“Are they birds?” asked Nellie as she tiptoed up to it.
“Birds!” repeated Jimmie, who was just behind her: “don’t you know better than that? They are mice—white mice, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“No, they ain’t,” said Bessie, who was stretching her little neck to get a good view of them; “they’re all pink. I see ’em!”
She did not know why she was laughed at, for they certainly were pink—very pink indeed, and very little.
“La, child!” said Martha, laughing too, “that ain’t the color they’re going to be. They’re pink because they haven’t got any fur yet, only their skins. I guess, though, that they’ll be just mouse-color. But ain’t they cunning?”
“Me want one,” said Charlie, “to play with.”
And when they told him that he could not take any of Mrs. Mouse’s children, as she had only gone out for a little while, he, as usual, began to cry.
“Go ahead, Cry-Baby!” said Jimmie; and Charlie did go ahead.
But something dreadful happened just then.
No one knew that Mrs. Puss had just followed them in to see what was going on; and as soon as she caught sight of the nest with three little mice in it, she knew what they were in a minute. She made one jump and gobbled them up; every little mouse was gone, and Puss sat licking her chops and feeling that she had made a very good breakfast.