Tale of TWO BAD MICEpage 2 / 3
"Let it alone," said Tom Thumb; "give me some fish, Hunca Munca!"
Hunca Munca 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 Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears, and the oranges.
As the fish would not come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not burn either.
Tom Thumb went up the kitchen chimney and looked out the top - there was no soot.
While Tom Thumb was up the chimney, Hunca Munca had another disappointment. She found some tiny canisters upon the dresser, labeled "Rice," "Coffee," "Sago"; but when she turned them upside down there was nothing inside 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 Hunca Munca 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 Thumb's assistance she carried the bolster down-stairs and across the hearth-rug. It was difficult to squeeze the bolster into the mouse-hole; but they managed it somehow.
Then Hunca Munca went back and fetched a chair, a bookcase, a bird-cage, and several small odds and ends. The bookcase and the bird-cage refused to go into the mouse-hole.
Hunca Munca left them behind with the coal-box and went to fetch a cradle.
Hunca Munca 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 the nursery.