THE LITTLE GOOD MOUSE

Edition and rights: Original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #540, marked public domain in the USA. The literary text below is reproduced without AI rewriting.

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Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who loved each other so much that
they were never happy unless they were together. Day after day they went out
hunting or fishing; night after night they went to balls or to the opera; they
sang, and danced, and ate sugar-plums, and were the gayest of the gay, and all
their subjects followed their example so that the kingdom was called the Joyous
Land. Now in the next kingdom everything was as different as it could possibly
be. The King was sulky and savage, and never enjoyed himself at all. He looked
so ugly and cross that all his subjects feared him, and he hated the very sight
of a cheerful face; so if he ever caught anyone smiling he had his head cut off
that very minute. This kingdom was very appropriately called the Land of Tears.
Now when this wicked King heard of the happiness of the Jolly King, he was so
jealous that he collected a great army and set out to fight him, and the news
of his approach was soon brought to the King and Queen. The Queen, when she
heard of it, was frightened out of her wits, and began to cry bitterly.
‘Sire,’ she said, ‘let us collect all our riches and run away
as far as ever we can, to the other side of the world.’

But the King answered:

‘Fie, madam! I am far too brave for that. It is better to die than to be
a coward.’

Then he assembled all his armed men, and after bidding the Queen a tender
farewell, he mounted his splendid horse and rode away. When he was lost to
sight the Queen could do nothing but weep, and wring her hands, and cry.

‘Alas! If the King is killed, what will become of me and of my little
daughter?’ and she was so sorrowful that she could neither eat nor sleep.

The King sent her a letter every day, but at last, one morning, as she looked
out of the palace window, she saw a messenger approaching in hot haste.

‘What news, courier? What news?’ cried the Queen, and he answered:

‘The battle is lost and the King is dead, and in another moment the enemy
will be here.’

The poor Queen fell back insensible, and all her ladies carried her to bed, and
stood round her weeping and wailing. Then began a tremendous noise and
confusion, and they knew that the enemy had arrived, and very soon they heard
the King himself stamping about the palace seeking the Queen. Then her ladies
put the little Princess into her arms, and covered her up, head and all, in the
bedclothes, and ran for their lives, and the poor Queen lay there shaking, and
hoping she would not be found. But very soon the wicked King clattered into the
room, and in a fury because the Queen would not answer when he called to her,
he tore back her silken coverings and tweaked off her lace cap, and when all
her lovely hair came tumbling down over her shoulders, he wound it three times
round his hand and threw her over his shoulder, where he carried her like a
sack of flour.

The poor Queen held her little daughter safe in her arms and shrieked for
mercy, but the wicked King only mocked her, and begged her to go on shrieking,
as it amused him, and so mounted his great black horse, and rode back to his
own country. When he got there he declared that he would have the Queen and the
little Princess hanged on the nearest tree; but his courtiers said that seemed
a pity, for when the baby grew up she would be a very nice wife for the
King’s only son.

The King was rather pleased with this idea, and shut the Queen up in the
highest room of a tall tower, which was very tiny, and miserably furnished with
a table and a very hard bed upon the floor. Then he sent for a fairy who lived
near his kingdom, and after receiving her with more politeness than he
generally showed, and entertaining her at a sumptuous feast, he took her up to
see the Queen. The fairy was so touched by the sight of her misery that when
she kissed her hand she whispered:

‘Courage, madam! I think I see a way to help you.’

The Queen, a little comforted by these words, received her graciously, and
begged her to take pity upon the poor little Princess, who had met with such a
sudden reverse of fortune. But the King got very cross when he saw them
whispering together, and cried harshly:

‘Make an end of these fine speeches, madam. I brought you here to tell me
if the child will grow up pretty and fortunate.’

Then the Fairy answered that the Princess would be as pretty, and clever, and
well brought up as it was possible to be, and the old King growled to the Queen
that it was lucky for her that it was so, as they would certainly have been
hanged if it were otherwise. Then he stamped off, taking the Fairy with him,
and leaving the poor Queen in tears.

