'
"Just then another 'Piep' was heard.
"'I don't think it sounds _quite_ like a young chicken,' replied the
other hen.
"In the middle of their discussion on this knotty point, they descried
a couple of mice at the edge of the corn-heap. One of them was sitting
on his hind-legs, washing his ears and whiskers with his fore-paws, but
his wife was gobbling up corn at a rapid rate, and in this sight the
wise and far-seeing old hens discerned the probability of future
troubles.
"'Hollo there! that's our corn,' they cried; 'you mustn't steal it. Of
course you may have a few grains in the depth of winter to keep you from
starving; but remember, when spring comes again, this sort of thing must
stop, and you must go away and never come here any more.'
"'Piep,' said the mice, and vanished.
"The two hens told the rest what had happened, but nobody troubled
themselves about such an insignificant matter, and some said that the
poor old things made mountains out of molehills. Anyhow, in two days
everybody, including the wise hens themselves, had forgotten all about
it. Later on, that winter, the mice had seven young ones--seven such
skinny, thread-limbed, beady-eyed little beasts that no one noticed
their arrival.
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