The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
2 min readages 4–9talerie.com/en/tales/the-town-mouse-and-the-country-mouse
A Town Mouse dines on barley and earthy roots at the Country Mouse’s home in the fields, then promises him finer things and leads him to his own pantry in town. Twice a door opens and both mice bolt for a crack in the wall, and the Country Mouse goes home to eat his plain dinner of roots in peace.
A Town Mouse and a Country Mouse were old friends, and one day the Country Mouse invited the Town Mouse out to his home in the fields.
They sat down to dinner together: barley grains, and a few roots that tasted strongly of the earth they had grown in.
The guest chewed politely for a while, and then he could keep quiet no longer.
“My poor dear friend,” he said, “you live here no better than the ants. You ought to see how I eat. My pantry is packed from one end to the other. Come and stay with me, and I promise you the very best of everything.”
So when he went back to town, he took the Country Mouse with him and led him straight to the pantry. There was flour in it, and oatmeal, and figs, and honey, and dates.
The Country Mouse had never seen anything like it. He sat down to enjoy the feast his friend had promised, but before they had fairly begun, the door opened and somebody came in.
Both mice bolted and squeezed into a narrow crack in the wall, where there was hardly room to breathe.
After a while all was quiet, and they crept out again. Then somebody else came in, and off they scurried, back into the same tight little hole.
That was quite enough for the Country Mouse.
“Goodbye,” he said. “I am going home. You live among fine things, I can see that, but you live among dangers too. At home I can eat my plain dinner of roots and barley in peace.”
Retold by Talerie, Source: Aesop's Fables: a new translation (opens in a new window)
License: Public domainCopy this text, adapt it, use it however you like. A link back to Talerie is appreciated but never required.CC0 1.0 (opens in a new window)