not have a house, I live in a barn and sleep on straw,” said the little mouse.
“Where’s your family?” asked Sophie again.
“I do not know anything about my real parents,” the mouse lowered his head and shed a tear. “Other mice raised me – my Aunt Mary and Uncle Timo. They told me that they found me when I was very small, near an old oak tree on the other side of the blue lake. Do you want me to share this story with you?” Patrick asked Sophie.
– “Of course, do tell me, I love stories,” the girl replied.
Once in a warm, early morning, when the sun is just about to rise, and the rays give light to drops of dew on the flowers and tree leaves, and fledglings chirp in their nests asking their parents to feed them, Aunt Mary and Uncle Timo set out to take a stroll and pick some berries to have them dried for a winter fragrant berry tea. They were running out of supplies, and it has come the time to replenish them for the winter. Following the path along the blue lake, they took a small boat and travelled to another bank. Walking past an old oak, they heard what sounded like a baby crying. As they got closer to the old oak, they saw a tiny bundle on the ground. It turned out that someone had been crying inside. The bundle on the ground started moving, Uncle Timo picked it up and saw a small, tiny mouse, it was white with a black spot on the tip of its ear.
“What a beautiful baby!” “Where are his parents?” “How could they leave such an angel here?!” Uncle Timo said. “What are we going to do with him?” he asked Aunt Mary.
“We will it keep,” she said, ‘until his parents are found.”
It was embroidered “Take care of him’ with blue thread on the blanket that the tiny mouse was wrapped in. Uncle Timo and Aunt Mary had no children. They were already old and have not succeeded in having their own babies. Aunt Mary took off her shawl and wrapped it around the baby, then they went home. Patrick grew by leaps and bounds. He was very agile, and sometimes out of hand. He was so vigor that neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Timo could keep up with him because they were old. It was especially difficult when Uncle Timo taught him to write, read, and count. Patrick would not stay put and never had an interest in studying. All he wanted was jumping, running, tinkering or inventing something.
As years passed, Patrick manned up and became an assistant and support for his Aunt Mary and Uncle Timo. Once, the little mouse noticed that his Uncle Timo had been struggling with taking winter stocks of grain and berries down the hole and lifting them up. Patrick decided to come up with something that could easily raise and lower these stocks. In a shed, Patrick found a long rope, a couple of small metal boxes, and an old kid’s bicycle. He disassembled the bicycle having removed its pedals and hub, tied a rope to the hub, hung metal boxes on the ropes, rigged wires to the tree opposite to the hole. He let the other end down the hole and fastened everything to the roots of the tree growing straight in the hole. He realized that the hole dwelling would sooner or later collapse and get covered with earth making all the supplies trapped under the fall, he decided to nail some small logs together to reinforce floor and ceiling. He found four strong boards of almost the same size and used them to prop the logs against the ceiling and floor. This way he bolstered the hole against destruction. When Aunt Mary and Uncle Timo came home from their morning walk and saw what Patrick had come up with, they wept with joy and hugged the little mouse.
“Patrick, you are such a smart boy! And you helped us so much by thinking through the way for taking our winter supplies down the hole without the tireless efforts. We can’t thank you enough!” Uncle Timo said.
“That is how I gained my new family, but I was not happy for a long time. One night I woke up to a loud noise. I got out of bed and ran outside. It was raining cats and dogs, and it was windy, so I dashed to close the doors to the hole with winter supplies to prevent the water getting inside. Then, I closed the doors and ran straight back to the hole where we lived. I almost made it to the entrance, when I saw that the dam built by Uncle Timo got broken, and I saw a big wave coming towards me. The wave threw me far away from the hole, and I bumped a big rock. When I came to my senses on the rock with vision blurred, I looked at the hole and saw uncle Timo and aunt Mary trying to get out of the hole, but they failed as they got sucked into a water funnel, the logs could not bear the load, so the roof and walls collapsed. I was too weak to get up to help them, and I fainted. When I woke up in the morning lying on a rock, I looked around and realized that it was not a dream. In a blink, I was deprived of my home and family, I do not have Aunt Mary, and Uncle Timo anymore. This is how I ended up living in a barn. And when I lost my chances to find something to eat, I figured I could find food at your house. But I was unlucky, I have not managed to take anything from the table, your mom and dad heard a noise in the kitchen and chased me away, I started running away and then you found me in your room.”
“I’m so sorry for you,” said Sophie and hugged Patrick. Patrick’s story about his loss of home and family brought Sophie to tears.
“I think we should go to bed. You can sleep with me tonight, and tomorrow we will figure out what we are going to do,” said Sophie.
Patrick lay down on the pillow next to Sophie’s head, covered himself with a blanket corner, and looked up at the ceiling with stairs. He could not believe that he was sleeping in a warm soft bed.
In the morning, Sophie woke up from bright sunlight beaming at her face. Sophie turned back and saw the asleep mouse and thought to herself, “Hooray! This is not a dream; the talking mouse is real.” The girl quietly got out of bed as she did not want to disturb Patrick’s sleep, Sophie took the stairs to go down to the kitchen, she called for her mother and father, but no one answered. “That means they’re on the farm,” thought Sophie. She opened a fridge, pulled up a chair, and took out the milk. Sophie took two glasses, poured them with milk and filled pockets of her pajamas with buns and a couple of gingerbread cookies. She put the chair back where it belonged to, picked up the glasses of milk and headed for the stairs that led up to her room. Sophie returned to her room. The little mouse was still sleeping on the pillow. “It must have been a long time since he’d slept so well,” Sophie thought to herself.
“Patrick,” said Sophie in a hushed voice, “Get up, it’s morning time! I brought you some milk, buns and gingerbread cookies.” Patrick yawned, stretched out his legs and arms in different directions, folded back the blanket, and was seated next to Sophie.
“My Aunt Mary used to bring me breakfast in bed. It was milk as well, but with cheese crackers, which I didn’t like much to be honest, but I didn’t want to offend Aunt Mary. What are we supposed to do now?” Patrick asked Sophie. “I can’t always share a bed with you. If your parents see me, they will kill me for sure! I think it would be better for me to go back to the barn,” said Patrick with his head low.
“I have an idea!” said Sophie cheerfully. “I have a big dollhouse, a Christmas present from my mother. The house is very spacious, and you will definitely fit in there. Moreover, there are doors and blinds. Nobody will see you there. All day long we will be outside, and you will sleep in the dollhouse. What do you think of this idea?” Sophie asked.
“It’s a great idea,” said Patrick and yelled, “Hooray!! Thank you a lot!” Patrick jumped on Sophie’s neck and gave her a hug, the little mouse’s eyes filled with tears of happiness. “Am I going to have a family again?” the little mouse said out loud.
“Yes, of course,” said Sophie. “Let’s go for a walk, shan’t we?” Sophie asked Patrick.
“Why not,” he replied.
