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  THE MOUSE
  AND THE MOONBEAM


  [Illustration]


  THE MOUSE
  AND THE MOONBEAM

  By
  Eugene Field

  NEW YORK
  1919




Copyright, 1912

by Charles Scribner's Sons

Through the courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons,
we were permitted to print this small private edition.

--GIFT--




[Decoration]


THE MOUSE AND THE MOONBEAM

Whilst you were sleeping, little Dear-my-soul, strange things
happened; but that I saw and heard them, I should never have
believed them. The clock stood, of course, in the corner, a
moonbeam floated idly on the floor, and a little mauve mouse
came from the hole in the chimney corner and frisked and
scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor. The
little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced
upon two legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very
daintily and always very merrily.

"Ah, me!" sighed the old clock, "how different mice are nowadays
from the mice we used to have in the good old times! Now there
was your grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your
grandpa, Master Sniffwhisker,--how grave and dignified they
were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon the carpet
below me, but always the stately minuet and never that crazy
frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise--yes, and
to my horror, too."

"But why shouldn't I be merry?" asked the little mauve mouse.
"Tomorrow is Christmas, and this is Christmas eve."

"So it is," said the old clock. "I had really forgotten all
about it. But, tell me, what is Christmas to you, little Miss
Mauve Mouse?"

"A great deal to me!" cried the little mauve mouse. "I have been
very good a very long time: I have not used any bad words, nor
have I gnawed any holes, nor have I stolen any canary seed, nor
have I worried my mother by running behind the flour-barrel
where that horrid trap is set. In fact, I have been so good that
I am very sure Santa Claus will bring me something very pretty."

This seemed to amuse the old clock mightily; in fact the old
clock fell to laughing so heartily that in an unguarded moment
she struck twelve instead of ten, which was exceedingly careless
and therefore to be reprehended.

"Why, you silly little mauve mouse," said the old clock, "you
don't believe in Santa Claus, do you?"

"Of course I do," answered the little mauve mouse. "Believe in
Santa Claus? Why shouldn't I? Didn't Santa Claus bring me a
beautiful butter-cracker last Christmas, and a lovely
gingersnap, and a delicious rind of cheese, and--and--lots of
things? I should be very ungrateful if I did _not_ believe in
Santa Claus, and I certainly shall not disbelieve in him at the
very moment when I am expecting him to arrive with a bundle of
goodies for me.

"I once had a little sister," continued the little mauve mouse,
"who did not believe in Santa Claus, and the very thought of the
fate that befell her makes my blood run cold and my whiskers
stand on end. She died before I was born, but my mother has told
me all about her. Perhaps you never saw her: her name was
Squeaknibble, and she was in stature one of those long, low,
rangy mice that are seldom found in well-stocked pantries.
Mother says that Squeaknibble took after our ancestors who came
from New England, where the malignant ingenuity of the people
and the ferocity of the cats rendered life precarious indeed.
Squeaknibble seemed to inherit many ancestral traits, the most
conspicuous of which was a disposition to sneer at some of the
most respected dogmas in mousedom. From her very infancy she
doubted, for example, the widely accepted theory that the moon
was composed of green cheese; and this heresy was the first
intimation her parents had of the sceptical turn of her mind.
Of course her parents were vastly annoyed, for their maturer
natures saw that this youthful scepticism portended serious,
if not fatal, consequences. Yet all in vain did the sagacious
couple reason and plead with their headstrong and heretical
child.

"For a long time Squeaknibble would not believe that there was
any such archfiend as a cat; but she came to be convinced to the
contrary one memorable night, on which occasion she lost two
inches of her beautiful tail, and received so terrible a fright
that for fully an hour afterward her little heart beat so
violently as to lift her off her feet and bump her head against
the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my sister of
so large a percentage of her vertebral colophon was the same
brindled ogress that nowadays steals ever and anon into this
room, crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be
asleep, hoping, forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated
presence, will venture within reach of her diabolical claws. So
enraged was this ferocious monster at the escape of my sister
that she ground her fangs viciously together, and vowed to take
no pleasure in life until she held in her devouring jaws the
innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled bit of tail
she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."

