In a lovely afternoon, beneath a great big tree, sat a dear little house built of red bricks. A pane of glass looked out from it, as an eye looks out from the human face; a chimney rose up in the air quite in the style of a nose, and a green door quite like a mouth was below. All about this lovely place grew beautiful flowers, and half the space was covered with running box and great rose-bushes, where little curled-up buds were blowing open just like tiny horns.
It was a lovely little house, and in it lived two charming mice. Molly was a pretty little mouse, with a very smooth dress of grey-and-brown cloth; she was a little plump, but not too plump, and she had the prettiest way of bowing forward. Max was quite as neat, quite as trim, and verbally as rosy; it would have been a great pleasure to have known them both, but I must tell you that once on a very rainy day they lost their manners, and did not recover them again that the whole summer.
It is very terrible to be without manners. They are like good clothes, they make you comfortable, and they soften the hard ground beneath your feet. Yes, without manners it is as if you walked over sharpened stubble. When you have no manners you tread upon other people’s feet and step upon their toes; everybody you meet gets a blow, and perhaps its breath quite knocked out, by your sharpness.
A day came when the lovely sun shone forth like a happy thought. Both the little mice were invited to a tea party which was to be held in the lovely garden, with the lovely rose-bushes, on the lovely chairs of box, overgrown with grass.
“You go first; I will follow,” said Max, and he gave Molly his arm.
“Thankee,” said she, and so they went along the pretty path among the flowers, till they came to their friend Mrs. Conveni in front of her ground-floor sitting-room.
This madame had for many years been the mistress of a little school for the daughters of the poor. This morning she was giving a tea party in the garden, bidding the guests a hearty welcome as soon as they arrived.
“Oh, what a pleasure it is to see you!” exclaimed she, as she opened her prettiest eye like a Dutch clock: it went tick-tack, and Molly entered.
She was so surprised to find that she could remain sitting by Molly. Molly was a real lady this morning, like a neatly-dressed baby, so correct and so very polite.
Max was asked if he could play on the violin, “yet not very well; then I shall not give you a piece on my pianoforte. My housekeeper is very particular about the fire being lighted in the room where I keep my piano.”
Max bowed towards the lady, and behaved as a gentleman, especially as he felt pretty sure that it was a lady who played on the pianoforte.
“Five of my old girls have come to-day,” was all she could answer. “They are a little dumb now and then: there’s one of the party.”
“Oh, yes, so I see,” said Molly; and the lady from Riga stared quite astonished at the gentleman mouse who behaved so well.
Some tea and a little bouilli were brought on a china plate, but no guest remembered to eat and drink or even to converse; everybody looked about, stared at the guests, and thought, thought, and thought again.
The lady at the piano was red, still redder was Mrs. Madame; Molly’s frock had a shining paper star worked in it, where the star was was a great riddle to the lady.
“Molly,” said her brother, “let us both leave,” and thereupon Molly grasped his arm, and out they both went.
How vexed was Mrs. Conveni! how angry were Mrs. Liskoveta, Mrs. Lamerta, and Mrs. Pantoflka, and how sorry were the little dumb girls who could not get on at all! The broth was as salt as brine, and the profusion of dishes was of no use. Molly and her brother had both forgotten their manners at home, and while they were in the house of their hostess they might, at least, have taken off their door-plates.
So they lost their invitations for the whole summer. They heard nothing of the concerts, neither of the morning parties, nor of games of cards in the evening; they missed both balls and marching exhibitions, and every thing else in which even the most dumb mice can be ingenious.
Old Madame Conveni died, and a young, splendid, and so stupid a creature came to her house, that now the situation of a schoolmistress was an entire farce.
One sunny afternoon the two mice left their lovely little house, and danced and played about in the grass; they were happy and esteemed themselves happy, and were perfectly aware of it.
“This girl is verily much to blame,” said they to each other, “but above all old Madame, who was such a prudent and excellent person.”
The cavalcade went away; and here came the travelling carriage of old Madame. The two mice were sad, and danced with their tears all over the legs of the Cossack.
“Oh, dear! dear!” sighed Molly, and wanted, of course, to gesture, but not her foot alone, her curly and symmetrical little figure dropped all at once. She grieved for the deceased lady, and at the same time with herself for having forgot to take her manners with her.
All was lost but the gentle enjoyment which dimly lived in their hearts; their legs alone felt that they were absurd. The sweet figure of the dead lady grew clearer, so did these legs felt more stiff and cumbrous.
Max cried aloud, “One would think one was dead one’s self!”
How mowled and squeaked the two unhappy mice! What strong, what fiery grief was theirs! The grey-and-brown dress was turned white with scurf, every hair stank as fish. Both the legs lay for a long time in a puddle in the road—a horrible puddle! Max’s little black buttons, and Molly’s unassuming flower basket, whose handle was of black silk, lost all their color.
No manners! The lady thought them dead and turned away, smiling scornfully. Oh, they remembered old Madame, whose like was nowhere in the world! They looked up at the sky, which so viewed them smilingly. “Oh, we will make fines, and become punctual once more!” cried they both.
Slowly then and cautiously they gathered themselves together again, thought of their open door-plates, and meditated sorrowfully. Pomposities without and true virtues within!
It became cooler; they had wept themselves to sleep. What a night was that! The autumn wind swept around, and the autumn leaves rustled under the two little mice’ heads, as the draperies beneath a window’s sill.
“Why have we lost our manners?” sighed both the mice to each other.
They pondered, certainly they must find something that might suffice as manners; this sufficed as they went on their way very quietly up stairs into their blocked-up chimney-corner, where a hole had been made to receive them in a quiet kind of way.
Max’s grey-and-brown coat became perfectly white: how luckily it was that the dresses were of silk-velvet, that they did not shape themselves closer about the little figure, that all the embarrassments went off. When they had had three quiet days in there all went on as usual once more.
Old Madame was dead; but both young impressed most affectionately and in a very grand manner received all the snow, which in winter let herself drop all around their pretty house in boughs so clean, so light, and so luminous.
And do you really think they forgot to begin their manners once more? No!