‘How can I wish my little daughter to grow up pretty if she is to be
married to that horrid little dwarf, the King’s son,’ she said to
herself, ‘and yet, if she is ugly we shall both be killed. If I could
only hide her away somewhere, so that the cruel King could never find
her.’

As the days went on, the Queen and the little Princess grew thinner and
thinner, for their hard-hearted gaoler gave them every day only three boiled
peas and a tiny morsel of black bread, so they were always terribly hungry. At
last, one evening, as the Queen sat at her spinning-wheel—for the King
was so avaricious that she was made to work day and night—she saw a tiny,
pretty little mouse creep out of a hole, and said to it:

‘Alas, little creature! what are you coming to look for here? I only have
three peas for my day’s provision, so unless you wish to fast you must go
elsewhere.’

But the mouse ran hither and thither, and danced and capered so prettily, that
at last the Queen gave it her last pea, which she was keeping for her supper,
saying: ‘Here, little one, eat it up; I have nothing better to offer you,
but I give this willingly in return for the amusement I have had from
you.’

She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little roast
partridge, and two dishes of preserved fruit. ‘Truly,’ said she,
‘a kind action never goes unrewarded; ‘and she and the little
Princess ate their supper with great satisfaction, and then the Queen gave what
was left to the little mouse, who danced better than ever afterwards. The next
morning came the gaoler with the Queen’s allowance of three peas, which
he brought in upon a large dish to make them look smaller; but as soon as he
set it down the little mouse came and ate up all three, so that when the Queen
wanted her dinner there was nothing left for her. Then she was quite provoked,
and said:

‘What a bad little beast that mouse must be! If it goes on like this I
shall be starved.’ But when she glanced at the dish again it was covered
with all sorts of nice things to eat, and the Queen made a very good dinner,
and was gayer than usual over it. But afterwards as she sat at her
spinning-wheel she began to consider what would happen if the little Princess
did not grow up pretty enough to please the King, and she said to herself:

‘Oh! if I could only think of some way of escaping.’

As she spoke she saw the little mouse playing in a corner with some long
straws. The Queen took them and began to plait them, saying:

‘If only I had straws enough I would make a basket with them, and let my
baby down in it from the window to any kind passer-by who would take care of
her.’

By the time the straws were all plaited the little mouse had dragged in more
and more, until the Queen had plenty to make her basket, and she worked at it
day and night, while the little mouse danced for her amusement; and at dinner
and supper time the Queen gave it the three peas and the bit of black bread,
and always found something good in the dish in their place. She really could
not imagine where all the nice things came from. At last one day when the
basket was finished, the Queen was looking out of the window to see how long a
cord she must make to lower it to the bottom of the tower, when she noticed a
little old woman who was leaning upon her stick and looking up at her.
Presently she said:

‘I know your trouble, madam. If you like I will help you.’

‘Oh! my dear friend,’ said the Queen. ‘If you really wish to
be of use to me you will come at the time that I will appoint, and I will let
down my poor little baby in a basket. If you will take her, and bring her up
for me, when I am rich I will reward you splendidly.’

‘I don’t care about the reward,’ said the old woman,
‘but there is one thing I should like. You must know that I am very
particular about what I eat, and if there is one thing that I fancy above all
others, it is a plump, tender little mouse. If there is such a thing in your
garret just throw it down to me, and in return I will promise that your little
daughter shall be well taken care of.’

The Queen when she heard this began to cry, but made no answer, and the old
woman after waiting a few minutes asked her what was the matter.

‘Why,’ said the Queen, ‘there is only one mouse in this
garret, and that is such a dear, pretty little thing that I cannot bear to
think of its being killed.’

‘What!’ cried the old woman, in a rage. ‘Do you care more for
a miserable mouse than for your own baby? Good-bye, madam! I leave you to enjoy
its company, and for my own part I thank my stars that I can get plenty of mice
without troubling you to give them to me.’

And she hobbled off grumbling and growling. As to the Queen, she was so
disappointed that, in spite of finding a better dinner than usual, and seeing
the little mouse dancing in its merriest mood, she could do nothing but cry.
That night when her baby was fast asleep she packed it into the basket, and
wrote on a slip of paper, ‘This unhappy little girl is called
Delicia!’ This she pinned to its robe, and then very sadly she was
shutting the basket, when in sprang the little mouse and sat on the
baby’s pillow.

