The Singing Mouse Stories

The Singing Mouse Stories, by Emerson Hough,

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Title: The Singing Mouse Stories
Author: Emerson Hough

Release Date: April 7, 2007 [eBook #21004]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE SINGING MOUSE STORIES
by
EMERSON HOUGH
Author of The Purchase Price, 54-40 or Fight, Etc.
With Decorations by Mayo Bunker

[Illustration]
[Illustration]

New York Hurst & Company Publishers
Copyright 1910 by Emerson Hough
[Illustration]

CONTENTS
The Land of the Singing Mouse Page 11 The Burden of a Song 19 The Little River 31 What the Waters Said 41 Lake Belle-Marie 55 The Skull and the Rose 67 The Man of the Mountain 77 At the Place of the Oaks 83 The Birth of the Hours 99 The Stone That Had No Thought 107 The Tear and the Smile 113 How the Mountains Ate Up the Plains 123 The Savage and Its Heart 131 The Beast Terrible 137 The Passing of Men 155 The House of Truth 167 Where the City Went 181 The Bell and the Shadows 193 Of the Greatest Sorrow 205 The Shoes of the Princess 215 Of White Moths 225 The House of Dreams 231

THE SINGING MOUSE STORIES
[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Land of the Singing Mouse]
[Illustration]
THE LAND OF THE SINGING MOUSE
This is my room. I live here; and my friends come here sometimes, such as I have left. There is little to offer them, but they are welcome to what there is. There is the table. There is the fire. There are not any keys.
That is my coat upon the wall. It is worn, a little. The barrels of the old gun are worn; and the stock of the rifle, broken in the mountains long ago, is mended but rudely; and the tip of the old rod is broken, and the silk is fraying in the lashings, and upon the hand-grasp the cord is loose. The silver cord will loosen and break in the best of men in time; wherefore, I beseech you, mock not at these belongings, though your own may far surpass them. You are welcome to anything there is here....
But the Singing Mouse will not come out, not while you are here. True, after you have gone, after the fire has burned down and the room is all still--usually near midnight, as I sit and muse alone over the dead or dying fire--true, then the Singing Mouse comes out and asks for its bit of bread; and then it folds its tiny paws and sits up, and turning its bright red eye upon me, half in power and half in beseeching, as of some fading memory of the past--why, it sings, I say to you; it sings! And I listen.... During such singing the fire blazes up. The walls are rich in art. My rod is new and trig. There is work, but there is no worry.... I am rich, rich! I have the Singing Mouse. And so strange, so wondrous, so real are the things it sings; so bewitching is the song, so sweeter than that of any siren's; so broad and fine are the countries; so strong and true are the friendships; so brave and kind are the men I meet--so beautiful the whole world of the Singing Mouse, that when it is over, and in a chill I start up, I scarce can bear the shrinking in of the walls, and the grayness of the once red fire, and my gold turned to earthenware, and my pictures turned to splotches. In my hand everything I touch feels awkward. A pen--a pen--to talk of that? If one could use it while in the land of the Singing Mouse--then it might do. I think the pens there are not of wood and iron, stiff things of torture to reader and writer. I have a notion--though I have not examined the pens there--that they are made from plumes of an angel's wing; and that if they chose they could talk, and say things which would make you and me ashamed and afraid. Pens such as these we do not have.
[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Burden of A Song]
[Illustration]
THE BURDEN OF A SONG
The Singing Mouse came out. Quaintly and sweetly and with