“Why is the fellow called Dormouse?” asked Daisy.
“Because,” Jem answered, “the word means sleepy-mouse, and he spends most of his time napping. Just feel, Daisy, how soft and delicate his long hair is! You need not squirm so, he won’t jump at you. He is too much of a sleepy-head to take any trouble; see, I can tumble him right over without waking him.”
“Oh, Jem, tell the story Mamma read us about the English lady and the dormice,” said Kit, “it is so famous.”
“An English lady was invited to take tea one night with an old lady who had a pair of pet dormice; after tea, the visitor went to an evening concert, and on her return home found a note from the old lady, saying,—that immediately after she left the house, one of the dormice was missing, and begged she would carefully examine her clothes,—for sometimes her pets would hide away in the folds of a dress for hours. The lady searched in vain; no pet dormouse appeared, so she began to prepare for bed, when, to her great astonishment, on combing out her long hair, she found the mouse hiding in a thick curl. How he got up there, or when, or how he managed to hang on, was always a mystery.”
“That was funny enough,” agreed the children, and turned their attention to the squirrel in his cage. Jem threw in a handful of nuts, and it was curious to see how daintily he turned them all over, throwing aside those that were not perfectly good, and when he found one just to his taste, sat himself on his hind legs, cushioning his seat with his tail, then holding the nut in the fore paws, he chiselled out the tip with his front teeth, then broke off the shell, and slowly nibbled the kernel. Jem told the children how useful that great bushy tail was—as cushion by day, and warm blanket at night.
Next on the list came the pigs. But pig-sties, in summer, are not places to tarry long near, so the children started for home, when, suddenly, a loud scream was heard, and Jem darted back in the direction from which the sound came, and soon learned its cause. The two Monkeys had slipped away from the party, to take another look at the pigs, and climbed to the top of the fence, with long sticks in their hands, “to worry the pigs.” The old Lady of the Sty was so indignant that, at the first thrust, she had rushed toward the fence, making such a fearful noise, that the terrified Rosie had lost her balance, and something or somebody (Rosie, in her fright, could not tell which, but rather thought it was herself) fell over into the sty, right under the quivering nostrils of the angry pigs. There stood Rosie, screaming and stamping outside, whilst roguish Jack was running away as fast as his little short legs could carry him, and Jem found, to his great relief, that what Rosie, in her fright, had supposed to be her little self, was really only her pretty straw hat which piggies were devouring, daisy, wreath and all.
Kind-hearted Jem sat down on the trunk of a tree, near, and, taking the sobbing child on his knee, tenderly soothed her, first promising one of Alice’s sunbonnets for her future use, then, as the children gathered anxiously about him, the boy proposed to tell them a Family Pig Story.
“Do, Jem,” half sobbed, half laughed little Rosie, “I really think it would make my scare better.”
“Do, Jem, old fellow,” chimed in Ned and Kit; “stories of animals never seem to grow rusty.”
“Mamma ought really to tell this,” said Jem, “for she has a kind of a way, when she tells her stories, of seeming to make everything and everybody walk right before your eyes; but I’ll do the best I can.”