The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's house.
It was red brick with white windows and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney.
It belonged to two dolls called Lucinda and Jane.
At least it belonged to Lucinda,
But she never ordered meals.
Jane was the cook,
But she never did any cooking because the dinner had been bought ready-made in a box full of shavings.
There were two red lobsters and a ham,
A fish,
A pudding,
And some pears and oranges.
They would not come off the plates,
But they were extremely beautiful.
One morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll's perambulator.
There was no one in the nursery and it was very quiet.
Presently it was a little scuffling,
Scratching noise in a corner near the fireplace where there was a hole under the skirting board.
Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment and then popped it in again.
Tom Thumb was a mouse.
A minute afterwards,
Hunkamunka,
His wife,
Put her head out too and then she saw that there was no one in the nursery.
So they ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal box.
The doll's house stood at the other side of the fireplace.
Tom Thumb and Hunkamunka went cautiously across the hearth rug.
They pushed the doll into the door.
It was not fast.
Tom Thumb and Hunkamunka went upstairs and peeped into the dining room.
Then they squeaked with joy.
Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table.
There were tin spoons and lead knives and forks and a little dolly chair.
All so convenient.
Tom Thumb set to work at once to carve the ham.
It was beautiful and shiny,
Yellow and streaked with red.
The knife crumpled up and hurt him.
He put his finger in his mouth.
It's not boiled enough.
It's hard.
You have a try,
Hunkamunka.
Hunkamunka stood up in her chair and chopped at the ham with another lead knife.
It's as hard as the ham's as a cheesemonger's,
Said Hunkamunka.
The ham broke off the plate with a jerk and rolled under the table.
Let it alone,
Said Tom Thumb.
Give me some fish,
Hunkamunka.
Hunkamunka tried every tin spoon in turn.
The fish was glued to the dish.
Then Tom Thumb lost his temper.
He put the ham in the middle of the floor and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel.
Bang,
Bang,
Smash,
Smash.
The ham flew all into pieces for underneath the shiny paint it was made of nothing but plaster.
Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunkamunka.
They broke up the pudding,
The lobsters,
The pears,
And the oranges.
As the fish would not come off the plate,
They put it in the red-hot,
Crinkly paper fire in the kitchen,
But it wouldn't burn either.
Tom Thumb went up to the kitchen chimney and looked out at the top.
There was no soot.
While Tom Thumb was up in the chimney,
Hunkamunka had another disappointment.
She found some tiny canisters upon the dresser labeled rice,
Coffee,
But when she turned them upside down there was nothing in it except red and blue beads.
Then those mice set to work to do all the mischief they could,
Especially Tom Thumb.
He took Jane's clothes out of the chest of drawers in her bedroom and he threw them out of the top floor window.
But Hunkamunka had a frugal mind.
After pulling half the feathers out of Lucinda's bolster,
She remembered that she herself was in want of a feather bed.
With Tom's assistance she carried the bolster downstairs and across the hearth rug.
It was difficult to squeeze the bolster into the mouse hole,
But they managed it somehow.
Then Hunkamunka went back and fetched a chair,
A bookcase,
A birdcage,
And several small odds and ends.
The bookcase and the birdcage refused to go into the mouse hole.
Hunkamunka left them behind the coal box and went to fetch a cradle.
Hunkamunka was just returning with another chair when suddenly there was a noise of talking outside upon the landing.
The mice rushed back to their hole and the dolls came into their nursery.
What a sight met the eyes of Jane and Lucinda.
Lucinda sat upon the upset kitchen stove and stared,
And Jane leaned against the kitchen dresser and smiled,
But neither of them made any remark.
The bookcase and the birdcage were rescued from under the coal box,
But Hunkamunka has got the cradle and some of Lucinda's clothes.
She also has some useful pots and pans and several other things.
The little girl that the doll's house belonged to said,
I will get a doll dressed like a policeman,
But the nurse said,
I will set a mousetrap.
So that is the story of the two bad mice,
But they were not so very,
Very naughty after all,
Because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke.
He found a crooked sixpence under the hearth rug and upon Christmas Eve he and Hunkamunka stuffed it into one of the stockings of Lucinda and Jane.
And very early in the morning,
Before anybody is awake,
Hunkamunka comes down with her dustpan and her broom to sweep the dolly's house.
The end.
