The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse

Nellie’s
little book

Four bees with black, white and yellow stripes in an underground tunnel follow a mouse who is looking over her shoulder at them. The mouse is dressed in a blue dress with a red and white blouse, and is carrying a basket and a stick.
A mouse stands in the doorway to her house, which is surrounded by moss and succulent leaves. She is wearing a red and white striped blouse under a white pinafore, and is clasping her paws together.

Once upon a time there was a wood mouse, and her name was Mrs. Tittlemouse.

She lived in a bank under a hedge.

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.

In a tunnel underground, Mrs. Tittlemouse opens a wooden door set into the wall.
Mrs. Tittlemouse lies under a pink blanket in a bed built into a niche in the wall. The bed has blue curtains that can be pulled across. On the floor are her brown leather shoes and a red dustpan and brush, while her dress hangs from a hook on the wall.

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!

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 dustpan.

A black beetle scurries aware from Mrs. Tittlemouse, who is holding her dustpan and brush.
Mrs. Tittlemouse, sweeping the entrance to her burrow, warily eyes up a red ladybird with black spots that is near the end of the tunnel.

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!”

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!”

Mrs. Tittlemouse peers out of the end of her burrow at a brown spider with long legs and a blue umbrella.
The spider clings to a thread of silk attached next to the window that Mrs. Tittlemouse has just thrown it out of.

She bundled the spider out at a window.

He let himself down the hedge with a long thin bit of string.

Mrs. Tittlemouse went on her way to a distant storeroom, to fetch cherrystones and thistledown 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.”

Mrs. Tittlemouse creeps down a tunnel holding her covered basket.
Mrs. Tittlemouse brandishes her basket at a yellow, black and white striped bee, which looks worried.

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.

“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.

Mrs. Tittlemouse peers around a corner of the tunnel at Babbitty Bumble as she walks away.
The bees peek out of the moss that fills the entire tunnel. Mrs. Tittlemouse starts pulling at the moss.

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.”

Mrs. Tittlemouse decided to leave the bees till after dinner.

When she got back to the parlour, she heard someone 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.

Mr. Jackson sits in front of a fire in a rocking chair, while Mrs. Tittlemouse approaches from behind, clasping her paws together.
Mr. Jackson is a large toad. He is wearing brown shoes, brown trousers, a grey waistcoat, and a long purple jacket.

“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.

He sat such a while that he had to be asked if he would take some dinner?

First she offered him cherrystones. “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.

Mr. Jackson sits at a table covered with a white tablecloth and blue and white plates and cups. Mrs. Tittlemouse leans over to offer him a cherrystone from a platter.
Mr. Jackson leans back in his chair and puffs at the thistledown floating around the room. On the table in front of him is a plate with several more.

Then she offered him thistledown seed⁠—“Tiddly, widdly, widdly! Pouff, pouff, puff!” said Mr. Jackson. He blew the thistledown 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!”

“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 dishcloth, to wipe his large wet footmarks off the parlour floor.

Mrs. Tittlemouse wipes up wet footmarks with a green cloth, while in the background Mr. Jackson inspects the contents of a cupboard.
Mr. Jackson’s large body fills the tunnel he’s walking down, while Mrs. Tittlemouse follows closely behind.

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!”

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.

Two woodlice crawl up a wall in between a plate rack and a vase of flowers, while another lies on its back on the countertop.
A red admiral butterfly sits on a bowl of sugar cubes. The bowl white with a pink rim, and is decorated with a floral pattern.

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.

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.

Mr. Jackson shies away from Babbity Bumble, nearly crushing Mrs. Tittlemouse behind him.
Mrs. Tittlemouse inspects her stock of hazelnuts.

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!”

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!”

Mrs. Tittlemouse wedges a stick into place across the top of her now considerably smaller front door.
Mrs. Tittlemouse sleeps in her rocking chair, with her paws in her lap.

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 fortnight.

She swept, and scrubbed, and dusted; and she rubbed up the furniture with beeswax, and polished her little tin spoons.

Standing next to a counter top, Mrs. Tittlemouse carefully polishes each of her tin spoons in turn with a yellow cloth.

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.

Several mice, wearing dresses of many different colours, dance while holding their tails up so that they don’t trip over them. In the background, another mouse wearing a burgundy jacket watches them. Through the window we can just see Mr. Jackson’s eye peering in.
Mrs. Tittlemouse passes around acorn-cups to the other mice, who drink from them. One mouse in a green jacket hands another acorn through the window to Mr. Jackson outside.

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!”