I'm only a little brown mouse
That lives in somebody's house;
And in that same house there's a clock,
That says, "Tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock!"
And I've not forgotten yet quite,
How once, on a very still night,
I was sitting just over the clock,
When it gave such a terrible knock,
With a whirring and whizzing,
And buzzing and fizzing,
That I tumbled headlong from my perch on the shelf,
And, scampering wildly, I crowded myself
Right under the door, through such a small crack,
That I scraped all the hairs off the top of my back.
Oh, I am the merriest mouse
That lives anywhere in a house!
I love toasted cheese, and I love crusts of bread,
And bits of old paper to make a soft bed.
Oh! I tell you it's nice
To be one of the mice,
And when the night comes,
And the folks are abed,
To rattle and race
On the floor overhead.
And, say, don't you wish you could run up a wall
As I do, every day, without getting a fall?
And don't you wish you were a mouse,
Living in somebody's house?
Fleta F.
WHAT YOU DO, DO WELL.
"Why do you take such pains in cutting out these little figures?" asked Winifred of her brother Ernest.
"I will tell you why, sister," replied Ernest. "I take pains because my teacher tells me, that, if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well."
"Did he mean that we should try to do well even in trifles?" asked Winifred.
"Yes," answered Ernest, "because, as a great man once said, 'Perfection is no trifle.'"