the mouse and the money

Once upon a time, a mouse named Hal was heading home through the little woods in the back of a neighborhood. He clambered over leaves and the roots of trees, and he stopped to eat a tiny wild strawberry nestled in the varied grasses. He foraged on and thought he should have found another berry, or maybe an acorn, to carry home to share, but there were none. But, lo and behold, he saw something new and unusual ahead on his little trail. It was smooth and flat and cornered and had a pungent, unfamiliar scent. The markings were in greens and beiges and a few colorful lines and curleques. One pattern was repeated on some of the corners. It looked like this : 1000. He tugged the leaf-like rectangle toward home.

Maybe this was money. He had heard of money but none of his friends had ever seen any that they knew of. Still, the wife - Opal - she would know what to do with it. He dragged it further and it flapped a little in the breeze and it got caught on thorns and under vines, but he set it free and got it to the opening of their nest.

Fortunately, it was soft enough that its shape bent and folded as he tugged it down the tunnel into the living room they had carved out beneath the root of an elm. Opal's shiny dark eyes lit up when she saw what he had brought in. She walked all over it, then walked under it. Would it attach to the ceiling? Was it good underfoot like a rug? She didn't know.

Hal walked away to get something to eat. He looked up from the wild onion root he was nibbling on, and stopped in alarm. Wait! But Opal already had the bill half chewed up into tiny strands and flakes and curls of fiber.

She lined the cubbyhole in the back with the debris, packing it snug here and there. She curled up, and, after all that work, took a nap atop the new bedding. Hal tentatively put his paws onto the stuff. It was good insulation for their cubbyhole. Warm and soft - not bad. He crawled in and fell asleep, too, curled up next to Opal.