"Yes," said the old clock, "now that you recall the incident,
I recollect it well. I was here then, in this very corner, and
I remember that I laughed at the cat and chided her for her
awkwardness. My reproaches irritated her; she told me that a
clock's duty was to run itself down, _not_ to be depreciating
the merits of others! Yes, I recall the time; that cat's tongue
is fully as sharp as her claws."

"Be that as it may," said the little mauve mouse, "it is a
matter of history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that
very moment the cat pined for Squeaknibble's life; it seemed as
if that one little two-inch taste of Squeaknibble's tail had
filled the cat with a consuming passion, or appetite, for the
rest of Squeaknibble. So the cat waited and watched and hunted
and schemed and devised and did everything possible for a cat--a
cruel cat--to do in order to gain her murderous ends. One
night--one fatal Christmas eve--our mother had undressed the
children for bed, and was urging upon them to go to sleep
earlier than usual, since she fully expected that Santa Claus
would bring each of them something very palatable and nice
before morning. Thereupon the little dears whisked their cunning
tails, pricked up their beautiful ears, and began telling one
another what they hoped Santa Claus would bring. One asked for a
slice of Roquefort, another for Neufchatel, another for Sap
Sago, and a fourth for Edam; one expressed a preference for de
Brie, while another hoped to get Parmesan; one clamored for
imperial blue Stilton, and another craved the fragrant boon of
Caprera. There were fourteen little ones then, and consequently
there were diverse opinions as to the kind of gift which Santa
Claus should best bring; still, there was, as you can readily
understand, an enthusiastic unanimity upon this point, namely,
that the gift should be cheese of some brand or other.

"'My dears,' said our mother, 'what matters it whether the boon
which Santa Claus brings be royal English cheddar or fromage de
Bricquebec, Vermont sage, or Herkimer County skim-milk? We
should be content with whatsoever Santa Claus bestows, so long
as it be cheese, disjoined from all traps whatsoever, unmixed
with Paris green, and free from glass, strychnine, and other
harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be satisfied with a
cut of nice, fresh, Western reserve; for truly I recognise in no
other viand or edible half the fragrance or half the gustfulness
to be met with in one of these pale but aromatic domestic
products. So run away to your dreams now, that Santa Claus may
find you sleeping.'

"The children obeyed,--all but Squeaknibble. 'Let the others
think what they please,' said she, 'but I don't believe in Santa
Claus. I'm not going to bed either. I'm going to creep out of
this dark hole and have a quiet romp, all by myself, in the
moonlight.' Oh, what a vain, foolish, wicked little mouse was
Squeaknibble! But I will not reproach the dead; her punishment
came all too swiftly. Now listen: who do you suppose overheard
her talking so disrespectfully of Santa Claus?"

"Why, Santa Claus himself," said the old clock.

"Oh, no," answered the little mauve mouse. "It was that wicked,
murderous cat! Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad
children, so does the cruel cat lie in wait for naughty little
mice. And you can depend upon it that, when that awful cat heard
Squeaknibble speak so disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked
eyes glowed with joy, her sharp teeth watered, and her bristling
fur emitted electric sparks as big as marrowfat peas. Then what
did that blood-thirsty monster do but scuttle as fast as she
could into Dear-my-Soul's room, leap up into Dear-my-Soul's
crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff which
Dear-my-Soul used to wear when she went for a visit to the
little girl in the next block! What upon earth did the horrid
old cat want with Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff? Ah,
the duplicity, the diabolical ingenuity of that cat! Listen.

"In the first place," resumed the little mauve mouse, after
a pause that testified eloquently to the depth of her
emotion,--"in the first place, that wretched cat dressed herself
up in that pretty little white muff, by which you are to
understand that she crawled through the muff just so far as to
leave her four cruel legs at liberty."

"Yes, I understand," said the old clock.

