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Title: The Mouse and the Moonbeam
   [the fourth story in "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"]
Author: Field, Eugene (1850-1895)
Date of first publication: 1889
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894
Date first posted: 8 July 2010
Date last updated: 8 July 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #567

This ebook was produced by:
David Edwards, woodie4
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




THE MOUSE AND THE MOONBEAM.


Whilst you were sleeping, little Dear-my-Soul, strange things happened;
but that I saw and heard them, I should never have believed them. The
clock stood, of course, in the corner, a moonbeam floated idly on the
floor, and a little mauve mouse came from the hole in the chimney corner
and frisked and scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor.
The little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced upon
two legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very daintily and
always very merrily.

"Ah, me!" sighed the old clock, "how different mice are nowadays from
the mice we used to have in the good old times! Now there was your
grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master
Sniffwhisker,--how grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I
seen them dancing upon the carpet below me, but always the stately
minuet and never that crazy frisking which you are executing now, to my
surprise--yes, and to my horror, too."

"But why shouldn't I be merry?" asked the little mauve mouse. "To-morrow
is Christmas, and this is Christmas eve."

"So it is," said the old clock. "I had really forgotten all about it.
But, tell me, what is Christmas to you, little Miss Mauve Mouse?"

"A great deal to me!" cried the little mauve mouse. "I have been very
good a very long time: I have not used any bad words, nor have I gnawed
any holes, nor have I stolen any canary seed, nor have I worried my
mother by running behind the flour-barrel where that horrid trap is set.
In fact, I have been so good that I'm very sure Santa Claus will bring
me something very pretty."

This seemed to amuse the old clock mightily; in fact, the old clock fell
to laughing so heartily that in an unguarded moment she struck twelve
instead of ten, which was exceedingly careless and therefore to be
reprehended.

"Why, you silly little mauve mouse," said the old clock, "you don't
believe in Santa Claus, do you?"

"Of course I do," answered the little mauve mouse. "Believe in Santa
Claus? Why shouldn't I? Didn't Santa Claus bring me a beautiful
butter-cracker last Christmas, and a lovely gingersnap, and a delicious
rind of cheese, and--and--lots of things? I should be very ungrateful if
I did _not_ believe in Santa Claus, and I certainly shall not disbelieve
in him at the very moment when I am expecting him to arrive with a
bundle of goodies for me.

"I once had a little sister," continued the little mauve mouse, "who did
not believe in Santa Claus, and the very thought of the fate that befell
her makes my blood run cold and my whiskers stand on end. She died
before I was born, but my mother has told me all about her. Perhaps you
never saw her; her name was Squeaknibble, and she was in stature one of
those long, low, rangey mice that are seldom found in well-stocked
pantries. Mother says that Squeaknibble took after our ancestors who
came from New England, where the malignant ingenuity of the people and
the ferocity of the cats rendered life precarious indeed. Squeaknibble
seemed to inherit many ancestral traits, the most conspicuous of which
was a disposition to sneer at some of the most respected dogmas in
mousedom. From her very infancy she doubted, for example, the widely
accepted theory that the moon was composed of green cheese; and this
heresy was the first intimation her parents had of the sceptical turn of
her mind. Of course, her parents were vastly annoyed, for their maturer
natures saw that this youthful scepticism portended serious, if not
fatal, consequences. Yet all in vain did the sagacious couple reason and
plead with their headstrong and heretical child.

"For a long time Squeaknibble would not believe that there was any such
archfiend as a cat; but she came to be convinced to the contrary one
memorable night, on which occasion she lost two inches of her beautiful
tail, and received so terrible a fright that for fully an hour afterward
her little heart beat so violently as to lift her off her feet and bump
her head against the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my
sister of so large a percentage of her vertebral colophon was the same
brindled ogress that nowadays steals ever and anon into this room,
crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be asleep, hoping,
forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated presence, will venture
within reach of her diabolical claws. So enraged was this ferocious
monster at the escape of my sister that she ground her fangs viciously
together, and vowed to take no pleasure in life until she held in her
devouring jaws the innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled
bit of tail she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."

