The Kittens and the Mouse Pups
Children play before the world teaches them who to fear. A fable about innocence lost, and who does the teaching.
Once upon a time, the Cat went out to the forest to hunt. On her way out, she told her kittens, “Children, behave and don't mess up my house — I'll be back before sundown.” Around the same time, the Mouse was also leaving the farm to tend to her crops. She told her pups, “Behave, children, and if you go out to play, you'd better be back before sundown, when I come home.”
While out playing, the mouse pups stumbled upon the Cat's house and saw her kittens playing in the yard. The kittens invited them in right away, and the two families of children hit it off fast, playing together all afternoon. After a few hours, the mouse pups said to their new friends, “We have to go home — our mother will beat us if we're not back by sundown.” The kittens replied, “You're right; we have to clean up before our mother gets home too. Let's do this again tomorrow, friends.” The mouse pups agreed and set out for home.
Later that evening at the dinner table, the Cat asked her kittens how their day went. Bursting with excitement, the kittens told her all about the wonderful day they'd had playing with the mouse pups. The Cat jumped up and screamed, “Children, what have you done? You had mouse pups in my house, and you let them go? What do you think I go hunting every day for? We prey on mice!”
The Mouse, too, was having dinner with her pups that evening. “Children,” she asked, “what did you do today?” Each of them rushed to be first to tell the story, until the youngest finally took the stage. “Mommy, we had the time of our lives — we stumbled on the Cat's house and played with her kittens all afternoon. We're going back tomorrow.” The Mouse grabbed all her children by the arms, a look on her face as if her heart had dropped straight out of her chest. “Thank heavens — children, are you all right? Did they hurt you? What were you thinking, playing with kittens? Why do you think I come home out of breath every day? Cats hunt us. We stay far away from them.”
The next day, while the Cat was out hunting in the forest and the Mouse was out tending her farm, the kittens — after waiting all afternoon for their friends to show up — went looking for the mouse pups' house. Outside it, they sang:
Mouse pups, mouse pups, mouse pups!
Are you not playing today?
Today will be even more fun!
Hiding in their burrow, the mouse pups sang back:
Kittens, kittens, kittens!
If your mother has warned you,
So has ours.