‘Ah! little one,’ said the Queen, ‘it cost me dear to save
your life. How shall I know now whether my Delicia is being taken care of or
no? Anyone else would have let the greedy old woman have you, and eat you up,
but I could not bear to do it.’ Whereupon the Mouse answered:

‘Believe me, madam, you will never repent of your kindness.’

The Queen was immensely astonished when the Mouse began to speak, and still
more so when she saw its little sharp nose turn to a beautiful face, and its
paws to hands and feet; then it suddenly grew tall, and the Queen recognised
the Fairy who had come with the wicked King to visit her.

The Fairy smiled at her astonished look, and said:

‘I wanted to see if you were faithful and capable of feeling a real
friendship for me, for you see we fairies are rich in everything but friends,
and those are hard to find.’

‘It is not possible that you should want for friends, you charming
creature,’ said the Queen, kissing her.

‘Indeed it is so,’ the Fairy said. ‘For those who are only
friendly with me for their own advantage, I do not count at all. But when you
cared for the poor little mouse you could not have known there was anything to
be gained by it, and to try you further I took the form of the old woman whom
you talked to from the window, and then I was convinced that you really loved
me.’ Then, turning to the little Princess, she kissed her rosy lips three
times, saying:

‘Dear little one, I promise that you shall be richer than your father,
and shall live a hundred years, always pretty and happy, without fear of old
age and wrinkles.’

The Queen, quite delighted, thanked the Fairy gratefully, and begged her to
take charge of the little Delicia and bring her up as her own daughter. This
she agreed to do, and then they shut the basket and lowered it carefully, baby
and all, to the ground at the foot of the tower. The Fairy then changed herself
back into the form of a mouse, and this delayed her a few seconds, after which
she ran nimbly down the straw rope, but only to find when she got to the bottom
that the baby had disappeared.

In the greatest terror she ran up again to the Queen, crying:

‘All is lost! my enemy Cancaline has stolen the Princess away. You must
know that she is a cruel fairy who hates me, and as she is older than I am and
has more power, I can do nothing against her. I know no way of rescuing Delicia
from her clutches.’

When the Queen heard this terrible news she was heart-broken, and begged the
Fairy to do all she could to get the poor little Princess back again. At this
moment in came the gaoler, and when he missed the little Princess he at once
told the King, who came in a great fury asking what the Queen had done with
her. She answered that a fairy, whose name she did not know, had come and
carried her off by force. Upon this the King stamped upon the ground, and cried
in a terrible voice:

‘You shall be hung! I always told you you should.’ And without
another word he dragged the unlucky Queen out into the nearest wood, and
climbed up into a tree to look for a branch to which he could hang her. But
when he was quite high up, the Fairy, who had made herself invisible and
followed them, gave him a sudden push, which made him lose his footing and fall
to the ground with a crash and break four of his teeth, and while he was trying
to mend them the fairy carried the Queen off in her flying chariot to a
beautiful castle, where she was so kind to her that but for the loss of Delicia
the Queen would have been perfectly happy. But though the good little mouse did
her very utmost, they could not find out where Cancaline had hidden the little
Princess.

Thus fifteen years went by, and the Queen had somewhat recovered from her
grief, when the news reached her that the son of the wicked King wished to
marry the little maiden who kept the turkeys, and that she had refused him; the
wedding-dresses had been made, nevertheless, and the festivities were to be so
splendid that all the people for leagues round were flocking in to be present
at them. The Queen felt quite curious about a little turkey-maiden who did not
wish to be a Queen, so the little mouse conveyed herself to the poultry-yard to
find out what she was like.

She found the turkey-maiden sitting upon a big stone, barefooted, and miserably
dressed in an old, coarse linen gown and cap; the ground at her feet was all
strewn with robes of gold and silver, ribbons and laces, diamonds and pearls,
over which the turkeys were stalking to and fro, while the King’s ugly,
disagreeable son stood opposite her, declaring angrily that if she would not
marry him she should be killed.