"Then she put on the boy doll's fur cap," said the little mauve
mouse, "and when she was arrayed in the boy doll's fur cap and
Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff, of course she didn't
look like a cruel cat at all. But whom did she look like?"

"Like the boy doll," suggested the old clock.

"No, no!" cried the little mauve mouse.

"Like Dear-my-Soul?" asked the old clock.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the little mauve mouse. "Why,
she looked like Santa Claus, of course!"

"Oh, yes; I see," said the old clock. "Now I begin to be
interested; go on."

"Alas!" sighed the little mauve mouse, "not much remains to be
told; but there is more of my story left than there was of
Squeaknibble when that horrid cat crawled out of that miserable
disguise. You are to understand that, contrary to her sagacious
mother's injunction, and in notorious derision of the mooted
coming of Santa Claus, Squeaknibble issued from the friendly
hole in the chimney corner, and gambolled about over this very
carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight."

"I do not know," said the moonbeam faintly. "I am so very old,
and I have seen so many things--I do not know."

"Right merrily was Squeaknibble gambolling," continued the
little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back
somersault without the use of what remained of her tail when,
all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a
figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her
little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white
fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll
not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus,
and I've brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese,
you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeaknibble was deceived;
a sceptic all her life, she was at last befooled by the most
palpable and most fatal of frauds. 'How good of you!' said
Squeaknibble. 'I didn't believe there was a Santa Claus, and--'
but before she could say more she was seized by two sharp, cruel
claws that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of
mousedom's most malignant foe. I can dwell no longer upon this
harrowing scene. Suffice it to say that ere the morrow's sun
rose like a big yellow Herkimer County cheese upon the spot
where that tragedy had been enacted, poor Squeaknibble passed to
that bourn whence two inches of her beautiful tail had preceded
her by the space of three weeks to a day. As for Santa Claus,
when he came that Christmas eve, bringing morceaux de Brie and
of Stilton for the other little mice, he heard with sorrow of
Squeaknibble's fate; and ere he departed he said that in all his
experience he had never known of a mouse or of a child that had
prospered after once saying that he didn't believe in Santa
Claus."

"Well, that is a remarkable story," said the old clock. "But if
you believe in Santa Claus, why aren't you in bed?"

"That's where I shall be presently," answered the little mauve
mouse, "but I must have my scamper you know. It is very
pleasant, I assure you, to frolic in the light of the moon; only
I cannot understand why you are always so cold and so solemn and
so still, you pale, pretty little moonbeam."

"Indeed, I do not know that I am so," said the moonbeam. "But I
am very old, and I have travelled many, many, leagues, and I
have seen wondrous things. Sometimes I toss upon the ocean,
sometimes I fall upon a slumbering flower, sometimes I rest upon
a dead child's face. I see the fairies at their play, and I hear
mothers singing lullabies. Last night I swept across the frozen
bosom of a river. A woman's face looked up at me; it was the
picture of eternal rest. 'She is sleeping,' said the frozen
river. 'I'll rock her to and fro, and sing to her. Pass gently
by, O moonbeam; pass gently by, lest you awaken her.'"

"How strangely you talk," said the old clock. "Now, I'll warrant
me that, if you wanted to, you could tell many a pretty and
wonderful story. You must know many a Christmas tale; pray, tell
us one to wear away this night of Christmas watching."

"I know but one," said the moonbeam. "I have told it over and
over again, in every land and in every home; yet I do not weary
of it. It is very simple. Should you like to hear it?"

"Indeed we should," said the old clock; "but before you begin,
let me strike twelve; for I shouldn't want to interrupt you."

When the old clock had performed this duty with somewhat more
than usual alacrity, the moonbeam began its story:

"Upon a time--so long ago that I can't tell how long ago it
was--I fell upon a hill-side. It was in a far distant country;
this I know, because, although it was the Christmas time, it was
not in that country as it is wont to be in countries to the
north. Hither the snow-king never came; flowers bloomed all the
year, and at all times the lambs found pleasant pasturage on the
hill-sides. The night wind was balmy, and there was a fragrance
of cedar in its breath. There were violets on the hill-side,
and I fell amongst them and lay there. I kissed them, and they
awakened. 'Ah, is it you, little moonbeam?' they said, and they
nestled in the grass which the lambs had left uncropped.

