Mouse Soup (4 page)

Soon there were ten crickets chirping.

“Stop!” cried the mouse.

“Your music is too loud!” “Loud?” asked the cricket.

“Yes, we can chirp loud.”

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So the ten crickets chirped very loud.

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“Please!” shouted the mouse.

“I want to sleep.

I wish that you would all “Go away?” asked the cricket.

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“We will go away and chirp somewhere else,” said the ten crickets.

They went away and chirped somewhere else.

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And the mouse went back to sleep.

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THE THORN BUSH

An old lady went to the door of her house.

She was crying.

A policeman came running.

“Dear lady,” said the policeman, “why are you crying?” “Come in,” said the old lady.

“I will show you.”

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“Look, there is a thorn bush growing in my living-room chair,” said the old lady.

“How did it get there?” asked the policeman.

“I do not know,” said the old lady.

“One day I sat down and something hurt me.

I got up.

There was the thorn bush.”

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“You poor lady,” said the policeman.

“I will pull the thorn bush out of your chair.

Then you can sit down again.”

“No!” cried the old lady.

“Don’t do that! I do not want to sit down.

I have been sitting down all my life.

I love my thorn bush.

I am crying because it is sick.

See?” said the old lady.

“All of the branches are falling over.”

“The thorn bush may be thirsty,” said the policeman.

“Perhaps it needs water.”

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I never thought of that,” said the old lady.

She poured some water on the chair.

The thorn bush shivered and shook.

Green leaves came out on the branches.

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