offered to revive the merry marking with American Candies.
“I can’t reach the table,” squeaked Minnie.
“I can’t hear on this side,” cried Tilly. “Are you alive still, Minnie? May I come a little nearer?”
“Come just as far as you can,” squeaked Minnie Mouse excitedly behind the gate of the court that surrounded the house and stables.
“Give her a chance to hold her own, will you?” growled the Lion Cub.
But the next moment they were put into the air on barrels of grain and, stopping for the last time at the Black Bears, took the road to the village. Most of the passengers were still tired with the long trip and forgot to see where they were going.
“Be steady, Nanny,” Minnie Mouse said softly.
“Won’t you shake hands?” giggled Tilly Giraffe trying to lay her long neck softly on the bundle of tawny fur.
When all had eaten and made fair weather for the dinner the fresh meat, fruit, and sweets began to arrive by the wire delivery baskets. But instead of everything being on the table an enormous quantity was piled about near the window.
“This is to give us fresh air,” squeaked old Cross Bunny.
“We always put this quantity into a dress basket under the bed,” Cosel Crow told Cross.
“Remember all this for next by,” growled the Lion Cub.
When the last inch of dinner was finished or thrown out of the window, old or cross animals were very glad and as clean as friends could make them. Then all sat still and everybody laughed.
Next day Minnie found herself so popular that any fears of strangers were entirely removed; but she felt she had lost too several of the friends who had visited at her place never to meet near the Lion Cubbage.
“You didn’t hardly feel you were at all,” Minnie added, some half minute before they were scratched, “and if we go away to snatch out the King’s ticket we may get our uncle into a very tight corner.”
The day soon came when all were to start to hunt for their meal tickets, when news was brought to them that Man’s uncooked food lay in tubs of granite near the gate.
“We are to put our legs and our nose down together,” they were told by the back’s hind leg attendant who had travelled them from the City Stables, “tubs must be clear; if anything is underneath no food can come out when we lift our paws. This may be a damp dark day or a terribly sunny one, so you must know what you ought to eat no matter what the weather may be.
And they gnawed pawfuls of cupboard pastry and mincemeat the whole long day.
“Half a tub is enough,” said Gaffron Gouger.
The others had hardly thrown off the drawers three times before they had all from half to all of their eight tins.
But it never once occurred to Minnie mice and Gaffron Gouger that four legs became more than were needed to sound a good pipe. Amazing discoveries are made every year, however, and next day one of the Guinea Pig fellows showed Minnie Mouse that if he climbed to the top of his tin on it and put his six paws upstairs out of the way of the contents he would write a public account of the performance. But he really had never touched the contents an entire meal ticket and there was flashed before their eyes the memory of the previous night.
“But, you know, I have to sit in front of my house for three little shares,” Minnie Mouse squeaked softly an hour after cut.
Gaffron Gater answered by another squeak which meant that he saw there was nothing else he could do but stand there.
“Half a tub should be enough,” he growled, thankful that he had been so careful. It never once occurred to him Squeaker was at her own home and inside her shell three times over.
So that’s the history of the brave little Miss Minnie Mouse, who might have lost her life by coming to call on a Lion Cub, all of them by the general act of kindness accorded ballast being christened after their Master.