"A shepherd lay upon a broad stone on the hill-side; above him
spread an olive-tree, old, ragged, and gloomy; but now it swayed
its rusty branches majestically in the shifting air of night.
The shepherd's name was Benoni. Wearied with long watching, he
had fallen asleep; his crook had slipped from his hand. Upon the
hill-side, too, slept the shepherd's flock. I had counted them
again and again; I had stolen across their gentle faces and
brought them pleasant dreams of green pastures and of cool
water-brooks. I had kissed old Benoni, too, as he lay slumbering
there; and in his dreams he seemed to see Israel's King come
upon earth, and in his dreams he murmured the promised Messiah's
name.

"'Ah, is it you, little moonbeam?' quoth the violets. 'You have
come in good time. Nestle here with us, and see wonderful things
come to pass.'

"'What are these wonderful things of which you speak?' I asked.

"'We heard the old olive-tree telling of them to-night,' said
the violets. 'Do not go to sleep, little violets,' said the old
olive-tree, 'for this is Christmas night, and the Master shall
walk upon the hill-side in the glory of the midnight hour.' So
we waited and watched; one by one the lambs fell asleep; one by
one the stars peeped out; the shepherd nodded and crooned, and
crooned and nodded, and at last he, too, went fast asleep, and
his crook slipped from his keeping. Then we called to the old
olive-tree yonder, asking how soon the midnight hour would come;
but all the old olive-tree answered was 'Presently, presently,'
and finally we, too, fell asleep, wearied by our long watching,
and lulled by the rocking and swaying of the old olive-tree in
the breezes of the night.

"'But who is this Master?' I asked.

"'A child, a little child,' they answered. 'He is called the
little Master by the others. He comes here often, and plays
among the flowers of the hill-side. Sometimes the lambs,
gambolling too carelessly, have crushed and bruised us so that
we lie bleeding and are like to die; but the little Master heals
our wounds and refreshes us once again.'

"I marvelled much to hear these things. 'The midnight hour is at
hand,' said I, 'and I will abide with you to see this little
Master of whom you speak.' So we nestled among the verdure of
the hill-side, and sang songs one to another.

"'Come away!' called the night wind; 'I know a beauteous sea not
far hence, upon whose bosom you shall float, float, float, away
out into the mists and clouds, if you will come with me.'

"But I hid under the violets and amid the tall grass, that the
night wind might not woo me with its pleading. 'Ho, there, old
olive-tree!' cried the violets; 'do you see the little Master
coming? Is not the midnight hour at hand?'

"'I can see the town yonder,' said the old olive-tree. 'A star
beams bright over Bethlehem, the iron gates swing open, and the
little Master comes.'

"Two children came to the hill-side. The one, older than his
comrade, was Dimas, the son of Benoni. He was rugged and sinewy,
and over his brown shoulders was flung a goat-skin; a leathern
cap did not confine his long, dark curly hair. The other child
was he whom they called the little Master; about his slender
form clung raiment white as snow, and around his face of
heavenly innocence fell curls of golden yellow. So beautiful a
child I had not seen before, nor have I ever since seen such as
he. And as they came together to the hill-side, there seemed to
glow about the little Master's head a soft white light, as if
the moon had sent its tenderest, fairest beams to kiss those
golden curls.

"'What sound was that?' cried Dimas, for he was exceeding
fearful.

"'Have no fear, Dimas,' said the little Master. 'Give me thy
hand and I will lead thee.'

"Presently they came to the rock whereon Benoni, the shepherd,
lay; and they stood under the old olive-tree, and the old
olive-tree swayed no longer in the night wind, but bent its
branches reverently in the presence of the little Master. It
seemed as if the wind, too, stayed in its shifting course just
then; for suddenly there was a solemn hush, and you could hear
no noise, except that in his dreams Benoni spoke the Messiah's
name.

