Then Benjamin and Flopsy
thought that it was time to go
home.
So Mr. McGregor did not get his
tobacco, and Mrs. McGregor did
not get her rabbit skins.
But next Christmas Thomasina
Tittlemouse got a present of
enough rabbit wool to make herself
a cloak and a hood, and a
handsome muff and a pair of
warm mittens.
THE TALE OF MRS. TITTLEMOUSE
[Nellie's
Little Book]
Once upon a time there was
a woodmouse, and her name
was Mrs. Tittlemouse.
She lived in a bank under a hedge.
Such a funny house! There
were yards and yards of sandy
passages, leading to store-
rooms and nut cellars and
seed cellars, all amongst the
roots of the hedge.
There was a kitchen, a parlor,
a pantry, and a larder.
Also, there was Mrs. Tittle-
mouse's bedroom, where she
slept in a little box bed!
Mrs. Tittlemouse was a most
terribly tidy particular little
mouse, always sweeping and
dusting the soft sandy floors.
Sometimes a beetle lost its way
in the passages.
"Shuh! shuh! little dirty feet!"
said Mrs. Tittlemouse, clattering
her dustpan.
And one day a little old woman
ran up and down in a red spotty
cloak.
"Your house is on fire, Mother
Ladybird! Fly away home to your
children!"
Another day, a big fat spider
came in to shelter from the rain.
"Beg pardon, is this not Miss
Muffet's?"
"Go away, you bold bad spider!
Leaving ends of cobweb all over
my nice clean house!"
She bundled the spider out at a
window.
He let himself down the hedge
with a long thin bit of string.
Mrs. Tittlemouse went on her
way to a distant storeroom, to
fetch cherrystones and thistle-
down seed for dinner.
All along the passage she
sniffed, and looked at the floor.
"I smell a smell of honey; is it
the cowslips outside, in the hedge?
I am sure I can see the marks of
little dirty feet."
Suddenly round a corner, she
met Babbitty Bumble—"Zizz,
Bizz, Bizzz!" said the bumble bee.
Mrs. Tittlemouse looked at her
severely. She wished that she had
a broom.
"Good-day, Babbitty Bumble; I
should be glad to buy some bees-
wax. But what are you doing
down here? Why do you always
come in at a window, and say,
Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz?" Mrs. Tittle-
mouse began to get cross.
"Zizz, Wizz, Wizzz!" replied
Babbitty Bumble in a peevish
squeak. She sidled down a passage,
and disappeared into a
storeroom which had been used
for acorns.
Mrs. Tittlemouse had eaten the
acorns before Christmas; the
storeroom ought to have been
empty.
But it was full of untidy dry
moss.
Mrs. Tittlemouse began to pull out the
moss. Three or four other bees put
their heads out, and buzzed fiercely.
"I am not in the habit of letting
lodgings; this is an intrusion!"
said Mrs. Tittlemouse.
"I will have them turned out
—" "Buzz! Buzz! Buzzz!"—"I
wonder who would help me?"
"Bizz, Wizz, Wizzz!"
—"I will not have Mr. Jackson;
he never wipes his feet."
Mrs. Tittlemouse decided to
leave the bees till after dinner.
When she got back to the parlor,
she heard some one coughing
in a fat voice; and there sat Mr.
Jackson himself.
He was sitting all over a
small rocking chair, twiddling his
thumbs and smiling, with his feet
on the fender.
He lived in a drain below the
hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch.
"How do you do, Mr. Jackson?
Deary me, you have got
very wet!"
"Thank you, thank you,
thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse!
I'll sit awhile and dry myself,"
said Mr. Jackson.
He sat and smiled, and the
water dripped off his coat
tails. Mrs. Tittlemouse went
round with a mop.