On a beautiful moonlit night in a Sunny Meadow lived a little mouse named Max. Max was no ordinary mouse; instead of hiding away all day and night, he loved to sit at his hole and enjoy the beauty of the scenes around him. His heart was so big and brave that he had the courage to dare new things and search new places just to have fun and frolic. When he sat peeping out of his hole, it looked something the black hole which sailors cut in their sails to see through; for the body of Max seemed to take up so much space, that all a thing could see outside the black hole was his bright little face and his queer round ears.
One fine evening, however, when Max was sitting quietly in his hole, crying ‘Cheep, cheep!’” and whistling to some birds just flown over his head, he saw at a little distance in the moonlight a big fluffy gray cat lying at full-length licking her furry coat. Max nodded to himself. There might be a fishbone or a few barleycorns lying about his own house; but there lay a feast laid for him if he could only get at it. And so, puffing himself out and ruffling himself up, out Max stepped.
Cautiously treading on tiptoe, and keeping one ear in listening attitude to catch any sound, he neared the big cat. Yes; there lay the rich nourishing food for him, still untouched.
“Oh! what a lucky fellow I am,” he thought. And ran after a bit of meat that lay about two inches from the tail of the cat.
The cat, however, curving her tail round, gave it a swoop, and caught Max up by the nose.
“Help! help!” cried Max. Being caught by the nose was bad enough, but when with one paw the cat brought up her terrible claws, it was doubly bad.
Now it so happened that Max had a great many friends and relations in the pleasant Sunny Meadow, and when he saw the big cat advancing stealthily and noiselessly towards his happy home, he ran away by the side of a bush and roared at the pitch of his voice to call them all together.
“You would never believe,” he cried as soon as they came rushing together in a crowd, “you would never believe what a great enemy to us has come over into the Sunny Meadow with the clear moonlight and the gentle breathing air. We, a poor little people, almost unseen by our neighbours, have over here a cat far bigger than you, and not to say as dangerous. You all know how strong and sharp her claws are, and what a pop she has in her mouth. I implore you all to use your utmost royalty and vigilance to overcome this terrible enemy. And first, what I wish is to bind some small bell to avoid her noiseless creeping-gait by which she comes to attack and surprise us.”
This speech was received with great cheering and applauding by the mice, and they all agreed to the reach the Cat, some old black whiskered fellow, who was as active as a go-kart on a June day, jumped dry on the cat’s stomach.
“Will you make the cursor take a stroll before us,” said the cat, “that the letters of her name may fall bodily ‘to the ground.’ It is easy enough, also, to perform, for an old fellow like me, in order that those bells may be put to ordinary and right purpose again.”
“Yes,” said the mice all louder, “yes, this will do.”
“Then,” said the Cat, “you must take care that you do not sing Bell cursed. I hope by the time there is a clear sound nothing will remain but the interstitial ether.”
Directly the mice heard these words, they all scampered off with all other pace and went one way and did crept in another. And if the old cat is the wiser for it, that is not my business, as I am not poet and philosopher both in this one.
Mice will creep where cats will not.