TROUBLE FOR MINNIE.
As Minnie sat meditating, suddenly the grass 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 grass feet? Could it draw its roots up out
of the ground and walk?
Why, _she_ was moving! The grass 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 shell, 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 grass."
"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 pass.
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 grass 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.