She was industrious, affectionate, and anxious to please, besides which, she knew when to keep out of the way when not wanted. In fact, she behaved in every respect just as the slave nature in man prefers his dependents to behave!
The mice soon disappeared completely! Not because they were captured, but because they could not endure the constant persecution....
And White was named the “demon mouser!”
EXIT RED
Sulphur-yellow, gall-green shafts mingle with the scarlet of the sunrise, and slowly wrest a large quadrangular farmhouse from the cloudy October dawn’s foul wet mists.
Outside the cow-stall, an old-fashioned milk-jar with its narrow neck appears out of the grey dawn. The milk-woman uses it every morning to take a pint of milk home to her children. A few traces of milk still cling to the bottom—enough, at any rate, to tempt a sweet-tooth!
The woman is inside milking, when Red comes sneaking along the barn, catches sight of the jar, sticks her nose in, and smells distinctly the milk on the bottom. She rests her forepaws on the round, bulging body of the vessel, and tries hard to push her head through the narrow neck.
After several attempts she manages, by turning her head vigorously from side to side, to slide it in, her ears pressed tightly back and her furry cheeks brushing the smooth earthenware.
She has succeeded—and she licks the jar cleaner than it has ever been before since the day it was made.
Then she prepares to retreat. But now, suddenly, she cannot get her head out; her thick neck and gristly ears are wedged fast! She becomes flurried ... and instead of trying to wriggle out gently, she begins to tug and wrestle; with the result that she fixes her frightful mask more firmly still. She topples over on her side, and rolls about clawing dementedly at the stone cobbles—until at last she regains her feet and staggers blindly into the yard.