"'Oh, wife, wife!' he cried as if he had seen some horrible animal. 'Bring me the butcher knife so that I can kill this mouse!'
"But the little mouse put her paws together and begged for her life. She promised to keep the mill free from mice if the miller would spare her life. Well, after a good deal of talk the miller agreed that she should be allowed to live in the mill, and for a whole month she kept her word so well that not even a mouse's tail was seen anywhere around the place. Then, one morning the miller heard a faint squeaking, and he cried out angrily:
"'What's this, Mrs. Mouse? You have forgotten your promise, and let in some of your friends.'
"No,' answered the little mouse, 'I have kept my promise. Those are my three babies, who were born last night,' and she led the way proudly to her nest, where the three squirming little mouse babies lay.
"'So this is the way you keep your word, is it?' the miller cried angrily. 'You promised to drive all other mice away from this mill, and here are three who have come to get their living from me!'
"Then he picked up the babies and threw them into the river. Oh, but the little mouse was angry! Yet she was only a mouse, and he was a man, so she said nothing; but after that, whenever she got a chance, she gnawed and gnawed and gnawed at the outer post of the mill, sometimes working the whole night long.
"Then came a big storm, and the river rose very high; the posts which were half gnawed through, broke, and the mill fell over into the river.
"'Save me! Save me!' shouted the miller as the swiftly-running current carried him down the stream.
"'I am sending you to find my lost babies,' squeaked the little mouse as she ran to and fro on the bank.
"There's a good lesson in that story, if you know how to find it," Mrs. Mouser said as she curled herself into a little ball near the fireplace, much as though she had come to an end of her story-telling; but just at that moment a mouse showed his nose in one corner of the room.