"Squeaky looked down and saw the cat on the pantry shelf; she knew it couldn't get up to her, and she could not resist calling: "'Peekaboo!'
"Dear me, how Mrs. Cat glared!
"'Oh,' said Meeky, 'how are we to get down with mother's cheese now?'
"Squeaky said they would wait till the cat went to sleep, and pretty soon this seemed to be the case. But Mrs. Cat was only shamming, for the minute Squeaky reached the floor she pounced upon her, and while the mouse was carried shrieking away, Meeky made her escape.
"Of course, Mother Mouse and Meeky felt badly for a while, but the other mice said it was just what might have been expected, and just what happened to young mice who would not mind what their elders told them."
"Don't you ever feel badly, Mrs. Mouser, when you have caught a mouse, to think that it had a mother, and brothers and sisters, in its hole, waiting for it to come back?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"Why should I?" and Mrs. Cat spoke sharply. "Mice were made for cats to eat, and even if they were not, unless I killed all I could, Mr. Man's house would be over-run with them."
A SAUCY MOUSE.
"Of course I can't do very much in the daytime, because they don't come out of their holes; but I work all night, and it would surprise you to know how many there are in the house, I don't kill off a tenth part of them, and they seem to think they have more rights here than I have.
"Why, it is only last week that I happened to look up on the broad shelf in the dining-room closet, and there were six mice, sitting around as bold as you please. Five ran for their lives the minute they saw me; but what do you think the other one did? Why, he sat on his tail with his paws behind him, and actually scolded because I had come around there.