Gateway to the Classics: The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse by Beatrix Potter
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse by  Beatrix Potter

The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse


O NCE upon a time there was a wood-mouse, and her name was Mrs. Tittlemouse.

She lived in a bank under a hedge.




T HERE was a kitchen, a parlour, a pantry, and a larder.

Also, there was Mrs. Tittlemouse's bedroom, where she slept in a little box bed!


M RS. TITTLEMOUSE was a most terribly tidy particular little mouse, always sweeping and dusting the soft sandy floors.

Sometimes a beetle lost its way in the passages.

"Shuh! shuh! little dirty feet!" said Mrs. Tittlemouse, clattering her dust-pan.


A ND one day a little old woman ran up and down in a red spotty cloak.



A NOTHER day, a big fat spider came in to shelter from the rain.

"Beg pardon, is this not Miss Muffet's?"



S HE bundled the spider out at a window.



M RS. TITTLEMOUSE went on her way to a distant storeroom, to fetch cherry-stones and thistle-down seed for dinner.




S UDDENLY round a corner, she met Babbitty Bumble—"Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz!" said the bumble bee.


"Good-day, Babbitty Bumble; I should be glad to buy some beeswax. But what are you doing down here? Why do you always come in at a window, and say Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz?" Mrs. Tittlemouse began to get cross.




But it was full of untidy dry moss.


M RS. TITTLEMOUSE began to pull out the moss. Three or four other bees put their heads out, and buzzed fiercely.

"I am not in the habit of letting lodgings; this is an intrusion!" said Mrs. Tittlemouse. "I will have them turned out—"  "Buzz! Buzz! Buzzz!"—"I wonder who would help me?"  "Bizz, Wizz, Wizzz!"

—"I will not have Mr. Jackson; he never wipes his feet."


M RS. TITTLEMOUSE decided to leave the bees till after dinner.

When she got back to the parlour, she heard some one coughing in a fat voice; and there sat Mr. Jackson himself!

He was sitting all over a small rocking-chair, twiddling his thumbs and smiling, with his feet on the fender.



"H OW do you do, Mr. Jackson? Deary me, you have got very wet!"




H E sat such a while that he had to be asked if he would take some dinner?




T HEN she offered him thistle-down seed—"Tiddly, widdly, widdly! Pouff, pouff, puff!" said Mr. Jackson. He blew the thistle-down all over the room.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse! Now what I really—really  should like—would be a little dish of honey!"


"I AM afraid I have not got any, Mr. Jackson," said Mrs. Tittlemouse.

"Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!" said the smiling Mr. Jackson, "I can smell  it; that is why I came to call."


Mrs. Tittlemouse followed him with a dish-cloth, to wipe his large wet footmarks off the parlour floor.



"Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!"

F IRST he squeezed into the pantry.

"Tiddly, widdly, widdly? no honey? no honey, Mrs. Tittlemouse?"

There were three creepy-crawly people hiding in the plate-rack. Two of them got away; but the littlest one he caught.




T HEY went along the sandy passage—"Tiddly widdly—" "Buzz! Wizz! Wizz!"




"I shall go distracted!" scolded Mrs. Tittlemouse.

S HE shut herself up in the nut-cellar while Mr. Jackson pulled out the bees-nest. He seemed to have no objection to stings.


But the untidiness was something dreadful—"Never did I see such a mess—smears of honey; and moss, and thistledown—and marks of big and little dirty feet—all over my nice clean house!"

S HE gathered up the moss and the remains of the beeswax.





N EXT morning she got up very early and began a spring cleaning which lasted a fortnight.

She swept, and scrubbed, and dusted; and she rubbed up the furniture with beeswax, and polished her little tin spoons.



S O they handed him out acorn-cupfuls of honey-dew through the window, and he was not at all offended. He sat outside in the sun, and said—"Tiddly, widdly, widdly! Your very good health, Mrs. Tittlemouse!"
