The Cat, The Mouse And The Cock
One day a little mouse came running home, crying, “Mother, mother, oh, mother!”
The mother mouse, nearly frightened to death, asked, “Why, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, mother, I saw something terrible in the garden just now. It has made me so afraid! I was truly afraid of it.”
“Tell me, dear, what it was you saw in the garden,” mouse mother said anxiously. ” Come on!”
The little mouse went on, panting, ” I saw two things in the garden I’ve never seen before. One was all right, it was a very pretty thing with a long tail. It had velvet clothes on just like ours, only the colours were a bit different.
They were spotted with black and white. It had nice light-green eyes. Oh, it looked so kind and gentle. It was coming towards me in such a kind way. I’m sure it was going to speak to me. I dare say it wished to make friends with me. I was so glad, and I should have gone right up to it if a big yellow-legged monster had not come up at that very moment between me and the nice thing!
This yellow-legged monster looked very terrible. It had a red hat on its head. It always kept its big eyes moving, and what’s more, it had a pointed yellow mouth!
Mother mouse interrupted, “Did it try to catch you, my dear?”
“No mother,” answered the little mouse, “not at all! But it looked very hard at the nice thing. Then it beat its side again and again, and opened its mouth, crying in a fierce voice: Cock-a-doodle-do! Cock-a-doodle-do!
I was terribly frightened, and thought I’d die, so I ran home as quickly as I could!”
Mother mouse smiled and said, “Oh, dear, it’s lucky you’ve got home safely. That big yellow-legged thing was only a cock. It wouldn’t have done you any harm. It wouldn’t have hurt you at all.
But the other thing, the thing with the velvet clothes and light-green eyes that you thought so kind and gentle and pretty, was a cat!
The cruel murderer of our folk! The Evil One! It would have eaten you all up in a moment if the cock hadn’t come between just then!”
“Oh, Mother, I am ashamed! I thought it was so kind and good!”
“It’s all right, my dear child, you needn’t be ashamed. But remember this always:
often you cannot tell what people are like by what they look like .”
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Comment by Gusaja — August 30, 2010 @ 3:15 am