us, for we are tall, but she was only an inch high. Then she wrapped herself
up in a dry leaf, but it cracked in the middle and could not keep her warm,
and she shivered with cold. Near the wood in which she had been living lay
a corn-field, but the corn had been cut a long time; nothing remained but the
bare dry stubble standing up out of the frozen ground. It was to her like
struggling through a large wood. Oh! how she shivered with the cold. She
came at last to the door of a field-mouse, who had a little den under the
corn-stubble. There dwelt the field-mouse in warmth and comfort, with a
whole roomful of corn, a kitchen, and a beautiful dining room. Poor little
Tiny stood before the door just like a little beggar-girl, and begged for a
small piece of barley-corn, for she had been without a morsel to eat for two
days.
“You poor little creature,” said the field-mouse, who was really a good
old field-mouse, “come into my warm room and dine with me.” She was
very pleased with Tiny, so she said, “You are quite welcome to stay with me
all the winter, if you like; but you must keep my rooms clean and neat, and
tell me stories, for I shall like to hear them very much.” And Tiny did all the
field-mouse asked her, and found herself very comfortable.
“We shall have a visitor soon,” said the field-mouse one day; “my
neighbor pays me a visit once a week. He is better off than I am; he has
large rooms, and wears a beautiful black velvet coat. If you could only have
him for a husband, you would be well provided for indeed. But he is blind,
so you must tell him some of your prettiest stories.”
But Tiny did not feel at all interested about this neighbor, for he was a
mole. However, he came and paid his visit dressed in his black velvet coat.
“He is very rich and learned, and his house is twenty times larger than
mine,” said the field-mouse.
He was rich and learned, no doubt, but he always spoke slightingly of the
sun and the pretty flowers, because he had never seen them. Tiny was
obliged to sing to him, “Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,” and many
other pretty songs. And the mole fell in love with her because she had such