"Yes," said the old clock, "now that you recall the incident, I
recollect it well. I was here then, in this very corner, and I remember
that I laughed at the cat and chided her for her awkwardness. My
reproaches irritated her; she told me that a clock's duty was to run
itself down, _not_ to be depreciating the merits of others! Yes, I
recall the time; that cat's tongue is fully as sharp as her claws."

"Be that as it may," said the little mauve mouse, "it is a matter of
history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that very moment the
cat pined for Squeaknibble's life; it seemed as if that one little
two-inch taste of Squeaknibble's tail had filled the cat with a
consuming passion, or appetite, for the rest of Squeaknibble. So the cat
waited and watched and hunted and schemed and devised and did everything
possible for a cat--a cruel cat--to do in order to gain her murderous
ends. One night--one fatal Christmas eve--our mother had undressed the
children for bed, and was urging upon them to go to sleep earlier than
usual, since she fully expected that Santa Claus would bring each of
them something very palatable and nice before morning. Thereupon the
little dears whisked their cunning tails, pricked up their beautiful
ears, and began telling one another what they hoped Santa Claus would
bring. One asked for a slice of Roquefort, another for Neufchatel,
another for Sap Sago, and a fourth for Edam; one expressed a preference
for de Brie, while another hoped to get Parmesan; one clamored for
imperial blue Stilton, and another craved the fragrant boon of Caprera.
There were fourteen little ones then, and consequently there were
diverse opinions as to the kind of gift which Santa Claus should best
bring; still, there was, as you can readily understand, an enthusiastic
unanimity upon this point, namely, that the gift should be cheese of
some brand or other.

"'My dears,' said our mother, 'what matters it whether the boon which
Santa Claus brings be royal English cheddar or fromage de Bricquebec,
Vermont sage, or Herkimer County skim-milk? We should be content with
whatsoever Santa Claus bestows, so long as it be cheese, disjoined from
all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass,
strychnine, and other harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be
satisfied with a cut of nice, fresh Western reserve; for truly I
recognize in no other viand or edible half the fragrance or half the
gustfulness to be met with in one of these pale but aromatic domestic
products. So run away to your dreams now, that Santa Claus may find you
sleeping.'

"The children obeyed,--all but Squeaknibble. 'Let the others think what
they please,' said she, 'but _I_ don't believe in Santa Claus. I'm not
going to bed, either. I'm going to creep out of this dark hole and have
a quiet romp, all by myself, in the moonlight.' Oh, what a vain,
foolish, wicked little mouse was Squeaknibble! But I will not reproach
the dead; her punishment came all too swiftly. Now listen: who do you
suppose overheard her talking so disrespectfully of Santa Claus?"

"Why, Santa Claus himself," said the old clock.

"Oh, no," answered the little mauve mouse. "It was that wicked,
murderous cat! Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad children, so
does the cruel cat lurk and lie in wait for naughty little mice. And you
can depend upon it that, when that awful cat heard Squeaknibble speak so
disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked eyes glowed with joy, her
sharp teeth watered, and her bristling fur emitted electric sparks as
big as marrowfat peas. Then what did that blood-thirsty monster do but
scuttle as fast as she could into Dear-my-Soul's room, leap up into
Dear-my-Soul's crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff
which Dear-my-Soul used to wear when she went for a visit to the little
girl in the next block! What upon earth did the horrid old cat want with
Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff? Ah, the duplicity, the
diabolical ingenuity of that cat! Listen.

"In the first place," resumed the little mauve mouse, after a pause that
testified eloquently to the depth of her emotion,--"in the first place,
that wretched cat dressed herself up in that pretty little white muff,
by which you are to understand that she crawled through the muff just so
far as to leave her four cruel legs at liberty."

"Yes, I understand," said the old clock.