The Turkey-maiden answered proudly:

‘I never will marry you! you are too ugly and too much like your cruel
father. Leave me in peace with my turkeys, which I like far better than all
your fine gifts.’

The little mouse watched her with the greatest admiration, for she was as
beautiful as the spring; and as soon as the wicked Prince was gone, she took
the form of an old peasant woman and said to her:

‘Good day, my pretty one! you have a fine flock of turkeys there.’

The young Turkey-maiden turned her gentle eyes upon the old woman, and
answered:

‘Yet they wish me to leave them to become a miserable Queen! what is your
advice upon the matter?’

‘My child,’ said the Fairy, ‘a crown is a very pretty thing,
but you know neither the price nor the weight of it.’

‘I know so well that I have refused to wear one,’ said the little
maiden, ‘though I don’t know who was my father, or who was my
mother, and I have not a friend in the world.’

‘You have goodness and beauty, which are of more value than ten
kingdoms,’ said the wise Fairy. ‘But tell me, child, how came you
here, and how is it you have neither father, nor mother, nor friend?’

‘A Fairy called Cancaline is the cause of my being here,’ answered
she, ‘for while I lived with her I got nothing but blows and harsh words,
until at last I could bear it no longer, and ran away from her without knowing
where I was going, and as I came through a wood the wicked Prince met me, and
offered to give me charge of the poultry-yard. I accepted gladly, not knowing
that I should have to see him day by day. And now he wants to marry me, but
that I will never consent to.’

Upon hearing this the Fairy became convinced that the little Turkey-maiden was
none other than the Princess Delicia.

‘What is your name, my little one?’ said she.

‘I am called Delicia, if it please you,’ she answered.

Then the Fairy threw her arms round the Princess’s neck, and nearly
smothered her with kisses, saying:

‘Ah, Delicia! I am a very old friend of yours, and I am truly glad to
find you at last; but you might look nicer than you do in that old gown, which
is only fit for a kitchen-maid. Take this pretty dress and let us see the
difference it will make.’

So Delicia took off the ugly cap, and shook out all her fair shining hair, and
bathed her hands and face in clear water from the nearest spring till her
cheeks were like roses, and when she was adorned with the diamonds and the
splendid robe the Fairy had given her, she looked the most beautiful Princess
in the world, and the Fairy with great delight cried:

‘Now you look as you ought to look, Delicia: what do you think about it
yourself?’

And Delicia answered:

‘I feel as if I were the daughter of some great king.’

‘And would you be glad if you were?’ said the Fairy.

‘Indeed I should,’ answered she.

‘Ah, well,’ said the Fairy, ‘to-morrow I may have some
pleasant news for you.’

So she hurried back to her castle, where the Queen sat busy with her
embroidery, and cried:

‘Well, madam! will you wager your thimble and your golden needle that I
am bringing you the best news you could possibly hear?’

‘Alas!’ sighed the Queen, ‘since the death of the Jolly King
and the loss of my Delicia, all the news in the world is not worth a pin to me.

‘There, there, don’t be melancholy,’ said the Fairy. ‘I
assure you the Princess is quite well, and I have never seen her equal for
beauty. She might be a Queen to-morrow if she chose;’ and then she told
all that had happened, and the Queen first rejoiced over the thought of
Delicia’s beauty, and then wept at the idea of her being a Turkey-maiden.

‘I will not hear of her being made to marry the wicked King’s
son,’ she said. ‘Let us go at once and bring her here.’

In the meantime the wicked Prince, who was very angry with Delicia, had sat
himself down under a tree, and cried and howled with rage and spite until the
King heard him, and cried out from the window:

‘What is the matter with you, that you are making all this
disturbance?’

The Prince replied:

‘It is all because our Turkey-maiden will not love me!’

‘Won’t love you? eh!’ said the King. ‘We’ll very
soon see about that!’ So he called his guards and told them to go and
fetch Delicia. ‘See if I don’t make her change her mind pretty
soon!’ said the wicked King with a chuckle.

Then the guards began to search the poultry-yard, and could find nobody there
but Delicia, who, with her splendid dress and her crown of diamonds, looked
such a lovely Princess that they hardly dared to speak to her. But she said to
them very politely:

‘Pray tell me what you are looking for here?’

