The field mouse, represented in the engraving, lays up a large store of
provisions in his nice little nest under ground, which he keeps for
winter. These mice are very particular in stowing away their winter
store. The corn, acorns, chestnuts, hickory nuts, and whatever else they
hoard up, have each separate apartments. One room contains nothing but
corn, another nothing but chestnuts, and so on. When they have exhausted
their stock of provisions before spring, and they have nothing else to
eat, they turn to, and eat one another. They are regular cannibals, if
their manners and customs have been correctly reported. Sometimes the
hogs, as they are roaming about the pasture, in the autumn, soon after a
family of field mice have laid in their provisions, and before the
ground has frozen, come across the nest, and smell the good things that
are in it. Then the poor mouse has to suffer. The author of the Boy's
Winter Book thus graphically and humorously describes the misfortunes of
such a mouse: "There he sits huddled up in a dark corner, looking on, as
the hog is devouring the contents of his house, saying to himself, no
doubt, 'I wish it may choke you, you great, grunting brute, that I do.
There go my poor acorns, a dozen at a mouthfull. Twelve long journeys I
had to take to the foot of the old oak, where I picked them up--such a
hard day's work, that I could hardly get a wink of sleep, my bones ached
so.
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