"'Thy father sleeps,' said the little Master, 'and it is well
that it is so; for that I love thee Dimas, and that thou shalt
walk with me in my Father's Kingdom, I would show thee the
glories of my birthright.'

"Then all at once sweet music filled the air, and light, greater
than the light of day, illumined the sky and fell upon all that
hill-side. The heavens opened, and angels, singing joyous songs,
walked to the earth. More wondrous still, the stars, falling
from their places in the sky, clustered upon the old olive-tree,
and swung hither and thither like colored lanterns. The flowers
of the hill-side all awakened, and they, too, danced and sang.
The angels, coming hither, hung gold and silver and jewels and
precious stones upon the old olive, where swung the stars; so
that the glory of that sight, though I might live forever, I
shall never see again. When Dimas heard and saw these things he
fell upon his knees, and catching the hem of the little Master's
garment, he kissed it.

"'Greater joy than this shall be thine, Dimas,' said the little
Master; 'but first must all things be fulfilled.'

"All through that Christmas night did the angels come and go
with their sweet anthems; all through that Christmas night did
the stars dance and sing; and when it came my time to steal
away, the hill-side was still beautiful with the glory and the
music of heaven."

"Well, is that all?" asked the old clock.

"No," said the moonbeam; "but I am nearly done. The years went
on. Sometimes I tossed upon the ocean's bosom, sometimes I
scampered o'er a battle-field, sometimes I lay upon a dead
child's face. I heard the voices of Darkness and mothers'
lullabies and sick men's prayers--and so the years went on.

"I fell one night upon a hard and furrowed face. It was of
ghostly pallor. A thief was dying on the cross, and this was his
wretched face. About the cross stood men with staves and swords
and spears, but none paid heed unto the thief. Somewhat beyond
this cross another was lifted up, and upon it was stretched a
human body my light fell not upon. But I heard a voice that
somewhere I had heard before,--though where I did not know,--and
this voice blessed those that railed and jeered and shamefully
entreated. And suddenly the voice called 'Dimas, Dimas!' and the
thief upon whose hardened face I rested made answer.

"Then I saw that it was Dimas; yet to this wicked criminal there
remained but little of the shepherd child whom I had seen in all
his innocence upon the hill-side. Long years of sinful life had
seared their marks into his face; yet now, at the sound of that
familiar voice, somewhat of the old-time boyish look came back,
and in the yearning of the anguished eyes I seemed to see the
shepherd's son again.

"'The Master!' cried Dimas, and he stretched forth his neck that
he might see him that spake.

"'O Dimas, how art thou changed!' cried the Master, yet there
was in his voice no tone of rebuke save that which cometh of
love.

"Then Dimas wept, and in that hour he forgot his pain. And the
Master's consoling voice and the Master's presence there wrought
in the dying criminal such a new spirit, that when at last his
head fell upon his bosom, and the men about the cross said that
he was dead, it seemed as if I shined not upon a felon's face,
but upon the face of the gentle shepherd lad, the son of Benoni.

"And shining on that dead and peaceful face, I bethought me of
the little Master's words that he had spoken under the old
olive-tree upon the hill-side: 'Your eyes behold the promised
glory now, O Dimas,' I whispered, 'for with the Master you walk
in Paradise.'"


Ah, little Dear-my-Soul, you know--you know whereof the moonbeam
spake. The shepherd's bones are dust, the flocks are scattered,
the old olive-tree is gone, the flowers of the hill-side are
withered, and none knoweth where the grave of Dimas is made. But
last night, again, there shined a star over Bethlehem, and the
angels descended from the sky to earth, and the stars sang
together in glory. And the bells,--hear them, little
Dear-my-Soul, how sweetly they are ringing,--the bells bear us
the good tidings of great joy this Christmas morning, that our
Christ is born, and that with him he bringeth peace on earth and
good-will toward men.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Mouse and The Moonbeam, by Eugene Field

*** 