"Then she put on the boy doll's fur cap," said the little mauve mouse,
"and when she was arrayed in the boy doll's fur cap and Dear-my-Soul's
pretty little white muff, of course she didn't look like a cruel cat at
all. But whom did she look like?"

"Like the boy doll," suggested the old clock.

"No, no!" cried the little mauve mouse.

"Like Dear-my-Soul?" asked the old clock.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the little mauve mouse. "Why, she
looked like Santa Claus, of course!"

"Oh, yes; I see," said the old clock. "Now I begin to be interested; go
on."

"Alas!" sighed the little mauve mouse, "not much remains to be told; but
there is more of my story left than there was of Squeaknibble when that
horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise. You are to understand
that, contrary to her sagacious mother's injunction, and in notorious
derision of the mooted coming of Santa Claus, Squeaknibble issued from
the friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gambolled about over this
very carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight."

"I do not know," said the moonbeam, faintly. "I am so very old, and I
have seen so many things--I do not know."

"Right merrily was Squeaknibble gambolling," continued the little
mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without
the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she
beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur!
Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr,
purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!'
pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in white
fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of
savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeaknibble was
deceived; a sceptic all her life, she was at last befooled by the most
palpable and most fatal of frauds. 'How good of you!' said
Squeaknibble. 'I didn't believe there was a Santa Claus, and--' but
before she could say more she was seized by two sharp, cruel claws
that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of mousedom's
most malignant foe. I can dwell no longer upon this harrowing scene.
Suffice it to say that ere the morrow's sun rose like a big yellow
Herkimer County cheese upon the spot where that tragedy had been
enacted, poor Squeaknibble passed to that bourn whence two inches of
her beautiful tail had preceded her by the space of three weeks to a
day. As for Santa Claus, when he came that Christmas eve, bringing
morceaux de Brie and of Stilton for the other little mice, he heard
with sorrow of Squeaknibble's fate; and ere he departed he said that
in all his experience he had never known of a mouse or of a child that
had prospered after once saying that he didn't believe in Santa
Claus."

"Well, that is a remarkable story," said the old clock. "But if you
believe in Santa Claus, why aren't you in bed?"

"That's where I shall be presently," answered the little mauve mouse,
"but I must have my scamper, you know. It is very pleasant, I assure
you, to frolic in the light of the moon; only I cannot understand why
you are always so cold and so solemn and so still, you pale, pretty
little moonbeam."

"Indeed, I do not know that I am so," said the moonbeam. "But I am very
old, and I have travelled many, many leagues, and I have seen wondrous
things. Sometimes I toss upon the ocean, sometimes I fall upon a
slumbering flower, sometimes I rest upon a dead child's face. I see the
fairies at their play, and I hear mothers singing lullabies. Last night
I swept across the frozen bosom of a river. A woman's face looked up at
me; it was the picture of eternal rest. 'She is sleeping,' said the
frozen river. 'I rock her to and fro, and sing to her. Pass gently by, O
moonbeam; pass gently by, lest you awaken her.'"

"How strangely you talk," said the old clock. "Now, I'll warrant me
that, if you wanted to, you could tell many a pretty and wonderful
story. You must know many a Christmas tale; pray, tell us one to wear
away this night of Christmas watching."

"I know but one," said the moonbeam. "I have told it over and over
again, in every land and in every home; yet I do not weary of it. It is
very simple. Should you like to hear it?"

"Indeed we should," said the old clock; "but before you begin, let me
strike twelve; for I shouldn't want to interrupt you."

When the old clock had performed this duty with somewhat more than usual
alacrity, the moonbeam began its story:--

"Upon a time--so long ago that I can't tell how long ago it was--I fell
upon a hillside. It was in a far distant country; this I know, because,
although it was the Christmas time, it was not in that country as it is
wont to be in countries to the north. Hither the snow-king never came;
flowers bloomed all the year, and at all times the lambs found pleasant
pasturage on the hillsides. The night wind was balmy, and there was a
fragrance of cedar in its breath. There were violets on the hillside,
and I fell amongst them and lay there. I kissed them, and they awakened.
'Ah, is it you, little moonbeam?' they said, and they nestled in the
grass which the lambs had left uncropped.

