“She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice-
Their behavior’s not good and their manners not nice;
So when she has got them lined up on the matting,
She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting.”
“Strong gates,” said Pod, “gates you can’t open. What are they there for?”
“Against the mice?” said Arrietty.
“Yes,” agreed Pod uncertainly, as though he gave her half a mark, “but mice never hurt no one. What else?”
[…]
“Cats?” echoed Arrietty, surprised.
“Or to keep you in?” suggested Pod.
“Mr. and Mrs. Little often discussed Stuart quietly between themselves when he wasn’t around, for they had never quite recovered from the shock and surprise of having a mouse in the family. He was so very tiny and presented so many problems to his parents.”
″‘After all, he does look a good deal like a mouse,’ said Mr. Little to his wife. ‘And I’ve never seen a mouse yet that didn’t like to go into a hole.‘”
“Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.”
“I think we had better start thinking about the poem ‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ I think it might embarrass Stuart to hear mice mentioned in such a belittling manner.”
“When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse.”
“Mr. Little said that, for one thing, there must be no references to “mice” in their conversations. He made Mrs. Little tear from the nursery songbook the page about the, ‘Three Blind Mice, See How They Run.’
‘I don’t want Stuart to get a lot of notions in his head,’ said Mr. Little. ‘I should feel badly to have my son grow up fearing a farmer’s wife was going to cut off his tail with a carving knife.‘”
“My sons, aunts, and uncles have been slain. Take care, Your Highness, that the queen of the mice doesn’t bite your little princess in two. Take care!”
“He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar.”
“There had just been a big battles between the dolls and mice. The reason I was so scared was that the mice were going to capture poor Nutcracker, who was in command of the dolls. So I threw my shoe at the mice, and after that I don’t know what happened.”
“My idea is this. You all come and live at the church. It’s warm, quiet, and I’ve got Sampson, the church car, right under my thumb...er...almost. The parson says if we do a few odd jobs we’ll be paid in cheese, best quality. He’s expecting us tomorrow morning if you want to come.”
“The mice kept their half of the bargain and worked quite hard every day. They made sure that the flowers were always fresh and artistically arranged. They polished the congregation’s shoes while they listened to the sermon. If there was a wedding they all went outside to pick up the confetti, and if anyone had thrown rice they picked that up too and made a big rice pudding for supper.”
“But one Sunday, during the Harvest Festival service, a terrible thing happened. Sampson, who had suffered a very bad night with the young mice, dropped off during the sermon and dreamt he was back in the days before he was reformed. When he woke up he found he was not dreaming. He was chasing mice all over the church. It took a bit of time to remember about brotherly love, and by that time it was too late.”
“As for Sampson, you might think he was very sorry about his lapse, but you would be wrong because he wasn’t. The mice had been taking him a bit for granted of late, he thought, and the fact that they were frivolous giddy creatures was no excuse. They’d learnt he was not to be trifled with, and after that, whenever they needed reminding, he would just yawn and say he hoped he wouldn’t drop off during the sermon, and then there would be no more giggling and tittering over silly jokes about ‘dogs’ for at least two days.”
“ ‘It was all working out so nicely,’ the parson went on sadly, ‘but as it is, you’ll have to go in the morning. A church is no good without a congregation, is it?’ “
“Suddenly one of the mice says: “What a strange noise?” Everyone listens hard. Now they can all hear it. Yes there is a noise coming up through the floor. “There’s something moving under the floor” says Percy.”
“As she listened to his wailing, Mowzer felt a sudden strange sadness for him. How lonely he must be, she thought, endlessly hunting the men-mice in the deeps of darkness, and never returning to the rosy glow of a red-hot range. And her kind heart was moved to comfort him.”
“But little by little they had nibbled up most of the nuts and berries, the straw was gone, and the corn was only a memory. It was cold in the wall and no one felt like chatting.”
“And when he told them of the blue periwinkles, the red poppies in the yellow wheat, and the green leaves of the berry bush, they saw the colors as clearly as if they had been painted in their minds.”
“All along the meadow where the cows grazed and the horses ran, there was an old stone wall. In that wall, not far from the barn and the granary, a chatty family of field mice had their home.”
“One is the Springmouse who turns on the showers. Then comes the Summer who paints in the flowers. The Fallmouse is next with the walnuts and wheat. And Winter is last…with little cold feet.”
″ ‘Close your eyes,’ said Frederick, as he climbed on a big stone. ‘Now I send you the rays of the sun. Do you feel how their golden glow…’ And as Frederick spoke of the sun the four little mice began to feel warmer.”
“Who scatters snowflakes? Who melts the ice? Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice? Who grows the four-leaf clovers in June? Who dims the daylight? Who lights the moon? Four little field mice who live in the sky. Four little field mice…like you and I.”
“Her godmother only just touched her with her wand, and, at the same instant, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels. This done, she gave her a pair of glass slippers, the prettiest in the whole world...her godmother...commanded her not to stay till after midnight, telling her, at the same time, that if she stayed one moment longer, the coach would be a pumpkin again, her horses mice, her coachman a rat, her footmen lizards, and her clothes just as they were before.”
“The Spirits that haunted the trees sat combing their long hair, and on the north side of the tree trunks, baby mice dug tunnels amongst the snowflakes. ‘Happy Spring!’ said an elderly Earthworm.”