‘Madam,’ they answered, ‘we are sent for an insignificant
little person called Delicia.’

‘Alas!’ said she, ‘that is my name. What can you want with
me?’

So the guards tied her hands and feet with thick ropes, for fear she might run
away, and brought her to the King, who was waiting with his son.

When he saw her he was very much astonished at her beauty, which would have
made anyone less hard-hearted sorry for her. But the wicked King only laughed
and mocked at her, and cried: ‘Well, little fright, little toad! why
don’t you love my son, who is far too handsome and too good for you? Make
haste and begin to love him this instant, or you shall be tarred and
feathered.’

Then the poor little Princess, shaking with terror, went down on her knees,
crying:

‘Oh, don’t tar and feather me, please! It would be so
uncomfortable. Let me have two or three days to make up my mind, and then you
shall do as you like with me.’

The wicked Prince would have liked very much to see her tarred and feathered,
but the King ordered that she should be shut up in a dark dungeon. It was just
at this moment that the Queen and the Fairy arrived in the flying chariot, and
the Queen was dreadfully distressed at the turn affairs had taken, and said
miserably that she was destined to be unfortunate all her days. But the Fairy
bade her take courage.

‘I’ll pay them out yet,’ said she, nodding her head with an
air of great determination.

That very same night, as soon as the wicked King had gone to bed, the Fairy
changed herself into the little mouse, and creeping up on to his pillow nibbled
his ear, so that he squealed out quite loudly and turned over on his other
side; but that was no good, for the little mouse only set to work and gnawed
away at the second ear until it hurt more than the first one.

Then the King cried ‘Murder!’ and ‘Thieves!’ and all
his guards ran to see what was the matter, but they could find nothing and
nobody, for the little mouse had run off to the Prince’s room and was
serving him in exactly the same way. All night long she ran from one to the
other, until at last, driven quite frantic by terror and want of sleep, the
King rushed out of the palace crying:

‘Help! help! I am pursued by rats.’

The Prince when he heard this got up also, and ran after the King, and they had
not gone far when they both fell into the river and were never heard of again.

Then the good Fairy ran to tell the Queen, and they went together to the black
dungeon where Delicia was imprisoned. The Fairy touched each door with her
wand, and it sprang open instantly, but they had to go through forty before
they came to the Princess, who was sitting on the floor looking very dejected.
But when the Queen rushed in, and kissed her twenty times in a minute, and
laughed, and cried, and told Delicia all her history, the Princess was wild
with delight. Then the Fairy showed her all the wonderful dresses and jewels
she had brought for her, and said:

‘Don’t let us waste time; we must go and harangue the
people.’

So she walked first, looking very serious and dignified, and wearing a dress
the train of which was at least ten ells long. Behind her came the Queen
wearing a blue velvet robe embroidered with gold, and a diamond crown that was
brighter than the sun itself. Last of all walked Delicia, who was so beautiful
that it was nothing short of marvellous.

They proceeded through the streets, returning the salutations of all they met,
great or small, and all the people turned and followed them, wondering who
these noble ladies could be.

When the audience hall was quite full, the Fairy said to the subjects of the
Wicked King that if they would accept Delicia, who was the daughter of the
Jolly King, as their Queen, she would undertake to find a suitable husband for
her, and would promise that during their reign there should be nothing but
rejoicing and merry-making, and all dismal things should be entirely banished.
Upon this the people cried with one accord, ‘We will, we will! we have
been gloomy and miserable too long already.’ And they all took hands and
danced round the Queen, and Delicia, and the good Fairy, singing: ‘Yes,
yes; we will, we will!’

Then there were feasts and fireworks in every street in the town, and early the
next morning the Fairy, who had been all over the world in the night, brought
back with her, in her flying chariot, the most handsome and good-tempered
Prince she could find anywhere. He was so charming that Delicia loved him from
the moment their eyes met, and as for him, of course he could not help thinking
himself the luckiest Prince in the world. The Queen felt that she had really
come to the end of her misfortunes at last, and they all lived happily ever
after.[10]

[10]
La bonne petite Souris, par Madame d’Aulnoy.