"A shepherd lay upon a broad stone on the hillside; above him spread an
olive-tree, old, ragged, and gloomy; but now it swayed its rusty
branches majestically in the shifting air of night. The shepherd's name
was Benoni. Wearied with long watching, he had fallen asleep; his crook
had slipped from his hand. Upon the hillside, too, slept the shepherd's
flock. I had counted them again and again; I had stolen across their
gentle faces and brought them pleasant dreams of green pastures and of
cool water-brooks. I had kissed old Benoni, too, as he lay slumbering
there; and in his dreams he seemed to see Israel's King come upon
earth, and in his dreams he murmured the promised Messiah's name.

"'Ah, is it you, little moonbeam?' quoth the violets. 'You have come in
good time. Nestle here with us, and see wonderful things come to pass.'

"'What are these wonderful things of which you speak?' I asked.

"'We heard the old olive-tree telling of them to-night,' said the
violets. 'Do not go to sleep, little violets,' said the old olive-tree,
'for this is Christmas night, and the Master shall walk upon the
hillside in the glory of the midnight hour.' So we waited and watched;
one by one the lambs fell asleep; one by one the stars peeped out; the
shepherd nodded and crooned and crooned and nodded, and at last he, too,
went fast asleep, and his crook slipped from his keeping. Then we called
to the old olive-tree yonder, asking how soon the midnight hour would
come; but all the old olive-tree answered was 'Presently, presently,'
and finally we, too, fell asleep, wearied by our long watching, and
lulled by the rocking and swaying of the old olive-tree in the breezes
of the night.

"'But who is this Master?' I asked.

"'A child, a little child,' they answered. 'He is called the little
Master by the others. He comes here often, and plays among the flowers
of the hillside. Sometimes the lambs, gambolling too carelessly, have
crushed and bruised us so that we lie bleeding and are like to die; but
the little Master heals our wounds and refreshes us once again.'

"I marvelled much to hear these things. 'The midnight hour is at hand,'
said I, 'and I will abide with you to see this little Master of whom you
speak.' So we nestled among the verdure of the hillside, and sang songs
one to another.

"'Come away!' called the night wind; 'I know a beauteous sea not far
hence, upon whose bosom you shall float, float, float away out into the
mists and clouds, if you will come with me.'

"But I hid under the violets and amid the tall grass, that the night
wind might not woo me with its pleading. 'Ho, there, old olive-tree!'
cried the violets; 'do you see the little Master coming? Is not the
midnight hour at hand?'

"'I can see the town yonder,' said the old olive-tree. 'A star beams
bright over Bethlehem, the iron gates swing open, and the little Master
comes.'

"Two children came to the hillside. The one, older than his comrade, was
Dimas, the son of Benoni. He was rugged and sinewy, and over his brown
shoulders was flung a goatskin; a leathern cap did not confine his long,
dark curly hair. The other child was he whom they called the little
Master; about his slender form clung raiment white as snow, and around
his face of heavenly innocence fell curls of golden yellow. So beautiful
a child I had not seen before, nor have I ever since seen such as he.
And as they came together to the hillside, there seemed to glow about
the little Master's head a soft white light, as if the moon had sent its
tenderest, fairest beams to kiss those golden curls.

"'What sound was that?' cried Dimas, for he was exceeding fearful.

"'Have no fear, Dimas,' said the little Master. 'Give me thy hand, and I
will lead thee.'

"Presently they came to the rock whereon Benoni, the shepherd, lay; and
they stood under the old olive-tree, and the old olive-tree swayed no
longer in the night wind, but bent its branches reverently in the
presence of the little Master. It seemed as if the wind, too, stayed in
its shifting course just then; for suddenly there was a solemn hush, and
you could hear no noise, except that in his dreams Benoni spoke the
Messiah's name.

