It took the whole afternoon to wander from one room to another, explaining where the mother had gone, comforting those that began to fret, feeding the hungry, quieting the quarrelsome. Glad enough was Minnie when she had tucked up the last brood in their bed of wool, and could creep out into the gra.s.s for a breath of air and a look at the pleasant sky.

Shaking the earth from her cloak of humming-bird feathers, and picking a handful of checkerberries, Minnie looked about for a stone to sit upon while she ate her supper.

She soon found one, smooth as any pebble in the brook. Here she could eat at her leisure, while a band of crickets and katydids played to her, and all the beautiful stars twinkled over her head, and all the gra.s.s about her was strung with glistening drops of dew.

"After all," she thought, "this is more to my taste than being shut up in my curtained bed at home. What's the use in stars and dew, if we never look at them? What use is there in the evening breeze, if we shut it out with our windows? It's a good thing to have our own way, and I may yet be glad that I left my father's house."

CHAPTER XXI.

TROUBLE FOR MINNIE.

As Minnie sat meditating, suddenly the gra.s.s about her seemed to move.

The long blades bent this way and that, and shook their dew-drops over her.

What could this mean? Had the gra.s.s feet? Could it draw its roots up out of the ground and walk?

Why, _she_ was moving! The gra.s.s behind lay bowed together in her pathway, and here she was, seated close under an evening primrose, which opened its yellow blossoms so far from the mouse-nest that she had only felt their fragrance when the wind blew.

Presently something like the head of a great snake was stretched out from under her seat. Minnie sprang up at once, and, climbing into the primrose branches, wondered if she were awake or asleep, that such strange things should happen.

Then the snake's head disappeared, and a low voice spoke from under the stone, "Why do you leave me? I live in a pleasanter place than the mouse, and am myself more honest and agreeable. Will not the little woman make me a visit?"

"Why, what's your name, and where did you come from? and are you a stone, or something alive? and is that snake's head a part of you?" said Minnie, half frightened, and half amused.

"What you are so polite as to call a snake's head is my own, and what you call a stone is my sh.e.l.l, and I am a turtle, Miss Minnie," the voice answered, with dignity.

"Pray, don't be angry with me, turtle; I meant no harm. Now the moonlight has come, I can see the beautiful golden stars on your back; and, now my fright is over, I remember what a pleasant ride you took me through the gra.s.s."

"You shall have as many such rides as you want, if only you'll come and stay with me by the side of the brook."

Here was the very opportunity Minnie had wished, to find a safer home; but she could not forget her promise to the mouse, and leave the little ones to suffer.

When she told turtle this, he said that she was perfectly right, and, creeping back with his load to the entrance of the nest, and finding the mouse was still away, he left Minnie, promising that by sunrise in the morning he would return for her.

Accustomed as she had long been to the shelter of the elm-leaves, the dampness rising from the ground made Minnie sneeze so violently that the crickets stopped playing to listen. She was glad to go, at last, inside of the nest, and sleep in one of the close little rubbish-rooms.

At daylight she was awakened by a small brown beetle running up and down her arm. Rubbing her eyes, she asked, rather sharply, why he could not let her sleep in peace.

"The turtle wants to know why you don't keep your promises. He has been waiting this half hour, and sends word that it is a shame for you to sleep away the beautiful morning hours."

Minnie sprang to her feet at once, and was following the beetle, when squeak, squeak! ho, hallo! wait a minute, Minnie! came from every room she attempted to pa.s.s.

She found that mouse had not kept her promise of coming home, and, sending a message to the turtle, she was obliged to wait and hear a hundred questions and complaints, and settle a hundred disputes between the quarrelsome young ones.

One had pushed the other out of bed; one had trodden on the other's tail; one tickled the other so that he could not sleep; one snored so loud it made another nervous; one had eaten up the other's grain.

As Minnie crept about in this dark, disagreeable place, so full of angry voices, she remembered that lost home of hers, where all was peace and love. She remembered dear Franky, with his rosy cheeks and curly hair,--the good, generous little fellow that he was; and baby Alice, with her large brown eyes; and the kind parents who never went away and forgot _their_ little ones.

Then she rummaged the store-rooms for food; and, not finding enough to satisfy the greedy mice, crept out into the air to see if she could not pick up something for their breakfast.

She saw no turtle. The gra.s.s was bent still with his foot-tracks, but he was gone. So Minnie went busily to work picking off seeds and berries, and the honeyed end of clover-blossoms, till she had such a heap that it seemed to her she could never carry it all into the nest.

Then thinking, "Perhaps, if I set the mice at work, it will stop their quarrelling," she called out several of the elder broods.

CHAPTER XXII.

TROUBLE STILL.

The young mice seemed obedient to Minnie until they had reached the entrance of the nest; but, at the first taste of fresh air, they began to frisk about, and do whatever they chose.

First they attacked her heap of food, and ate all the choicest bits which she had saved for the little ones. Then off they ran, this, that, and every way, Minnie calling after them in vain.

She went in search of the runaways, but they hid safely under the leaves and gra.s.s, or burrowed into the ground. Tired and discouraged, the poor girl turned back to collect what food was left, and give it to the little ones.

And still the old mouse did not come home. Minnie wondered if she had gone on purpose to be rid of her family, and if she must herself have the care of bringing up this great brood of noisy, troublesome mice.

Why not let them starve? If they grew up, it would only be to cheat and steal, like their mother, and run away with people's meal and cheese.

Ah! but Minnie had promised. And, besides, the old mouse had been kind in her way, and had offered Minnie a home when other friends forsook her. No, she would not desert the little ones.

All at once she remembered a trap that used to stand in her mother's pantry; suppose the mouse was caught in it! She would go this instant, and see.

Now the underground pathway was very, very narrow, and so close and warm that three times Minnie gave up her attempt, and as many times went back; for, when she thought that the friend who had fed her might be starving, it was enough to drive away all other thoughts.

Still, not being a mouse, she could not breathe in that close cellar-way. Her strength all left her. The little heart, that had beat so fast when she thought of going home, home, only fluttered faintly now. She began to feel that she could not even creep back to the mouse-nest; that this dark pa.s.sage was to be her grave.

But one step forward brought Minnie into a good-sized room, and what was her surprise to find this the nest of the father-mouse!

He didn't like the noise and trouble of children, he said, and so kept away from the sound of their voices. He hoped his mate was well, and was just on the point of going to see what had become of her.

When Minnie told her fears, he uttered a frightened squeak, and said he was sure she must be right, and that he was a poor, lonesome widower, and should never see his dear, dear wife again.

Minnie cheered him by telling that her mother's trap was not one of the cruel ones with teeth, but only a box with wires, in which his wife might live safely for several days. Then she explained how with his teeth and paws he could open the door and set her free.

Away flew the mouse, first showing his friend a nearer and easier pathway out into the air.

Minnie now began to consider how displeased the mother-mouse would be, on returning, to find her children scattered in all directions. If she could but call them together, and see them safe in the nest once more, bid the old mice good-by, and ride off quietly herself on the turtle's back, how happy she would be!

She climbed the tall evening primrose, and looked on every side, but not a sign of a mouse. She leaped into the gra.s.s again, and, with the stick of her parasol, stirred every tuft of clover and bunch of violet or plantain leaves. In vain.

Minnie had made up her mind that they were lost, drowned in the brook, or eaten by some bird of prey, when she caught sight of one, with his bright eyes and sharp little nose peeping up from under a toadstool.