The Tale of Two Bad Mice

For
W. M. L. W.
The little girl
who had the doll’s house

The first mouse is standing holding up a pair of gold sugar tongs in front of a plate containing a pudding. Behind, another mouse sits in front of a broken plate.
A doll in a pink dress is sitting on a red two-storey doll’s-house. In front of the house is sitting another doll in a blue dress. A skipping rope is lying on the floor, and a couple of tennis racquets are standing up behind the house.

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll’s-house; it was red brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney.

It belonged to two Dolls called Lucinda and Jane; at least it belonged to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals.

Jane was the Cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner had been bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings.

Lucinda is talking to Jane, who is standing in the corner next to a clock and a vase of red flowers. On the floor next to them is a large cardboard box labelled “Provisions 6d.”
The box of provisions has been opened. On plates in front of it sits a range of food.

There were two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding, and some pears and oranges.

They would not come off the plates, but they were extremely beautiful.

One morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll’s perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fireplace, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.

Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment, and then popped it in again.

Tom Thumb was a mouse.

Tom Thumb is a brown mouse with big black eyes. He is peeping out of a hole in the wall next to the head of another mouse. In front of him is the corner of a red and blue rug.
From inside the wall Tom Thumb and the other mouse look through a hole.

A minute afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal-box.

The doll’s-house stood at the other side of the fireplace. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went cautiously across the hearthrug. They pushed the front door⁠—it was not fast.

Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca walk cautiously over the rug to the doll’s-house and peer in through the front door.
Both the mice gaze in wonder at the brightly lit front room of the doll’s-house.

Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went upstairs and peeped into the dining-room. Then they squeaked with joy!

Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table! There were tin spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly-chairs⁠—all so convenient!

Tom Thumb set to work at once to carve the ham. It was a beautiful shiny yellow, streaked with red.

The knife crumpled up and hurt him; he put his finger in his mouth.

“It is not boiled enough; it is hard. You have a try, Hunca Munca.”

The mice are sitting at a table covered in beautiful food. Tom Thumb has a fork in his left paw and a knife in his right, and is attempting to carve the ham.
Hunca Munca stares at Tom Thumb as he attempts to carve the ham.

Hunca Munca stood up in her chair, and chopped at the ham with another lead knife.

“It’s as hard as the hams at the cheesemonger’s,” said Hunca Munca.

The ham broke off the plate with a jerk, and rolled under the table.

“Let it alone,” said Tom Thumb; “give me some fish, Hunca Munca!”

Tom Thumb crouches on the chair as the ham and plate crashes to the floor. In the background Hunca Munca is holding up the plate of fish.
Tom Thumb smashes the plate and ham to pieces with a tiny shovel. His chair has toppled over in his rage. Hunca Munca is still holding the plate of fish.

Hunca Munca tried every tin spoon in turn; the fish was glued to the dish.

Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel⁠—bang, bang, smash, smash!

The ham flew all into pieces, for underneath the shiny paint it was made of nothing but plaster!

Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears and the oranges.

As the fish would not come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not burn either.

Tom Thumb attempts to force the plate of fish into the doll’s-house fireplace. Hunca Munca is helping from on top of the mantelpiece.
Tom Thumb peeks out of the top of the doll’s-house chimney, while Hunca Munca looks out through one of the bedroom windows.

Tom Thumb went up the kitchen chimney and looked out at the top⁠—there was no soot.

While Tom Thumb was up the chimney, Hunca Munca had another disappointment. She found some tiny canisters upon the dresser, labelled⁠—Rice⁠—Coffee⁠—Sago⁠—but when she turned them upside down, there was nothing inside except red and blue beads.

Hunca Munca is sitting on the countertop in the kitchen, and emptying a jar marked “Rice.”
Hunca Munca is sitting on a bed covered with a blue and white striped blanket and a large pile of feathers. In the background, Tom Thumb is pushing a pink dress through the window.

Then those mice set to work to do all the mischief they could⁠—especially Tom Thumb! He took Jane’s clothes out of the chest of drawers in her bedroom, and he threw them out of the top floor window.

But Hunca Munca had a frugal mind. After pulling half the feathers out of Lucinda’s bolster, she remembered that she herself was in want of a feather bed.

With Tom Thumb’s assistance she carried the bolster downstairs, and across the hearthrug. It was difficult to squeeze the bolster into the mouse-hole; but they managed it somehow.

The two mice carefully carry the mouse-sized bolster down the stairs of the doll’s-house. Next to the bottom of the stairs stands a chest of drawers with the drawers half open and a saucepan on top.
The mice are attempting to squeeze through the hole in the wall many things they’ve taken from the doll’s-house, including a lamp, a red chest, and a mouse-sized birdcage with a green parrot in it.

Then Hunca Munca went back and fetched a chair, a bookcase, a birdcage, and several small odds and ends. The bookcase and the birdcage refused to go into the mouse-hole.

Hunca Munca left them behind the coal-box, and went to fetch a cradle.

The mice push a wickerwork rocking cradle with a pink blanket over the rug towards the hole in the wall.
The mice run across the rug. One is carrying a chair, and the other a brush and some puffy blue cloth. Jane and Lucinda have arrived in the doorway in a wickerwork pram with a pink coverlet.

Hunca Munca was just returning with another chair, when suddenly there was a noise of talking outside upon the landing. The mice rushed back to their hole, and the dolls came into the nursery.

What a sight met the eyes of Jane and Lucinda!

Lucinda sat upon the upset kitchen stove and stared; and Jane leant against the kitchen dresser and smiled⁠—but neither of them made any remark.

The two dolls survey the damage to the house. Lucinda has her arms up, but Jane is completely straight as she leans.
Hunca Munca, wearing a blue dress, sits in a rocking chair holding a baby mouse. Next to her is the wickerwork cradle with a pink coverlet.

The bookcase and the birdcage were rescued from under the coal-box⁠—but Hunca Munca has got the cradle, and some of Lucinda’s clothes.

She also has some useful pots and pans, and several other things.

Hunca Munca, wearing a pink dress with a white apron, inspects a frying pan. Next to her are other pans, kettles, and the cradle with two baby mice in it.
A doll dressed as a policeman is guarding the door of the doll’s-house from Hunca Munca. She’s holding a baby mouse, and two more mice are peering in through the front window at Jane. Through one of the upstairs windows we can see another mouse.

The little girl that the doll’s-house belonged to, said⁠—“I will get a doll dressed like a policeman!”

But the nurse said⁠—“I will set a mousetrap!”

Tom Thumb is standing in front of Hunca Munca and baby mouse, and explaining about the big mouse trap next to him to his other three children.

So that is the story of the two Bad Mice⁠—but they were not so very very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke.

He found a crooked sixpence under the hearthrug; and upon Christmas Eve, he and Hunca Munca stuffed it into one of the stockings of Lucinda and Jane.

Jane and Lucinda are tucked up in bed. By the light of a small lantern, the mice are pushing a small coin into one of the red and white stockings that are hanging from the foot of the bed.
Hunca Munca is carrying a dustpan and brush, and carefully pushing open the green door of the doll’s-house.

And very early every morning⁠—before anybody is awake⁠—Hunca Munca comes with her dustpan and her broom to sweep the Dollies’ house!