Jerry and Jerro

Once, Jerry,a little mouse who lived in the country invited Jerro, a little Mouse from the city to visit him. When Jerro sat down to dinner he was surprised to find that Jerry had nothing to eat except barley and grain.

"Really," he said, "you do not live well at all; you should see how I live! I have all sorts of fine things to eat every day. You must come to visit me and see how nice it is to live in the city."

Jerry was glad to do this, and after a while he went to the city to visit his friend.

The very first place that Jerro took Jerry to see was the kitchen cupboard of the house where he lived. There, on the lowest shelf, behind some stone jars, stood a big paper bag of brown sugar. Jerro gnawed a hole in the bag and invited his friend to nibble for himself.

The two little mice nibbled and nibbled, and Jerry thought he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. He was just thinking how lucky Jerro was, when suddenly the door opened with a bang, and in came the cook to get some flour.

"Run!" whispered Jerro. And they ran as fast as they could to the little hole where they had come in. Jerry was shaking all over when they got safely away, but Jerro said, "That is nothing; she will soon go away and then we can go back."

After the cook had gone away and shut the door they stole softly back, and this time Jerro had something new to show: he took Jerry into a corner on the top shelf, where a big jar of dried prunes stood open. After much tugging and pulling they got a large dried prune out of the jar on to the shelf and began to nibble at it. This was even better than the brown sugar. Jerry liked the taste so much that he could hardly nibble fast enough. But all at once, in the midst of their eating, there came a scratching at the door and a sharp, loud MIAOUW!

"What is that?" said Jerry. Jerro just whispered, "Sh!" and ran as fast as he could to the hole.

Jerry ran after, you may be sure, as fast as HE could. As soon as they were out of danger Jerro said, "That was the old Cat; she is the best mouser in town,--if she once gets you, you are lost."

"This is very terrible," said Jerry; "let us not go back to the cupboard again."

"No," said Jerro, "I will take you to the cellar; there is something especial there."

So Jerro took his little friend down the cellar stairs and into a big cupboard where there were many shelves. On the shelves were jars of butter, and cheeses in bags and out of bags. Overhead hung bunches of sausages, and there were spicy apples in barrels standing about. It smelled so good that it went to Jerry's head. He ran along the shelf and nibbled at a cheese here, and a bit of butter there, until he saw an especially rich, very delicious-smelling piece of cheese on a queer little stand in a corner. He was just on the point of putting his teeth into the cheese when Jerro saw him.

"Stop! stop!" cried Jerro. "That is a trap!"

Jerry stopped and said, "What is a trap?"

"That thing is a trap," said Jerro. "The minute you touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head hard, and you're dead."

Jerry looked at the trap, and he looked at the cheese, and he looked at Jerro. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I think I will go home. I'd rather have barley and grain to eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried prunes and cheese,--and be frightened to death all the time!"

So Jerry went back to his home, and there he stayed all the rest of his life.