This happened night after night, till Tom began to
watch for the little creature with some eagerness. The sound of its
tiny scampering feet on the floor would call up a feeling of pleasure
like that which one feels when the knock of a dear friend is heard on
the door. But Tom was bitter for all this, and at times he had a
savage hope that the little mouse would after all be lured into one of
the traps. He did not want to feel tender or kindly any more to
anything. He wanted to feel cruel and heartless, because his
tenderness had cost him so much pain.
[Illustration: Little girls with flowers]
One autumn evening, when the air was still, and a sweet afterglow
rested on the sky like an echo of the sunset, Tom sat thinking in his
chair. It was then that he saw something which he never forgot. He
saw his small friend watching one of the traps in which another mouse
had just been caught. "Now it will shun me," thought Tom. "It has
seen what the traps are for." But the tiny brown creature did not run
away, as might have been expected, but crept up to the miller as
trustfully as ever; indeed, more so, for it came upon the table and
nibbled at a piece of bread close to Tom's hand. Then Tom arose, and
went towards the trap, and, instead of drowning the captive, opened the
door and set it at liberty. From that time he set no more traps. And
he fell to thinking with shame that he had not given even a "Good-day"
to those who had brought their corn to him to grind, and that when he
passed through the village he had spurned children and dogs who had
once been favourites of his, and had come to him with the confidence of
old playmates.
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