gry," said the house-mouse. "Or perhaps
he has a big family."

"Both," said the wood-mouse. "Both. He is awfully greedy and he always
has the house full of children. Well, that doesn't concern us: it's his
affair. But, when those silly men mix us up in it, lump us all together
with Cousin Field-Mouse and persecute us and kill us for what he has
done, I tell you, cousin, then it _does_ concern us!"

"That's true," said the house-mouse.

They sat on; and neither spoke. It was getting on towards evening; and
both of them had to go to work when it grew dark. Summer was almost
over, so the wood-mouse had begun to collect her winter-stores. She did
not lie torpid like the hedgehog or the bat and she could not fly to
Africa like the stork and the swallow, so she had to have her store-room
filled, if she did not wish to suffer want. She had already collected a
good deal of beech-mast. But the nuts were not ripe yet and, if she took
them before they were ripe, they were no good to her.

And the house-mouse also chose night for going to the larder. Even
though her young mistress did nothing to her, nevertheless she dared not
be over-impudent, but always waited until she was certain that she would
not be disturbed.

"Yes," said the wood-mouse, "we must start toiling for our daily bread
again. At any rate, you are better off than I, cousin, for the present,
as you don't have the winter to think about. You're snug indoors, close
to the forester's larder."

"I am," said the house-mouse. "And there is almost more in the larder in
the winter than in the summer."

"Yes, yes," said the wood-mouse. "Well, good-bye, cousin: if you meet
the field-mouse, be sure to tell him what I said. I always stand by my
word. And, if you can contrive some means of letting the forester know
that there's a difference between mice and mice, so much the better. You
are nearer to him than we are."

"Wait a little longer, cousin," said the house-mouse. "After all, it's
not dark enough yet for you to work; and I never go to the larder before
my young lady has cleared away after supper. I've been thinking of what
you were saying about the field-mouse and most of all of what you said
about relations doing harm. For, you see, properly speaking, it's just
the same indoors."

"You don't say so!" said the wood-mouse. "I should never have thought
that the field-mouse had the impudence to come in to you. I must hear
more about that. Then it's in the garden t