ing, no matter how often he cuts it." And of course that
was quite true.

After haying Master Meadow Mouse had to be more careful than ever. He
knew that the hawks would scan the meadow many times a day in hopes of
catching a glimpse of his reddish-brown back.

Luckily he succeeded in dodging them. And he dodged a good many other
fierce rascals long after winter with its snow had descended on Pleasant
Valley. Yet he never complained. He said that danger kept the days--and
nights too--from being dull.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

2

A Peep at the World

WHAT is the earliest thing you can remember? Master Meadow Mouse's
earliest memory was of lying in a soft nest of dried grasses. Sometimes
the nest was in inky darkness; and then it was night. Sometimes a shaft
of light fell upon the nest through a round hole just above his head;
and then it was daytime.

That round hole went upwards--straight upwards--for about a foot. And
when Master Meadow Mouse looked through it he could see, on pleasant
days, a patch of brilliant blue, which was a bit of sky.

One day a desire seized him to touch that round blue spot. So when his
mother was away he crawled up through the hole. But when he reached the
other end of it he found, to his great surprise, that the blue disk was
ever so much bigger than he had thought it, and seemed further away than
it had when he gazed at it through the round tunnel.

All this was very puzzling. And he stood in the meadow near the mouth of
the tunnel, peering around and wondering what this, that and the other
strange thing might be. For he saw many wonderful new sights.

If his mother hadn't come home and found him out of the nest there's no
telling what would have happened to him.

"Get back!" she cried, pushing him towards the mouth of the
tunnel--their doorway. "It's a mercy Henry Hawk hasn't spied you."

Master Meadow Mouse hung back. He didn't want to be hurried away from
the new world that he had just discovered.

"I don't see Henry Hawk," he squeaked.

Mrs. Meadow Mouse gave a sort of grunt.

"Humph! You wouldn't know him if you saw him," she retorted. "Besides,
he could see you long before you could see him, for his eyes are
wonderfully keen." Then she gave her son a poke that sent him into the
tunnel and bouncing down upon the soft nest at the bottom of it. "You
stay there until I come home again!" she called. "Do you want to go
where your two brothers and your thr