66 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



have swept over the fertile plains of Holland was caused by 

 mice digging through the thick banks of earth, called dikes, 

 which had been piled up to keep the sea back. In this case, 

 of course, the mice lost their lives by their misdeeds, as well 

 as the people, sharing in the general catastrophe. They 

 hardly intended this ; but 



"The best-laid plans o' mice and men 

 Gang aft agley." 



It was by the gnawing of a ridiculous little mouse, yon 

 remember, that the lion in the fable got free from the net 

 in which the king of beasts found himself caught. 



Sometimes the house-mouse goes out of doors to live, and 

 forgets his civilization ; while, on the other hand, the wood- 

 land species occasionally come in doors and grow tame. At 

 the fur-trading posts about Hudson's Bay wild mice live in 

 the traders' houses; and Thoreau the poet, naturalist, and 

 philosopher, whom all the animals seemed at once to recog- 

 nize as their friend wrote this beautiful story of how a 

 white-footed mouse made friends with him .when he lived 

 all alone in the woods by Walden Pond, near Concord, 

 Massachusetts: 



" The mice which haunted my house were not the com- 

 mon ones, which are said to have been introduced into the 



