t statement of the famous collections, and yet it is not wise
to change the style-effect of a fable, wholly. I venture to give these
versions, not as perfect models, surely, but as renderings which have
been acceptable to children, and which I believe retain the original
point simply and strongly.

Once a little mouse who lived in the country invited a little Mouse
from the city to visit him. When the little City Mouse sat down to
dinner he was surprised to find that the Country Mouse 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."

The little Country Mouse was glad to do this, and after a while he went
to the city to visit his friend.

The very first place that the City Mouse took the Country Mouse 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. The little City Mouse gnawed a hole in the bag and invited his
friend to nibble for himself.

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

"Run!" whispered the City Mouse. And they ran as fast as they could to
the little hole where they had come in. The little Country Mouse was
shaking all over when they got safely away, but the little City Mouse
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 the City Mouse had something new to show: he took the
little Country Mouse 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. The little Country
Mouse 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 the Country Mouse. The City Mouse just whispered,
"Sh!" and ran as fast as he could to the hole. The Country Mouse ran
after, you