The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix PotterPotter, Beatrix
General
The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter
Potter, Beatrix
Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, English; Short stories
She gathered up the moss
and the remains of the bees-
wax.
Then she went out and
fetched some twigs, to partly
close up the front door.
"I will make it too small for
Mr. Jackson!"
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.
Next morning she got up
very early and began a spring
cleaning which lasted a fort-
night.
She swept, and scrubbed,
and dusted; and she rubbed
up the furniture with bees-
wax, and polished her little tin
spoons.
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.
So they handed him out acorn cupfuls of honeydew 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!"
THE TALE OF
TIMMY TIPTOES
[For Many Unknown Little Friends,
Including Monica]
Once upon a time there was a
little fat comfortable grey squirrel,
called Timmy Tiptoes. He had a
nest thatched with leaves in the
top of a tall tree; and he had a
little squirrel wife called Goody.
Timmy Tiptoes sat out, enjoying
the breeze; he whisked his tail and
chuckled--"Little wife Goody, the
nuts are ripe; we must lay up a
store for winter and spring."
Goody Tiptoes was busy pushing
moss under the thatch--"The nest
is so snug, we shall be sound
asleep all winter." "Then we shall
wake up all the thinner, when
there is nothing to eat in spring-
time," replied prudent Timothy.
When Timmy and Goody
Tiptoes came to the nut
thicket, they found other
squirrels were there already.
Timmy took off his jacket
and hung it on a twig; they
worked away quietly by themselves.
Every day they made several
journeys and picked quantities
of nuts. They carried them
away in bags, and stored
them in several hollow
stumps near the tree where
they had built their nest.
When these stumps were full,
they began to empty the bags into
a hole high up a tree, that had
belonged to a woodpecker; the nuts
rattled down--down--down inside.
"How shall you ever get them
out again? It is like a money box!"
said Goody.
"I shall be much thinner before
springtime, my love," said Timmy
Tiptoes, peeping into the hole.
They did collect quantities--
because they did not lose them!
Squirrels who bury their nuts in
the ground lose more than half,
because they cannot remember
the place.
The most forgetful squirrel in
the wood was called Silvertail. He
began to dig, and he could not
remember. And then he dug again
and found some nuts that did not
belong to him; and there was a
fight. And other squirrels began to
dig,--the whole wood was in
commotion!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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