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THE TALE OF
Mrs. TITTLEMOUSE
By BEATRIX POTTER
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Author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" etc.
FREDERICK WARNE
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FREDERICK WARNE
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R
1B4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
First published 1910
This impression 1985
Universal Copyright Notice:
Copyright © 1910 by Frederick Warne & Co.
Copyright in all countries signatory to the Berne Convention
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
William Clowes Limited, Beccles and London
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NELLIE'S
LITTLE BOOK
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Once upon a
time there was a wood-mouse, and her name was Mrs. Tittlemouse. She
lived in a bank under a hedge. |
[Pg 10]
| Such a funny
house! There were yards and yards of sandy passages, leading to
storerooms and nut-cellars and seed-cellars, all amongst the roots of
the hedge. |
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There was a
kitchen, a parlour, a pantry, and a larder. Also, there was Mrs.
Tittlemouse's bedroom, where she slept in a little box bed! |
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| Mrs. tittlemouse
was a most terribly tidy particular little mouse, always sweeping and
dusting the soft sandy floors. Sometimes a beetle lost its way in
the passages.
"Shuh! shuh! little dirty feet!" said Mrs. Tittlemouse, clattering
her dust-pan. |
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And one day a
little old woman ran up and down in a red spotty cloak. "Your house
is on fire, Mother Ladybird! Fly away home to your children!" |
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| Another day, a
big fat spider came in to shelter from the rain. "Beg pardon, is
this not Miss Muffet's?"
"Go away, you bold bad spider! Leaving ends of cobweb all over my
nice clean house!" |
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She bundled the
spider out at a window. He let himself down the hedge with a long
thin bit of string. |
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| Mrs. tittlemouse
went on her way to a distant storeroom, to fetch cherry-stones and
thistle-down seed for dinner. All along the passage she sniffed, and
looked at the floor.
"I smell a smell of honey; is it the cowslips outside, in the
hedge? I am sure I can see the marks of little dirty feet." |
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Suddenly round
a corner, she met Babbitty Bumble—"Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz!" said the bumble
bee. Mrs. Tittlemouse looked at her severely. She wished that she
had a broom.
"Good-day, Babbitty Bumble; I should be glad to buy some beeswax.
But what are you doing down here? Why do you always come in at a
window, and say Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz?" Mrs. Tittlemouse began to get
cross. |
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| "Zizz, Wizz,
Wizzz!" replied Babbitty Bumble in a peevish squeak. She sidled down a
passage, and disappeared into a storeroom which had been used for
acorns. Mrs. Tittlemouse had eaten the acorns before Christmas; the
storeroom ought to have been empty.
But it was full of untidy dry moss. |
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Mrs. tittlemouse
began to pull out the moss. Three or four other bees put their heads
out, and buzzed fiercely. "I am not in the habit of letting
lodgings; this is an intrusion!" said Mrs. Tittlemouse. "I will have
them turned out—" "Buzz! Buzz! Buzzz!"—"I wonder who would help me?" "Bizz,
Wizz, Wizzz!"
—"I will not have Mr. Jackson; he never wipes his feet." |
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| Mrs. tittlemouse
decided to leave the bees till after dinner. When she got back to
the parlour, she heard some one coughing in a fat voice; and there sat
Mr. Jackson himself!
He was sitting all over a small rocking-chair, twiddling his thumbs
and smiling, with his feet on the fender.
He lived in a drain below the hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch. |
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"How do you do,
Mr. Jackson? Deary me, you have got very wet!" "Thank you, thank
you, thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse! I'll sit awhile and dry myself,"
said Mr. Jackson.
He sat and smiled, and the water dripped off his coat tails. Mrs.
Tittlemouse went round with a mop. |
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| He sat such a
while that he had to be asked if he would take some dinner? First
she offered him cherry-stones. "Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse!
No teeth, no teeth, no teeth!" said Mr. Jackson.
He opened his mouth most unnecessarily wide; he certainly had not a
tooth in his head. |
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Then she
offered him thistle-down seed—"Tiddly, widdly, widdly! Pouff, pouff,
puff!" said Mr. Jackson. He blew the thistle-down all over the room.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse! Now what I really—really
should like—would be a little dish of honey!" |
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| "I am afraid I
have not got any, Mr. Jackson," said Mrs. Tittlemouse. "Tiddly,
widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!" said the smiling Mr. Jackson, "I
can smell it; that is why I came to call."
Mr. Jackson rose ponderously from the table, and began to look into
the cupboards.
Mrs. Tittlemouse followed him with a dish-cloth, to wipe his large
wet footmarks off the parlour floor. |
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When he had
convinced himself that there was no honey in the cupboards, he began
to walk down the passage. "Indeed, indeed, you will stick fast, Mr.
Jackson!"
"Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!" |
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| First he
squeezed into the pantry. "Tiddly, widdly, widdly? no honey? no
honey, Mrs. Tittlemouse?"
There were three creepy-crawly people hiding in the plate-rack. Two
of them got away; but the littlest one he caught. |
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Then he
squeezed into the larder. Miss Butterfly was tasting the sugar; but
she flew away out of the window. "Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs.
Tittlemouse; you seem to have plenty of visitors!"
"And without any invitation!" said Mrs. Thomasina Tittlemouse. |
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They went along
the sandy passage—
"Tiddly widdly—" "Buzz! Wizz! Wizz!"He met Babbitty round a corner,
and snapped her up, and put her down again.
"I do not like bumble bees. They are all over bristles," said Mr.
Jackson, wiping his mouth with his coat-sleeve.
"Get out, you nasty old toad!" shrieked Babbitty Bumble.
"I shall go distracted!" scolded Mrs. Tittlemouse. |
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She shut
herself up in the nut-cellar while Mr. Jackson pulled out the
bees-nest. He seemed to have no objection to stings. When Mrs.
Tittlemouse ventured to come out—everybody had gone away.
But the untidiness was something dreadful—"Never did I see such a
mess—smears of honey; and moss, and thistledown—and marks of big and
little dirty feet—all over my nice clean house!" |
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| She gathered up
the moss and the remains of the beeswax. Then she went out and
fetched some twigs, to partly close up the front door.
"I will make it too small for Mr. Jackson!" |
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She fetched
soft soap, and flannel, and a new scrubbing brush from the storeroom.
But she was too tired to do any more. First she fell asleep in her
chair, and then she went to bed. "Will it ever be tidy again?" said
poor Mrs. Tittlemouse. |
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| Next morning
she got up very early and began a spring cleaning which lasted a
fortnight. She swept, and scrubbed, and dusted; and she rubbed up
the furniture with beeswax, and polished her little tin spoons. |
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When it was all
beautifully neat and clean, she gave a party to five other little
mice, without Mr. Jackson. He smelt the party and came up the bank,
but he could not squeeze in at the door. |
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| So they handed
him out acorn-cupfuls of honey-dew through the window, and he was not
at all offended. He sat outside in the sun, and said—"Tiddly, widdly,
widdly! Your very good health, Mrs. Tittlemouse!" |
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THE END
End of The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, by Beatrix Potter
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