"'Thy father sleeps,' said the little Master, 'and it is well that it is
so; for that I love thee, Dimas, and that thou shalt walk with me in my
Father's kingdom, I would show thee the glories of my birthright.'

"Then all at once sweet music filled the air, and light, greater than
the light of day, illumined the sky and fell upon all that hillside. The
heavens opened, and angels, singing joyous songs, walked to the earth.
More wondrous still, the stars, falling from their places in the sky,
clustered upon the old olive-tree, and swung hither and thither like
colored lanterns. The flowers of the hillside all awakened, and they,
too, danced and sang. The angels, coming hither, hung gold and silver
and jewels and precious stones upon the old olive, where swung the
stars; so that the glory of that sight, though I might live forever, I
shall never see again. When Dimas heard and saw these things he fell
upon his knees, and catching the hem of the little Master's garment, he
kissed it.

"'Greater joy than this shall be thine, Dimas,' said the little Master;
'but first must all things be fulfilled.'

"All through that Christmas night did the angels come and go with their
sweet anthems; all through that Christmas night did the stars dance and
sing; and when it came my time to steal away, the hillside was still
beautiful with the glory and the music of heaven."

"Well, is that all?" asked the old clock.

"No," said the moonbeam; "but I am nearly done. The years went on.
Sometimes I tossed upon the ocean's bosom, sometimes I scampered o'er a
battle-field, sometimes I lay upon a dead child's face. I heard the
voices of Darkness and mothers' lullabies and sick men's prayers,--and
so the years went on.

"I fell one night upon a hard and furrowed face. It was of ghostly
pallor. A thief was dying on the cross, and this was his wretched face.
About the cross stood men with staves and swords and spears, but none
paid heed unto the thief. Somewhat beyond this cross another was lifted
up, and upon it was stretched a human body my light fell not upon. But I
heard a voice that somewhere I had heard before,--though where I did not
know,--and this voice blessed those that railed and jeered and
shamefully entreated. And suddenly the voice called 'Dimas, Dimas!' and
the thief upon whose hardened face I rested made answer.

"Then I saw that it was Dimas; yet to this wicked criminal there
remained but little of the shepherd child whom I had seen in all his
innocence upon the hillside. Long years of sinful life had seared their
marks into his face; yet now, at the sound of that familiar voice,
somewhat of the old-time boyish look came back, and in the yearning of
the anguished eyes I seemed to see the shepherd's son again.

"'The Master!' cried Dimas, and he stretched forth his neck that he
might see him that spake.

"'O Dimas, how art thou changed!' cried the Master, yet there was in
his voice no tone of rebuke save that which cometh of love.

"Then Dimas wept, and in that hour he forgot his pain. And the Master's
consoling voice and the Master's presence there wrought in the dying
criminal such a new spirit, that when at last his head fell upon his
bosom, and the men about the cross said that he was dead, it seemed as
if I shined not upon a felon's face, but upon the face of the gentle
shepherd lad, the son of Benoni.

"And shining on that dead and peaceful face, I bethought me of the
little Master's words that he had spoken under the old olive-tree upon
the hillside: 'Your eyes behold the promised glory now, O Dimas,' I
whispered, 'for with the Master you walk in Paradise.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

Ah, little Dear-my-Soul, you know--you know whereof the moonbeam spake.
The shepherd's bones are dust, the flocks are scattered, the old
olive-tree is gone, the flowers of the hillside are withered, and none
knoweth where the grave of Dimas is made. But last night, again, there
shined a star over Bethlehem, and the angels descended from the sky to
earth, and the stars sang together in glory. And the bells,--hear them,
little Dear-my-Soul, how sweetly they are ringing,--the bells bear us
the good tidings of great joy this Christmas morning, that our Christ is
born, and that with him he bringeth peace on earth and good-will toward
men.


1888.




[End of _The Mouse and the Moonbeam_ by Eugene Field]
