WHY THE FIELD
MOUSE IS LITTLE.
Once upon a time, before there were any big folks, or any real houses in the world, the little First Man, and the little First Woman lived in a tiny lodge on the banks of a big river. They were the only people in the whole world, and they were very, very small, not any larger than your finger.
They ate wild gooseberries, and twin berries, and black caps. One berry made a very fine meal for them.
The little First Woman took very good care of the little First Man. She made him a beautiful green bow and arrow from a blade of grass, with which he could hunt crickets and grasshoppers. From the skin of a humming bird she made him a most beautiful hunting coat, all embroidered and jeweled with bits of gay shells and shining particles of sand.
One day the little First Man was out hunting and he grew very weary, wading through the deep grass, so he laid him down beneath a clover leaf and fell fast asleep. A storm came up, and the thunder roared and the lightning flashed, but it did not waken the little First Man. Then the sun shone, warm, as it does in hot countries, and the little First Man awoke. Alas, where was his gay little hunting coat? The rain had soaked it, and the sun had scorched it, and it had fallen to pieces, and dropped quite off the little First Man.
Then he was very angry and he shook his fist at the great sun. “It is all your fault,” he cried. “I will pull you down from the sky.”
He went home and told the little First Woman, who cried many tears when she thought of all the stitches she had put into the coat. And the little First Woman stamped her little foot at the sun, and she, too, said it should stay up in the sky no longer. The sun should be pulled down.
The next thing was to arrange how to do it. They were such small people, and the sun was so great and so far away. But they began plaiting a long rope of grass that should be long enough to catch the sun, and after they had worked for many moons, the rope was quite long.
Then they could not carry it, because it made such a heavy coil; so the little First Man tried to think of one of the beasts who could help him, and he decided that the Field Mouse would be the most willing.